Cultural Sociology and Other Disciplines: Interdisciplinarity in the Cultural Sciences

Abstract

The subject of this article is the relationship between cultural sociology and approaches to culture in other social science disciplines. What are the characteristics of the theoretical environment, in which cultural sociology is operating? The article begins by reviewing the literature on interdisciplinarity. Many authors argue that interdisciplinarity is increasing or should be increasing, but the general consensus is that disciplinary isolation is the norm. From this perspective, the relationships between disciplines can be understood in terms of trading zones, in which fields in different disciplines have little in common, theoretically, or empirically. Interdisciplinary communication in ‘trading zones’ requires that participants laboriously construct a set of terms that permits them to exchange ideas. Alternatively, I propose that clusters of fields in different disciplines are linked by free‐floating paradigms. Participants in disciplines that share ‘free‐floating paradigms’ are able to communicate with one another more readily. The article presents evidence for the second interpretation, drawn from survey articles in disciplinary handbooks. Disciplines and fields in which the study of culture draws from the same pool of paradigms and models and shares a set of lines of inquiry with cultural sociology include traditional disciplines, such as anthropology, communication, geography, history and psychology, and interdisciplinary fields, such as cultural studies, communication, feminist theory, material culture, science studies, and visual culture. Interdisciplinary fields – particularly cultural studies – perform an important role in diffusing paradigms across disciplinary boundaries. Free‐floating paradigms are associated with the work of major theorists, such as Lévi‐Strauss, Barthes, Foucault, Bourdieu, Lyotard, Baudrillard, Clifford Geertz, Bruno Latour, Adorno, Gramsci, and Habermas.

Encouraging Interdisciplinary Collaboration: A Study of Enablers and Inhibitors Across Silos in Higher Education

“…Whether it is overt or not, disciplines and their associated research have implications that reach across discipline-based boundaries. This is supported by studies conducted by Crane (2010), who stated that "communication between cultural fields within … disciplines occurs because of a set of free-floating paradigms or theoretical frameworks that all these disciplines share in varying degrees" (p. 4).…”

Social philosophy curriculum in social science and humanities structured doctoral programmes

“…This has been complicated considerably since the 1970s and 1980s with the growing influence of critical and post-modern thinkers across the social sciences, often in disciplines where they challenge accepted methodological premises. Today, disciplines such as anthropology, communication, geography, history and psychology, and fields like cultural studies, communication, feminist theory, material culture, science studies and visual culture draw on similar “free floating paradigms”, such that academics are nowadays often readily able to communicate across fields of study on methodological grounds (Crane, 2010).…”

Πολιτισμική Ανάλυση Και Κοινωνιολογία Του Πολιτισμού Στην Ελλάδα, 1980-2014: Eπισκόπηση Βιβλιογραφίας Και Σχεδίασμα Κοινωνιολογικής Ερμηνείας

“…Παρά τις διαφορές σε επίπεδο θεωρητικής σκευής και ερευνητικών ενδιαφερόντων, φαίνεται ότι υπάρχει συμφωνία ανάμεσα στους κοινωνιολόγους που μελετούν την κουλτούρα όσον αφορά στην εξής καταστατική ιδέα: οι κοινωνικές, πολιτικές και οικονομικές δομές θεμελιώνονται σε διαδικασίες παραγωγής νοήματος και οι κοινωνικοί θεσμοί συνυφαίνονται με τους λόγους, τις αξίες, τις πεποιθήσεις, και τις στάσεις των κοινωνικών δρώντων (βλέπε, μεταξύ άλλων, Crane, 2010). Η συμφωνία σε αυτή την θεμελιώδη παραδοχή είχε δύο κυρίως αποτελέσματα: α) Οι κοινωνιολόγοι, ακαδημαϊκοί και ερευνητές, απομακρύνθηκαν από την (μια) κοινωνιολογία της κουλτούρας (ή του πολιτισμού), δηλαδή από ένα πρόγραμμα που δίνει έμφαση στην ποσοτική ανάλυση των (υψηλών) τεχνών 3 , της «παραγωγής της κουλτούρας» και της «πολιτιστικής κατανάλωσης» (Alexander, Jacobs and Smith, 2012, σελ.…”