Lay People

THE APPROPRIATION OF SOCIAL SCIENCE KNOWLEDGE BY 'LAY PEOPLE ':
THE DEVELOPMENT OF A LAY SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION?

Anne Mesny
Trinity College

Thesis submitted to the
Faculty of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Cambridge for the degree of Ph.D.

December 1998

THE APPROPRIATION OF SOCIAL SCIENCE KNOWLEDGE BY 'LAY PEOPLE ':
THE DEVELOPMENT OF A LAY SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION?
Anne Mesny
Summary of the thesis
This thesis is a critical discussion of the significance of social science knowledge in contemporary society. It consists in asserting the pervasiveness of the process whereby 'lay people ' routinely appropriate social science knowledge in the context of day-to-day life.
The core argument of the thesis is that lay people have developed a 'sociological imagination ', which is fuelled by the routine appropriation of social science knowledge, and which marks the construction of self-identity.
The first chapter is devoted to the characterisation of day-to-day life in contemporary society. I examine the 'reflexive modernity thesis ' and argue that lay appropriation of expert knowledge is an omnipresent process of day-to-day life, which refers to the 'reflexive project of the self ' in which every individual is engaged. This theoretical framework enables me, in the second chapter, to challenge traditional conceptions of the use of social science, which leave no place for the process of appropriation of social science knowledge by lay people.
In the third chapter, I argue that lay appropriation of social science knowledge should be seen as a crucial manifestation of the reflexive process between social science knowledge and its 'subjects '. This argument is extended in the fourth chapter, which consists in a critical discussion of the relationship between social science and common sense, and in the presentation of a socio-historical conception of common sense.
The last two chapters are devoted to the main proposition of the thesis about the development of a lay sociological imagination. The fifth chapter is a critical discussion of
Bourdieu’s recent work, in which he exposes his conception of the relationship between sociology and ‘lay people’. In the final chapter, I define 'sociological imagination ' as the capacity to 'see the social in the individual '. I argue that ordinary knowledgeability, in a period of reflexive modernity, includes the capacity to 'see the social in the individual '. Lay people, in other words, have developed a ‘lay sociological imagination’

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Introduction

1

CHAPTER 1
DAY-TO-DAY LIFE IN 'REFLEXIVE MODERNITY '

7

1.1 Reflexive modernity
1.1.1 Institutional reflexivity
1.1.2 Reflexivity of the self

9
9
13

1.2 Individual reflexivity and expert knowledge
1.2.1 The problematisation of day-to-day life
17
1.2.2 Lay appropriation of expert knowledge
22
1.2.3 Expertise dependency

17

1.3 Individualisation, expert knowledge and self-identity
1.3.1 A ‘reflexive project of the self’?
30
1.3.2 Individualisation: the ‘dissolution of the social into the self’

30

27

36

CHAPTER 2
SOCIAL SCIENCE KNOWLEDGE AS A DAY-TO-DAY 'REFLEXIVE RESOURCE '

46

2.1 Traditional assumptions about the ‘uses’ of social science knowledge
2.1.1 Assumption 1: 'policy-makers are the primary users of social science knowledge '
2.1.2 Assumption 2: 'the use of social science knowledge can be controlled and evaluated '
2.1.3 Assumption 3: 'the use of social science knowledge by lay people is an indirect, long-term and chancy process '

47

2.2 Social science knowledge as a reflexive resource
2.2.1 The diffusion of social science knowledge
2.2.2 The popularisation of social science knowledge
2.2.3 An uncontrollable and ‘undemonstrable’ use

59
59
64
67

2.3 Social science knowledge and reflexive modernity

71

47
51
56

2.3.1 Social science and institutional reflexivity
2.3.2 Social science knowledge and the reflexive project of the self
73
CHAPTER 3
THE APPROPRIATION OF SOCIAL SCIENCE KNOWLEDGE BY ITS 'SUBJECTS '
3.1 The reflexive process between social science and its 'subjects '
3.1.1 The natural science approach
3.1.2 The reflexivity of social science
82

71

78
79
79

3.2 The relationship between the researcher and the researched
85
3.2.1 Protecting the people under study from the risks of social inquiry
3.2.2 Neutralising the resistance of the people under study
3.2.3 Participatory research

85
89
94

3.3. The appropriation of social science knowledge by its 'subjects '
3.3.1 The reflexivity of social science in a period of reflexive modernity
3.3.2 The responsibility of social scientists

98
98
101

CHAPTER 4
ORDINARY KNOWLEDGEABILITY AND THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOCIAL
SCIENCE AND COMMON SENSE

105

4.1 Common sense as a form of knowledge: ordinary knowledgeability
107
4.1.1 Practical and non-reflexive knowledge
107
4.1.2 A form of knowledge driven by a practical interest and oriented toward control
111
4.1.3 First-hand knowledge

116

4.2 A transformation of ordinary knowledgeability?
4.2.1 Common sense as transformable knowledge
4.2.2 Increased reflexivity?

119
119
120

4.3 The relationship between commonsensical claims and social scientific claims

125

4.3.1 The superiority of social science knowledge over common sense knowledge
125
4.3.2 The homology between scientific and lay theories
130
4.3.3 The transformation of social science knowledge into common sense knowledge 133
4.3.4 Moscovici’s theory of social representations
138

CHAPTER 5

SOCIOLOGY AND ‘LAY PEOPLE’:
A CRITICAL DISCUSSION OF BOURDIEU’S RECENT WORK

143

5.1 The usefulness of sociology
5.1.1 The power of naming
5.1.2 Sociology, common sense and reflexivity
5.1.3 Freedom, social determinants and collective responsibility
5.1.4 Sociology for whom?

146
146
148
153
156

5.2 The conditions and limits of a lay appropriation of sociological knowledge
161
5.2.1 Symbolic violence
5.2.2 Lay people’s sens pratique and sociologists’ scholastic posture
5.2.3 Lay people’s limited capacities for reflexivity
5.2.4 The ‘scholastic fallacy’

161
164
167
173

5.3 The sociological interview as the occasion for a lay appropriation of sociological knowledge
5.3.1 A provoked and accompanied self-analysis
5.3.2 Objectification and resistance to objectification
180
5.3.3 The produced naïveté of lay people

CHAPTER 6

175
175

183

'SEEING THE SOCIAL IN THE INDIVIDUAL ':

THE DEVELOPMENT OF A LAY SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION?

191

6.1 Outlines of a lay sociological imagination
6.1.1 Sociologists’ distinctive competence?
6.1.2 A component of ordinary knowledgeability

193
193
198

6.1.3 A lay sociological imagination in an individualised society?
6.1.4 Sociological imagination, empowerment and disempowerment
209

203

6.2 Exploring lay sociological imagination: revisiting the relationship between the researcher and the researched
214
6.2.1 ‘Giving a voice’ to lay people: the use of life-stories in sociology
214
6.2.2 Studying/enacting a lay sociological imagination: a comparison with Touraine 's method of 'sociological intervention '
219
6.2.3 The empirical study of a lay sociological imagination
223
Conclusion
Bibliography

231
238

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Professor Anthony Giddens, who was my supervisor for three and a half years, and who supported me until the completion of the thesis.
I am extremely grateful to Professor William Outhwaite for agreeing to supervise me through the last segments of my work, and for reassuring me at a stage when I had run out of self-confidence.
I could never have completed this work without the unfailing support of Michel Audet. His frequent and detailed comments on my work have helped me greatly. His encouragements during the period of writing up, transmitted through almost daily e-mails, have been invaluable. I am indebted to Jacinthe Ruel, whose friendship has been extremely precious to me during these four years, and who had to endure me during difficult months. I can only apologise for having been such a detestable person to live with.

I also want to thank Isabelle Dostaler, Marie Larochelle, Véronique Mottier, Ellen
O 'Hagan, Natacha and Mark Wilson, as well as my family, who helped me at various times and in various ways during these four years. My gratitude also extends to the staff at the
Arundel House Hotel. The hours spent there as a waitress have been a vital, and enjoyable, counterpart of the hours spent as a Ph.D student.
Finally, I would like to thank Trinity College for the financial support without which I would not have been able to complete my Ph.D. in Cambridge. I am especially grateful to
Hazel Felton and to Dr. Morley for their kindness and support.

***

To Grant, Ruth, Tiffany, Phil, Sarah, Simon, Cath, David,
Lorraine, Joe, Peggy, Nigel, Carol, Marc, Pauline, Alan,
Ricky, Tony, and Bianca, whose sociological imagination has inspired this work.

INTRODUCTION

[Tiffany]: 'I mean, look at us, me and my baby-daughter living here with my brother and his boyfriend, who is also my ex-boyfriend, and who may or may not be my daughter 's father... a brilliant picture of the 'collapse of the nuclear family ', hey? ' (East Enders, BBC1, February 1997).
Social science knowledge is everywhere. Just as Mr. Jourdain in Molière 's
Bourgeois Gentilhomme was speaking in prose without knowing it, we all routinely, without necessarily being aware of it, 'use ' notions and ideas derived from social science in order to make sense of our day-to-day lives. That 'lay people ', whose voice Tiffany 's comment above is supposed to illustrate, routinely appropriate social science knowledge for making sense of what happens to them is the fundamental idea which gave this thesis its impetus. This idea immediately raises two issues regarding, first, the category of social science knowledge and, second, the process of appropriation of such knowledge by lay people. I suspect that many social scientists would contest that 'the collapse of the nuclear family ' is a social scientific notion and, more importantly, that Tiffany 's comment indicates a form or 'use ' of social science knowledge by lay people. I shall argue that social scientists tend to have a restrictive and misleading conception of 'social science knowledge ', and of the uses of that knowledge, which partly accounts for them being oblivious, or suspicious, of the process of lay appropriation of social science knowledge. This suspicion originates in the two assumptions that there is a clear demarcation between the sphere of science and the sphere of day-to-day life, and that the 'use ' of scientific knowledge by lay people systematically implies the distortion and the denaturation of scientific knowledge. A frequent corollary of such assumptions is that the misuse, or the ‘abuse’, of scientific knowledge by lay people is not directly scientists ' concern.
It is certainly true that lay people often appropriate knowledge claims that are removed from their contexts, that they do not necessarily appropriate all the ideas that are 'attached ' to a particular social science concept, and that they give meaning to scientific

notions and arguments that can be at odds with the original meanings intended by the researchers. Rather than dismissing these processes as a form of abuse of social science, I suggest that they refer, on the contrary, to a positive form of appropriation of knowledge.
The term 'appropriation ' is aimed precisely at providing a positive concept to refer to the relation of lay people to social science knowledge, that is, a concept that breaks away from the notion of 'abuse ' mentioned above, and even from the notion of ‘use’. The term 'lay people ' also deserves an introductory remark: 'lay people ' refer to virtually everyone of us: the process I examine in the dissertation is the appropriation of social science knowledge in the context of day-to-day life, that is, outside the professional activity of producing and 'applying ' scientific knowledge1.
The analytical foundation of the thesis consists in bringing together two separate ranges of issues which have so far been addressed independently of each other by social scientists. The first range of issues concerns the transformations of day-to-day life in contemporary society, and especially the transformations affecting the construction of 'selfidentity '. These issues refer to broad-ranging and contested notions, such as detraditionalisation and individualisation, and to the place of expert knowledge in contemporary society. The second range of issues seems at first sight more restricted in scope, insofar as it belongs to the field of the epistemology of social science. It refers, more specifically, to the relation between social science knowledge and its 'subjects ' or, in other terms, to the relation between social science and common sense. Instead of addressing this epistemological issue in an a-sociological and a-historical way, I will approach it, and reconsider it, in light of the analysis of the transformations of day-to-day life in contemporary society. By the same token, importing, as it were, the epistemological discussion of the relation between social science and common sense into the sociological analysis of contemporary day-to-day life will shed a new light on the latter.

1 Thus, for example, 'policy-makers ' are included in my category of 'lay people ': they are 'experts ' in the way they 'use ' social science knowledge in their professional activity of policy-making, but they are 'lay people ' in the way they routinely appropriate social science knowledge in their day-to-day lives, that is, outside the context of their professional activity. Reflexivity has been a major concept used in various ways for characterising the current period. In the first chapter of the thesis, I discuss the 'reflexive modernity thesis ', as developed in particular by Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddens. The reflexive modernity thesis consists in interpreting major processes, such as detraditionalisation and individualisation, in terms of a generalisation, and a radicalisation, of reflexivity. I focus on the sphere of day-to-day life, and examine the idea that people, in today’s society, are increasingly reflexive regarding their own lives and their own practices. Although I contest some of the arguments made by theorists of ‘reflexive modernity’, their general argument about a radicalisation of institutional reflexivity and of a ‘reflexivity of the self’ is, in my view, a valid one. Day-to-day life loses its 'natural ' and 'given ' character and becomes increasingly problematised. This problematisation process concerns in particular selfidentity: in a period of ‘reflexive modernity’, self-identity becomes a project which is enmeshed in the routine activities of day-to-day life, and which involves the continuous elaboration and revision of self-narratives. It is in the context of this argument about an increased individual reflexivity that I situate the process of lay appropriation of expert knowledge. Expert knowledge is an important ‘reflexive resource’ routinely used by lay people for their ‘reflexive project of the self’.
The second chapter marks the transition between the two ranges of issues identified above, that is, between issues relating to the transformations of day-to-day life and of the relation of lay people to expert knowledge on one hand, and issues relating to social science and to the relation between social science knowledge and its 'subjects ' on the other. Social science knowledge is a particular form of expert knowledge and, as such, it is routinely appropriated by lay people as a 'reflexive resource ' for making sense of their lives and for elaborating their self-narratives. This argument indicates a form of ‘use’ and of possible
‘usefulness’ of social science, that have been little acknowledged by social scientists themselves. As already suggested, this neglect partly refers, in my view, to a restricted conception of the category of ‘social science knowledge’. Social science knowledge, in the perspective developed in the thesis, includes forms of non-academic and popular knowledge derived from, or akin to, social science, and which are ubiquitous in the mass media. A piece of social statistics, for example, or the media report of a psychological

study, are included in the category of social science knowledge, although they might not be identified as such by those who mediate and who use that knowledge.
Some would argue, for example, that the statement 'in Britain most youngsters leave home between their late teens and early twenties '2 is not social science knowledge, but merely the statement of a 'social fact '. Yet my point is that the very idea of 'social facts ' is tied up with the development of social science, and that these 'social facts ' are established through forms of systematic social inquiry akin to social science. Although the very idea of 'fact ' tends to suggest the 'given ', rather than the constructed, character of this knowledge, social facts are constructed on the basis of fundamental assumptions about the social world which are in turn directly connected with social science. Social science knowledge, in this enlarged sense, is omnipresent in day-to-day life, and is continuously used by lay people, although social scientists discussing the 'uses ' of social science have often failed to acknowledge that social science knowledge has become a vernacular reflexive resource for experts and lay people alike.
Social scientists have long acknowledged the process whereby the knowledge they produce is reflexively appropriated by their 'subjects ', that is, by the people this knowledge is about. This epistemological debate, however, has generally been kept separate from the socio-historical analysis of the concrete conditions of this process of appropriation. To that extent, the significance of the reflexive process between social science and its ‘subjects’ has been overlooked. The routine appropriation of social science knowledge by lay people can be seen as the generalisation, and as the radicalisation, of the reflexive process whereby the researched, that is, the 'subjects ' of social science, appropriate the knowledge produced about them by the researcher. In the third chapter, I conduct a critical discussion of the relation between social scientists and their 'subjects '. The chapter focuses on social inquiry itself, and on the relationship between the 'researcher ' and the 'researched '. By examining the ways by which social scientists have tried to resist, to control, or to encourage the reflexive process between social science knowledge and its 'subjects ', I raise important

2 The Independent, 2 July 1997.

issues regarding the relation of lay people to social science knowledge and regarding the role and responsibility of social scientists.
Beyond the context of the research situation, and of the relation between the researcher and the researched, the relation between social science knowledge and lay people has been addressed in terms of the relation between social science and common sense. The scientific legitimacy of social science has been based on the argument that social science knowledge breaks with common sense knowledge. This argument is examined in detail in the fourth chapter, in which I distinguish two levels of analysis, namely the level of ordinary knowledgeability, and the level of commonsensical knowledge claims. At the first level, it is often argued that common sense refers to a form of ordinary knowledgeability that is fundamentally different from social scientists ' knowledgeability. In contrast, I argue that, first, ordinary knowledgeability is an evolving form of knowledge, and that, second, a crucial aspect of the transformation of ordinary knowledgeability in a period of reflexive modernity concerns people’s capacity to be reflexive regarding their own practice. At the second level, namely that of knowledge claims, I explore the process of incorporation of social science knowledge into common sense knowledge, in contrast to the traditional view which states that social scientific claims systematically breaks with commonsensical claims.
In the last two chapters of the dissertation, I develop the main proposition regarding the development of a lay sociological imagination. The discussion of the fourth chapter about the transformation of ordinary knowledgeability leads me to argue that lay people 's knowledgeability increasingly includes the capacity to adopt a ‘theoretical posture’ regarding their own practices. In other words, the reflexivity of ordinary action does not refer only to ‘practical consciousness’, or to what Bourdieu calls ‘practical sense’ [sens pratique]. The fifth chapter of the thesis is a critical discussion of Bourdieu 's recent work regarding his conception of the relationship between sociology and lay people. By assuming that ordinary people’s relation to the social world is based on their ‘practical posture’ - in contrast to the ‘theoretical posture’ of social scientists - I argue that Bourdieu mistakenly views people as ‘sociologically naïve’, that is, as incapable of ‘objectifying’ and

analysing their lives the way sociologists do. I focus in particular on the collective work La
Misère du monde in which Bourdieu and his colleagues ‘give a voice’ to a large number of ordinary people, whose self-narratives are exposed in the book. I suggest that the sociological naiveté of these self-narratives is produced by Bourdieu methodological and epistemological options. The possibility of revising these options leads to question the sociological naiveté of the people studied.
In the last chapter, I generalise the argument made about Bourdieu, by suggesting that social scientists in general have tended to treat lay people as 'sociologically naïve '. This tendency is manifest in works which aim at 'giving a voice ' to lay people, for example works based on the exploration of people 's life-stories. Ordinary people’s life-stories and self-narratives are usually treated as sociologically naïve accounts, on which the sociologist can imprint, as it were, his or her sociological imagination. In contrast, I suggest that lay people have developed a lay sociological imagination which marks the way in which they make sense of their lives and actions. A lay sociological imagination consists in a particular way of ‘seeing the social in the individual’, that is, of relating one’s individual and personal experience to collective, public, and global social processes. Sociological imagination, in short, is a particular way of being reflexive about one’s own life, and corresponds to a form of individual reflexivity and of ordinary knowledgeability that are characteristic of our time. Sociological imagination, in particular, offers a way to articulate one’s sense of control and of responsibility. It provides people with a way to address the fundamental tension between lack of control and responsibility that conditions of reflexive modernity implies. This dissertation is the result of my own work and includes nothing which is the outcome of work done in collaboration. It does not exceed 80.000 words in length.

