Punk Sociology

D. Beer

• Publisher: Palgrave Pivot
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781137371218
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

This book explores the possibility of drawing upon a punk ethos to inspire and invigorate sociology. It uses punk to think creatively about what sociology is and how it might be conducted and aims to fire the sociological imaginations of sociologists at any stage of their careers, from new students to established professors.

Part I

The Background

1

Introduction: Sociology, Uncertainty and the Possibility of an Imagined Future

Abstract: This chapter focuses upon the disciplinary and social contexts in which sociology operates. It identifies a general sense of uncertainty in the discipline. It also outlines the challenges of the neoliberal academy. This chapter argues that in order to prevent sociology from withering, and to ensure its vibrant future, we need to turn to alternative forms of knowledge. This chapter suggests that punk might provide a source of inspiration for developing creativity, inventiveness, and liveliness in sociology.

Beer, David. Punk Sociology. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. DOI: 10.1057/9781137371218.0004.

It is probably fair to say that there is quite a bit of uncertainty in sociology at the moment. This sense of uncertainty doesn’t look like it is likely to leave any time soon. This is nothing new. Sociology is renowned for its almost chronic sense of crisis. It could even be said that a continual sense of crisis has dogged large parts of its history. John Holmwood (2010: 650) has pointed out, for instance, that ‘sociology has to be achieved against an internal tendency to self-subversion’. This is perhaps illustrative of a discipline that lacks self-esteem, a discipline that is self-conscious, and maybe even insecure – as Arthur Stinchcombe (1994) has put it, a ‘disintegrated discipline’. Stinchcombe (1994) argues that fragmentation is a central problem in forging a solid future for sociology. What Stinchcombe is concerned with is the growing inability of sociology, as a ‘disintegrated discipline’, to defend itself. At the heart of the fragmentation or ‘disintegration’ described by Stinchcombe (1994: 283) is the ‘wide variety of substantive subject matter in disintegrated disciplines, and the strong boundaries around substantive specialities’. Stinchcombe suggests that this simply ‘means that people cannot get interested in each other’s work’. This type of disciplinary segmentation has been echoed in Andrew Abbott’s (2001) classic study of the Chaos of Disciplines. In this book Abbott describes how ‘fractal distinctions’ carve up disciplines and make dialogue both within and between disciplines extremely difficult. As I will describe in this book though, a more open form of diversity in the discipline is something we might strive for. We need to find a way to resolve the heightened forms of specialization that translate into the barriers that prevent cross-fertilization. Despite the problems and difficulties, and this might be considered a little naïve and utopian, we might look to cut across the distinctions and specialisms that currently divide those with a shared if diverse interest in what Becker (2007) calls ‘telling about society’.

Given the apparent fragmentation it has experienced, it is perhaps not surprising that Steve Fuller (2006: 1), in his attempts to think through a ‘new sociological imagination’ suitable for our times, has even suggested that sociology is ‘suffering from an identity crisis’. But can we let this broader sense of uncertainty permeate into our sociology? Can we let it shape and define our practice and our collective sociological imagination? Perhaps a better question would be to ask if we should let this uncertainty come to inhibit and restrict what C. Wright Mills (1959) called the ‘promise’ of sociology. A sense of crisis might help us to rethink our purpose and approach, but if left unattended it might also become inhibitive and restrictive. If it undermines our confidence then it is likely to limit and restrain our approach and ultimately hold us back. A sense of crisis, in itself, is not a productive thing, but, if dealt with properly and directly, it might lead to productive outcomes.

In the face of the challenges and questions that are being posed it would be understandable if sociologists were to be overwhelmed by a desire to ‘play it safe’. Yet this retreat to apparent safety might in itself become counterproductive. It is likely to de-energize the discipline, to restrict its scope, and to place sociology in the background of public dialogue. It might mute our voice amongst the din of dialogue on social matters. We sociologists might simply be left to whither on the vine. Playing it safe and moving into the background might even come to undermine the credentials of the discipline, a discipline intended to be at the forefront of social commentary, particularly in the eyes of the next generation of prospective students and sociologists – who will no doubt be drawn towards engaging and exciting ideas and accounts of the world that they can associate with or that speak to them. In a context in which narratives and commentaries of the social world are to be found densely packed into the cultural forms we consume (Beer & Burrows, 2010), can we afford to be tentative? Will the discipline thrive and regenerate if it is not able to spark interest and to speak to the next generation of sociologists? These questions are, of course, open to some debate, as are the potential responses. So, instead of playing it safe, being tentative and conservative, and living by the newly forged rules of the game, my suggestion, no, my demand here, is that we respond to our uncertainty by being bold, creative, imaginative, and, if we can bring ourselves to manage it, unapologetic and maybe even radical. I will use this opening chapter to try to set up the issues and to think about the conditions and circumstances that sociology is responding to and that are likely to shape the possibilities and opportunities that we face.

