Writing national histories of sociology: Methods, approaches and visions

Abstract

There has been a renewal of interest in the writing of national histories of sociology, with dozens of histories recently published in both the global North and South. Despite this, there has been a dearth of discussion about the methods and methodologies appropriate to such a task. Indeed, few histories of sociology, and fewer still national histories of sociology, explicitly address methodology. In this study, we review the literature on histories of sociology from a variety of countries, focusing on how the authors have approached the writing of history, and their implicit use of methods and methodologies. We suggest the use of a content analysis as an additional, though perhaps unusual, method of historiography, and apply this in the case of an Australian history of sociology. Our content analysis reveals both similarities and differences in the Australian approach, indicating the impact of settler-colonialism on Australian sociology and its historiography.