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Work and the Sociological Imagination

The Need for Continuity and Change in the Study of Continuity and Change

University of Nottingham, tony.watson{at}nottingham.ac.uk

Alongside many significant changes, there are considerable continuities between the work activities and work institutions of the 21st century and those of earlier periods studied by the sociology of work. These continuities are easily neglected if we get too taken up with what is allegedly ‘new’ in the world which we study or if we constantly seek new theoretical ‘directions’ or ‘turns’. A successful future sociology of work needs to achieve a balance between attention to change and continuity, both in what it looks at empirically and in the devices it uses in its analyses and theorizing as well as in its communication beyond the academy. The idea of the sociological imagination, which brings together American Pragmatist thinking with the European ideas of Weber and Marx can help considerably in reinvigorating the sociology of work.

Key Words: pragmatism • realism • sociological imagination • sociology of work

Sociology, Vol. 43, No. 5, 861-877 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0038038509340726


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