CHAPTER 1
DAY-TO-DAY LIFE IN 'REFLEXIVE MODERNITY '

The characterisation of today 's society and the task of determining how, or 'how much ', it differs from previous periods, are always at risks of falling into either one of two opposite pitfalls. One is the tendency to overstate the unprecedented character of contemporary social processes. The other, aiming at counteracting this short-sightedness, consists in assuming that, on the contrary, 'nothing ever really changes '3. There has been no shortage of theories about the transformations that mark day-to-day life in contemporary society. There is little doubt that some of these transformations refer to truly unprecedented social processes. Yet it seems fair to say that, in the course of this form of ‘modest legislation’ (Law, 1994: 33), sociologists have not always succeeded in avoiding the first pitfall which prompts them to celebrate, or to denounce, the accomplishment of social processes which are still very much in the making, or which are not as clear-cut as they assume. The idea that contemporary society is a detraditionalised society, for example, has been increasingly put into question in the past ten years, and so has the notion of postmodernity. Clear-cut categorisations have left place to the idea that ‘postmodernity, modernity and tradition coexist simultaneously, even within the same society’ (Mestrovic,
1998: 18).
My concern in this opening chapter is not to review the countless theories about contemporary society, a task which would be beyond the scope of a dissertation, let alone a chapter. Rather, I focus on a particular conception of today 's society, namely what can be called the ‘reflexive modernity thesis’. It primarily refers to the recent work of Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddens and, to a lesser degree, to that of Scott Lash4 and Zygmunt
3 These two pitfalls correspond to what Bourdieu (1996: 49) calls two ‘symmetrical illusions’ that the sociologist should avoid, namely the illusion that ‘this has never been the case before’ [illusion du ‘jamais vu’] and the illusion that ‘it has always been so’ [illusion du ‘toujours ainsi’].
4 Beck, Giddens and Lash are co-authors of a book called Reflexive Modernisation.
Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order (1994), in which they

Bauman5. The reflexive modernity thesis is based on the idea that one of the chief characteristics of today 's society is its pervasive reflexivity, which is both institutional and individual. At the institutional level, reflexivity means that society becomes an object to itself and that knowledge about social practices continuously re-enters the very practices which it was coined to characterise. At the individual level, the reflexive modernity thesis suggests that people are increasingly reflexive about their own lives and practices, and that they are engaged into what Giddens calls a ‘reflexive project of the self’. The chapter, thus, will seek to answer questions such as ‘in what way contemporary society can be said to be
‘reflexive’, and in what way individuals can be said to be reflexive, or ‘more’ reflexive than ever before?
The focus will be primarily on ‘individual’ reflexivity and on the conception of dayto-day life on which it draws. In particular I will examine the relationship, which plays an important role in the reflexive modernity thesis, between reflexivity and expert knowledge.
The multiplication of expert claims, their heterogeneity, and their intrusion in day-to-day life through the mass media, are seen as a major basis for the development or reflexivity.
For theorists of reflexive modernity, lay people appropriate expert knowledge in a more or less continuous basis. In a ‘detraditionalised’ and ‘individualised’ society, lay people problematise what used to be taken-for-granted, and continuously appropriate new knowledge - including expert knowledge - about their practices, this knowledge thereby becoming constitutive of their practices. Expert knowledge also plays an important role in the reflexive project of the self, that is, in the continuous construction and reconstruction of one 's self-identity through the routine elaboration of self-narratives. Expert knowledge, thus, can be seen as a significant 'reflexive resource ' for the construction of self-identity.

confront their respective views on reflexive modernisation, and establish links between what were, until then, pieces of research prepared independently of one another.
5 Some of Bauman’s arguments about ‘postmodernity’ oppose Beck and Giddens’ views about reflexive modernisation (in contrast to Bauman, Beck and Giddens reject the notion of ‘postmodernity’). Yet the views of the three authors are very similar (Warde, 1994) regarding self-identity and the notion of ‘reflexive project of the self’.

The chapter breaks down into three main parts. In the first part, I discuss Beck and
Giddens’ major arguments regarding institutional and individual reflexivity, as well as several points of criticism which have been addressed to the reflexive modernity thesis, especially to the argument about an increased reflexivity of the self. I then turn to the question of the relationship between individual reflexivity and expert knowledge. Two contrasting theses have been developed regarding the way lay people relate to expert knowledge: one one hand, it has been argued that conditions of reflexive modernity enable the continous appropriation of expert knowledge by lay people; on the other hand, many have stressed the new forms of expertise dependency which pervade day-to-day life. I argue that expert knowledge has become an important ‘reflexive resource’ for lay people and I discuss the notion of ‘appropriation’, which will be further defined in the next two chapters of the dissertation. Finally, the third part of the chapter is devoted to the ‘reflexive project of the self’. I examine in what ways it can be argued that self-identity is now fuelled by an unprecedented reflexivity. This will lead me to question the notion of individualisation, which is an important concept of the reflexive modernity thesis but which, in my view, has been misconceived with respect to the assumed ‘ontology through which we think ourselves’ (Rose, 1996: 319) on which it is based.
1.1 REFLEXIVE MODERNITY
1.1.1 Institutional reflexivity
In its broadest sense, the notion of reflexivity refers to the idea of a ‘bending-back on itself’ (Steier, 1991: 2)6. When used to characterise contemporary society, reflexivity refers to the ‘susceptibility of most aspects of social activity [...] to chronic revision in the
6 The notion of reflexivity has been used in a considerable number of fields of study, which extend far beyond the social sciences, ranging from philosophy and artificial intelligence, to art and economics. Bartlett and Suber (1987) listed as many as twenty-one different contexts in which the notion of reflexivity has been used. This list includes economics, humor, the law, linguistics, literature, mathematics, music, mythology, philosophy, physics, political science, and sociology. Although the phenomena referred to in all these disciplines are by no means homogeneous nor even comparable, they all refer to the idea of a ‘turningback on itself’.

light of new information or knowledge’ (Giddens, 1991a: 20). This conception of reflexivity has been developed in particular by Giddens, who systematically associates modernity7 with what he calls 'institutional reflexivity ', which he defines as follows:
[institutional reflexivity is] the reflexivity of modernity, involving the routine incorporation of new knowledge or information into environments of action that are thereby reconstituted or reorganised (Giddens, 1991a: 243).
Reflexivity is institutional insofar as it is ‘introduced into the very basis of system reproduction’ (Giddens, 1990: 38). In contrast to Beck, Giddens does not claim that reflexivity characterises only the latest stage of modern development. Rather, modernity and reflexivity are seen to be inseparable from each other. In particular, reflexivity is the defining characteristic of modern organisations: the latter are characterised ‘not so much
[by] their size, or [by] their bureaucratic character, as [by] the concentrated reflexive monitoring they both permit and entail’ (Giddens, 1991a: 16). In the current period, however, reflexivity becomes radicalised and intensified, applying to almost all aspects of social life, and pervading the private sphere and the sphere of day-to-day life. It is this radicalisation and intensification of society 's reflexivity which leads Giddens to accept the term of 'reflexive modernity ', developed primarily by Beck, for characterising the current period8. Institutional reflexivity crucially differs from the mere generalisation of the 'application ' of expert knowledge to social practices. The idea of institutional reflexivity opposes the idea of a controllable process of application of knowledge. The expansion of
7 For Giddens, modernity refers to 'modes of social life or organization which emerged in
Europe from about the seventeenth century onwards and which subsequently became more or less worldwide in their influence ' (1990: 1).
8 Rather than 'reflexive modernity ', Giddens usually prefers the term of 'late (or high) modernity ', which refers to 'the current phase of development of modern institutions, marked by the radicalizing and globalising of basic traits of modernity ' (Giddens,
1991a: 243). Both Beck and Giddens regard the present period as a radicalisation of, rather than a shift away from, modernity: ‘Rather than entering a period of post-modernity, we are moving into one in which the consequences of modernity are becoming more radicalised and universalised than before’ (Giddens, 1990: 3). Beck is even more skeptical about the concept of 'post-modernity ': '"Post" is the expression of sociological helplessness. "Post" is also the expression of mental laziness in sociology ' (Beck, 1992c: 199).

reflexivity produces a fundamental turbulence, which refers to the impossibility of separating social life from knowledge about social life. This crucial aspect of institutional reflexivity is stressed very clearly by Giddens:
The social world can never form a stable environment in terms of the input of new knowledge about its character and functioning. New knowledge
(concepts, theories, findings) does not simply render the social world more transparent, but alters its nature, spinning it off in novel directions (Giddens,
1990: 153).
The reflexivity of contemporary society therefore implies a fundamental dislocation between knowledge and control: more knowledge about the social world is not paralleled by a better control over the social world. On the contrary, more knowledge of the social world accentuates its ‘uncontrollability’:
We can no longer hold to the view that increasing knowledge about the social and material worlds allows us thereby rationally to control them. The socialisation of nature and the reflexive constitution of social systems are both expressions of intensified human intervention into processes once determined by 'given ' conditions. Yet this self-same intervention creates an erratic, runaway world and sets up new types of individual and collective risk which we must face (Giddens, 1991b: xv).
The idea that the generalisation of the 'use ' of expert knowledge about society is coextensive with an increase in the 'uncontrollability ' of society is, in my view, a crucial aspect of the 'reflexive modernity ' thesis, and one which is often neglected by authors who study the impact of expert knowledge on contemporary society, and who celebrate the advent of ‘knowledge society’. Institutional reflexivity does not amount to ‘knowledge application’ (Holzner & Marx, 1979) and to the the idea that society views itself as 'an object capable of deliberate change through the systematic use of expert knowledge '
(Holzner & Marx, 1979: 14-15).
Rather, the notion of reflexivity stresses the continuous re-entering of social expert knowledge into the contexts it was coined to characterise. This reflexive process is at odds with the idea of knowledge application, insofar as 'what was supposed to create greater and greater certainty, - the advance of human knowledge and "controlled intervention" into society and nature - is actually deeply involved with the unpredictability [of social life] '

(Giddens, 1994a: 3). In their collective work about reflexive modernisation, Beck, Giddens and Lash (1994) stress the double-edged character of society 's reflexivity, which means that 'the social and natural worlds today are thoroughly infused with reflexive human knowledge; but [that] this does not lead to a situation in which collectively we are the masters of our destiny ' (Beck, Giddens & Lash, 1994: vii).
Uncontrollability is also a chief aspect of Beck 's analysis of 'reflexive modernity '.
Beck understands reflexivity primarily as self-confrontation: contemporary society has to confront the perverse effects it has itself created. His core argument is that, after a phase of 'simple modernisation ' driven by the view of a controlled intervention into society and nature, we have now entered a period of 'reflexive modernisation ' when we have to face the unintended consequences of the very process of modernisation. For Beck, reflexive modernity involves a shift from industrial to what he calls ‘risk society’. The latter is characterised by a growing recognition of the risks and threats resulting from industrial society. More specifically, risk society designates ‘a developmental phase of modern society in which the social, political, ecological and individual risks produced by the dynamics of innovation increasingly elude the monitoring and protecting institutions of industrial society’ (Beck, 1996a: 24).
Beck insists that the reflexivity of contemporary society does not necessarily imply a deliberate activity of reflection and of use of expert knowledge. He regards this point as the major difference between his and Giddens ' conception about reflexivity. As mentioned above, reflexive modernisation, for Beck, is primarily a form of self-confrontation of the consequences of modernisation with the basis of modernisation (Beck, 1996b: 28). As such, it should be clearly distinguished, in his view, 'from the increase in knowledge and the penetration of all spheres of life by science and specialisation in the sense of the selfreflection of modernisation ' (Beck, 1996b: 28). Reflexive modernisation corresponds to a
‘momentous and unreflected basic state of affairs’, which is largely independent 'of the volition and thinking of people’ (Beck, 1996a: 4, 58). Of course, Beck does not deny that this reflexive process of self-confrontation often leads to reflection and to the deliberate use of new knowledge and information. However, his point is that the transition from simple to

reflexive modernity first occurs 'undesired, unseen and compulsively ' (Beck, 1996a: 25), which implies that no particular 'historical agent ' can be held responsible for this transition.
It is crucial, in my view, to acknowledge the two facets of institutional reflexivity, namely, on one hand, the susceptibility of virtually every social practice to being revised and transformed in light of new expert knowledge and, on the other hand, the uncontrollability of such a process, the very 'success ' of which implies turbulence rather than order. It is with respect to this conception of institutional reflexivity that I will examine, in the next chapter, the place of social science knowledge in contemporary society. As a major form of knowledge about society, social science is deeply involved in society’s reflexivity and, consequently, in its ‘turbulence’.
1.1.2 Reflexivity of the self
The core of the 'reflexive modernity thesis ', in my view, is not institutional reflexivity as such. It refers, rather, to the way in which the argument about institutional reflexivity is connected to an argument about individual reflexivity or ‘reflexivity of the self’. Virtually every individual, for Beck, Giddens, and others, develops a form of reflexivity which is characteristic of the current period. This reflexivity means that one has continuously to 'turn back ' upon one’s actions, and to engage in the deliberate reflection upon aspects of day-to-day life which used to be taken-for-granted, instead of being the object of reflection and decision-making as they are now. Aspects of day-to-day life which tended to be seen as ‘natural’, that is, immune to individual action and control, are now seen to be the object of decision and action:
More and more areas and concerns of society that have been considered to be natural (family size, questions of upbringing, choice of profession, mobility, relations between the sexes) are now made social and individual, are thereby held to be accountable and subject to decisions, and are so judged and condemned (Beck, 1996b: 30).
Beck, Giddens and Lash share the same view about the transformation of the very notion of
‘nature’ and of what is considered to be ‘natural’: ‘ “nature” becomes transformed into

areas of action where human beings have to make practical and ethical decisions’ (Beck,
Giddens & Lash, 1994: vii). To that extent, the traditional idea of ‘nature’ becomes obsolete: 'nature - a physical environment of human action existing independently of that action - has all but dissolved ' (Giddens, 1994a: 47).
The form of individual reflexivity characteristic of the current period has to be distinguished, for Giddens, from a more fundamental and a-historical form of reflexivity which he calls the 'reflexive monitoring of action ', and which refers to the idea that 'all human beings routinely "keep in touch" with the grounds of what they do as an integral element of doing it ' (Giddens, 1990: 36-7). The 'reflexive monitoring of action ' is a characteristic of all human action, and is thus distinct from the reflexivity of the self which, for Giddens, is specific to late modernity:
The reflexivity of the self is continuous, as well as all-pervasive. At each moment, or at least at regular intervals, the individual is asked to conduct a self-interrogation in terms of what is happening [...] Reflexivity in this sense belongs to the reflexive historicity of modernity, as distinct from the more generic reflexive monitoring of action (Giddens, 1991: 76).
The argument about an increased individual reflexivity, or ‘reflexivity of the self’, can be challenged on several respects, and is far from being unanimously accepted by social scientists. It has been criticised on at least two accounts. First, it can be argued that lay people today are far from being these 'reflexive ' and self-monitoring agents who continuously decide about their courses of action. As Campbell puts it, the image of the contemporary social actor as someone who, armed with extensive discursive knowledge, is free to choose all his or her actions is simply implausible ' (1996: 149). In his recent critic of
Giddens’ work, Mestrovic (1998) is even more dismissive of the argument about an unprecedented ‘reflexivity of the self’. In his view, ‘contemporary human agents […] do not know what they are doing or why most of the time because the contemporary social world is simply too complex for them to be able to know these things’ (Mestrovic,
1998: 34). Giddens, for Mestrovic, ‘fails to account for the very human phenomenon of the agent not always being able to give an adequate account for what he or she does or feels’
(Ibid.: 194). It seems important, in my view, to acknowledge that the argument about individual reflexivity does certainly not amount to an argument about a new form of

individual omnipotence. Individual reflexivity, as characterised by Giddens and others, does not mean that one is now able to gain such a clear representation of oneself and of the world that one’s and others’ actions are made transparent and obvious. On the contrary, as suggested above, an increased reflexivity implies that many aspects of day-to-day life which, to some extent, were ‘obvious’ and taken-for-granted, have become ‘problematised’.
Another related point consists in arguing that forms of inequality are enmeshed in the ‘reflexivity of the self’, and that this reflexivity, far from concerning every individual equally, only characterises a restricted number of people. To the question ‘is the human agent really as free, knowledgeable and skilled as Giddens claims?’ (Ibid.: 23), Mestrovic’s answer is that ‘there are many agents who clearly are not. For example, the mentally retarded, children, and uneducated are among those who are implicitly left out of Giddens’ emancipatory vision’ (Ibid.: 23). Although they do not, in my view, devote sufficient attention to this process, theorists of reflexive modernity do acknowledge that the expansion of individual reflexivity is pervaded by various forms of inequality. Beck, for example, notes that 'the reflexive conduct of life, the planning of one 's own biography and social relations, gives rise to a new inequality, the inequality of dealing with insecurity and reflexivity ' (Beck 1992a: 98). Beck, however, is not very explicit as to the sources of this new form of inequality, mentioning only that it depends on 'special social and family backgrounds ' (Ibid.). Lash is more specific: he emphasises that reflexive modernisation is not a uniform process, and that it results in both 'reflexivity winners ' and 'reflexivity losers ':
Are there in fact alongside the [...] 'reflexivity winners ' whole battalions of 'reflexivity losers ' in today’s increasingly class-polarized, though decreasingly class-conscious, information societies? [...] How reflexive is it possible for a single mother in an urban ghetto to be? (Lash, 1994: 120).
For Lash, the key to this new form of inequality lies in the agents ' position in the new 'information and communication structures '9.
9 Lash and Urry (1994) argue that traditional social structures - generally national in scope
- are declining in significance, and are being partially displaced by global information and communication structures, which provide the basis for reflexive processes: 'There is indeed a structural basis for today’s reflexive individuals. And [...] this is not social structures, but increasingly the pervasion of information and communication structures ' (Lash & Urry,

The second point of criticism that can be addressed to the argument about an unprecedented ‘reflexivity of the self’ is precisely to argue that such reflexivity is not unprecedented, and is not a distinctive feature of late modernity, when compared to earlier periods. It has been argued, for example, that the propensity to revise one 's practices in light of new knowledge is a characteristic of human action in general. This argument has been made by Adam, in the context of her discussion about detraditionalisation:
Just as tradition is central to contemporary society, so reflexivity is ontological to all of humanity, to what it means to be human: irrespective of the strictness of the rules that regulate social life, there is always room to redefine situations and act in the light of experience and new knowledge (Adam, 1996: 139).
It is indeed important to examine in what way it can be argued that there is a form of individual reflexivity which is specific to contemporary society. As is developed in the third part of the chapter, there are, in my view, a number of elements which do point to an unprecedented form of individual reflexivity.

1.2 INDIVIDUAL REFLEXIVITY AND EXPERT KNOWLEDGE
1.2.1 The problematisation of day-to-day life10
1994: 6). They claim that 'access to information and communication networks, as conditions of reflexivity, is a crucial determinant of class position’ (Ibid.: 319), and that there are ‘wild zones deserted by the mobile informational and communicational structures’
(Ibid.: 10).
10 In sociology, the ‘problematisation of day-to-day life’ can refer to the idea that everyday life has become a topic 'worthy of consideration ', in opposition to the traditional view that the 'non-problematic ' character of everyday life justifies the fact that social scientists want to turn their attention elsewhere. Many schools of thought, theories and theorists,

In the reflexive modernity thesis, the argument about an unprecedented reflexivity of the self is tied up with a discussion about the intrusion of expert knowledge in contemporary day-to-day life. In this discussion, several large-range processes, such as
‘demonopolisation of science’ or ‘detraditionalisation’, are brought to the fore in order to explain what can be understood as the ‘problematisation’ of day-to-day life, or as what
Beck and Beck-Gernsheim call the 'de-routinization of the mundane ' (1996: 29). By this theorists of reflexive modernity mean that domains of social life previously thought of as unproblematic, and previously 'untouched ' by science and expertise, are now problematised and re-considered in the light of scientific and expert knowledge, which people combine with other forms of knowledge in order to make sense of their world. In this view, thus, lay people 'must become used to filtering all sorts of information relevant to their life situations and routinely act on the basis of that filtering process ' (Giddens, 1994: 6).
Among these multiple types of knowledge and information, expert knowledge 'becomes routinely interpreted and acted on by lay individuals in the course of their everyday actions ' (Ibid.: 7), rather than being confined to restricted groups of experts.
Although lay people can ignore expert claims relevant to their life-situations, this 'ignorance ', as it were, is the result of a choice rather than a result of the monopolisation of expert knowledge:

originating from different traditions, are involved in the 'problematisation of day-to-day life ' in social science. Of particular importance in this major turn in the agenda of social scientists are feminist theory and ethnomethodology, but many others could be cited here.
In this perspective, thus, the 'problematisation of day-to-day life ' refers to the idea that the natural, non-problematic, and taken-for-granted character of day-to-day life is a construction, in which a host of complex phenomena are involved, which should receive systematic analysis from social scientists. Thus it is precisely the non-problematic character of day-to-day life which becomes problematised. In the perspective developed in this chapter, the ‘problematisation of day-to-day life’ refers to a fairly different range of phenomena. Here the argument is that, in conditions of reflexive modernity, many aspects of day-to-day life which used to be taken-for-granted become 'problematised ' and the object of explicit reflection on the part of individuals. In this view, the problematisation of day-today life refers not so much to a movement within social science as to a far-ranging process conducted by people in general in the context of day-to-day life.

