Sociologists in Themselves, Sociologists for Themselves

Abstract

This paper investigates whether there is such a thing as a subfield of the sociology of art and culture. This requires proving that a population of sociologists of art and culture exists both in itself and for itself, meaning that it is both objectively and subjectively distinct from the population of sociologists taken as a whole. Informed by network analysis, our study of the space of the congresses held by the Association française de sociologie (AFS) reveals that neither the speakers in the thematic network of the sociology of art and culture (RT14) nor the sociologists who present papers on art and culture form a distinct group with a strong investment in the same sociological speciality: specialities do not necessarily make specialists. Lastly, the paper shows that while some sociologists of art and culture are objectively and subjectively specialized to a high degree, this is not enough to constitute a genuine subfield.