The sociology of sociological knowledge: New paths of a research program

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Fran Osrecki
• Subject Area: Sociological Theory
• Term: from 2017 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 339219367

How to analyze the structures of sociological knowledge with a sociological toolkit and what social processes and practices constitute sociological knowledge production? Such questions have been formulated from very different perspectives. Most of them, however, were discontinued, stayed unconnected or remained isolated from mainstream approaches in sociology . To integrate and to further develop these debates, five interrelated topics will be addressed in the research network.(1) Prospects and problems of importing concepts of science and technology studies into the study of sociological knowledge, (2) structures and processes of paradigm shifts in sociology, (3) comparative analyses of methods in analyzing sociological knowledge, (4) structures and transformations of academic and non-academic publics of sociological knowledge and (5) continuities and disruptions in disciplinary identities in sociology. With this background, the research network aims at institutionalizing the sociology of sociological knowledge as a research field in German-speaking sociology, at integrating it more closely with international debates in this area, and, by means of cooperative meetings, publications and visible communication formats, at supporting early career researchers in the network.

• DFG Programme: Scientific Networks