Vividness, time and the restitution of sociological imagination

Bibliographic Data

ID4898161
AuthorsD Gafijczuk (0000-0002-3548-8080, Newcastle University, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume65
Issue4
Pages595-610
Publication date2017-11-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Sociological Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0038-0261 • E-ISSN: 1467-954X
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1111/1467-954x.12419
OpenAlexW2538760863
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited29

This paper is a response to the notion of 'live sociology' and its call for new forms of attentiveness to the social, which also involves cultivation of time. Picking up from this observation, the paper asks: how can we find a way of using temporality systematically and routinely in our research practices? The argument concentrates on the concept of the past, and proposes a model for how the past can be reactivated and used analytically to deepen our understanding of contemporary life. To do this, the paper recovers and deploys the ancient technique of enargeia/vividness, and reconsiders Weber's sociology based on ideal-types, all in the effort to show how a special kind of a surrogate temporality/past could serve as a point of contact with things not directly observable. The aim is to show how vivid, enlivened past can be readapted for use as a type of method that triggers the release of new forms of sociological imagination

Aesthetics · Argument (complex analysis) · Epistemology · Ideal (ethics) · Ideal type · Restitution · Social science · Sociological imagination · Sociological research · Sociology · Temporalities · Temporality · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Law · Philosophy · Social and Cultural Dynamics · Weber, Simmel, Sociological Theory

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