Information produced by specialists (including scientific knowledge) can no longer be wholly confined to specific groups, but becomes routinely interpreted and acted on by lay individuals in the course of their everyday actions (Ibid.: 7).
As suggested, above, a key concept used by theorists of reflexive modernity in order to make sense of the way lay people relate to expert knowledge is the concept of detraditionalisation. Detraditionalisation implies that aspects of day-to-day life which used to be implicitly resolved by tradition, and were not considered as 'problems ', are now problematised and have to be explicitly worked on, in particular on the basis of expert knowledge. Thus ‘[i]n a society of high reflexivity the regular appropriation of expertise
[...] tends to replace the guidance of tradition’ (Giddens, 1994a: 87).
The notion of detraditionalisation is a controversial one. A number of social scientists have challenged the assumption that contemporary society is a 'detraditionalised society '. ‘Traditional society’, as Wagner puts it, ‘is largely a sociological construct that was developed as a tool of comparison when trying to grasp the present’ (Wagner,
1994: 38). Beck and Giddens, however, are cautious to ‘relativise’ the idea of detraditionalisation, by arguing, first, that it does not involve the eradication of 'traditions '.
Detraditionalisation means, rather, that traditions 'are forced into open view’ and become
‘open to interrogation or discourse’ (Giddens, 1994a: 5-6). Tradition, in other words, becomes one form of 'authority ' among others, and has to 'compete ' in particular with various kinds of expertise: ‘in conditions of high modernity, in many areas of social life, there are no determinant authorities [...]. Forms of traditional authority become only
‘authorities’ among others, part of an indefinite pluralism of expertise’ (Giddens,
1991a: 194-5).
Second, theorists of reflexive modernity make it clear that detraditionalisation does not mean that people are more 'free ' than before from authorities. Detraditionalisation, rather, implies 'a shift from traditional to new and different external authorities ' (Adam,
1996: 139). These new authorities in part refer to scientific and expert knowledge. The authority of modern expertise, however, differs in a significant way from the authority of tradition, insofar as contemporary conditions of expertise 'normally offer multiple

possibilities rather than fixed guidelines or recipes for action ' (Giddens, 1991a: 84). For
Giddens, people are always in a position of choice, since there are often multiple and contradictory expert claims about a single issue. These competing expert claims constitute, as it were, a 'market of interpretations ' (Holzner & Marx, 1979: 305) and people have to decide which interpretation they favour, that is, which authority they choose to trust. We encounter again the idea of ‘demonopolisation of science’: the notion of 'valid ' knowledge is no longer restricted to science: ‘the target groups of the sciences in administration, politics, business and the public sphere become coproducers of socially valid
“knowledge”’ (Beck, 1992a: 172). Scientific findings 'are interrogated, criticised, made use of in common with other reflexively available sources of knowledge ' (Giddens,
1994a: 216). The relation of 'lay people ' to expertise, according to the reflexive modernity thesis, is now marked by doubt and scepticism, which result from people’s awareness of the revisable, contested and pluralist character of expert knowledge:
Modes of expertise are fuelled by the very principle of doubt; in assessing the claims of rival authorities, the lay individual tends to utilise that principle in the sceptical outlook which pluralistic circumstances almost inevitably presuppose ' (Giddens, 1991a: 195).
The way Giddens, Beck, and others characterise the contemporary way in which lay people deal with expert knowledge has been criticised on several accounts. In particular, it has been argued that they misconceive the way people in earlier periods dealt with expertise. Wynne explicitly challenges Giddens ' position on this issue11, and rejects the idea that people previously were unreflexive and uncritical regarding expertise:
I argue that the supposed earlier conditions of unqualified public trust have never prevailed, and that Giddens has reproduced what is a widespread confusion between unreflexive trust, reflexive dependency and private ambivalence (Wynne, 1996: 48).
For Wynne, a lack of overt public dissent or opposition towards experts or expert systems should not be interpreted as unqualified public trust in expert systems (Ibid.: 50). In his

11 Cf. also the argument of Kroll Smith, Couch & Floyd (1995) presented in section 1.2.2, about the distinction between lay people 's relation to expert knowledge, and their relation to experts and expert systems.

view, people have always been reflexive towards expertise, in the sense that they 'informally but incessantly problematise their own relationships with expertise of all kinds, as part of their negotiation of their own identities ' (Ibid.: 50). Lay people, 'well before the onset of reflexive modernity and the risk society, fundamentally distrusted scientific opinion ' (Lash, Szerszynski & Wynne, 1996: 8). What is characteristic of the current period, thus, might be the ‘visibility’ of people’s distrust and reflexivity, rather than distrust and reflexivity as such.
This being acknowledged, it remains that contemporary day-to-day life is pervaded by expert knowledge to an extent which is unprecedented. It is indeed possible to argue, as
Giddens does, that day-to-day life becomes increasingly made up of 'everyday experiments '
(Giddens, 1992: 8), as people try to combine, and to make sense of, multiple and contradictory knowledge claims, the validity of which they know can only be provisional.
Scientific findings and the controversies which surround them increasingly become a matter of public debate and a matter of day-to-day choice and decision-making. As Beck puts it, 'private life becomes in essence the plaything of scientific results and theories, or of public controversies and conflicts ' (Beck, 1996a: 215). For example, parents routinely have to 'find their way ' among the multiple and sometimes contradictory expert claims - derived from psychology, sociology, biology, genetics, etc. - that concern the activity of childrearing. Personal decisions, thus, ‘must be taken in the face of conflicting technical claims and apparent uncertainties’ (Irwin & Wynne, 1996: 2), as the recent case of the ‘mad cow disease’ has amply demonstrated.
Medical knowledge provides an obvious illustration of the way lay people have to negotiate their way among multiple and contradictory expert claims about life-style options related to food, diet, etc. People are increasingly familiar with the controversies surrounding particular health risks, regarding for example HIV, cholesterol, breast cancer, etc. In a book aimed at providing the lay public with the medical knowledge necessary for making informed decisions about health risks, this physician gives a good illustration of the
‘imperative of choice’ that characterises the relationship between lay people and expert knowledge: '[s]ome risks of everyday living are unavoidable. Others are avoidable, or at

least reducible. But our decisions are unavoidable. We do not and cannot know everything.
We make mistakes. But we have to choose ' (Harris, 1993: 11). Harris acknowledges the heterogeneous, contradictory, and provisional character of many medical claims on health risks - for example regarding the use of margarine. This is precisely why he concludes that choice is inescapable.
The omnipresence and the pluralism of expert knowledge in contemporary day-today life can lead to two conflicting pictures. On one side, which is the one favoured by
Beck and Giddens, it is argued that people are increasingly able to, and likely to, appropriate expert knowledge and to 'reskill ' themselves in order to deal with a
‘problematised’ day-to-day life. On the other side, the problematisation of day-to-day life can be seen as a massive process of de-skilling insofar as people are increasingly dependent upon experts and expert knowledge, even regarding the most mundane of their activities.
Bauman, for example, has developed this more pessimistic perspective about expertise dependency. These two opposite pictures will be examined in turn in the two following sections. 1.2.2 Lay appropriation of expert knowledge
Theorists of reflexive modernity stress that expert knowledge is increasingly open to appropriation by lay people, and situate this process with respect to the expansion of institutional reflexivity:
Expert knowledge is open to reappropriation by anyone with the necessary time and resources to become trained; and the prevalence of institutional reflexivity means that there is a continuous filter-back of expert theories, concepts and findings to the lay population (Giddens, 1994b: 91).
The effective ‘re-appropriation’ of particular expert claims by lay people has been, however, little studied by theorists of reflexive modernity. Beyond the proclaimed

‘principle’ that expert knowledge is the object of continuous and pervasive reappropriation by non-experts, Giddens, for example, does not provide any empirical studies in support of his argument. Such empirical work can be found elsewhere, in particular in the field of
‘public understanding of science’, and in the context of the 'new ' social movements centred on public response to techno-scientific risks.
Explicitly drawing on the reflexive modernity thesis12, Kroll Smith, Couch and
Floyd (1994) propose the term 'rational knowledge movements ' to refer to 'movements that are organised in part around the popular appropriation and political transformation of expert knowledge ' (Kroll Smith, Couch & Floyd, 1994: 3). The authors give two illustrations of 'rational knowledge movements ', both based on medical knowledge, namely environmental illness and popular epidemiology. In their view, these two movements illustrate an 'historical shift in the social location of theorizing misery from experts to non-experts '
(Ibid.: 26). In both cases, the authors show that the appropriation of biomedical knowledge by non-physicians involves a shift in the locus of problem definition 'from the bio-organic individual […] to conditions external to the person ' (Ibid.: 11). In other words, these movements recast the question of who can be held accountable or responsible for certain illnesses and Kroll Smith et al. claim that '[i]n some cases, there is evidence that institutions are changing in response to the popular appropriation of expertise ' (Ibid.: 28).
The appropriation of expert knowledge by 'new social movements’ is often described as an attempt to challenge scientists or scientific rationality. Beck, for example, claims that movements concerned with issues of pollution try to contest the supremacy of scientific rationality and try to promote, rather, a 'social rationality '. (Beck, 1992a: 30).
Beck is not very explicit, however, as to what distinguishes social rationality from scientific

12 Kroll Smith, Couch and Floyd 's analysis of lay appropriation of expert knowledge is based on what they call 'late modernity theory ', which comprises the work of Beck and
Giddens, and which roughly corresponds to what I call in this chapter the 'reflexive modernity thesis '. A major interest of 'late modernity theory ', in their view, is that it 'predicts the emergence of social movements oriented to the popular appropriation of expert knowledge ' (Ibid.: 7).

rationality. In a work about 'counter-movements ' in the sciences13, Nowotny addresses this issue by noting that the social rationality characteristic of counter-movements focuses on the question of 'science for whom? ' (Nowotny, 1979: 3), a question which is usually banned from scientific rationality. In a related vein, Douglas and Wildavsky argue that the lay public, unlike scientists, 'do not conceal their moral commitments but put them into the arguments, explicitly and prominently ' (Douglas & Wildavsky, 1982: 73).
Beck, however, has stressed that the partial demise of scientific rationality by no means entails the demise of science. The same process which tends to undermine the authority of science - the multiplication of risks resulting from techno-scientific development - simultaneously reinforces it. Most of the risks brought about by modernisation cannot be perceived directly; they need the ‘“sensory organs” of science theories, experiments, measuring instruments - in order to become visible or interpretable as hazards at all’ (Beck, 1992a: 27). Thus ‘science and technology are the only means of bringing their own damage into view’ (Giddens, 1994a: 208). Along the same line, Kroll
Smith, Couch and Floyd stress that the demonopolisation of science and the lay critic of scientific rationality do not mean that lay people are loosing trust in the efficacy of scientific and expert knowledge. On one hand, people are increasingly sceptical of expert systems14 and of the ‘representatives of rationality’ (Kroll Smith, Couch & Floyd,
1994: 7). Yet, on the other hand, they certainly 'do not abandon their faith in rational knowledge’ (Ibid.: 3).
Kroll Smith, Couch & Floyd heavily draw upon the distinction between expert knowledge and expert systems, in order to show the double-edged character, or the ambivalence, of the way lay people relate to expertise:

13 Nowotny defines counter-movements as 'social forms of protest [...] which are critical of scientific rationality and at times hostile to specific technological developments ' (Nowotny,
1979: 1).
14 Kroll Smith, Couch & Floyd draw upon Giddens ' characterisation of 'expert systems '.
The latter are 'systems of expert knowledge [...] depending on rules of procedure transferable from individual to individual ' (Giddens, 1991a: 243).

The process is one of non-professionals who separate expert knowledge (and perhaps one or two experts) from expert systems to apprehend troubles that, in their opinion, require a technical solution, in spite of the refusal or inability of expert systems to acknowledge the problem (Ibid.: 1).
The ambivalence of people’s position regarding expert and scientific knowledge has also been noted by Michael (1992), in a study about the way lay persons use scientific knowledge about ionizing radiation. Michael’s conclusion, which draws upon a contrast between Moscovici and Lyotard’s positions regarding the relationship between science and lay people15, is that ‘there is neither an ineluctable, albeit mediated, Moscovician uptake of science’s products or its supposed ethos nor the generalised delegitimation of science portrayed by Lyotard’ (Michael, 1992: 330). Rather, Michael insists on the multi-faceted character of the relationship of lay agents to science:
People are not solely disenchanted or disinherited in the face of science; rather, they discursively maneuver around science in a variety of trajectories that can, on one hand, sustain the mystique and the status of science and, on the other, undermine them (Ibid.: 330).
Three points of criticism, in my view, can be made about the way sociologists have studied lay appropriation of expert knowledge. Or, to put it differently, there are three major differences between the way sociologists, such as those mentioned above, have studied the process of lay appropriation of expert knowledge, and the way this process is addressed in the rest of the dissertation. First, lay appropriation of expert knowledge primarily refers, in my view, to ordinary individual action, rather than to 'extra-ordinary ' collective action. Although the action of social movements is certainly an important 'locus ' of appropriation of expert knowledge by lay actors, this should not obscure the fact that this process of appropriation is ubiquitous in the day-to-day life of every individual, although it might not be as visible and deliberate as in the action of social movements. As suggested in the first part of the chapter, rather than ‘individual reflexivity’ itself, what might be

15 Michael considers that, for Moscovici, ‘science and the reified increasingly percolate through and color the consensual, commonsensical world’ (Michael, 1992: 315), while
Lyotard argues that ‘science loses its pivotal role as arbiter of truth (Ibid.: 315).
Moscovici’s perspective about the transformation of the relationship between science and common sense is examined in the fourth chapter (section 4.3.4).

characteristic of the current period is that expert knowledge has become a generalised
‘resource’ for individual reflexivity.
Second, it is striking, in view of the works presented above, that lay appropriation of expert knowledge almost exclusively refers to the appropriation of techno-scientific knowledge, medical knowledge and, in general, knowledge derived from natural science, and never to social science knowledge. There are several elements which account for this
‘neglect’, and which are examined in the second and third chapters of the dissertation. In my view, lay appropriation of social science knowledge is no less significant than lay appropriation of natural science knowledge, an argument which is clear enough if we accept Giddens’ notion of ‘institutional reflexivity’ presented in the first part of the chapter.
Finally, lay appropriation of expert knowledge has generally been seen as an empowering process for those who ‘appropriate’. To put it differently, showing that lay people appropriate expert knowledge has often been a way to oppose the view that expertise 'expropriates ' lay people, by undermining their own 'local ' knowledge, and by depriving them of their capacity to deal with the problems that they encounter in everyday life. Studies about lay appropriation of expert knowledge has served to refute the thesis of a disempowering process of expertise dependency. In my view, however, there is nothing intrinsically empowering in the process of appropriation of expert knowledge, although the notion of appropriation does have a positive connotation attached to it.
By ‘positive connotation’, I mean that the notion of appropriation points to the active and creative character of the way lay people 'use ' scientific and expert knowledge16. This conception of appropriation can be related to the one used in media studies, in which the notion of appropriation has served to oppose the view that lay people passively 'absorb ' media messages. In opposition to such a view, it has been argued that the reception of media products by lay people is an active process which involves the creative

16 In the next two chapters, I will characterize further the notion of appropriation and examine in more detail how it differs from the notion of 'use '.

transformation of the 'messages ' in order to adapt them to the practical contexts of everyday life. In Thompson 's terms:
To appropriate a message is to take hold of its meaningful content and make it one’s own. It is to assimilate the message and incorporate it into one’s life - a process that sometimes takes place effortlessly, and sometimes involves deliberate application. In appropriating a message, we adapt it to our own lives and life contexts (Thompson, 1995: 42).
Thompson’s conception of the notion of appropriation derive from hermeneutics, and refers to the more fundamental relation of human agents to symbolic forms. In the hermeneutical perspective, appropriation refers to an active process of understanding and selfunderstanding (Thompson, 1995: 42): human agents, 'in interpreting symbolic forms, [...] incorporate them into their own understanding of themselves and others ' (Thompson,
1995: 42). Following this argument, expert knowledge can be seen as a particular 'symbolic form ', and as a particular kind of 'message ' diffused through the mass media; as such, its appropriation by lay people involves the same active and creative process as do media products and symbolic forms more generally. The active and creative character of the way lay agents ‘use’ scientific and expert knowledge and ‘reconstruct technical information within everyday life’ (Irwin & Wynne, 1996: 10) has been well illustrated in recent studies about ‘public understanding of science’17.
1.2.3 Expertise dependency
That expert knowledge has come to pervade day-to-day life has led many theorists to argue that people are increasingly dependent upon expertise, especially since 'no one can be an expert about more than a tiny part of the diverse aspects of modern social life conditioned by abstract systems ' (Giddens, 1991a: 22). Theorists of reflexive modernity have repeatedly stressed the double-edged character of expertise and, more generally, of reflexive modernity, which involves both new forms of ‘freedom’ and new forms of
17 Cf. Irwin & Wynne (1996), Kerr and al. (1998a&b), Michael (1992), Wynne (1996a&b,
1993, 1992). These studies are presented in the next section, since they are useful for examining the thesis about the presumed ‘eradication’ of local knowledge that the omnipresence of expert knowledge, for many social scientists, entails.

‘dependency’. Giddens refuses to give precedence to the latter. Without denying that modern conditions of expertise have deskilling effects for lay people, he argues that disempowerment always stands in tension with positive effects, and that ‘[i]n general, whether in personal life or in broader social milieus, processes of reappropriation and empowerment intertwine with expropriation and loss’ (Giddens, 1991a: 7).
In Giddens ' work, however, such an assertion has more the status of a theoretical principle than one of an empirical finding. In particular, it is congruent with two fundamental assertions of Giddens’ theory of structuration, namely, knowledgeability of lay agents and dialectic of control. Knowledgeability of lay agents refers to the ‘reflexive monitoring of action18’ conducted by every agent, who shows a fundamental ‘competence’ about the conditions of his or her actions, this competence being embedded principally in practical consciousness. Giddens ' second assumption about the ‘dialectic of control’ consists in stating that ‘all forms of dependence offer some resources whereby those who are subordinate can influence the activities of their superiors’ (Giddens, 1984: 16). In their relation to modern expertise, lay people can in principle reappropriate expert knowledge in a way which counteracts the expropriating effects of modern expertise. In Giddens ' terms:
The reappropriation of knowledge and control on the part of lay actors is a basic aspect of the dialectic of control. Everyday skill and knowledgeability stands in dialectical connection to the expropriation effects of abstract systems, continually influencing and reshaping the very impact of such systems on day-to-day existence ' (Giddens, 1991a: 138).
In contrast to Giddens, many authors have insisted primarily on the negative aspects that the intrusion of expert knowledge in day-to-day life carries for ‘lay people’. Stanley
(1978), in a denunciation of what he calls the 'technological conscience ', has argued that the central role of expertise in contemporary day-to-day life implies that one agrees to give up, as it were, one 's cognitive authority:
The acceptance of 'expertise ' may be defined as the conscious or unconscious delegation of one’s cognitive authority over some part of the world to persons

18 Cf. section 1.1.2.

one regards as more competent than oneself in the exercise of cognitive judgements ' (Stanley, 1978: 97).
Such a phenomenon, for Stanley, can lead to 'technicism ', when scientific and technological modes of reasoning are extended 'to the point of imperial dominance over all other interpretations of human existence ' (Ibid.: 12). In a related vein, Lasch has argued that expertise dependency has 'crippled the capacity for self-help ' (Lasch, 1979: xv), and that this state of dependency could be diminished by a collective distrust of experts. Lasch sees expertise dependency as an erosion of everyday competence (Ibid.: 10), insofar as people allow experts to define their needs for them, instead of drawing on their own experience
(Ibid.: xviii).
Bauman has addressed the issue of expertise dependency by relating it to market dependency and consumerism. He claims that contemporary society leads to the 'socially produced incapacity of individuals to conduct their life business on their own ' (Bauman,
1987: 19). For Bauman, the key to expertise dependency is the colonisation of a growing volume of 'needs ' by experts and, more importantly, their 'translation ' in terms of marketable goods and services (Bauman, 1987: 166). Bauman’s conclusion is that 'the modern project of individual autonomy has been subordinated and subsumed by the market-defined and

market-oriented

freedom

of

consumer

choice '

(Ibid.: 189).

