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4418 - Social Justice and Sociological Research

Tue, August 13, 2:30 to 4:10pm, New York Hilton, Floor: Second Floor, Nassau West

Session Submission Type: Invited Session

Description

Sociologists have long been attentive to the many inequalities that arise in society, as well as the shifting political and economic forces that sustain them. Many sociologists see their work not only as a means to understand these inequalities and related hierarchies of difference, but also as a way to effect some kind of change through policy, protest, or simply in the everyday. Whether or not sociologists have any success in bringing about substantive change is open to debate—more important, for the purposes of this panel, is to consider how commitments to social justice can effectively guide or inform sociological inquiry. This panel invites scholars committed to a diverse set of communities and interests to share their own reflections on what remains a central tension in the discipline—between sociology as a science, on the one hand, and sociology as political practice, on the other. The following questions will help organize the discussion: What is the proper relationship between advocacy and method? What special challenges must researchers consider as they negotiate and maintain access to a particular community, in light of inevitable disagreements and competing points of view within it? What do researchers owe individuals or groups attached to the communities their work might support? Finally, what do they owe the public at large, which may or may not share the same beliefs or ideologies as researchers and the groups they feature in their work?

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