By Mauri Yambo
Scholars in all fields, from Anthropology and Archaeology to Zen Philosophy and Zoology, face one permanent challenge: to demonstrate that their knowledge claims, or proposed research projects, add value to the extant bodies of knowledge in their respective fields or generally. The terminology of this challenge is typically in the form of the the question: How will it [or how does it] contribute to knowledge?
The thing that knows is, of course, the brain; but it is lodged in the human body – and here likewise projected on generic paper. The thing that is known, the being of knowledge, is in turn lodged in a body of knowledge – or is itself such a body. In a way, a body of knowledge is a disciplinary or sub-disciplinary field – a field of specialization, a field of particular attention.
Disciplines and sub-disciplines (and therefore bodies of knowledge) represent a fusion of “facts” (including Sociologists' social facts), theories and methods – the last two being explicit or implicit. Often enough, disciplines evolve into professions, in terms of which the fusion is compounded by the introduction of sets of practices underpinned by codes of CONDUCT and by SOP (Standard Operating Procedures) – underpinned by what Sociologists broadly label norms. Presently, we will see that intra-disciplinary debates/controversies are a fifth dimension along which sub-disciplines can evolve in terms of the bodies of knowledge which they represent.
There are many fields and sub-fields in Sociology, as we will see presently. But first, let us remind ourselves that Sociology is a science of society – of human (individual and group) interaction in society.
– Interaction involves at least two people or two groups.
– Interaction is interactivity – individual activities or acts interrogating and influencing each other
– Interaction is “exchange” or reflexivity of real/actual behaviours/acts (or of the meanings of such behaviours/acts).
– Interaction is co-activity.
Behaviours that are frequently repeated or which regularly occur (which recur) become habits. Goffman talks of habituation, Bourdieu of habitus.
Habits (such as man and woman living together, or two people/traders regularly exchanging goods) often evolve, or are packaged by sociologists and other observers, into institutions – such as the family or the economy. And institutions are a (if not the) key foundation of social structure – and therefore society. That whole process can be depicted as follows:
Individual Acts >> Habits >> Interaction >> Institutions >> Social Structure >> Society.
However, many sociologists (particularly conflict theorists) insist that the basic orientation of human society is toward change and conflict, not the stability implicit in the notion of structure – and which is in fact “characteristic” (the hallmark) of the structural-functional perspective. Though they may deny it, however, many conflict theorists subscribe, in a “subliminal” way (inescapably) to some form of “functionalism.”
All of the foregoing serves as the foundation of sociological knowledge. Even within Sociology, however, it is legitimate to talk of bodies of knowledge, and to acknowledge that some of these bodies of sociological knowledge are the product of raging, continuing or intermittent debates within the discipline.
There are as many bodies of knowledge in sociology as there are fields and sub-fields, including the following 45 (or their variations, as some clearly overlap):
– Adolescent Behaviour
– Criminology [or Crime and Delinquency]
– Collective Behaviour and Social Movements
– Community [or Community Development]
– Cultural Sociology [Cultural Lag, Culture Shock, Culture Change, Counter-Culture, Culture Trait, Cultural Universals, Ethnocentrism, Hybridity, Identity, Norms, Otherness, Sub-Culture, Symbols, Technology, Values]
– Demography
– Deviant Behaviour
– Economic Sociology [or Economy and Society]
– Formal Organization
– Gerontology [or Sociology of Ageing]
– Gender Sociology [or Human Sexuality]
– Historical Sociology
– Human Ecology
– Human Relations
– Industrial Sociology [or Sociology of Work and Industry]
– Labour-Management Relations
– Law and Society
– Mathematical Sociology
– Medical Sociology [or Health and Society]
– Methodology [or Sociological Methods, or Methods of Social Investigation or Q/QRM]
– Marriage and the Family [or Sociology of the Family]
– Political Sociology
– Rural Sociology [or Rural Societies]
– Race and Ethnic Relations
– Social Change and Development
– Social Organization
– Social Systems
– Social Psychology
– Social Stratification and Social Class
– Social Mobility
– Social Exchange [May be part of “Community”]
– Socialization
– Social Groups and Social Institutions
– Social Theory
– Sociology of Developing Areas
– Sociology of Education
– Sociology of the Family [which we have mentioned above]
– Sociology of Knowledge
– Sociology of Human Communication [or Sociology of Mass Communication]
– Sociology of Human Service Delivery Systems
– Sociology of Religion
– Sociology of the Professions
– Sociology of Leisure and Sports
– Sociology of Science
– Urban Sociology [or Urban Social structures] [45]
In another post I will say something about bodies of nursing knowledge; that is, the totality of sets of knowledge which different cadres of nurses, charged with the responsibility of taking so much care of the total human body, are supposed to know in today’s world. Why nurses at this juncture? Why not? It is a random choice.
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