Standardisation and commodification are certainly two important characteristics of the use of expert knowledge in contemporary society, as Bauman rightly stresses. In my view, however, there is nothing 'inherent ' in standardisation and commodification which implies that these features are necessarily disempowering. In fact, I will argue later in the dissertation19 that standardisation can sometimes be ‘empowering’, insofar as it can enable one to ‘label’ one’s personal issue by using experts’ categorisations, and to realise that one is not alone in dealing with this issue.
More importantly, a point which, in my view, should be put into question regarding the so-called disempowering effects of omnipresent expertise, concerns the argument that expert knowledge undermines and even eradicates 'local knowledge ', thereby expropriating
19 Cf. section 6.1.2.

lay people of their personal knowledge. The thesis of the eradication of local knowledge can be related to the thesis of the eradication of traditions, insofar as those who argue that traditions disappear usually assume that tradition is based on the transmission of shared local knowledge. Such an assumption has been challenged by those who argue, like
Thompson, that traditions are still very much present in contemporary society, but that they are mediated, de-personalised, and de-localised, losing 'their moorings in the shared locales of day-to-day life ' (Thompson, 1996: 94): ‘the transmission of the symbolic materials which comprise traditions has become increasingly detached from social interaction in a shared locale’ (Ibid.: 94). Along the same line of argument, it can be argued that local knowledge is not being ‘eradicated’ but that, rather, 'all forms of local knowledge under the rule of expertise become local recombinations of knowledge derived from elsewhere '
(Giddens, 1994b: 84).
In their attempt at recasting the terms in which ‘public understanding of science’ is conceived20, Irwin and Wynne (1996) have stressed the varied ways ‘in which public groups attempt to fashion locally useful knowledges from “external” and “indigenous sources”. In place of an ‘eradication’ of local knowledge, Wynne has documented the
‘ways that “context-free” scientific knowledge is or can be contextualised or integrated into different social and cultural settings with their particular established local knowledges’
(Wynne, 1992: 40). Kerr et al. (1998a&b) illustrate such a process of ‘combination’ of different forms of knowledge in a particular ‘local’ context. In their study of lay people’s understanding of genetics, the authors note the variety of types of knowledge displayed by their interviewees, who, ‘in addition to professional experience, […] may draw on direct personal experience or on knowledge derived from the media and other sources’ (Kerr et al,
1998b: 51). Here again, the picture that emerges from empirical study is much more complex and much less clear-cut than the mere ‘eradication’ of local knowledge. The latter, rather, increasingly consists in a combination of knowledges from diverse contexts:
20 Broadly speaking, Irwin and Wynne refute what they see as the ‘dominant approach’ in the field of ‘public understanding of science’, which consists in assuming the ‘lack of understanding’ of the public, in portraying science as if it were a value-free and neutral activity (Irwin & Wynne, 1996: 6), and in throwing ‘all the critical research attention on the public and the media’ (Wynne, 1992: 38).

People hold their own stock of technical, methodological, institutional and cultural knowledge for a critical understanding of the new genetics, and this is a product of their past experiences, both unique and culturally shared
(Ibid.: 51).
Expert knowledge, thus, is embedded in the range of actors and institutions with which one is engaged, which involves that every individual develops ‘a unique set of knowledge from which to judge new experiences’ (Ibid.: 52). In the fourth chapter of the dissertation, I shall complete this argument in a discussion of ‘lay knowledgeability’, in which I reject the assumption, made by many social scientists, that lay people’s ‘ordinary knowledge’ is primarily, and almost ‘by definition’, knowledge derived from first-hand experience.
1.3 INDIVIDUALISATION, EXPERT KNOWLEDGE AND SELF-IDENTITY
1.3.1 A ‘reflexive project of the self’?
An important aspect of the 'reflexive modernity thesis ' concerns self-identity, which can be defined as 'the sense of oneself as an individual endowed with certain characteristics and potentialities, as an individual situated on a certain life-trajectory ' (Thompson,
1996: 93). Self-identity, it is argued, ceases to be fixed and 'given '; it becomes malleable and has to be reflexively constructed by the individual. In Giddens’ terms:
Individuals cannot rest content with an identity that is simply handed down, inherited, or built on a traditional status; [a] person 's identity has in large part to be discovered, constructed, actively sustained (Giddens, 1994a: 82).
Such an argument about self-identity is not specific to the reflexive modernity thesis. A large range of social scientists agree that 'conditions for identity-formation have significantly changed over the past three or four decades (Wagner, 1994: 170) and that, more precisely, self-identity is now seen by every individual as 'something deliberately to be worked on or transformed ' (Holzner & Marx, 1979: 315). What is specific to the reflexive modernity thesis, however, is the concept of reflexivity, used in order to make sense of transformations affecting identity-formation and, more importantly, the connection

between the discussion about identity-formation, and the more general argument about institutional reflexivity.
Giddens’ view on the transformations affecting self-identity in current society is encapsulated in his notion of ‘reflexive project of the self’, which implies the more or less continuous negotiation of one 's sense of self-identity. The latter is achieved through the conscious elaboration and regular revision of self-narratives, which are stories 'by means of which self-identity is reflexively understood, both by the individual concerned and by others ' (Giddens, 1991a: 243). The reflexive project of the self, in short, is 'the process whereby self-identity is constituted by the reflexing ordering of self-narratives ' (Giddens,
1991a: 244). The same argument can be found in Beck’s work: transformations about identity formation mean that the ‘standard biography becomes a chosen biography, a “do-ityourself-biography’” (Beck, 1994a: 15). Both authors, as well as other social scientists, claim that ‘the self becomes increasingly organised as a reflexive project through which the individual constructs, in the form of an autobiographical narrative, a sense of selfidentity’(Thompson, 1995: 215).
This argument about a ‘reflexive project of the self’ is consistent with what Hoskins
& Leseho describe as ‘dramatic shifts […] occurring between traditional metaphors of the self and more recent postmodern metaphors’ (1996 : 244). More specifically, they note that
‘rather than focusing on the self as a stable entity, there has been a dramatic shift toward viewing the self as a process [and] […] there is growing recognition of the multifaceted, dynamic, and narrative nature of the self’ (Ibid. : 249, 257). Among the ‘postmodern’ metaphors of the self identified by Hoskins and Leseho, the ‘narrative self’, which refers to the self ‘as a fluid, evolving character that is in a continual process of becoming’
(Ibid.: 249) is the one which is assumed in Beck and Giddens’ notion of ‘reflexive project of the self’.
The argument about a ‘reflexive project of the self’, however, can be attacked on the same accounts as the more general argument about ‘reflexive modernity’. That is, it can be argued that such an argument largely exaggerates the 'unreflexive ' character of identity

formation in previous periods and that, conversely, it largely overestimates, or even misconceives, the extent in which lay people are now reflexively engaged in the conscious elaboration of their self-identities. In other words, it is easy to exacerbate a contrast between the current 'reflexive ' construction of self-identity, and the supposedly previous 'unreflexive ' acceptation of a 'ready-made ' identity, especially since, as Wagner recognises, 'not very much is known about how human beings actually oriented their lives in the past '
(Wagner, 1994: 207).
Some authors have argued that the transformation affecting identity-formation, rather than referring to a ‘new’ process, should be understood, rather, as the generalisation of a process which was ‘always’ present, but which, however, used to concern only a restricted number of people. For Wagner, for example, 'the constructability of social identity was hardly accessible to the majority of the population, the peasant and industrial working classes, and most women ' (Wagner, 1994: 157-8). Yet even this less ‘radical’ argument can be opposed by saying that the ‘reflexive project of self’, even in contemporary society, concerns only a limited proportion of the population. Such an argument is made by Warde about Giddens’ account on identity-formation:
Giddens is right in observing that for some people self is constituted by a narrative of personal development, and is reflexively monitored. However, his account fits only a proportion of the population (Warde, 1994: 890).
Warde claims that Giddens offers a ‘highly individualistic, cognitive and decisionistic model of self’ (Ibid.: 4) and that ‘his world is peopled by very self-directing persons in serious pursuit of the coherent narrative of the self’ (Ibid.: 4). It can indeed be doubted that such an image is a fair representation of contemporary day-to-day life, and of the construction of self-identity. Besides, Warde notes that Bauman, Beck and Giddens ‘all maintain that biography is a reflexive project and that lifestyles and consumption are critical to identity-formation and reformation’ (Ibid.: 877). Yet the relationship between the reflexive project of the self and consumption is, in Warde’s view, more ambiguous and multi-faceted than assumed by theorists of reflexive modernity. The latter, in his view, pay too little attention to the ‘counter-tendencies to informalisation and individualisation’

(Ibid.: 890) and tend to reproduce a ‘politico-ideological sense of the consumption process which imputes freedom to an activity that is not in an important sense free’ (Ibid.: 890).
More fundamentally, one aspect of the argument about the ‘reflexive project of the self’ which needs to be questioned is the unprecedented character of self-biography or selfnarratives. Theorists of reflexive modernity establish a narrow connection between the construction of self-identity and the elaboration of self-narratives. For them, maintaining a sense of self-identity, in today 's society, involves the continuous elaboration of one 's 'autobiography ': autobiography - particularly in the broad sense of an interpretive self-history produced by the individual concerned, whether written down or not - is [...] at the core of self-identity in modern social life’ (Giddens, 1991a: 76).
For Giddens, what seems to be characteristic of the current period is the close link between self-identity and self-narratives. In contemporary society, 'a person 's identity is not to be found in behaviour, nor in the reaction of others, but in the capacity to keep a particular narrative going ' (Giddens, 1991a: 54). It should be clear, however, that the elaboration of self-narratives is by no means characteristic of the current period. As Bruner puts it, 'while the act of writing autobiography is new under the sun, the self-told life-narrative is, by all accounts, ancient and universal (Bruner, 1987: 16).
In addition, even if we accept the argument that self-identity, in earlier periods, used to be 'fixed ' and 'given ', it can reasonably be assumed that people 's self-narratives have always been malleable to some extent, that is, likely to be re-arranged and transformed. The meaning of a past event, even in ‘traditional’ society, may not be determined once and for all but is likely to change in the course of subsequent reconstructions, in order to account for new events and actions, or in light of new knowledge and information. As Berger notes, we are all engaged in ‘biographical hermeneutics’ (1963: 78), that is, in the regular interpretation and reinterpretation of our past and present experience. For example, he mentions the case of a Communist who reinterprets his past ‘as a captivity in the “false consciousness” of a bourgeois mentality’ (Ibid.: 76). In this case, the 'reinterpretation of the past is part of a deliberate, fully conscious and intellectually integrated activity’ (Berger,

1963: 75). But the construction and reconstruction of self-narratives need not be as deliberate and conscious.
We need, therefore, to be more specific about what exactly characterises identityformation in a period of ‘reflexive modernity’, or in what ways the argument about a
‘reflexive project of the self’ really encapsulates truly unprecedented processes. Several points, in my view, can be put forward, some of which are developed later in the dissertation. First, it can be argued that the malleability or revisability of self-narratives is being radicalised. Rather than referring to exceptional situations such as the conversion to a new religion or a new political doctrine (cf. Berger’s example above, about the conversion to communism), the revision of self-narratives in today 's society is virtually a continuous activity enmeshed in the routine actions of day-to-day life. In a qualitative study about the role of television soap operas in teenagers’ identity-formation, Barker claims that the girls he studied are actually engaged in a reflexive project of the self (1997: 613), which is manifest in the way their talk about soap opera enables them to ‘negotiate through shared understandings about how to “go on” in their society as persons within social relationships’
(Barker, 1997: 612). The construction and reconstruction of self-narratives, thus, seems to be more deeply enmeshed in day-to-day life and more tightly connected to self-identity than before.
Barker’s study also illustrates a second point, which consists in arguing that the construction of self-narratives in current society draws upon an increasing range of sources, both local and global in character. Barker’s refers more specifically to the ‘multiplying global resources for the construction of self-identity’, among which television programmes figure significantly. He gives the following illustration about Sandra, one of the teenagers he studied:
Sandra deploys a range of resources drawn from a variety of times and spaces.
The most obvious resources she draws on are local and personal. They include her mother, her friends and her school life. However, she also draws on resources of a more globalised nature (Barker, 1997: 624).

Barker’s argument about the importance of television programmes as a locus of ‘reflexive resources’ for the construction of self-identity supports the view, developed for example by
Thompson (1995), that media systems are essential for providing ‘the symbolic materials for self-formation’ (Thompson, 1995: 214-5). This implies that there certainly is a form of 'mediated dependency ' (Ibid.: 213) which impinges on the reflexive process of the self21. If important 'reflexive resources ' that fuel the construction of self-identity are part of media systems, then access to these resources, and the capacity to use them, depends on the position of the individual in the media systems.
Among the manifold ‘media messages’ pervading day-to-day life, expert knowledge, in my view, constitute an important resource for the reflexive project of the self, and this centrality of expert knowledge points to a truly unprecedented aspect of identity-formation in contemporary society. Expert knowledge can be seen as an important impetus to the construction and the revision of self-narratives. Thus it can be suggested that lay people are increasingly likely to appropriate expert knowledge in order to make sense of what has happened in their lives, and in order to construct and reconstruct self-narratives.
The process of appropriation of expert knowledge, in my view, is a routine process of dayto-day life insofar as it is deeply enmeshed in the reflexive construction of self-identity and, more precisely, as expert knowledge becomes a crucial 'reflexive resource ' for the continuous construction and reconstruction of self-narratives. It is in that sense that I suggested in the preceding section that the process of lay appropriation of expert knowledge should not be examined only, or primarily, with respect to techno-scientific knowledge and to social movements. When seen in the light of the 'reflexive project of the self ', the lay appropriation of expert knowledge refers to a routine activity conducted by virtually every individual, and to a process in which social science knowledge, in particular, is deeply involved.
Third, another characteristic of contemporary processes of identity-formation refer, in my view, to the increasingly discursive and self-conscious aspects of the reflexive
21 Cf. also Lash & Urry 's argument about information and communication structures
(section 1.1.2).

project of the self. Although, as noted earlier, it seems fair to suppose that people have always been involved in the elaboration of self-narratives, it can be argued that this quest for self-understanding did not have the discursive character that it has now. In that sense, it is indeed possible to argue, as Giddens does, that 'our understanding of ourselves, as discursively formulated and reflexively applied to transforming the conditions of our lives, is intrinsic to the nature of modern societies ' (Giddens, 1987: viii). This point immediately brings us back to the issue, discussed in the first part of the chapter, of forms of ‘inequality’ related to this ‘new’ form of discursive reflexivity, in particular inequality regarding linguistic and cultural ‘capital’.
1.3.2 Individualisation: the dissolution of the social into the self?
For theorists of reflexive modernity, that every individual is engaged in a reflexive project of the self is tied up with a process of 'individualisation ', which means that 'individuals are obliged increasingly to fall back on their own resources to construct a coherent identity for themselves ' (Thompson, 1996: 90). It has become a commonplace to say that modern society is an individualised society. Yet individualisation has recently become one of these essentially contested concepts - such as the concept of detraditionalisation - which are increasingly put into question, and whose relevance as analytical tools for making sense of contemporary society is being challenged.
Individualisation, in the reflexive modernity thesis, refers to a process in which people are released from 'traditional ties, systems of belief and social relationships ' (BeckGernsheim, 1996: 139), and have no choice but to become ‘the centre of their own planning and conduct of life’ (Beck, 1992a: 88). It means that life becomes a task to be carried out, an individual project (Beck-Gernsheim, 1996: 141). More precisely:
Biographies are removed from the traditional precepts and certainties, from external control and general moral laws, becoming open and dependent on decision-making, and are assigned as a task for each individual (Beck & BeckGernsheim, 1995: 2).

Far from being a process of 'liberation ' only, individualisation is seen as a double-edged phenomenon which involves both freedom and constraint:
On the one hand, [it] means an expansion of the radius of life, a gain in terms of scope and choice. Life becomes in many respects more open and malleable.
But it also means that new demands, controls and obligations fall upon the individual (Beck-Gernsheim, 1996: 139).
On one side, thus, individualisation involves the disintegration of the social forms which tended to prescribe, as it were, 'ready-made ' biographies. On the other side, having to create their own biographies, individuals become tied into a network of new constraints and regulations, which they must 'import into their biographies through their own action ' (Beck
& Beck-Gernsheim, 1996: 25). Several contradictory processes are involved in individualisation: Individualisation at the same time implies a heightening of the subjective latitudes open to freedom and complete dependence on the market, liberation and standardisation of expression, heightened self-referentiality and external control pushed almost to the limits of what is bearable (Berking, 1996: 195).
Notwithstanding these contradictory aspects, the basic argument underlying the notion of individualisation is that 'there are fewer and fewer unquestionably given paths of life conduct available ' (Berking, 1996: 195), and that the individual has no choice but to be actively engaged in the tracing of his or her own paths of life.
The same authors who dispute the idea that contemporary society is a detraditionalised society are often equally critical of the idea of individualisation. The two arguments are indeed closely connected, insofar as the notion of individualisation refers to the 'detraditionalisation of the self ' (Rose, 1996: 322). For a number of authors, ‘the whole analytic of individualisation is misplaced’ (Ibid.: 309). Rose, for example, contests the argument that individualisation is a phenomenon characteristic of late modernity: ‘there is nothing unprecedented about an intense problematisation of the conduct of the self. Neither plurality, choice or voluntarism seems peculiar to the present’ (Ibid.: 307). More specifically: It is not useful to oppose ‘traditional’ practices which problematize human beings in terms of allegiance – to a community – a lineage or a group – and
‘modern’ practices which problematize them in terms of individuality and autonomy (Ibid.: 309).
What is peculiar to the present, according to Rose, is the complex of diversified 'authorities of subjectification ', which shape the relations that people establish with themselves. ‘The distinctiveness of our present modes of subjectification must be understood in relation to the plethora of new rationalities and technologies for the government of conduct that have been deployed since the start of the nineteenth century’ (Ibid.: 312-3).
In response to the criticism that ‘individualisation’, as defined by theorists of reflexive modernity, is by no means ‘new’, Beck and Beck-Gernsheim make the same argument as the one presented in the preceding section about the reflexive project of the self. They agree that the imperative of leading a life of one 's own is not new, but argue that what is historically new is that it 'is now being demanded of more and more people and, in the limiting case, of all ', instead of being expected of a few, as it was the case before (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 1996: 32-3). The authors thus point to a 'democratization of individualization processes ', but they make it clear that this democratisation involves 'precarious freedoms ': the fact that people have no choice but to lead a life of their own can give rise to new forms of alienation and distress. As they put it, 'failure and inalienable freedom live in close proximity and perhaps intermingle ' (Ibid.: 31).
The main difficulty with the individualisation thesis, in my view, lies beyond the question of determining how ‘new’ the process of individualisation really is. It lies, rather, in the argument about an ‘individualised consciousness’, that is, about the transformation of people’s ‘ontology through which we think ourselves’ (Rose, 1996: 319). This ‘new’ ontology or consciousness, according to theorists of individualisation, amounts to ‘the dissolution of the social into the self’, insofar as it consists in re-defining 'social ' problems and processes in terms of individual and personal problems. The idea that, in contemporary society, forms and conditions of existence have increasingly to be individually chosen and treated as such, implies that 'society ' must be seen 'as a variable which we can manipulate’
(Beck & Beck-Gernsheim, 1995). For Beck, individualisation means that social conditions,

crises and inequalities are redefined in a way which enables people to treat them as the result of individual decisions.
Of course, Beck does not suggest that social conditions and inequalities disappear; rather, they are ‘redefined in terms of an individualisation of social risks’ (Beck,
1992a: 100). This means that people, in his view, see the social conditions and inequalities that impinge upon their lives as areas of decisions under their control and responsibility. In
Beck 's terms:
The institutional conditions that determine individuals are no longer just events and conditions that happen to them, but also consequences of the decisions they themselves have made, which they must view and treat as such
(Ibid.: 136).
The ‘dissolution of the social into the self’ thus refers to the development, in conditions of reflexive modernity, of an ‘individualised consciousness’ which implies that ‘[s]ocial crises appear as individual crises, which are no longer perceived (or are only very indirectly) in terms of their rootedness in the social realm’ (Ibid.: 100). This consciousness, in my view, presupposes what can be seen as a ‘self-imposed blindness’, which consists in ‘forgetting’, as it were, that one does not possess the resources to forge and to direct one’s own biography. In Berking’s terms:
Every individual human being finds himself bound to write the scenarios of his own life, to survey the maps of his own social orientations, to direct his own biography, his personality and his self, even though he is, in advance, in no way in possession of the resources required to do so (Berking, 1996: 195).
Several authors outside the reflexive modernity debate have made a similar argument about the ‘individualised consciousness’ of lay people in current society, and have condemned the process of ‘dissolution of the social into the self’ that it involves. Although he does not use the term of 'individualisation ' as such, Sennett 's argument in The Fall of

