社会杂志 ›› 2014, Vol. 34 ›› Issue (5): 174-205.

• 论文 • 上一篇    下一篇

社会学的传记取向:当代社会学进展的一种维度

鲍磊  南京大学社会学系,江苏省社会科学院社会学所   

  • 出版日期:2014-09-20 发布日期:2014-09-20
  • 通讯作者: 鲍磊 E-mail:baolei2004@126.com E-mail:baolei2004@126.com

#br# The Biographical Turn in Sociology: A Dimension of Contemporary Sociology

BAO Lei, Department of Sociology, Nanjing University; Institute of Sociology, Jiangsu Provincial Academy of Social Sciences   

  • Online:2014-09-20 Published:2014-09-20
  • Contact: BAO Lei E-mail:baolei2004@126.com

摘要: 20世纪80年代前后,传记取向成为社会(科)学中众多转向或取向的一种。相较于20世纪二三十年代由芝加哥学派引领的传记研究,这一取向的范围更为宽广。它关注个人经历、历史与文化之间的交互作用,反对奉实证主义为圭臬的社会科学研究,重视人的主体性与能动性。这一取向消解或者说超越了传统的二元论或二分法,促使社会学家反思自己的概念架构、研究方法以及书写实践。虽然在晚近的发展中,一些学者甚至提出了自传/传记社会学这一具有分支学科性质的指称,但这一取向还是“浮现中的实践”,尚处于晚熟状态,因此还存在不少争议,布尔迪厄甚至从根本上将传记视为一种幻觉。随着“传记时代”的来临,传记社会学势将成为一个开创性的研究领域。

关键词: 传记社会学, 传记, 传记取向, 社会学自传记幻觉

Abstract: Compared with the long history of auto/biography, biographical research in social sciences is fairly a recent thing. There has been a major turn towards biographical approaches in social science (especially in sociology) since the 1980s.  Used by Chicago School in the 1920s-1930s, biographical sociology has been supplemented and enlarged ever since. It explores the interplay of biography, culture, and history, and represents the sociological imagination promoted by Wright Mills. The turn, generally speaking, is a reaction against the positivistic domination grounded in social research, emphasizing the role of individual subjectivity and human agency in social life. The turn tries to overcome a series of dualisms or dichotomies inherent in traditional sociological theories. It intends to guide sociologists to rethink about the conceptual framework, topics of enquiry, and also the procedures and practices at the heart of sociology and other social sciences. However, this emergent turn remains controversial. Pierre Bourdieu even denounces it as an illusion. Despite this, biographical sociology will claim a bigger place in academic research with the coming of socalled “the age of biography”. For its further growth, biographical sociology needs to develop its own framework, referring to  classic sociological theories,and also to advance its capability of producing original knowledge about social structure and process from the study of individual life stories.

Key words: (the) biographical turn, sociological autobiography, biography, auto/biographical sociology, biographical illusion