The sociological study of economic activity has witnessed a significant
resurgence. Recent texts have chronicled economic sociology's
nineteenth-century origins while pointing to the importance of context
and power in economic life, yet the field lacks a clear understanding of
the role that concepts at different levels of abstraction play in its
organization. Economic Sociology fills this critical gap by surveying
the current state of the field while advancing a framework for further
theoretical development.
Alejandro Portes examines economic sociology's principal assumptions,
key explanatory concepts, and selected research sites. He argues that
economic activity is embedded in social and cultural relations, but also
that power and the unintended consequences of rational purposive action
must be factored in when seeking to explain or predict economic
behavior. Drawing upon a wealth of examples, Portes identifies three
strategic sites of research--the informal economy, ethnic enclaves, and
transnational communities--and he eschews grand narratives in favor of
mid-range theories that help us understand specific kinds of social
action.
The book shows how the meta-assumptions of economic sociology can be
transformed, under certain conditions, into testable propositions, and
puts forward a theoretical agenda aimed at moving the field out of its
present impasse.
