ROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS: SOCIAL THEORY
Volume 1
ADVANCES IN SOCIAL THEORY AND METHODOLOGY
ADVANCES IN SOCIAL THEORY AND METHODOLOGY
Toward an integration of micro- and macro-sociologies
Edited by
K. KNORR-CETINA AND A. V. CICOUREL
First published in 1981
This edition first published in 2015
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Introduction and editorial matter 1981 K. Knorr-Cetina and A. V. Cicourel Contributions 1981 Routledge & Kegan Paul
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ISBN: 978-0-415-72731-0 (Set)
eISBN: 978-1-315-76997-4 (Set)
ISBN: 978-1-138-78199-3 (Volume 1)
eISBN: 978-1-315-76388-0 (Volume 1)
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Advances in social theory and methodology
Toward an integration of micro- and macro-sociologies
Edited by
K. Knorr-Cetina and A. V. Cicourel
First published in 1981
by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd
9 Park Street, Boston, Mass. 02108, USA
39 Store Street, London WC1E 7DD, and
Broadway House, Newtown Road,
Henley-on-Thames, Oxon RG9 1EN
Photoset in 10 on 12 Baskerville by
Kelly Typesetting Ltd, Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire
and printed in the United States of America
Introduction and editorial matter copyright K. Knorr-Cetina and A. V. Cicourel 1981
Contributions Routledge & Kegan Paul 1981
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except for the quotation of brief passages in criticism
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Advances in social theory and methodology.
Includes index.
Contents: The micro-sociological challenge of macro-sociology / K. Knorr-Cetina Notes on the integration of micro- and macro-levels of analysis / A.V. Cicourel Micro-translation as a theory-building strategy / R. Collins [etc.]
1. SociologyMethodologyAddresses, essays, lectures. 2. MicrosociologyAddresses, essays, lectures. 3. MacrosociologyAddresses, essays, lectures. I. Knorr-Cetina, K. II. Cicourel, A. V.
HM24.A33 301 818695
ISBN 0710009461 AACR2
ISBN 071000947X (pbk.)
Contents
K. Knorr-Cetina
A. V. Cicourel
R. Collins
T. Duster
R. Harr
A. Giddens
G. Fauconnier
V. Lidz
N. Luhmann
J. Habermas
M. Callon and B. Latour
P. Bourdieu
Preface
In the last two decades, we have witnessed a widening gap between micro- and macro-social theory and methodology. This book is an attempt to begin bridging the gap. As argued in the Introduction, micro-sociological developments have challenged traditional macro-sociological approaches to social reality for quite some time. In addition, some authors have now begun to reconstruct macro-sociological phenomena based upon a micro-sociological foundation. On the other hand, new macro-social perspectives such as neo-functionalism or neo-Marxism prominently address and incorporate micro-level phenomena. In short we believe that the time is ripe for re-examining the problems that underlie the micro-macro question, based upon the advances in social theory and methodology that have been made since the 1950s.
We have invited a series of authors to present and discuss their theoretical and methodological version of the relation between micro- and macro-social phenomena, starting from the advances in theory and method to which they often have contributed. The book is a collection of original essays addressed to this topic, with the exception of the paper by Habermas which has appeared elsewhere in English. We count as our audience those working on (or interested in) social theory and methodology, and those who are advanced students of social science disciplines. The original idea for the book was born during an extended observation study which made it plain that if we want to give adequate accounts of the social reality observed, we need to integrate systematically notions of macro- and micro-research. The book seeks to provide conceptual models and observational dimensions for prospective researchers who recognize the need for an integration of macro- and micro-levels of theory and research.
The editors wish to thank the Foundation for the Advancement of Scientific Research, Vienna, for financing part of the theoretical work involved in preparing this volume, and the departments of sociology at the University of California, San Diego, and the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, for facilitating the work. The Institute for the Study of Social Change at the University of California, Berkeley, provided the environment which led to the initiation of the book, and we have drawn from the ideas and critical comments provided by colleagues at many other places over the last years.
Above all we would like to express our appreciation to the contributors to the book who responded with enthusiasm and with almost no delay in writing and reviewing their papers, and to the patience and support of our families.
Editors note
Each contribution is prefaced with an introduction by the editors.
Introduction: The micro-sociological challenge of macro-sociology: towards a reconstruction of social theory and methodology
Karin D. Knorr-Cetina
In the last 20 years, we have witnessed an upsurge of social theories and methodologies which are characteristically concerned with micro-processes of social life, such as with face-to-face interaction, with everyday routines and classifications, with strips of conversation, or with definitions of the self and of situations. I have in mind specifically approaches such as symbolic interactionism, cognitive sociology, ethnomethodology, social phenomenology, ethogenics in sociology and the ethnography of speaking and ethnoscience in anthropology.1 It goes almost without saying that these approaches differ markedly in theoretical background and substantive interest. For example, while todays symbolic interactionism appears to be an outgrowth of Herbert Blumers reconception of the theories of Mead and Cooley, ethnomethodologists have linked their concerns to Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and most recently Merleau-Ponty, and social phenomenology has obvious roots in the works of Schutz and Husserl.2 While cognitive sociology has stressed the role of language and memory in the cognitive processing of information in everyday settings, ethnomethodology has focused on the organizational features of practical reasoning, and ethogenics and symbolic interactionism, though also concerned with symbolic communication, have described the rules and resources which underlie social accounts on the one hand and the negotiation and management of meaning in interaction on the other hand.
