Lester Ward and Patrick Geddes in early American and British sociology

Lybeck, Eric

doi:10.1177/0952695113479788

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…In most accounts Geddes appears as an eccentric, marginal figure who spawned a largely ineffectual 'movement' between the wars that petered out as soon as sociology professionalised (Abrams, 1968;Bulmer, 1985;Bulmer, Bales, and Sklar, 1991;Kent, 1981). There is, of course, some element of truth in this: the 'movement' at Le Play House was institutionally weak, and Geddes was marginalised, deliberately so, by the sociological establishment at the LSE (Lybeck, 2013). But I have argued in this article that we should see regional survey less as an institutionally bound 'movement' than a methodological spirit present at the birth of the social sciences, which animated a wide range of research across the first half of the 20th century.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The regional survey movement and popular autoethnography in early 20th-century Britain

Parker

2023

History of the Human Sciences

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This article’s subject is the theory and practice of ‘regional survey’, the method of social and environmental study associated with Scottish thinker Patrick Geddes (1854–1932). Despite being overlooked or dismissed in most accounts of early 20th-century social science, regional survey had a wide influence on the development of the nascent disciplines of anthropology, sociology, and human geography. Emerging from late 19th-century field biology, the regional survey came to typify a methodological moment in the natural and social sciences that favoured the holistic analysis of geographically delimited areas. By the interwar period, the kinds of projects that went under its name can clearly be seen as forerunners of the post-Second World War tradition of community studies. Additionally, in its self-presentation as a civic, participatory exercise, the regional survey can be read as a form of popular autoethnography that contrasts with other, more familiar social-scientific ventures in the first half of the 20th century, and defies the dichotomy between ‘gentlemanly’ and ‘technical’ modes of social science. As a result, this article argues, the regional survey provides an alternative point of departure for thinking about the origins and development of the modern social sciences in Britain.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The regional survey movement and popular autoethnography in early 20th-century Britain

Parker

2023

History of the Human Sciences

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“…The foundation of the first sociology department in America reflected the broader trend toward autonomy and expertise within the social sciences. Indeed, sociology was a kind of catchall term for the social sciences in general, a consequence of the Comtean ambition to be the queen of the sciences (Chriss 2006;Lybeck 2013). But, the broader ambition of sociology as the central discipline of a projected national university was quickly dispersed, nearly as soon as the department so named was established at the University of Chicago in 1895.…”

Section: German Historical Jurisprudence and The Origin Of Social Scimentioning

confidence: 99%

Ajurisdiction

Lybeck

2019

Theor Soc

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Sociologists have long recognized the fragmentation our discipline's knowledge, but few explanations go beyond Bnew internalist^studies of practices. Abbott's scholarship in the topic areas of professions and disciplines is synthesized here to highlight a condition identified as Bajurisdiction,^or, the absence of professional responsibility. Ajurisdiction explains sociological fragmentation by situating the development of sociology within broader historical contexts: first, within the history of the academic profession, in general; and, secondly, within wider systems of professions and power. Beginning with the origins of the social sciences in German legal science, this article tracks the historical interactions between professional and academic knowledge to explain sociology's ajurisdictional condition. The theoretical framework and concept positions the academic profession in a unique position in relation to abstract knowledge, a relation that affects the internal differentiation of knowledge between and within disciplines and professional faculties as demonstrated by the case of sociology and law.

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“…This was a “sociable” research venture. Their connections with the Chicago ethnographers, natural science methodologies, and urban renewal programs demonstrate the international and innovative possibilities of their “amateur” approach (Lybeck ). To use the term “interdisciplinary” would be wrong, because “discipline” was not the field of practice but rather the problem at hand, which, as Mills () stated, should be the catalyst for selecting methods and data.…”

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confidence: 99%

Drawing as Radical Multimodality: Salvaging Patrick Geddes's Material Methodology

Hurdley

Biddulph

Backhaus

et al. 2017

American Anthropologist

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This essay, which is accompanied by a collective online sketchbook on the American Anthropologist website, is about drawing as a research methodology. 1 Drawing, like writing, is a craft that can be learned. It is a radical social research method, recalling the lost, undisciplined roots of research into "folk, work, place" in Britain-roots that this essay explores through the Foundations of British Sociology: The Sociological Review Archive at Keele University (Keele University 2010). Too many scholars now research "materiality" as an armchair topic. Multimodality-a young, cross-disciplinary, and still unformed aggregation of research topics, designs, methods, and methodologies-is threatened by the haste to adopt ever-new technologies. Through "slowest" practice, we can begin to understand, first, how salvaged methodologies might transform current practices and, second, how human capacities are limited, channeled, and lost in the race to innovate. Through practicing and developing material methodology, researchers can reshape dominant theories of modernity, because how we make knowledge is critical for fashioning alternative pasts, presents, and futures.

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Lester Ward and Patrick Geddes in early American and British sociology

Cited by 4 publications

References 24 publications

The regional survey movement and popular autoethnography in early 20th-century Britain

The regional survey movement and popular autoethnography in early 20th-century Britain

Ajurisdiction

Drawing as Radical Multimodality: Salvaging Patrick Geddes's Material Methodology

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