ESA 2011 - Abstract Submission
General Submission: RN07 - Sociology Of Culture
ESA11-4654
WHAT CAN CULTURAL SOCIOLOGY CONTRIBUTE TO ETHNOGRAPHIC WRITING?
Ali Türünz 1,*
1Sociology, MASARYK UNIVERSITY, Brno, Czech Republic
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to demonstrate what the Strong Program in cultural sociology can contribute to
ethnographic writing. Cultural sociology offers a well-organized alternative for rethinking the logic of the “sociology of
culture” perspective, which treats culture as a dependent variable. Ethnographic writing has the potential to benefit
greatly from cultural sociology. In order to achieve this, however, ethnographers must break free from the sociology of
culture and the habit of forming arguments that are dependent on the economic base. Instead, cultural sociology
suggests ethnographic works that focus on the processes of meaning making. First, the paper will introduce the term
“cultural sociology” and carefully distinguish it from the “sociology of culture”. Then, it will discuss the similarities and
contrasts between the current discourse of constructivist ethnographic writing and that of cultural sociology. Finally, it will
argue that cultural sociology, which promises to bring fresh “analytic” perspectives to sociology, may help ethnographic
writing to reformulate its discourse.