“Groups” and “Cultures” as Problems: A New Sociology of Knowledge

Abstract

The sociology of knowledge has been surprisingly underrepresented in the recent boom of studies in the sociology of culture. Even when attention (in "cultural studies" as well as the sociology of culture) has turned to sci ence, it has seldom drawn much on the classical tradition in the sociology of knowledge. This is a pity, partly because better use of the sociology of knowledge might have furthered the integration of sociology of culture with general sociological theory. This is a cause that Doyle McCarthy's engaging introduction will advance. As its title suggests, it will draw students into thinking about knowledge as culture, and into asking some of the hard but important questions this entails. One set of such questions is today commonly discussed under the heading "reflexivity." To what extent and in what ways is knowledge de pendent on or improved by knowers' understanding of the conditions of the production and dissemination of that knowledge? What obligations do theories and researchers have to turn their analytic lends back on them selves? What difference does it make that the social life we study is one already interpreted by its protagonists, and that what we say and write be comes part of that process of interpretation?potentially for everyone, not just for sociologists? McCarthy turns with wisdom to such concerns in her conclusion. Of the work she presents earlier in the text, it is feminist studies of science (and to a lesser extent Giddens) that provide her with the great est resources for reflexive analysis. The way in which such reflexivity should work in actual research is not fully developed, but is recognized as an im portant issue. McCarthy does point rightly to its importance for teaching. McCarthy seeks not only to show that knowledge is culture, but that because knowledge is culture the sociology of knowledge is not well prac