Questions of In-Disciplines

Abstract

The specialization of research into orders of problems considered as specific has been a major trend in the structuring of the social science throughout the twentieth century. The sociology of art and culture is one of the many offshoots of this division of scientific labour. It has its own networks of scholars, journals, handbooks, scientific events, diplomas, staff, etc. Building on Durkheim’s analysis, we may consider whether the sociology of art and culture might be the outcome of an “abnormal form” of division of scientific labour. This dossier is not intended to give a definitive answer to this question, but it helps addressing it by documenting cases where existing institutional boundaries between disciplines and within sociology itself are challenged. Together, these five articles and this interview raise a key question for the sociology of art and culture: that of the pertinence of a “real division of reality” (Bourdieu et al. 1991 [1968]: 33) as a principle of division of scientific labour. Be they interdisciplinary or intradisciplinary, the external boundaries examined in this dossier are ultimately limits in two ways: they may be either too porous or too airtight, and ignoring them and failing to reflect on them might very well be detrimental to science.