A concise, accessible, and engaging guide for students and
practitioners of sociology.
In Forms of Life, Harry Collins offers an introduction to social
science methodology, drawing on his forty-plus years of conducting
high-profile sociological research. In this concise, accessible, and
engaging book, Collins explains not only how to do sociology (the
method) but also how to think about sociology (the meaning). For
example, he describes the three activities that are the foundations of
sociological method (immersing oneself in a society; estranging oneself
from that society; and explaining what has been discovered to those who
have not been immersed) and goes on to consider broader questions of the
meaning of science in relation to social science and the scientific
authority of "subjective" methods. He explains that sociology is the
study of social collectivities (often overlapping, subdividable, and
embedded), and cites Wittgenstein's notion of "forms of life" in his
definition of collectivity.
Collins covers such methodological topics as participant comprehension;
interview-based fieldwork ("expect plans to fail"); interactional
expertise; alternation and methodological relativism; tangible and
inferential experiments; tribalism and emotional loyalty; and how to
communicate your findings. Finally, he offers recommendations for
"saving the science of sociology," considering, among other things,
sociology's identity as a discipline and the perils of both "groupism"
and being too afraid of it. Appendixes offer a code of conduct for
interviews; a list of his relevant publications; and an account, in Q&A
form, of a disastrous day in the life of a sociologist doing fieldwork.
