Curating Sociology

Abstract

Building on the range of methods available to the roaming sociological imagination, curating sociology is concerned with instituting ‘live’ public encounters. Contending that there are practices in the history of sociology that can be considered instances of curating sociology, this article makes a case for harnessing these to inventive research processes today. The discussion in this article draws attention to recent developments in curating before excavating a selection of practices within sociology upon which we can reflexively build live methods with consideration to creative collaborations, publicness and exhibiting as research. Each of these involves a degree of mutation within the craft of sociology. By way of illustration, the final section of the article explores an in‐depth case study of curating sociology for the Noise of the Past project, which involved us, as sociologists, collaborating with creative practitioners and ‘curating’ a large‐scale public event.

Haunting and the knowing and showing of qualitative research

“…The film draws on both approaches. Such techniques bring sociological practice closer to the fictive (Puwar and Sharma, 2012), and make some uneasy x . Overall however, this work suggests the importance of developing discussions around the 'common byways' (Michael, 2012cited in Coleman, 2016Galman, 2009) between sociology and art/fiction and of diverse ways of showing the 'fidelity' of research outputs to the data produced.…”

A sensory sociology of the future: Affect, hope and inventive methodologies

“…Lisa Adkins and Celia Lury describe a contemporary 'sensate empirical ' (2009: 18), Les Back argues for an expansion of 'the sensory dimensions of sociological attentiveness' (2012: 28), and researchers such as Lata Mani (2013) and Kathleen Stewart (2007) experiment with interdisciplinary modes of communicating sensory experiences of being in and with the world. Indeed, many sensory methodologies draw and adapt from practices in art and design, appreciating that sociology does not have the monopoly on 'telling about society' (Becker 2007), and that non-textual methods and modes of dissemination are important in involving (human and non-human) participants and audiences in sociological research (Puwar and Sharma 2012). A focus on young people and a commitment to participatory research 4 can be identified in some of this arts-based work on the future.…”

Noise of the Past

“…This methodology framed the different stages of the project and instituted both autonomy and direction in the dialogic forms of exchange. Call-and-response offers a means for academics to generate cultural exchange by becoming interlocutors and collaborators in the movement of materials from one form of craft to another, without obfuscating the creativity of artist-practitioners, as well as the overall intellectual direction of the project (see Puwar and Sharma 2011).…”