Public Man (1977) clearly illustrates the view that contemporary society, which he terms 'intimate society ', is endangered by a process of dissolution of the social into the self22:
In an intimate society, all social phenomena, no matter how impersonal in structure, are converted into matters of personality in order to have a meaning.
One 's 'class ' seems to be a product of personal drive and ability rather than of a systematic social determination (Sennett, 1977: 219).
This process means that 'people are working out in terms of personal feelings public matters which properly can be dealt with only through codes of impersonal meaning '
(Sennett, 1977: 5). They try to solve public problems 'by denying that the public exists '
(Ibid.: 27). Far from fostering individual capacity for action, this process, for Sennett, implies the paralysis of action, since what is personalised and privatised comes to be seen as fixed and immutable, and therefore immune to deliberate change. In his terms:
To the extent that people feel their social class is a product of their personal qualities and abilities, it is hard for them to conceive of playing with the conditions of class - they would be changing themselves [...] Play with the facts of class becomes hard, because one would seem to be playing with facts very close to the inner nature of the self (Ibid.: 267-8).
In a related vein, Christopher Lasch has argued that contemporary society23 is fundamentally 'narcissistic ', in the sense that it is characterised by an 'intense preoccupation with the self '24 (Lasch, 1979: 25). This narcissism, in his view, is deeply alienating in the extent to which it is based on an escalating form of dependency on experts and expert knowledge. Lasch deplores, for example, that 'men and women no longer manage even to raise their children without the help of certified experts ' (Lasch, 1979: 10). Lasch is very

22 For Sennett, the dissolution of the 'public ' into the 'personal ' is the result of a process 'that began with the fall of the ancien régime and the formation of a new capitalist secular, urban culture ' (Sennett, 1977: 16).
23 Lasch is referring more particularly to American society.
24 Although Sennett and Lasch, in my view, make the similar argument that contemporary society involves 'the collapse of the social into the self ', Lasch firmly distinguishes his position from that of Sennett. More precisely, Lasch criticizes Sennett 's conception of public life which is based on a mistaken 'eagerness to restore a distinction between public and private life ' (Lasch, 1979: 30).

critical of the 'new therapies ' which, in his view, 'obscure the social origins of the suffering that is painfully but falsely experienced as purely personal and private ' (Lasch, 1979: 30).
It is right to say, in my view, that conditions of reflexive modernity imply a shift in the way people think themselves and think their relation to the world. What should be questioned, however, is the argument that such a transformation amounts to the rise of an
‘individualised consciousness’ that implies the negation of the social dimension. Beck,
Sennett and Lasch all argue, albeit from different perspectives, that an increasing number of ‘social’ or ‘public’ issues are now viewed by lay agents as personal 'problems ' that have to be dealt with on an individual basis. In their view, the responsibility for issues encountered in day-to-day life is increasingly placed on the individual rather than on 'society '. Modern expertise is seen as a crucial element involved in the ‘dissolution’ of the social, insofar as it is based on the assumption that the difficulties that one encounters in day-to-day life can be treated as 'solvable ' problems, and can be resolved by the use of appropriate expert knowledge. Therefore expertise contributes to the privatisation of social problems, and to the tendency to place responsibility for them on the individual.
This argument about modern expertise has also been made by theorists studying professions and professionalisation. Zola, for example, has denounced the tendency of experts and professionals to use 'the metaphor, health and illness, as an explanatory variable if not the explanation itself of a host of social problems’ (Zola, 1977: 62). For him, 'any problem viewed in terms of "illness" is by definition not social and at the same time the expected level of intervention is also not social ' (Zola, 1977: 62): 'any emphasis on the
[label "illness"] inevitably locates the source of trouble as well as the place of treatment primarily in individuals’ (Ibid.: 62). Professionals, by labelling a vast range of problems as
‘illnesses’, place the responsibility for these problems on the individual. This process, in
Zola 's view, is fundamentally disempowering, for it means that individuals are supposed to solve problems which, in fact, largely escape individual capacity for action, and cannot be solved by individual action alone.

Sociologists, whose very existence draw upon the creation of the ‘social’, should indeed be greatly preoccupied with the prospect of a ‘dissolution of the social into the self’ brought by conditions and reflexive modernity, and fuelled by modern expertise. Yet, in my view, we are far from witnessing such a dissolution of the social into the self in lay people’s consciousness. As suggested earlier in this chapter, it is certainly the case that contemporary society involves a re-definition of the individual 's sense of capacity for action, control and responsibility. This re-definition, however, does not imply the mere negation of the social. It is, in my view, much more multi-faceted and ambivalent than this.
Although individuals have to treat their conditions of existence as the product of their own decisions, they are, at the same time, increasingly aware that many features of their day-today lives are part of global processes which escape their individual control. One only has to think of 'the agenda of global problems in which all people are involved […] - with respect to food, energy, resources, inflation and pollution ' (Alger, 1980: 156).
It is mistaken, in my view, to assume that people now have an 'individualised consciousness ' which implies that they are unaware of the social, supra-individual character of many features of their day-to-day lives. On the contrary, it can be argued that they are increasingly aware of the 'embeddedness ' of day-to-day life in large-ranged social processes. Such an awareness, as Thompson has argued, is tied up with the omnipresence of mass media in day-to-day life : ‘as our biographies are opened up by mediated experience, we also find ourselves drawn into issues and social relations which extend well beyond the locales of our day-to-day lives’ (Thompson, 1995: 233). Thus the argument about people’s consciousness, or ‘ontology’, in a period of reflexive modernity, should start with the recognition that people are aware both that an increasing number of phenomena directly impinging upon their day-to-day lives are beyond individual control, and that the contemporary way to 'go on ' in life is to 'forge ' their own conditions of existence and to treat them as if they were the products of their decisions. It is in that sense that, in my view, individualisation is a much more ambivalent process than what has usually been assumed by those announcing the 'dissolution of the social into the self '25.
25 In a different context - namely the analysis of the 'postmodern condition ' and of the condition of knowledge in contemporary society – Lyotard rejects the view that the

In short, I suggest that conditions of 'reflexive modernity ' involve a fundamental tension between one 's sense of control and capacity for action, on one hand, and one 's sense of responsibility, on the other. This tension can be described as the imperative, for each individual, to 'invent ' a conception of responsibility and of what 'making a difference ' means, in a world when it can no longer be assumed that responsibility derives from control. The crucial link between control and responsibility is a fundamental assumption in
Jonas ' (1984) discussion of contemporary ethics. In order to feel responsible for a particular process, one needs to have a sense of his or her capacity to act on this process and to control it:
The first and most general condition of responsibility is causal power, that is, that acting makes an impact on the world; the second, that such acting is under the agent’s control; and third, that he can foresee its consequences to some extent (Jonas, 1984: 90).
A fundamental issue in contemporary society is the necessity of maintaining a sense of responsibility vis-à-vis global issues, especially issues regarding destructive consequences of technological development, which are beyond individual control, but for which everyone nevertheless ought to feel responsible, in order for society as a whole to acknowledge both the possibility and the necessity of addressing these issues. Jonas ' 'imperative of responsibility ', in my view, refers not only to the novel powers brought by technology, but also more generally to new dialectical relations between individual action and large-scale social phenomena.
***
There are important arguments which support the generic term of ‘reflexive modernity’, that Beck, Giddens, and others, have used for characterising contemporary breaking up of the 'grand Narratives ' leads to 'the dissolution of the social bond and the disintegration of social aggregates into a mass of individual atoms ' (Lyotard, 1984: 15).
Although it is true that 'each individual is referred to himself ' and that 'a self does not amount to much ', Lyotard opposes the thesis of the dissolution of the social into the self by stressing that 'each [self] exists in a fabric of relations that is now more complex and mobile than ever before ' (Ibid.).

society. This chapter has focused more specifically on the claims about ‘individual reflexivity’ and the ‘reflexivity of the self’, which refer to the particular reflexive posture that lay people have adopted with respect to their own day-to-day lives and to the fashioning of their own self-identities. Every individual is said to be engaged in a ‘reflexive project of the self’ in which expert knowledge, as an important reflexive resource, plays a crucial role. Lay people routinely appropriate expert knowledge in order to deal with a
‘problematised’ day-to-day life. While accepting the general claim that there is a particular form of ‘reflexivity of the self’ which marks the way in which one deals with day-to-day life in contemporary society, I have stressed several difficulties regarding particular assumptions of the ‘reflexive modernity thesis’.
First, I have suggested that it might not be reflexivity as such which distinguishes the contemporary way in which individuals make sense of their world and of their own identities, as much as the particular form, or ‘mode’, that such individual reflexivity now takes. What might be characteristic of the current period is, first, the accent on the discursive component of reflexivity and, second, the unprecedented role played by expert knowledge in the reflexivity of the self. A third component of the contemporary ‘mode of reflexivity’ (Law, 1994: 138) will be explored later in the dissertation; it refers to
‘sociological imagination’ that is, to a particular way of connecting the social to the individual. Second, critics are right, in my view, in claiming that theorists of reflexive modernity have tended to neglect, or to undermine, important forms of inequality that are embedded in the ‘new’ reflexivity of the self. Third, I have argued that the concept of
‘individualisation’, as developed by Beck and Giddens, is deeply misleading insofar as it suggests that lay people have an ‘individualised consciousness’ which is a form of blindness to those social conditions and processes on which individuals have little control.
Conditions of reflexive modernity, in my view, imply a crucial re-definition of the way one may articulate individual control – or, rather, the lack of individual control –, individual responsibility, and action, both individual and collective. As will be developed in subsequent chapters, this fundamental – and quasi ‘existential’ – issue about control, responsibility, and action, is at core of a ‘lay sociological imagination’.

CHAPTER 2
SOCIAL SCIENCE KNOWLEDGE AS A DAY-TO-DAY 'REFLEXIVE RESOURCE '

Social scientists have had to face a great deal of scepticism as to the actual uses and usefulness of social science knowledge in contemporary society. This scepticism often stems from the comparison between social and natural science, the latter 's usefulness and achievements being generally considered as much more obvious and indisputable than the former 's. Social scientists, when assessing the impact of social science knowledge on contemporary society, usually make a number of implicit assumptions which pertain to an instrumental conception of knowledge use, even when they explicitly reject what has been called the 'engineering model '. The scepticism regarding the usefulness of social science 'is to an important extent indebted to a restrictive if not erroneous conception of how social science becomes 'useful ' or succeeds ' (Stehr, 1996: 1.2). This chapter in part aims at examining a dominant conception of social science’s usefulness and to propose an alternative conception which, in my view, is more in tune with the place of social science knowledge in a period of ‘reflexive modernity’.
Social scientists have traditionally assumed that the primary 'users ' of social science knowledge are policy-makers or other experts involved directly or indirectly in policymaking. The 'use ' of social science knowledge by lay people has only been addressed marginally, and in two different – and, in my view, equally inadequate - ways. First, social scientists have discussed the ideological and negative effects of social science knowledge on 'lay people '; in this view, the use of social science knowledge by lay people is more aptly described as a form of 'abuse ' of scientific knowledge. Second, the 'use ' of social science knowledge by lay people has sometimes been analysed as a long-term and chancy process whereby social science knowledge is gradually incorporated into the 'culture ' of society. In both cases, lay people are never considered to be active and competent 'users ' of social science knowledge. In the present chapter, I examine the argument, suggested in the first chapter, that social science knowledge has become an omnipresent and everyday
‘reflexive’ resource, upon which people regularly draw for making sense of their world and

for the construction of self-identity. This argument implies the revision of a number of traditional assumptions that have guided social scientists’ work about the 'uses ' of social science in contemporary society.
2.1 TRADITIONAL ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT

THE 'USES ' OF SOCIAL SCIENCE KNOWLEDGE

2.1.1 Assumption 1: 'policy-makers are the primary users of social science knowledge '
Concrete studies about the uses of social science knowledge in contemporary society amounts to studies about the relationship between social science and policy-making.
A major assumption in the debate about social science’s usefulness is that the foremost users of social science knowledge are policy-makers, or other experts and decision-makers directly or indirectly related to the state and to policy-making. This taken-for-granted assumption has been well-identified by Boggs:
Many studies of social knowledge use assume that seemingly by definition the 'knowledge user ' is a decision maker - a person who holds a responsible position of authority within an institution. This identity of knowledge use with managerial authority appears in such analyses as unproblematical, fixed, or resting on self-evident premises (Boggs, 1992: 52).
This assumption is based on the belief that the use of scientific knowledge requires specific skills and conditions which are possessed by only a restricted and well-identified portion of the population.
The development of social science has been narrowly connected to the development of the state. Numerous studies in the past fifteen years have shown that this relation is less straightforward than was traditionally assumed, and that it can vary significantly from one country to the other26. The symbiotic relationship between social science and the state developed first and foremost in liberal-democratic societies, which 'are almost certainly the most hungry for social knowledge, and the most congenial to the growth and political
26 See Bulmer (ed.) (1987); Nathan (1988); Oberschall (ed.) (1972); Wagner, Wittrock & Whitley (eds)
(1991); Wagner et al. (eds) (1991); Weiss (ed.) (1977).

application of the social sciences ' (Skocpol, 1987: 41)27. In these societies, the growth of social science knowledge certainly contributed to the growth of state power’ (Holzner &
Marx, 1979: 31), and vice versa.
The growth of social science was supported by the state as long as it was assumed that social science knowledge could contribute to the achievement of a better control and regulation of society. Such an assumption was itself based on a particular conception of social science - built around a strong concept of ‘causality’, and on a particular conception of the state as the chief 'regulator ' of society:
There is a symbiotic relationship between a mode of social scientific explanation which defines human agents as objects whose behaviour is determined by causal forces and a form of governance which relies on the instrumental manipulation of those forces for the achievement of social objectives and the maintenance of social order (Jennings, 1983: 34).
The symbiotic relationship between social science and the state was even stronger with the development of the Welfare State, particularly in the United States, where the demand for sociological knowledge partly resulted from 'the concerns of a society and a state wishing to alleviate the inadequacies of a market economy ' (Bellah, 1983: 50).
The type of social science knowledge with which governments were chiefly concerned can be termed ‘factual social knowledge’ (Holzner & Marx, 1979: 31). That is, social science was to produce ‘social facts’ rooted in the scientific observation of society, about various aspects of society which the state wanted to reform or regulate. The state’s demand for social facts was particularly strong in the nineteenth century, and particularly in
England. As Cole notes, 'a definite product of the nineteenth century was the belief that views of society not based upon hard data were untrustworthy ' (Cole, 1972: 97). For some time, it was assumed that relevant factual knowledge about 'social issues ' – for example,

27 This is so, in Skocpol 's view, since 'the rise of the modern "public sphere", in which voluntary groups propose ameliorative measures in the collective interest or in their own interest, fuels the search for information and analysis about social problems ' (Skocpol, 1987: 41).

poverty - was almost sufficient in itself to instigate adequate reforms. Social reformers in the nineteenth century 'often believed that all that had to be done to bring about reform was to publicise the shocking living conditions of the working classes ' (Cole, 1972: 100). The nineteenth century in England was a period in which 'people became increasingly interested in the facts of their existence ' (Cole, 1972: 96), this interest being rooted in the far-reaching changes brought about by the industrial revolution. In particular, 'the growth of a large and isolated factory working class created as much curiosity as it did fear (Ibid.). As early as the
1830s and 1840s, then, social surveys were conducted 'with the aim of investigating the conditions of the working classes ' (Ibid.: 82).
The notion of ‘social facts’ is coextensive with the development of statistics, and with the application of statistical analysis to social phenomena. As Hacking puts it, 'social facts simply became facts that are statistical in character ' (Hacking, 1991: 182). Although it has been shown that 'since nations began there have been records of a statistical character '
(Hankins, 1908: 36), statisticians like Quetelet in the nineteenth century extended the scope of statistical inquiry to social phenomena like suicide, court convictions, prostitution, marriages, divorces, thereby creating the new field of 'moral statistics '28. Quetelet developed the field of 'moral statistics ' with the conviction that there are social laws comparable to the laws of physics (Hankins, 1908: 106): ‘many moral statisticians sought to establish inductive laws and quantitative empirical generalisations about population, society, and social processes’ (Oberschall, 1972: 3). In other words, the idea of statistical
‘social facts’ is based on a particular form of ‘empiricism’ (Bulmer, 1982: 31; Cole,
1972: 98), that is, on 'a conception of social research involving the production of accurate data in which the data themselves constitute an end of the research ' (Bulmer, 1982: 3).
Many social scientists today are quick to dismiss the view that social science is primarily useful as a 'superior kind of fact-gathering ' (Bulmer, 1982: 31), and that the
28

The term 'moral statistics ' was originally coined by Guerry, but Quetelet gave it its significance as a particular field of statistical inquiry dealing with 'such individual actions commonly classed as moral or immoral ' (Hankins, 1908: 83). Crime, in the nineteenth century, was used as an indicator of the morality of the British nation and, therefore, 'researchers thought that if the causes of crime could be discovered, these would also be the causes of "immorality '" (Cole, 1972: 86).

production of ‘social facts’ can be an end in itself. Although the production of ‘facts’ still figures among the critical tasks of social science, the idea that facts ‘speak for themselves’ has gradually been abandoned by social scientists and policy-makers alike. The idea of
‘social facts’, to some extent, has been disconnected from its empiricist epistemological framework. Producing social facts is now viewed as an active process of location, construction and labelling of social phenomena. The role of social scientists, in this respect, is to 'make accessible dimensions of social life which have to be labelled if they are to be accessed by a policy effort ' (Prewitt, 1983: 303). Prewitt gives illustrations such as the notions of 'hidden economy ' or 'juvenile delinquency ', which are notions 'whose meaning has either started in the social sciences or has moved from ordinary language to the social sciences and then returned to policy discussions bearing the added meaning fixed upon them by research ' (Prewitt, 1983: 302). This capacity to locate and label phenomena gives to social science a powerful role in the policy process (Ibid.: 303).
Social science 's symbiotic relationship with the modern state was based originally on the belief in the knowledge/control correlation, that is, on the belief that ‘effectivity of control and correctness of knowledge are tightly related’ (Bauman, 1987: 4)29. Social scientists today are well aware that the increasing production of social science knowledge has not been paralleled by a better control of society, although they seldom relate this finding to the radicalisation of society 's reflexivity30, invoking instead dubious arguments about the 'complexity ' of social phenomena, or of the policy-making process. Social scientists in general do not relate the dislocation between knowledge and control to processes of appropriation of social science knowledge by a large range of groups and individuals, who are not necessarily experts involved in policy-making. Their basic

29 Such a belief, in Bauman 's terms, refers to a 'modern view of the world ' (Bauman 1987: 3-4), in contrast to the ‘post-modern view’ that characterizes the current period, and which is based on the recognition of the
‘relativity of knowledge’ and of the dislocation of the knowledge/control relationship (Ibid.). As has been argued in the preceding chapter, the divorce between knowledge and control is a major point of the reflexive modernity thesis. In the latter, however, this divorce is tied up not so much with the so-called ‘relativity of knowledge’, as with the fact that possibilities of control and prediction are systematically undermined by the intensification of the process of re-appropriation of knowledge by the agents constituting its 'object-matter '.
This point is developed further in the third chapter.

