The Quest for Normativity: Editors’ Introduction

Abstract

This special collection builds on a growing chorus of voices calling to bridge the gap between normative concerns and sociological practice, and indeed to develop normative forms of sociology. Although the collection’s articles constitute a small sample of (normative) sociology’s rich and evolving landscape, they demonstrate not only how normative traditions are deeply embedded in sociology’s history, but also how they are being invoked in new and creative ways. Our authors’ work illuminates the unity between sociological and normative concerns by reconstructing important chapters of the discipline’s engagement with ethical reflection, and by chartering possible paths for normative sociology. Contributors further engage with the normative value of intellectual resources located beyond standard academic boundaries, such as religious resources, and emphasize the importance of researchers reflecting upon their own normative assumptions. Finally, they frame normativity in terms of layered engagements: calling on social scientists to consider participatory research paradigms and to build bridges between research and the general public in the search for social justice.