Bringing it 'home'? Sociological practice and the practice of sociology

摘要

In this special anniversary issue of Sociology, we mark 50 volumes of the journal by reflecting on the developing story of sociology as both a disciplinary and intellectual pursuit. In this respect, the collection stands alongside a corpus of anniversary publications marking the contribution of Sociology to the study of key aspects of sociological enquiry, such as: social class (Ryan and Maxwell, 2015), gender and intersectionality (Roth and Dashper, 2015), identity and the self (Skinner, May and Rollock, 2015), as well as earlier reflections on how Sociology has showcased the study of race (Meer and Nayak, 2013) and developments in empirical research (Ryan and McKie, 2012). What all these collections clearly display is how, since the journal was originally established in 1967 under the editorship of Michael Banton, so 2017 marks 50 years in addition to 50 volumes, the journal has made a significant contribution in shaping the discipline. At the same time, the anniversary publications also demonstrate that the practice of sociology has ‘spun out’ (Halford and Strangleman, 2009: 815) beyond the dedicated departments that were once the centres of sociological practice. In this respect it could perhaps be argued therefore that sociology’s ‘intellectual success has been as much about appealing to “dissidents” from other subjects, as about training a cadre of “paradigm-following” sociologists’ (Savage, 2010: 662).