30 Cf. chapter one (section 1.1.1).

assumption often remains, namely that the 'users ' of social science knowledge are - and should be - primarily policy-makers and other experts.
2.1.2 Assumption 2: 'the use of social science knowledge can be controlled and evaluated '
A second major assumption pervading the debate about the use of social science knowledge in contemporary society is that the use process can be circumscribed, observed and evaluated: social scientists assume that they can, to some extent, control and assess the uses made of the knowledge they produce. Two main 'models of relevance ' (Rule,
1978: 27) have been developed in order to interpret the ways in which social science knowledge is used by, and useful for, policy-makers. These two models are called the 'engineering model ' and the 'enlightenment model '. The former is also referred to as the 'instrumental model ', or as the 'problem-solving model ' (Weiss, 1986b: 32). In the past, the engineering model has represented an 'ideal ' that many social scientists tried to reach and, to some extent, it still does. Directly borrowed from natural science31, its main assumption is that factual social knowledge can serve to identify 'social problems ' and to provide solutions to them (Zetterberg, 1962: 15).
According to the engineering model, social science knowledge can enter the policymaking process in either of two ways. Either the 'research antedates the policy problem and is drawn in on need ' (Weiss, 1986b: 33-4), or policy-makers engage in the 'purposeful commissioning of social science research and analysis to fill the knowledge gap ' (Ibid.)32.
In both cases, it is assumed that social scientists can be ‘engineers of social life’, by providing ‘the evidence and conclusions to help solve a policy problem’ (Bulmer,
1982: 42). Proponents of the engineering model tend to assume that social science knowledge consists in a number of 'laws ' that are 'confirmed and trustworthy, and which
31 Although it has been convincingly argued that this model is not an accurate representation of the way knowledge is put into use in natural science (Weiss, 1986b: 32).

32 These two situations refer respectively to what Weiss (1986b) calls 'the knowledge-driven model ' and the 'problem-solving model '. The basic assumption of the former is that 'the sheer fact that knowledge exists presses it towards development and use ' (p. 32), whereas in the 'problem-solving model ', it is a particular policy problem which dictates the utilisation of social science knowledge.

should guide the practice of "social practitioners" ' (Zetterberg, 1962: 47). Although all the defenders of the engineering model do not share Zetterberg 's conviction as to the law-like character of social science knowledge, they at least maintain that social science knowledge can help to clarify problematic situations and reduce uncertainty, and that it influences policy decisions in a direct, significant, and indisputable way (Weiss, 1986b: 33).
The short-lived optimism associated with the engineering model has gradually given place to the recognition that instrumentality seldom characterises the way policy-makers make use of social science knowledge33. Social scientists have had to confront the disturbing conclusion that, when exploring empirically how social science knowledge is actually used by policy-makers, the ‘engineering model’, in the vast majority of cases, does not seem to apply (Bulmer, 1990: 128). Social scientists could hardly find cases where particular knowledge claims originating in social science had enabled the analysis and the resolution of a particular policy problem. Direct linkages between study results and policy decisions seem to be the exception rather than the rule (Weiss, 1983: 219). Policy-makers, in general, cannot point to instances in which their decisions were directly altered by specific knowledge claims made by social scientists (Lindblom & Cohen, 1979: 5). The empirical disavowal of the engineering model first led to pessimistic statements by social scientists as to the real usefulness of their work. Even today, the engineering model remains the prevailing imagery of research utilisation, a prevalence which, as Weiss puts it, 'accounts for much of the disillusionment about the contribution of social science research to social policy ' (Weiss, 1986b: 35).
Such disillusionment is paralleled by a more constructive attitude which searches for an alternative model which would make sense more realistically of the concrete ways whereby policy-makers 'use ' social science knowledge. This alternative model has been termed the 'enlightenment model '. Its fundamental assumption is that, although not used in an instrumental way, social science knowledge nevertheless has a diffuse impact on the
‘frames of meaning’ used by policy-makers, who are thereby ‘enlightened’ by social
33 The dismissal of the 'engineering model ' of knowledge has been paralleled by the dismissal of the 'rational model ' of policy-making (Bulmer, 1986: 16).

science knowledge. ‘Enlightenment’, in this context, means that social science can provide frames of meaning that can change the way in which social phenomena are seen and understood, but without pretending to provide technical solutions to social issues (Bulmer,
1982), or to facilitate intervention along strictly predictable lines (Becker, 1990: 11). The enlightenment model, thus, is comforting for social scientists, since it states that ‘while the immediate relevance of social research, both applied and basic, is limited, in the long run it does shape both mass and elite perceptions of social and political reality’ (Wilensky, 1997 :
10).
The notion of enlightenment points to a discursive and conceptual type of knowledge use, rather than a technical and instrumental use (Booth, 1990: 84). The enlightenment model suggests that social science knowledge can have an impact on the shape and content of policy discourse, rather than on concrete choices made by policymakers (Weiss, 1986: 219). In Bulmer’s terms:
Social research and social science [...] provide enlightenment and understanding, an angle of vision upon the problems of the world which may influence decision-makers and the policy process but does not provide neat technical solutions that can be applied in any simple manner (Bulmer,
1982: xiii).
This perspective leads to a reassessment of the so-called ‘failure’, according to the engineering model, of social science: 'what was typically characterised as underuse or nonuse of research can generally be attributed to a mistaken appreciation of how research is actually used by decision makers ' (Booth, 1990: 81). The kind of knowledge involved in the enlightenment model is ‘knowledge for understanding’, in opposition to the ‘knowledge for action’ characteristic of the engineering model (Rich, 1977). For the proponents of the enlightenment model, the conceptual uses of social science knowledge ‘should not be viewed as failures to translate research findings into action’ (Rich, 1977: 209).
Janowitz (1970) is often cited as one of the first social scientists to discuss the uses of social science in terms of the opposition between the engineering and the enlightenment models. Whereas the engineering model draws on the figure of the social scientist as an 'applied researcher ' who collects empirical data in order to solve specific problems

(Janowitz, 1970: 248), the enlightenment model emphasises the role of the social scientist as a 'teacher ' who recognises that he or she 'is part of the social process and not outside of it '
(Ibid.: 250). In the engineering model, it is assumed that social phenomena can be isolated and investigated in terms of cause-and-effect relations (Ibid.: 252). In contrast, the enlightenment model 'assumes the overriding importance of the social context, and focuses on developing different types of knowledge which can be utilised by policy-makers and professions ' (Ibid.: 252).
Enlightenment does not necessarily concern the search for solutions to policy problems. Rather, it can consist in turning what were non-problems into policy problems, as in the case of child abuse (Weiss, 1986b: 38); or, conversely, it can consist in turning policy problems into non-problems, as in the case of marijuana use (Ibid.). Enlightenment often implies the 'revision of the way policy-makers define issues, [...] the facets of the issue they view as susceptible to alteration, and the alternative measures they consider ' (Ibid.). In sum:
Research is useful not only when it helps to solve problems. It is also useful when it questions existing perspectives and definitions of the problematic.
Decision-makers indicate that research can make contributions to their work by challenging ideas currently in vogue and providing alternative cognitive maps
(Weiss, 1980: 98).
Rather than problem-solving, the enlightenment model thus focuses on the definition and conceptualisation of social issues, which can be transformed through the use of social science knowledge by policy-makers. ‘Rational enlightenment’, in Wilensky’s terms, consists in ‘raising the consciousness of policy-makers’ in two ways: first, ‘it helps to specify what areas are most open to choices and maneuver and what forces are beyond the control of policy makers’ and, second, ‘it brings to view new policy options and a wider range of possibilities’ (Ibid. : 10).
The enlightenment model has not entirely supplanted the ‘engineering model’; many authors present the two models as two distinct forms of relevance of social science

knowledge, which are valid in different circumstances34 (Abrams, 1985: 182). Accordingly, they have put forward typologies of uses of social science knowledge that combine the engineering model and the enlightenment model. The engineering model, however, is increasingly seen as being restricted to a small proportion of knowledge claims and to very specific circumstances, whereas the latter is presented as the most frequent and general way by which social science knowledge is used by policy-makers (Abrams, 1985; Bryant &
Becker, 1990). Bulmer (1982), for example, presents a typology of three possible relationships between social science knowledge and policy, namely 'empiricism ', 'engineering ', and 'enlightenment '. He quickly dismisses the first two, by stressing the
‘poverty of empiricism’ and the ‘doubtful usefulness of an engineering model of application '. Enlightenment, in contrast, is presented as the most promising relationship between social science and policy-making (Bulmer, 1982: 49).
The notion of 'enlightenment ' is useful to the extent that it rejects a strictly instrumental conception of knowledge use, and points instead to a conceptual and indirect effect of social science knowledge on the 'frames of meaning ' of the people who 'use ' it. It is useful insofar as it opens the gate to the revision of the first assumption examined in this chapter, namely the assumption that policy-makers are the foremost users of social science knowledge: the enlightenment model suggests that the population at large, rather than policy-makers alone, can be 'enlightened ' by social science knowledge. Another strength of the enlightenment model is also that it implies that the 'conceptual ' uses of social science cannot be easily grasped and easily controlled. As Finch puts it: '[i]f you expect the impact of your research to be indirect, then you must also accept that you lose control over it '
(1993: 151). Yet the proponents of the enlightenment model, however, have tried to resist, as it were, these two implications, namely that people at large can be 'enlightened ' by social science knowledge, and that 'enlightenment ' is a process which is not easily controllable.
Social scientists’ position regarding the enlightenment model is ambivalent. On one hand, they are uncomfortable with the enlightenment model, insofar as it implies that the uses of
34 In support of the engineering model, Rothman, for example, reports that several of the decision-makers he had interviewed in the British Social Service Departments 'cited instances in which factual information has aided in specific, short-term service questions, such as with multiple offender delinquents [...] and day-care for the elderly ' (Rothman, 1980: 158).

social science escape their control and their capacity to grasp and demonstrate them. They are in favour of the enlightenment model, on the other hand, to the extent that it predicts that social science knowledge will have a positive and inevitable impact on 'enlightened citizens '. In other words, the enlightenment model allows social scientists a very passive and irresponsible role in the use process. It predicts a long-term diffusion of knowledge towards its potential 'users ', and an emancipatory impact on its 'users, regardless of the knowledge claims, the 'users ', or the context. For these reasons, the enlightenment model, in my view, has not done much to renew and advance the debate about the uses of social science knowledge in contemporary society.
2.1.3 Assumption 3: 'the use of social science knowledge by lay people is an indirect, long-term and chancy process '
I have argued that policy-makers are generally considered to be the foremost 'users ' of social science knowledge and that the latter 's enlightening impact on policy-making is seen as its major form of usefulness. Ultimately, of course, the argument is that social science is useful for society at large. In this perspective, lay people, however, never benefit from social science knowledge in a direct way; they do not 'use ' social science knowledge as an active and conscious activity; rather, they can be 'influenced ' by social science knowledge as the latter comes to be incorporated into society 's general culture. Bulmer describes this long-term process as follows:
The findings and ideas which are put forward come in time to be part of the general culture, and specific social science theories and findings may become part of the defensive ideology of particular groups, as in the influence of social research on the self-perceptions of criminals and delinquents (Bulmer,
1986: 128).
For Bulmer, the long-term character of this process partly explains why social scientists have tended to be oblivious of it. The tendency among social scientists is often to look for short-term 'applications ' of social science knowledge, rather than exploring its 'long-term influence ' on culture. In contrast, Bulmer argues that 'some of the effects of sociological understanding operate over a very long time-period, for example in influencing social beliefs and practices about the position of racial minorities or women ' (Bulmer, 1990: 129).

Bulmer mentions, for example, The National Commission on Civil Disorders set up in 1968 in the USA, which employed various social scientists. In his view, the policy recommendations produced by this commission had little immediate impact on American social policy, but its impact upon public opinion was considerable, especially since a paperback edition of the commission report was published and became a best-seller
(Bulmer, 1986: 21). Bulmer 's conclusion about this particular commission is that 'even though the commission work had little immediate impact upon government, it exercised a considerable longer-term influence upon how white Americans saw issues of racial inequality and disadvantage ' (Ibid.: 21). In Britain, Bulmer draws a similar conclusion from the analysis of the British Committee on Higher Education which, in the sixties, performed an ‘enlightenment function’, in that it contributed to a change in the climate of opinion regarding educational opportunity (Bulmer, 1986: 20).
When discussing the usefulness of social science knowledge for 'lay people ', social scientists tend to describe a process in which the knowledgeability and the active participation of the people in this process is largely undermined, or not referred to at all.
Cherns refers to 'changes in the climate of opinion ' or, more precisely, to changes 'in people 's belief systems ', which represent, in his view, 'the most obvious, the slowest and most chancy ' way in which social research gets 'applied ' (Cherns, 1979: 113). In a related vein, Abrams, in his typology of the various possible 'uses ' of sociological knowledge, mentions ‘education’ as a long-term use of sociological knowledge aimed not so much at policy-makers but, rather, at ‘the innocent’ (1985: 184). 'Teaching the innocent’, in his view, ‘is a matter of changing the world through the next, or the next twenty, generations’
(Abrams, 1985: 184).
When social scientists have actually acknowledged the more direct ways whereby social science knowledge is used by 'lay people ', it is often to show that such a use is more a form of 'misuse ' or 'abuse ' of scientific knowledge (Heller, 1986; Stafford & Ladner,
1990). The impact of social science knowledge on 'lay people ' has sometimes been referred to as the ‘ideological effects’ of social science knowledge, 'ideological ' being understood in

a negative way. Wrong, for example, denounces the ideological use of social science concepts and ideas by 'lay people ', and explicitly indicates that he is using the term 'ideological ' pejoratively (1977: 82). Terms like 'identity crisis ', 'loss of community ', 'organisation man ', and so on, 'become blurred as a result of wide and rapid circulation ' [...]
[and] each individual word loses its conceptual clarity in contributing to an overall tonal effect ' (Ibid.: 83). Wrong is aware that the diffusion throughout society of social science concepts and ideas cannot be stopped, and that it cannot be easily controlled by social scientists, since 'communication between social scientists and a larger public is so rapid and extensive today that even the most arid neologisms quickly reach a wide audience '
(Ibid.: 84). What he suggests, however, is to 'restore something of the original terms, while simultaneously taking into account the resonance they have acquired, as their creators obviously could not ' (Ibid.: 84). In Wrong’s perspective, the ‘use’ of social science knowledge by 'lay people ' is a regrettable process which hinders the 'proper ' development of social science. Such a perspective, as is developed in the second part of the chapter, is typical of a traditional conception about the use of scientific knowledge which has been dominant in social science.
The three assumptions presented in this first part of the chapter have obscured, in my view, the issue of the use of social science knowledge in today’s society. They make it impossible to acknowledge that a crucial form of 'use ' of social science knowledge consists in its routine appropriation by 'lay people ', who view social science knowledge as an ordinary ‘reflexive resource’. In what follows, I examine the arguments that should prompt social scientists to revise the traditional assumptions which have dominated the debate about the use and the usefulness of social science.
2.2 SOCIAL SCIENCE KNOWLEDGE AS A REFLEXIVE RESOURCE
2.2.1 The diffusion of social science knowledge
In a work aimed at exploring the new dynamics of science and research in contemporary society, Gibbons et al. argue that a new form of knowledge production -

which they call Mode 2 - is emerging alongside the traditional one - Mode 1 (Gibbons et al., 1994: vii). Characteristics of Mode 2 imply a fundamentally different conception of 'knowledge use '; in fact, it challenges the very distinction between knowledge production and knowledge use. To some extent, it can be argued that social scientists have tended to discuss the uses of social science knowledge only in terms of the traditional mode of knowledge production. The focus on policy-making, the two models of ‘engineering’ and of ‘enlightenment’, and the depreciative view about lay people’s use of scientific knowledge are characteristic, in my view, of Gibbons’ Mode 1, and are inappropriate when characteristics of Mode 2 are brought into the foreground.
Both categories of 'producers ' and 'users ' of social science knowledge have to be redefined. In the traditional view presented in the preceding section, the 'users ' of social science knowledge are policy-makers and other people in positions of authority; the producers are social scientists working in different settings, such as universities, government departments, commercial research firms, etc. Social scientists are supposed to communicate their findings through institutional channels, such as research reports designed specifically to be read by experts. As outlined above, a major assumption in this picture is that the whole process is controllable: producers and users are clearly identified, and so are the communication channels between the two. Clear links can be established between particular theories or findings produced in social science and the subsequent uses of these theories or findings by policy-makers.
Social scientists who adhere to this picture - particularly those rejecting the 'engineering model ' and promoting instead the 'enlightenment model ' - have noted, however, several 'anomalies ' in the relation of policy-makers to social science knowledge.
They have discovered that the main ways in which policy-makers apprehend social science knowledge is not through the communication channels specifically designed to 'enlighten ' them. Numerous studies have concluded that a formal sequence of 'knowledge transfer ' from social scientists to policy-makers rarely occurs. Policy-makers use social research in an 'imperceptible ' way (Weiss, 1977: 11) that escapes clearly identified means of diffusion:

Concepts, generalisations, data, perspectives are absorbed from an array of sources, unreferenced and uncatalogued, and they make their way wraithlike, but sometimes with surprising power, into the emerging decision ' (Ibid.).
Weiss notes that decision-makers 'absorb a great deal of research knowledge through informal routes ' (1986a: 230). Research reports or academic journals are not the primary means through which policy-makers use social science knowledge. The latter, rather, reaches policy-makers through 'stories in the media, the advice of consultants, lobbying by special interest groups, conversations of colleagues, attendance at conferences, training programmes, and other uncatalogued sources ' (Weiss, 1986a: 218).
Consequently, it has been suggested that a key element for increasing and improving the use of social science knowledge by policy-makers lies in the effective dissemination of research results beyond academic or professional means of diffusion
(Bulmer, 1986: xviii). The diffusion of social science knowledge through the mass media has recently become a cause of concern for social scientists. Weiss and Singer 's (1988) work about the reporting of social science in the national media in the United States is a case in point. In this study, they stress the fuzzy and, in their view, unsatisfactory, ways in which social science knowledge is diffused in the mass media.
First, Weiss and Singer claim that ‘the vast majority of social science goes unreported’ (Ibid.: 127), for reasons which have to do partly with the concern of the media for ‘newsworthy topics’. What is actually reported is overwhelmingly quantitative research, and very often consists in polls and public opinion surveys (Ibid.: 56, 141). Second, the authors note that ‘when reporters move social science from the domain of the disciplines into the domain of news, they strip it of certain features, such as complex statistics, and recast it in terms compatible with the norms and procedures of journalism’ (Ibid.: 3). Third,
Weiss and Singer argue that ‘an unknown proportion of studies reported in the popular media consists of activities that most social scientists would agree do not constitute
“research” at all’ (Ibid.: 245).
One of the conclusions of the authors, therefore, is that ‘there may be a role for social scientists who are popularizers of social science’ (Ibid.: 163), in order to enlarge the

range of social science knowledge reported in the mass media, and to improve the way in which social science knowledge is reported. Unlike natural science knowledge, there is no such thing as journalists specialised in the reporting of social science knowledge, with the exception of economics: 'news organisations recognise the need for specialised reporters to cover science but see no parallel need for specialists in the social sciences’ (Ibid.: 12).
Instead of being reported by specialists in the 'popularisation ' of scientific knowledge, social science findings are dealt with by 'hundreds of different reporters who have little knowledge about the methods, substance, or theory of the discipline’ (Ibid.: 57). Social science knowledge is thus disseminated in the course of the covering of a vast range of topics such as business, politics, crime, and urban affairs. Social science knowledge is 'invisible ', insofar as it is often not identified as 'social science knowledge '. This is especially true of 'social facts ', conveyed for example by social statistics, and which people continuously 'ingest ', as it were, without necessarily being aware of the social research on which such statistics are based. Weiss and Singer deplore this 'invisibility ' of social science knowledge conveyed through the mass media:
Unemployment figures, interest rates, and other economic indicators [are reported] without any reference to the social science research from which such data are derived. Thus most people are likely to be unaware of them as involving social science theories, concepts and methods (Weiss & Singer,
1988: 184).
There is no doubt that there are plenty of reasons why social scientists should be dissatisfied with the ways in which social science knowledge is presented in the mass media. In this regard, Weiss and Singer 's work is certainly useful, especially since there have been very few studies devoted to the mass mediatisation of social science35. My criticism of Weiss and Singer 's work, however, is situated on a different level. By focusing primarily on what they see as deficiencies of the mass mediatisation of social science knowledge, the authors obscure the more fundamental observation that social science
35 In an article published in 1979, Ewer expresses his profound dissatisfaction with the way sociology and sociologists are presented in the media. His dissatisfaction, however, is based on different arguments from those made ten years later by Weiss & Singer. Ewer argues that 'the sociologist tends to come out of the encounter looking like some variety of liberal - tolerant of deviants, tending to blame society rather than the person who does whatever kind of behavior the problem involves, and arguing that government needs to do more for those involved ' (Ewer, 1979: 78). Ewer regrets that sociologists are usually presented as advocates for a particular set of prescriptions regarding a particular social problem (Ibid.: 78).