Put simply, this book develops the notion of a punk sociology. This is a form of sociology that takes inspiration from, what might be described as, the punk ethos. The book uses the punk ethos to re-imagine sociology. The argument of the book is that the attitude and sensibility of punk can productively be used to regenerate and energize the sociological imagination. What motivates this agenda is the pressing need to look for inspiration in shaping the future of sociology in a changing social context. It is part of a broader project aimed at thinking through the possibilities of drawing upon cultural forms and alternative forms of knowledge in order to re-imagine sociological practice, ideas, and forms of communication. As it works through the various features of the punk ethos, the book demonstrates how these ideas, approaches, and attitudes might be adapted to sociology. At a time when the focus has been absorbed or hijacked by what is often referred to as the ‘impact agenda’, this book aims to show how we might develop a form of sociology that is engaging for the wider public, that is relevant and responsive, and that makes people feel like anyone can engage in sociology. This, I claim, will lead to a vibrant future for sociology in terms of both its research and teaching. This is a book aimed at firing the sociological imagination by rethinking the principles and values that are at the heart of sociology and sociological work.

As the above suggests, this is a book that aims to imagine a productive and vibrant future for sociology. The book opens with such a ‘promise’, to return to C. Wright Mills, and then elaborates the different features of the punk ethos that might be used to shape sociology. The book returns to some key literature on the punk movement; it uses these to outline the core principles, attitudes, and practices that are central to the punk ethos. The book then moves to focus upon how this ethos might be imported into a punk sociology. The second half of the book explores these features in turn, and critically applies each to the sociological project. The book then concludes by summarizing the key features of a punk sociology and by imagining where this approach might take us over the coming years. There will be a number of places throughout this book that will engage with cutting-edge issues and debates within sociology, and the book will explore what answers a punk sociology might have for the types of problems and issues that have been highlighted by sociologists over recent years. These include the apparent public indifference shown towards sociology (particularly off the back of the economic downturn), the problem of a public sociology, the challenges to sociology’s jurisdiction from commercial and cultural forms of sociological discourse and analysis, the perceived waning of the promise of sociology, the opportunity and challenges of digital data and digital sociology, the position of the discipline within the audit culture and the neoliberal university, increases in fees and reductions in research funding, and the opportunities for re-imagining the craft of the discipline, along with a range of other issues outlined in visions of disciplinary fragmentation, crises, and the like. This book is not an indulgent or nostalgic return to a particular cultural moment; it is instead a reflection upon the state of sociology within the contemporary context in which it operates. It shows how we might use cultural resources as inspiration, as alternative forms of knowledge, which might be powerful in thinking about how sociology might respond to its contemporary challenges and opportunities. This book attempts to show how our response can be creative and imaginative as we attempt to engage people in sociology and as we carve out a successful future for the discipline.

In a time of uncertainty, which sociology appears to be in – as a result of a range of largely external social, cultural, and economic conditions – it is important to return to the core issues within our discipline and to reflect upon their purpose and value. This book looks to do just that. It looks to provoke imagined futures for sociology and to reflect upon how we might develop particular responses to these imagined futures. This book offers what I hope will be seen as an imaginative response, a response that resists particular pressures to play it safe – which in turn are likely to narrow sociology’s remit and limit its scope. It is a book that promotes diversity and resistance in the discipline. It is a direct response to calls for a renewed creativity in the deployment of the sociological imagination (which I will describe in a moment). I suggest here that in order to develop a response to these calls, which are actually quite difficult to respond to, we might look back to punk for inspiration. We can use punk’s ethos or sensibilities to imagine just one alternative future for sociology.

To situate the arguments of this book, in what remains of this introductory chapter, I will discuss briefly some of the contemporary conditions under which sociology is being performed. I have already suggested that sociology is in a moment of uncertainty, but we might wonder what the conditions are that have contributed towards this shaky self-esteem. This short chapter, and even the book as a whole, cannot aim to fill in all the gaps in this particular story. There are actually some excellent resources that we might turn to in order to understand the issues faced by sociology throughout its history. In the British context we can see the battles over the form and direction of sociology from its inception. An instructive example is Chris Renwick’s (2011) account of sociology’s relations with biology and the appointment of the first British chair of sociology at the London School of Economics. Renwick’s account shows that sociology might have gone in a very different direction if this single appointment had been made differently, which is illustrative of how sociology was, in a sense, uncertain about its identity from the outset. To continue the narratives around the changing identity of sociology we could also turn to Mike Savage’s (2010) accounts of post-war British sociology. There are also other prominent histories of British sociology, such as that provided by Halsey (2004) and across a range of articles (with a new book on the history of sociology edited by John Holmwood and John Scott soon to be published). The competing narratives and complex histories we find in these accounts only afford an understanding of sociology in one particular national context. If we were to look internationally we would find vastly different forms of sociology, with equally if not more profound complexities in the cultivation of disciplinary identities and values. Hence, it is not really possible here to attempt to elaborate a full historical account of our uncertainty, rather this is something that might be pieced together from these various resources and might then be explored in its contemporary manifestation through a range of accounts of crisis, limitation, and instability (the range of literature here is significant in its volume, but prominent examples would certainly include Savage & Burrows, 2007; Burawoy, 2005; Adkins & Lury, 2009, 2012, Osbourne et al., 2008; Ruppert et al., 2013 amongst many others). What we see then is an emergent desire to ‘re-imagine’ the ‘practice of sociology’ (Fuller, 2006: 7), or as John Holmwood (2010: 649) has put it, it is seen to be ‘a discipline that has to be “achieved”, or continually re-invented, in new circumstances’.

