Transcript WHAT IS SOCIOOGY?

WHAT IS SOCIOLOGY?
LECTURE 3
5 MAY 2010
Sociology
• Sociology – how to apply the discipline of sociology and
sociological methods to our lives?
“I found that sociology helped me make sense of the world and it
was an interesting, exciting, and fun discipline.”
John J.Macionis (ma-SHOW-nis)
• A definition of sociology – the systematic study of
human society, and at the heart of sociology there is a
special point of view called sociological perspective.
• Sociological perspective as a new and exciting way of
seeing the world. Thinking critically.
Suicide from a Sociological Perspective
• Peter Berger, described a sociological perspective as seeing
the general in the particular – Sociologists look for general
patterns in the behaviour of particular people.
Turning personal problems into public issues.
• Suicide is an intensely personal and emotional issue and
yet a sociological perspective would treat suicide as a
social fact, one which needs to be studied objectively and
from a social perspective- separating the individual and
projecting it on a broader landscape
Sociological Perspective – Suicide
• The incidence of Suicide increased as a result of
– Depression due to recession
Nothing goes up for ever
• Modern Pakistan– the globalised, multicultural, Metro Cash
& Carry, Hyper Star, Credit card schemes, Hardees, Gloria
Jeans
• Buy now pay later culture.
• 1 million caught in unpaid debts every year
• The working poor – millions of households are officially
classified as belonging to this group
• A number of re-possessions, hundred times more than a
year ago, growing economic instability
• Concern about our future
• More inequality in society than 2 years back
The market is crashing taking the good life
with it
• The decade-long boom coming to an end? Cheap
imports from China, v. high levels of borrowing,
cheap labour-skilled migrants.
• Properties – national obsession. Buy-to-let land,
but the property boom had to come to an end.
• Economy based on borrowings – how to change
peoples’ mentality? How to remoralize society?
The importance of global perspective –
The power of sociology
• Global awareness is a logical extension of the
sociological perspective.
• The study of the larger world and our society's
place. What is the importance of a global
perspective for sociology?
• Future of the US economy - London and the rest
of the world?
China at 60: Nostalgia and progress
• In 1949 China's GDP was $18bn, or $50 per capita. In
2008, total GDP reached $4.3 trillion and $3,260 per
capita. In the past 30 years, 200 million people came out
of poverty. Today, Chinese society has become open and
dynamic. There are close to 2,000 newspapers, more than
9,000 magazines and 287 TV channels. With 700 million
mobile phone subscribers, 300 million internet users and
180 million bloggers, not surprisingly the Chinese lead the
world in texting, blogging and surfing the web.
• But:
• After all, China's per capita GDP ranks 104th in the
world. Because per capita overseas investment in China is
still less than that of most developed countries. Some 135
million people across the country still live on less than a
dollar a day.
‘Thinking outside the box’
‘Think ourselves away’ East – West
• An example: 20 years ago – Europe- West and East: two
different and contrasting lives on the same continent (a car,
a phone, a colour TV set, a washing machine, colour
pictures– luxuries; holiday abroad – a dream; sugar, coffee,
toilet paper, a pair of shoes-the most wanted goods; a bike,
an electronic watch, a pair of jeans or, trainers– teenagers’
dream .
• This is sociology; a picture of society.
The most wanted goods under
communism I
The most wanted goods under
communism II
• And the power of sociology is to demonstrate
how strong are the social forces that organise
every society in very different ways.
• Just when and where you were born has radically
shaped much of what you know and what you can
do. After having encountered sociology you will
probably never see the world again with the
same eyes.
“The first wisdom of sociology: things
are not what they seem”
(Peter Berger , Invitation to Sociology)
The first sociology lesson
• Sociology teaches us what we regard as
natural, inevitable, good or true may
not be such, and that the ‘givens’ of
our life are strongly influenced by
historical and social forces.
(Anthony Giddens)
Studying sociology
• The sociological imagination allows us to see that many
events that seem to concern only individuals actually reflect
larger issues.
• Migration, it may be a personal choice for someone to
emigrate, to leave someone’s family and friends, jobs etc. It
can be a personal tragedy for somebody to leave a
homeland. It goes far beyond a matter for private
despair when thousands of people in a society are in
the same situation. It becomes a public issue.
• Your private decision reflects your position in the
wider society.
EXAMPLE:
• Afghans in Pakistan – one the biggest wave of migrants
in history, followed US attack on AfghanistanApproximately 3.5 Million Afghanis are currently
seeking refuge in Pakistan; the statistics on Afghanis in
Pakistan are not accurate, as many early migrants have
not been recorded as immigrants by the government.
• The above numbers and reports raise questions and
provoke debates not only from the Pakistani
people, but also from the international community
as a whole. (a ‘unmanaged migration‘ for Pakistan
and a growing concern for international security and
threat levels)
Social structure
• The concept of social structure refers to the fact that the social
contexts of our lives are structured or patterned, in distinct ways.
• But social structure is not like a physical structure, such as building,
which exists independently of human actions. Human societies are
always in the process of structuration.
They are reconstructed all the time by human beings.
EXAMPLE:
• The case of drinking coffee; you choose where to have a cup of coffee,
what kind of coffee (cappuccino, espresso etc). As soon as you make
your decisions with another hundred people in the same place and at
the same time you all shape the market of coffee and affect the
lives of millions of people associated with producing coffee on the
other side of the world.
• Sociology is about our own lives and our
own behaviour. Studying ourselves is the
most complex and difficult attempt we
can undertake.
Theories and theoretical
approaches.
Theory and sociology
• Sociology is not about collecting facts. We want to know
why things are happening. We need to develop
theoretical thinking. A theory about revolution,
industrialisation, can help us to identify the main stages of
theses processes, the nature of changes, repercussions etc.
• We need theories to help us to make sense of facts.
Without a theoretical approach, we would not know
what to look for in the beginning of our study.
Sociology in post communist
countries
• In the past sociology and sociological research
were determined by the ideology of MarxismLeninism, the ideology of communist states,
named after two people – Karl Marx and Vladimir
Lenin. The term Marxism-Leninism was not used
in either Marx’s or Lenin’s time. It appears to have
been devised by Stalin-‘founding fathers’.
• Marxism provided the theory, whereas Leninism
more concrete answers to questions of
organisation and revolution.
After communism
Example: Russia
• Russian sociologists and historians were among
the first academic groups to reject the
totalitarian state and were seeking to gain greater
access to the work of Western sociologists.
Facing up the facts
• Lack of availability of statistical data. The present
government does not want the real facts to be known.
Is the current government unwilling to acknowledge
that Russia is sliding from crisis to catastrophe?
• Facts about Russia:
– In the first six months of 2005, the Russian population fell by
half a million. By the middle of the century Russia could lose
up to half of its people.
– Life expectancy for men is 56 years, the same as Bangladesh.
– More then a million people will have died because of AIDS
in Russia by 2020.
– A quarter of the population lives below the poverty line.
• Loss of young graduates to commerce
• Different schools of thought – a loss of
professional integrity
• The rejection of Marxism
It should not be dismissed as useless and
dogmatic, but view it as a means of looking at
the changing inter-relationship between
economics and politics in Russia today.
‘Marxists’ have no real holding amongst the
Russian sociologists today.