knowledge has become an omnipresent and quasi mundane resource on which journalists continuously draw to address a great variety of subjects. The facts that there are no 'popularisers ' of social science, and that people, including journalists, often use social science knowledge without acknowledging it, are indicators of the very 'success ', as it were, of the impact of social science knowledge on day-to-day life, rather than indicators of its failure36. The diffusion of social science knowledge throughout society takes many different and sometimes unpredictable ways. Following Dortier (1998), at least five major modes of diffusion of social science knowledge can be distinguished: the ‘scientific market’, the public debate, the market of popularisation, the education system, and social engineering.
By social engineering, Dortier refers to the multiple forms of ‘applied’ social science knowledge that are used by ‘social engineers’ such as psychotherapists, management consultants, publicists, human resources managers, etc. (Dortier, 1998: 44). As Dortier notes, a large number of occupations in education, consulting, counselling or health care, draw upon social science and are fuelled by social science knowledge. Equally important is the fact that a large proportion of the population now has access to social science knowledge through the education system and are less and less ‘scientifically illiterate’.
Thus, ‘not only are increasingly more people familiar with science and competent in its method, but also many of these are engaged in activities which have a research dimension’
(Gibbons et al., 1994: 11).
Going even further, it can be argued that the ‘producers’ of expert knowledge about the social world extend far beyond the category of social scientists:

36 By 'success ', it must be clear that I do not mean that the impact of social science knowledge on contemporary society, and the considerable but partly invisible presence of social science knowledge in the media, have only positive aspects. My point is, rather, that social scientists have been oblivious of the considerable impact of social science knowledge on contemporary society, independently of the question of the positive and negative facets of such an impact. Thus, for example, I am not celebrating the 'invisibility ' of social science knowledge in social statistics. That 'social facts ' are often presented by journalists as 'given ', rather than as 'constructed ' on the basis of specific methodological and epistemological research options, is certainly unsatisfactory insofar as it can obscure the possibility of 'deconstruction ', that is, the possibility of contesting that fact on the basis on the assumptions and procedures which were at the basis of its production.

The phenomena of tribal groups making videos about their communities, or
TV journalists making sophisticated programmes drawing upon the same sorts of intellectual resources as academics do when they write their books, become common place (Giddens, 1996: 125).
An illustration of this phenomenon can also be found in the 'self-help ' books written by people who, having confronted and eventually overcome a particular problem - such as eating disorders, divorce, illness, domestic violence, etc. - discuss and analyse their experience with the aim of helping other people to deal with the same problem. Authors of self-help books often come to be considered as ‘experts’ about the particular issue they have experienced, and they can participate in the public debate about this issue along with scientists and professionals, whose views they often strongly oppose37. An ‘expert’, thus, is
‘any individual who can successfully lay claim to either specific skills or types of knowledge which the lay person does not possess ' (Giddens, 1994b: 84). What counts as valid expert knowledge is not necessarily systematic knowledge derived from scientific research, but can also refer to knowledge which is based, for example, on personal experience. Huczynski 's (1993) work about ‘management gurus’ illustrates the openness of the category of 'expert ' and ‘expert knowledge’. Authors of 'best-sellers ' in management38 can be divided into three main categories, namely 'academic gurus ', 'consultant gurus ' and 'hero-managers ', their expertise being based respectively on academic research, experience of consultancy and experience of management (Huczynski, 1993: 40). The category of 'hero-managers ' is particularly interesting, insofar as the authority of their expertise is based on a celebration of 'common sense ' and a rejection of theoretical knowledge. More precisely, these successful business executives often put forward the 'managerial common sense ' which enables them to 'stay in touch with reality ', in contrast to the theorists, 'whom they see as being afraid to "dirty their hands" ' (Huczynski, 1993: 102). Both hero-managers and theorists are considered to be 'experts ' in management, although the basis for their expertise is different.

37 Many self-help groups are characterised by their profound critique of professionalism (Gartner &
Riessman, 1977: 12). The self-help orientation is described as 'much more activistic, consumer centered, informal, open and inexpensive ' (Ibid.: 13-4). Whereas professionalism is seen as being based on 'systematic knowledge ', self-help is seen as being based on 'experience, intuition and common sense ' (Ibid.: vii).

38 The prime example has been Peters ' and Waterman 's In Search of Excellence, first published in 1982.

The diffusion of social science knowledge, in sum, is only one aspect of a range of processes which together imply that more and more people regularly ‘use’ social science knowledge in the course of their personal or professional lives. The ‘diffusion’ of social science knowledge does not follow a logical path which would go from the diffusion of scientific findings among the scientific community, to the diffusion of a popularised version of that scientific knowledge to a larger public. Social science knowledge is omnipresent in the mass media and an increasing range of people are able to ‘appropriate’ that knowledge.
2.2.2 The popularisation of social science knowledge
As noted above, the use of social science knowledge by 'lay people ' has been little addressed, because of social scientists ' obsolete view of the relation between lay people and scientific knowledge and, more broadly, of the relation between the sphere of science and the sphere of day-to-day life. In the study discussed above, Weiss and Singer’s implicit assumption is that scientific knowledge is systematically denatured when it reaches the sphere of day-to-day life. Such a view reproduces a view which has been dominant in natural science, and which social scientists have ‘imported’ in social science.
The dominant view about the relation of lay people to scientific knowledge can be summed up in two points: first, scientific knowledge becomes 'usable ' by lay people only after a deliberate process of 'popularisation '; second, popularisation, as Green puts it, 'equals pollution ' (1985: 139); that is, popularised scientific knowledge has lost many of the attributes which made that knowledge 'scientific ':
In the process of transforming and re-packaging scientific knowledge so that it can be understood by non-specialists, the content of the knowledge becomes degraded, so that it is distorted and less true (Green, 1985: 139).
Many social scientists implicitly endorse the view, borrowed from natural science, that 'scientific popularisation belongs essentially to the realm of non-science ' (Shinn & Whitley,
1985: vii). The notion of popularisation implies that 'scientific knowledge is disseminated to a lay audience after it has been discovered and [that] this process is separated from

research ' (Whitley, 1985: 8). Independently of how adequate this conception of the relation of 'lay people ' to natural science knowledge is, such a conception is fundamentally inappropriate in the case of social science knowledge. Whitley partly acknowledges this point, although his account of the specificity of the relationship between lay people and social science knowledge is not entirely satisfactory, for reasons which will become clear in the following chapter39.
[The] simple view of the relationship between knowledge production and its communication to the lay public is obviously incorrect for the many intellectual fields whose vocabulary and concepts are quite close to those of ordinary language and whose results are of clear public interest, such as most of the social sciences and humanities in many historical periods ' (Whitley,
1985: 8).
When it is used in reference to social science, the notion of 'popularisation ' of scientific knowledge is a misleading one. The 'use ' of social science knowledge by 'lay people ' does not generally result from the deliberate effort of 'experts in popularisation ' at making social science knowledge accessible to, and comprehensible by, lay people. As will be developed in the next chapter, lay people are already knowledgeable regarding the issues addressed in social science, and are generally able to 'use ' social science knowledge in order to make sense of particular issues they face.
A large part of the social science knowledge diffused throughout society is, from its inception, 'popular ' knowledge, in the sense that its use by a large public is built into the very process of its production. Several different processes are at stake in this conception of social science knowledge. It refers in part to new conditions of knowledge production in contemporary society, conditions which Gibbons et al. ' have described in their 'Mode 2 '40.
A crucial characteristic of this new mode of knowledge production is its accent on social accountability. By this, Gibbons et al. mean that 'sensitivity to the impact of the research is built in from the start ' (1994: 7). This new demand for the social accountability of science is
39 Essentially, my argument will be that what Whitley describes as a 'closeness ' between social science knowledge and ordinary language should be understood, rather, in terms of the fundamental reflexivity between social science and its 'subjects ', and of the circular relationship between social science knowledge and common sense knowledge.

40 Cf. section 2.2.1.

itself tied up with various processes, such as the generalisation of higher education and of research, that is, the increase in the number of sites 'where recognisably competent research is being performed ' (Ibid.: 11). As already noted in the preceding section, the idea of the scientific illiteracy of lay people, which is implicit in the notion of ‘popularisation’, can no longer be sustained:
The previous one-way communication process from scientific experts to the lay public perceived to be scientifically illiterate and in need of education by experts has been supplanted by politically backed demands for accountability of science and technology and new public discussions in which experts have to communicate a more 'vernacular ' science than ever before (Ibid.: 36).
The tendency among social scientists is still to scorn 'popular ' forms of social science knowledge, and forms of social expert knowledge which are not directly part of social science, but which draw upon some of the methods used in social science. In a typical way,
Weiss, for example, finds it deeply unsatisfactory that policy-makers should use 'unverified, inadequate, partial, oversimplified or wrong ' notions resulting from the popularisation of social science (Weiss, 1977: 17-8). She deplores that much of the social science that affects policy is a denatured 'pop social science, filtered through popular coverage in newspapers, magazines, and television, attenuated by selective attention, and reduced further by sheer forgetting of details ' (Weiss, 1977: 18).
It is increasingly difficult to set the limits of what 'social science knowledge ' is, and of what it is not. For example, some would exclude from the category of social science knowledge opinion polls carried out by various commercial institutions. Yet these opinion polls are often based on the same 'scientific ' method used by social scientists in their quantitative studies. A large proportion of empirical social inquiry is conducted outside universities, in independent institutes, profit or non-profit research organisations, central or local government research divisions, research departments in industrial or commercial organisations, etc. To restrict the category of 'social science knowledge ' to the knowledge produced in universities by academic social scientists is to risk missing the significance of social science in contemporary society, when social science is viewed as a dominant 'discourse on society ' (Wagner, 1994) produced and understood by an increasing range of actors. 2.2.3 An uncontrollable and 'undemonstrable ' use
An ambivalent conclusion follows from the argument developed above: on one hand, the ‘uses’ of social science knowledge are more diverse, recurrent and deeply enmeshed in the routine course of social life than has often been acknowledged by social scientists themselves; on the other hand, the ‘uses’ of social science knowledge escape, to a large extent, social scientists ' control, and they do not conform to a an instrumental model of knowledge use. By the same token, it is extremely difficult to ‘demonstrate’ these noninstrumental forms of ‘use’ and to ‘prove’, as it were, social science’s usefulness for society. For example, social scientists can deplore, like Wilensky, that ‘over the last two centuries, our knowledge of the structural and cultural roots of poverty has increased with little effect on recent public policy and public discourse’ (Wilensky, 1997 : 7). Although, by promoting the ‘enlightenment model’41, social scientists have acknowledged that instrumentality does not characterise the way social science knowledge is 'used ', they seem reluctant to abandon two elements related to instrumentality, namely the possibility of controlling the use of social science knowledge, and the possibility of demonstrating it.
Many social scientists have expressed their puzzlement that particular research findings sometimes come to be used by non-scientists in ways which are totally at odds with the scientist 's intentions, and which he or she could not possibly predict. About the relation of social science knowledge to policy, Wilensky notes the ‘inverse and perverse relation between solid knowledge of a problem and the public policies adopted (Wilensky,
1997: 7). Tumin, for example, in his attempt to assess the consequences of research on racial relations conducted in the 1950s and 1960s in the Unites States, comes to a disparaging conclusion:
A major cause of the enormous foment of hate, anger, and despair in the
Negro community today42 [...] has been the failure of the American government and public to respond to Negro needs in precisely the way in
41 Cf. section 2.1.2.
42 'Today ' refers to the end of the sixties.

which social science research since the 1940s, and even before, has indicated that this could and should be responded to (Tumin, 1970: 116).
Tumin emphasises the unexpected ways in which a particular research, namely the 'Moynihan thesis ', has been interpreted by the people concerned by this thesis. The
Moynihan thesis was about the negative effects on the development of children of the often broken families in Black communities. Although the research was guided by fundamentally anti-racist beliefs, it was seriously attacked by Black people as a racist document, which tended 'to displace the blame for the Negro situation onto the shoulders of the Negroes themselves and thus to divest the white community of its responsibility ' (Ibid.: 124).
Tumin 's comment is rather disillusioned:
How ironic that such firmly based research and such courageously formulated law should find themselves arrayed in decisive battle against some of the persons in the interest of whose emancipation they were conceived and executed (Ibid.: 125).
The position of social scientists has typically been to call ‘abuse’ any ‘use’ of social science knowledge that was not intended or predicted by the producers of that knowledge.
Such a position is implicit in the claim that, ‘far from being non-applied, the social sciences are too easily, and too loosely applied’ (Lévy-Leboyer, 1986: 24). Lévy-Leboyer argues that social scientists should 'be more concerned about the misuse of [their] theories and techniques than about their non-use’ (Ibid.: 26). In his view, concepts and theories produced by social scientists are often used and accepted by the public without the necessary prudence and reserve that one is supposed to demonstrate when dealing with scientific constructs. He therefore suggests that social scientists 'should stand as sentries at the door of [their] ideas and techniques ' (Ibid.: 26), in order to regain some control over the way these ideas and techniques are used. In a similar vein, Stafford & Ladner note that the impact of a social scientific claim is only loosely related to its scientific value:
The promotion of concepts or theories by social scientists and others can have serious consequences, even if the assumptions are weak and if the propositions are untested’ (Stafford & Ladner, 1990: 142).

Illustrating their point with the case of the ‘underclass concept’, the authors stress that
‘once a concept is incorporated in general perceptions and becomes a guide to program development, it is almost impossible to eradicate’ (Ibid.: 141).
The use of social science knowledge is 'undemonstrable ' partly because it is difficult to isolate social science knowledge from all the other types of knowledge which enter into the construction of people 's frames of meanings. What Booth notes in the case of policymakers is true of any other 'user ' of social science knowledge: the latter 'is generally merged with and becomes indistinguishable from other sources of knowledge and policy inputs ' (Booth, 1990: 85). Even when social scientists reduce the problem to policy-making, the impact of social science knowledge still cannot be controlled or demonstrated. As already noted, policy-makers 'absorb ' social science knowledge without necessarily labelling it as social science knowledge (Weiss, 1986a: 230). Besides, it seems that it is seldom a single finding which tends to have an impact on policy-makers; rather, policymakers seems to appropriate ideas and general notions deriving from an indeterminate number of studies (Weiss, 1986a: 218). This adds to the difficulty of grasping and evaluating the impact of a particular piece of research. Social scientists have therefore found it very difficult to point to specific social science findings for which it can be demonstrated that they have had an impact on policy-making by affecting the 'frames of meaning ' used by policy-makers. For some, who still exhibit a misplaced 'complex of inferiority ' vis-à-vis natural science, this empirical difficulty of 'demonstrating ' the impact of social science appears all the more problematic when compared to natural science knowledge and its 'obvious ' instrumental usefulness for society.
The 'uncontrollability ' of the uses of social science knowledge is an inescapable feature which cannot be easily corrected by an increased vigilance of social scientists. On one hand, it is very difficult to predict and control which theories or findings will eventually be used, how they will be used and by whom. On the other hand, it is also extremely difficult to assess which theories or findings have actually been used and have 'made a difference ' in society. If we accept, as the enlightenment model has it, that the impact of social science knowledge pertains to the 'frames of meaning ' used by people

when making sense of social phenomena, then we have to acknowledge that such an impact cannot be easily grasped, circumscribed, assessed, or measured, in contrast to the technical impact emphasised in the engineering model. Acknowledging that social scientists have little control over the uses of the knowledge they produce raises the important issue of responsibility. One of the implications of the above argument is that, rather than trying to regain control over the use process, social scientists should discuss the issue of how to maintain a sense of responsibility for the knowledge they produce, knowing that the ways this knowledge will be used largely escape their control.
Finally, recognising that social scientists have little control over the uses of social science knowledge also challenges the assumption, implicit in the idea of 'enlightenment ', that 'use ' is necessarily 'usefulness ' or, to put it another way, that the use of social science knowledge always has an 'emancipatory ' effect on the 'user ', provided that the latter figures among the 'legitimate ' users acknowledged by social scientists. In the first chapter of the dissertation, I noted that the notion of appropriation does not necessarily imply a process of
‘emancipation’ or ‘empowerment’. Conversely, it is equally misleading, in my view, to conceive the use of social science knowledge by 'lay people ' only in terms of negative or 'ideological ' effects of social science, that is, only in terms of 'endarkenment ' rather than 'enlightenment '.
2.3 SOCIAL SCIENCE KNOWLEDGE AND REFLEXIVE MODERNITY
2.3.1 Social science and institutional reflexivity
In the first chapter, I claimed that one of the interests of the 'reflexive modernity thesis ', when compared to theories about 'expert societies ' or 'knowledge societies ', is that it stresses the importance of social science knowledge, whereas other theories tend to focus exclusively on techno-scientific and natural science knowledge. The conceptual key to the argument about the importance of social science knowledge is the notion of institutional reflexivity. Institutional reflexivity, to restate the argument made in the first chapter of the dissertation, implies that society becomes an object to itself - what Böhme calls the ‘self-

appropriation of society’ (1992: 41) - and that knowledge about society becomes constitutive of what this society is. Social science knowledge is deeply involved in the 'turning-back ' of society on itself, since it fuels the reflexive attitude whereby social practices are constantly cast into question and re-examined in the light of new knowledge or information about them (Holzner & Marx, 1979: 30). The self-appropriation of society 'implies not only a certain type of social organisation, but also that explicit knowledge of society exists, e.g. social science ' (Böhme, 1992: 41).
It is in this sense that Giddens, in particular, has repeatedly asserted the significance of social science knowledge, and especially sociological knowledge, as 'inherent elements of the institutional reflexivity of modernity’ (Giddens, 1991: 2): ‘the reflection of which the social sciences are the formalised version (a specific genre of expert knowledge) is quite fundamental to the reflexivity of modernity as a whole’ (Giddens, 1990: 40). Sociology, in particular, 'is not just about the study of modern societies; it has itself become a significant element in the continuing life of those societies ' (Giddens, 1989: 687). Giddens ' position about the constitutive role of social science and of sociology for contemporary society challenges the wide-spread view which consists in pointing primarily to the importance of the natural sciences, and of their technological applications, to account for the transformations at stake in contemporary society. In this respect, Giddens is rather explicit:
The social sciences are actually more deeply implicated in modernity than is natural science, since the chronic revision of social practices in the light of knowledge about those practices is part of the very tissue of modern institutions (Giddens, 1990: 40).
A related argument about the link between institutional reflexivity and social science has been put forth by Touraine, with his concept of 'historicity '. Touraine is concerned more particularly with sociology than with social science in general. His concept of historicity is very close to the idea of institutional reflexivity explored in the preceding chapter43. Historicity means that ‘society produces itself, imposes a meaning on its