What I am particularly interested in here are accounts that, responding to this general sense of crisis, provide some thoughts on the future of sociology, the values that we might cling to, and the ways in which the discipline might be re-imagined or re-invented. These are accounts that tend to endorse a renewed engagement with Mills notion of a ‘sociological imagination’, alongside an eagerness to hone and rework this concept to suit the particular problems and challenges of the contemporary world. It is in this type of work that we find a set of questions to which we might respond. These are questions that are a little more particular and go beyond the more general sense that sociology might be reshaped and re-energized. What we find is a growing set of literature in which sociologists are being encouraged to be ‘creative’ and ‘inventive’. This is a call that many of us would agree with in broad terms, but that we may also find to be extremely hard in practice. Let us consider what these calls are suggesting and what they leave open to interpretation, before moving on to think about the particular response that I suggest in this book.

Of course, visions for the future of sociology are not likely to converge around any particular shared ideals. As Abbott (2006) has shown, the very basis of the discipline is far too fragmented for this to happen. But there is a growing sense that we will need to think radically about the way forward. In some cases this might be to reaffirm and rediscover some of the important concepts that have fallen by the wayside, such as ‘value’ and ‘measurement’ (Adkins & Lury, 2012). In other cases the suggestion might be that we will need to build a sociology that is responsive to social transformations and that adapts with them, such as the recent call for an interest in new social connections (Burnett et al., 2010), digital sociology (Orton-Johnson & Prior, 2013), or the ‘social life of methods’ (Ruppert et al., 2013). Underpinning many of these positions is a sense that we need to be creative and imaginative in rethinking what sociology is and what it does. This stream of thought found a voice in a recent article reflecting on the work of C. Wright Mills some 50 years after his death. In this piece Nicholas Gane and Les Back (2012) return to the ‘promise’ and ‘craft’ of sociology laid out in the work of Mills. They attempt to argue that ‘the enduring relevance of Mill’s legacy is his way of practicing intellectual life as an attentive and sensuous craft but also as a moral and political project’ (Gane & Back, 2012: 404). In other words, returning to Mills work, Gane and Back remind us that sociology need not be restricted in the form it takes, and in fact that sociology needs to use Mills’ work to rediscover an interest in experience, the senses, and its place in moral and political debates (an argument on the importance of experiences and senses to the sociological imagination can also be found in Fraser, 2009). Again, this might be contentious, particularly in a discipline where neutrality has become a central feature. Gane and Back’s piece is important because it represents a direct call for sociologists to re-engage with Mills’ work and to use it to think about the way we might develop the craft of sociology in new and creative ways. As they put it, ‘it is necessary to think again about the promise of the discipline and, beyond this, what might be brought to this promise by the kinds of critical attentiveness, of dialogue and critique, and of different forms of writing or inscription that are central to the sociological craft’ (Gane & Back, 2012: 415). The argument here is that, in order to do this, ‘Mill’s vision of what sociology can be, in its exercise of an attentive and imaginative craft, still has much to offer’ (Gane & Back, 2012: 418). Clearly then the theme of the day, in response to a sense of crisis and a changing social setting, is that we need to be imaginative in re-imaging the craft of sociology.

This argument, concerning the craft of sociology, continues in a recent collection of pieces on Live Methods (Back & Puwar, 2012). This collection gathers together pieces concerned with offering a lively and imaginative engagement with how sociology is conducted (see for example the account of curation in sociology in Puwar & Sharma, 2012). The scope of the collection is far reaching, and actually shows the range of ways in which this re-imagining of sociology might lead us. Rather than attempt to sketch all of these out, we can remain focused on the core idea: liveliness. In a central piece designed to orientate the collection, on the topic of ‘live sociology’, Les Back (2012: 18) suggests that there ‘is more opportunity to re-imagine sociological craft now than at any other point in the discipline’s history’. The argument here is that sociologists are faced with a world that is producing new forms of data, a social world that is media saturated with versatile devices and where social media lead individuals to broadcast aspects of their everyday lives. For Back, we are re-imagining sociology at a time when new opportunities for social research are rapidly opening up. These opportunities are presenting themselves, particularly if we open up our understanding of sociological research and attempt to exercise our sociological imagination in ways that pe...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Part I  The Background
• Part II  Towards a Punk Sociology
• References
• Index