Disciplinary Institutionalization and Reconfiguration of Sociological Theory

Сontemporary changes in social sciences involve emergence and spread of practices that transgress established disciplinary boundaries. Scientific disciplines imply not only conventional classification categories arranging forms of knowledge, but are perceived as structured by the world itself. Disciplinary divisions between social sciences are increasingly evoking a sense of arbitrariness and contingency rather than of natural predetermination and embeddedness. The most profound changes in modern sociological theory are caused by the desire to rethink and overcome conceptual gaps formed in the course of institutionalizing of socio-humanitarian disciplines. These conceptual transformations may be considered as indicators and factors of modern civilizational dynamics. However, not all research activities that go beyond a discipline lead to disappearance of or threaten existence of disciplinary boundaries. Taking into account the multidirectional and incomplete character of the changes, a thesis is argued for about reconfiguring the disciplinary space of modern social sciences. To analyze various forms and directions of disciplinary reconfiguration, the article proposes to scheme of seven phases in social sciences disciplinary development: pre-disciplinary, mono-disciplinary, multi-, inter-, anti-, trans-, and post-disciplinary phases. Current situation in the social sciences is characterized by intersections and weird interactions of the above phases, where different phases are in different interrelations with each other.

Keywords

sociological theory, disciplines, phases of disciplinary development of social sciences, disciplinarities, civilizational analysis, modernity

Acknowledgment

The work was supported by RFBR (project No. 19-011-00950).

Received

12.10.2019

Publication date

13.10.2019

Number of characters

28722

Cite

GOST	Braslavskiy R. Disciplinary Institutionalization and Reconfiguration of Sociological Theory // Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya – 2019. – Issue 10 C. 3-14 [Electronic resource]. URL: http://ras.jes.su/socis/s013216250007099-1-1-en (circulation date: 13.10.2024). DOI: 10.31857/S013216250007099-1
MLA	Braslavskiy, Ruslan G. "Disciplinary Institutionalization and Reconfiguration of Sociological Theory." Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya 10 (2019):3-14. DOI: 10.31857/S013216250007099-1
APA	Braslavskiy R. (2019). Disciplinary Institutionalization and Reconfiguration of Sociological Theory. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya (10), pp.3-14 DOI: 10.31857/S013216250007099-1

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