43 Touraine 's general concerns and perspective, however, are markedly different from those of the theorists of 'reflexive modernity '. The concept of historicity is one of the conceptual bases of Touraine 's theory of social conflicts and social movements. The fact that society is increasingly driven by its historicity leads

practices, turns back upon itself’ (Touraine, 1977: 16). It refers to ‘this distance that society places between itself and its activity, and this action by which it determines the categories of its practice’ (Ibid.: 4). Societies with a strong historicity, in Touraine 's terms, 'can and must know themselves and know other societies through the use of sociology ' (Ibid.: 77).
To put it the other way, sociology is 'the manner of regarding social action which is suited to a society aware of its ability to produce and to transform itself’ (Touraine, 1981: 38).
Sociology, for Touraine, can only come into being in a society which fully recognises its capacity to act upon itself, and which consequently gives up any reference to a transcendent order, or to immutable ‘laws’, when trying to make sense of its development.
Social science knowledge is crucially involved in the dislocation between knowledge and control that institutional reflexivity entails. To repeat the argument made in the preceding chapter, the idea of reflexivity is fundamentally different from the idea of a mere 'application ' of knowledge for it is impossible to isolate, as it were, the social world from knowledge about the social world. What gives contemporary society its peculiar momentum is that the production of knowledge about the social world simultaneously transforms it in largely unpredictable ways. This characteristic, however, is generally absent from social scientists ' conceptual efforts to assess the use and usefulness of social science in contemporary society. Thus the ‘uncontrollability’ of the use process, which has been examined in the preceding section fundamentally refers to institutional reflexivity, and to the dislocation between knowledge and control that such reflexivity entails.
2.3.2 Social science knowledge and the reflexive project of the self
Social scientists discussing the 'uses ' of social science have failed to acknowledge the role of social science knowledge as a 'reflexive resource ' routinely used by lay people in directly, in Touraine 's view, to class opposition and class conflicts, for it implies a struggle for the control of historicity, that is, for the control of the instruments of society’s self-production. The struggle for the control of historicity is dominated by a ruling class, which routinely takes over responsibility for historicity, and which is normally challenged by a popular class that tries to resist this domination (Touraine, 1977: 117). It is by reference to this resistance that Touraine asserts the crucial importance of social movements, as an actor in the class war for control of historicity ' (Touraine, 1983: 4). In the last chapter of the dissertation, I will address another aspect of Touraine 's work that is closely connected to his position about the crucial role of sociology and of social movements, namely his method of 'sociological intervention ' (see section 6.3.3).

the course of day-to-day life. In particular, social science knowledge is, in my view, an important resource for the ‘reflexive project of the self’44. As argued above, social science knowledge has become accessible to an increasing number of people, especially if we accept, as I suggest we should, that the category of social science knowledge includes popular forms of social expert knowledge derived from, or akin to, social science. Social science knowledge pervades day-to-day life in a mediated and popularised way, without necessarily being identified as such. The conditions and the implications of this pervasiveness of social science knowledge have often been misconceived.
The following statement made by Thomas about the way in which social science pervades day-to-day life illustrates, in my view, the general position of many social scientists. By stressing the insufficiencies and the inadequacies of this position, I hope to specify further the argument made in this chapter, namely that social science knowledge has become a day-to-day reflexive resource for a large number of people. Thomas ' position reads as follows:
Social research permeates our everyday lives. It is the stuff of journalism, advertising and market research. When events bring a subject to the forefront of our consciousness - football violence, the price of North Sea Oil, famine in
Ethiopia - there are always social scientists who have carried out related research and are prepared to tell the radio listener or newspaper reader about it for a brief spell before returning to the normal tasks of addressing their peers and their students (Thomas, 1987: 51).
First, as I have argued above, the presence of social science knowledge in day-to-day life goes far beyond the explicit intervention of social scientists, who are regularly asked to give their opinion on public issues. Social science knowledge becomes disconnected to a large extent from its 'producers ', and enmeshed in a variety of expert systems which pervade day-to-day life. Social science knowledge in the media is conveyed not only by social scientists identified as such, but also by journalists, politicians, militants, and many other actors who draw, explicitly or not, upon social science knowledge, in order to legitimise and promote their interpretation of particular social issues. I have also argued

44 Cf. section 1.3.1.

that the range of potential 'producers ' of social science knowledge has itself widened, and goes far beyond the restricted category of academic social scientists.
This brings us to a second point, which is that there is increasing competition for the representation of the social world45, and that people have to confront multiple and contradictory expert claims about the social issues to which they are confronted in day-today life46. Social scientists are 'competitors ' in a market of interpretations, along with various other categories of people who produce social expert knowledge outside the direct realm of social science. Therefore, the intervention of social scientists hardly fits Thomas 's description of a 'brief spell ', during which they 'tell ' the public about particular issues.
Given the multiplicity and contradictory character of social expert knowledge, not only between social scientists and other social experts, but also among social scientists themselves, the 'enlightenment ' process, at the very least, cannot be as straightforward as it is assumed to be by Thomas and others. Rather, as outlined in the first chapter, people have to decide which 'authority ' to trust, and which interpretation to appropriate. The issue of
‘intelligence’, for example, has brought about a multiplicity of contradictory ‘facts’ aimed at either asserting or denying that intelligence is genetically based, or that social factors such as education or class are crucial determinants of ‘intelligence’47. Faced with these contradictory claims, people have choose which 'fact ' they want to hold true.
When people appropriate a particular 'fact ' or a particular knowledge claim about an issue such as 'intelligence ', it is because this issue directly connects with their everyday experience and because they have no choice, as it were, but to make sense of this issue in order to 'go on ' with their lives. This particular point is crucial for understanding how my argument differs from the view illustrated by Thomas ' quote above. By citing the examples of football violence, the price of North Sea Oil, and famine in Ethiopia, Thomas suggests that the relation of lay people to social science knowledge concerns issues which do not
45 This argument has been developed with particular significance by Bourdieu, and will be presented in the fifth chapter (section 5.2.2).

46 Cf. section 1.2.1 in the first chapter.
47 See, for example, the recent and controversial work by Herrnstein & Murray (1994), about a supposedly genetic basis of IQ differences between white and black people.

impinge directly on people 's lives. The use of social science knowledge by lay people, on this view, refers to some kind of new 'erudition ': one becomes 'educated ' about social issues in the same way that one can be 'educated ' about modern art or Greek history.
In contrast, I suggest that one appropriates social science knowledge about an issue such as 'intelligence ' in the context of what I called in the preceding chapter the problematisation of day-to-day life, that is, in the context of a situation which demands, as it were, that the person makes sense of a particular issue. This context refers more precisely to the reflexive project of the self and to the continuous construction and reconstruction of self-narratives. Thus, for example, the appropriation of social expert claims about the issue of 'intelligence ' would occur in a situation in which one has to gain for oneself, so-to-speak, an understanding of the issue of intelligence. This situation could arise when, for example, one has to grapple with the fact that his or her child is getting bad results at school; or when one has to make sense of one 's success in solving a difficult problem, or when one considers adopting a child and wonders about the importance of his 'genetic legacy ', etc. In a period of 'reflexive modernity ', these situations when people have to be engaged in a conscious and discursive reflection about what happens to them or to others are virtually permanent.
Within the terms introduced in the first chapter, these situations are inscribed in the new conditions marking the construction of self-identity and, more precisely, in the routine elaboration of self-narratives.

***

Lay people routinely 'use ' social science knowledge in the flow of their day-to-day activities, although social scientists, for various reasons discussed in this chapter, have seldom acknowledged this crucial facet of the 'use ' of social science in contemporary society. Social science knowledge has become a day-to-day 'reflexive resource ' on which

people draw in the continuous construction of their self-identities. The notion of 'use ', however, is ill-suited to refer to this process, because of its instrumental character and of its reference to a model of ‘applied’ knowledge which does not correspond to the way social science knowledge reaches lay people. The notion of 'appropriation ', in opposition to the notion of 'use ', contains the idea of reflexivity, which is fundamental for understanding the place of expert knowledge in contemporary society, and especially of social science knowledge. The notion of appropriation also refers to the idea that lay people make use of social science knowledge only insofar as they see the relevance of this knowledge for the issues they experience in day-to-day life. The appropriation of social science knowledge is thus radically different from a new form of ‘scientific erudition’: it refers, rather, to the conscious problematisation by lay people of many aspects of their lives, and to the reflexive construction of their self-identities.

CHAPTER 3
THE APPROPRIATION OF SOCIAL SCIENCE KNOWLEDGE BY ITS 'SUBJECTS '

I have argued in the preceding chapters that social science knowledge has become an ordinary ‘reflexive resource’, which is routinely appropriated by lay people in the course of their ‘reflexive project of the self’. In the present chapter, I come back to the epistemological basis for the lay appropriation of social science knowledge. This epistemological basis is what has often been called the ‘reflexivity of social science’, that is, the fact that social science knowledge re-enters its very ‘object’ by being appropriated by the people who constitute the ‘object of study’. The focus of the chapter, thus, is on the relationship between the 'researcher ' and the 'researched ', and between social science knowledge and its ‘subjects’. The reflexivity which is characteristic of contemporary society is based on the generalisation and on the radicalisation of the epistemological reflexivity between social science knowledge and its ‘subjects’.
The chapter breaks down into three main parts. In the first part, I explore in detail what should be understood by the reflexivity of social science. This reflexivity has in fact for a long time be denied by social scientists who tried to reproduce a mythical ‘natural science approach’ in which there is supposedly no reflexive process between scientific knowledge and its ‘object’. The second part of the chapter is devoted to the critical examination of three distinct conceptions of the relationship between the ‘researcher’ and the ‘researched’. The first conception is based on the idea that social research is potentially harmful for the people under study and that social scientists should, therefore, try to protect their ‘subjects’. The second conception consists for the social scientist to neutralise the increasing subjects’ resistance to social research by promoting advocacy research. Finally, the third conception refers to ‘participatory research’, that is, to the argument that ‘subjects’ of social research can ‘appropriate’ social science knowledge by participating actively in the research process. I shall argue that these three conceptions of the relationship between social scientists and their ‘subjects’ are inadequate in the way they conceive, or do not conceive, the fundamental reflexivity of social science. The third part of the chapter aims at

connecting the argument about the reflexivity of social science to the argument made earlier about reflexive modernity. In the last section of the chapter, I address the issue of social scientists’ responsibility, which is a critical one, once the pervasiveness – and the uncontrollability – of the process of lay appropriation of social science knowledge is recognised. That social science knowledge is being routinely appropriated by 'lay people ' in the day-to-day elaboration of their 'reflexive project of the self ' should bear heavily, in my view, on the way social scientists conceive their professional activity, and their relation to their 'subjects ' who, in a period of reflexive modernity, refer to the population at large.
3.1 THE REFLEXIVE PROCESS BETWEEN SOCIAL SCIENCE AND ITS 'SUBJECTS '
3.1.1 The natural science approach
Social scientists have often wished that their 'subjects ' would 'behave ' in the same way as the inanimate and 'unaware ' objects of natural science. As long as the natural science paradigm (Barnes, 1979: 25) dominated social inquiry48, social scientists tried to reproduce the relationship that the natural scientist holds with his or her inanimate objects of study. That is, they tried to ignore, or to neutralise, the fact that their 'objects ' of study are 'concept-bearing beings ' (Giddens, 1993a: 13), who can be aware of being studied and aware of the knowledge produced about them, this awareness implying a fundamental instability of what it is that the social scientist tries to study. Many social scientists would still assert that a fundamental requisite of scientific inquiry is to minimise 'the extent to which the citizens ' behaviour is altered by the observations [the scientist] makes on them '
(Barnes, 1979: 26); and many would assume that 'the disturbances can be kept significantly small’ (Ibid.).

48 The view that natural science is the 'model ' which social scientists should try to reproduce in order for social science to grow was challenged from its inception by the opposite view, according to which the project of social science is of an entirely different kind from that of natural science (Mattick, 1986: 4-6). Although it is fair to say that the 'natural science paradigm ' dominated social inquiry for a long time, this 'domination ' was never unchallenged.

The objective of treating the 'subjects ' of social science as if they were inanimate objects seemed, for a time, both attainable and desirable, given the particular circumstances in which social science was practised. There was a time, for example, when anthropologists studying foreign islanders were convinced that ethnographic fieldwork 'did usually take place under conditions similar to those met with in natural science ' (Ibid.: 194). These conditions consisted in the exteriority and the stability of the object of study:
The field of inquiry was perceived as exterior to themselves, something which could be observed by an outsider without significant distortion. The lives of the islanders were thought not to be seriously disturbed by the presence of the ethnographic team (Ibid.).
In Barnes ' view, the natural science approach was dominant in anthropology until approximately nineteen-twenty-five (1967: 194). In that period, 'the ethnographer took for granted that the observations and records he made did not significantly disturb the behaviour of the people studied ' (Ibid.: 196).
The belief that conditions of inquiry characteristic of natural science could be reproduced in ethnographic fieldwork has much to do with the fact that, for the most part, only illiterate non Western people were studied. This does not mean that the people under study were unaware of the fact that they were being studied, or that they did not 'react ' in some way to the research situation, thereby transforming the 'object-matter ' that the anthropologist was seeking to study. Neither does it mean that the people studied did not have an idea of the purpose of the research and were not able to 'learn ' from the research. In the case of illiterate people, however, social scientists can more easily ignore their subjects ' awareness and knowledgeability, and deny the reflexivity inherent in social inquiry, since this reflexivity does not lead to discursive elaboration on the part of the 'subjects '.
Studying illiterate people also implies the neutralisation of the reflexive process which would otherwise occur when the 'subjects ' of research have access to the published material generated by the research. As Szwed (1974) notes, '[w]orking in distant places, largely with nonliterate peoples, anthropologists have seldom had to face their informants as critics of their published work ' (1974: 153). Malinowski, for example, 'was not much

concerned with any influence his published work might have on the islanders or on the
Papuan administration ' (Barnes, 1967: 195). This means that the people studied seldom appropriated the knowledge produced about them, either because they did not have access to the publications in which that knowledge was conveyed, or because they did not have the cultural 'tools ' for this appropriation, i.e. they could not read or if they could, they could not make sense of social scientists ' jargon.
In contrast to anthropology, the first sociological studies took place in a 'Western ' context, and the people under study were more likely to be 'literate '. Yet the natural science approach could also for a time dominate sociological inquiry, to the extent that no direct contact was established between social scientists and the people they were studying.
According to Barnes, 'it was not until the end of the [nineteenth] century that the importance of listening directly to the citizens began to be recognised by social scientists '
(Barnes, 1979: 29-30). Social scientists tended to be systematically suspicious of the people they were studying. The people under study were suspected either of lying deliberately about the information sought by the researcher (Cole, 1972: 83), or of being simply incompetent in providing this information. For example, the British survey pioneers studying poverty, such as Booth and Rowntree, 'did not trust the poor to tell the truth, in particular the truth about their earnings ' (Miller, 1983: 20). In the early days of surveying, information about the people under study was provided by a special group of informants who 'supplied information about social inferiors judged incapable of answering for themselves ' (Goyder, 1987: 193). The principle followed by social scientists was that 'social researchers should only interview other professionals, acting as informants, giving proxy information to the researcher ' (Marsh, 1985: 206). In such conditions, social scientists are less likely to acknowledge the reflexive process between social science knowledge and its subjects since the reflexive process, in this case, is not simultaneous with the research itself.
In sum, a situation approximating that of natural science inquiry could be found in social science in the following conditions: no contact between the researcher and the researched; the people under study are unaware that they are being studied; and they remain unaware that they have been studied and do not have access to the knowledge generated by

the research. As will be developed below, not only are these conditions unlikely to arise in contemporary society, but trying to maintain them also runs against the very principle of institutional reflexivity which is at core of the dynamics of contemporary society, and against the possibility of making social science 'useful '.
3.1.2 The reflexivity of social science
For those who acknowledge the impossibility of reproducing the natural science approach in social science, the reflexive process between social science knowledge and its 'subjects ' is an inescapable one. The fundamental reflexivity of social science process has long been acknowledged, albeit sometimes in contrasting ways:
Social theories do not bear upon an independent object; [t]he objects they bear upon are not resistant to the alterations in self-understanding which these theories bring (Taylor, 1983: 85).
The 'findings ' of social science do not remain insulated from the 'subjectmatter ' to which they refer, but consistently re-enter and reshape it [...] Rather than attempting to marginalise and treat purely as a 'problem ', the potential incorporation of social scientific theories and observations within the reflexive rationalisation of those who are their 'object ' - human agents - we have to treat the phenomenon as one of essential interest and concern to the social sciences
(Giddens, 1993a: 9; 1979: 244).
Certain items of knowledge, especially social and psychological theories such as psychoanalysis, come to codefine social states of affairs because they become integrated into institutional structures and subjective experiences, which in other respects such conceptual items are supposed to describe and explain (Berger, cited in Holzner & Marx, 1979: 40).
Men, unlike physical objects, are self-aware. This self-awareness means that the predictions and descriptions of sociologists of the social world are not separate from that social world but form part of it. This implies that there can never be any recurrent situations to study in sociology because study of a situation changes that situation. Thus sociology can never be a science and must always cause change (Easthope, 1974: 2).
People ‘talk back’ [and] change the ‘laws’ which govern their behaviour, and generally act in a way which creates difficulties from a research point of view’
(Gustarsen, 1986: 153).

An interviewed housewife who described her suburb […] in sociological jargon represented the voice of sociology feeding back on itself through the voice of a corrupted respondent […] More and more of our respondents have clearly been so corrupted’ (Wrong, 1977: 18).
The last two quotations indicate that the reflexivity between social science knowledge and its ‘subjects’ is sometimes viewed as a vice. Some clearly do not view the appropriation of social science knowledge by its subjects as a positive process. They tend to complain about the increasing number of 'contaminated’ subjects, that is, of people who 'talk back ' to the social scientist by using social science concepts and ideas. In 'orthodox ' sociology, the reflexive process between social science knowledge and its 'subjects ' has been referred to as ‘self-fulfilling’ and ‘self-negating prophecies’. These notions, however, are too restrictive for grasping the full significance of the reflexivity of social science. They mean that, in some cases, the people under study 'bias ' the research by either fulfilling or negating the prediction or the hypothesis made by the researcher. The reflexive process between social science and its 'subjects ' extends far beyond these two possibilities and is not an 'extra-ordinary ' process that only concerns a limited number of research situations. As
Wrong puts it, '[f]ar from being no more than intriguing oddities, Merton’s "self-fulfilling" and "suicidal" prophecies reflect possibilities inherent in the relationship between social science and its object domain ' (Wrong, 1990: 23).
The reflexive process between social science knowledge and its 'object-matter ' has often been described as a crucial difference between social science and natural science. To repeat, the argument is that social science, unlike natural science, is 'inevitably involved in a "subject-subject relation" with what [it is] about ' (Giddens, 1984: 348). Yet the difference between social science and natural science on this point is not as obvious as it may seem. In particular, it is not at all clear that the reflexive process between social science knowledge and its 'objects ' has no equivalent in natural science. It has been argued, convincingly in my view, that social theorists tend to have a misleading and obsolete view of natural science inquiry, and that they tend to both exacerbate and misconceive the differences between the social and the natural sciences (Knorr-Cetina, 1981).

First, it has been argued that ‘in the natural sciences too observations about a series of events can influence the course of these events’ (Knorr-Cetina, 1981: 343). For example, by observing a particle, the physicist cannot help but to modify the trajectory of this particle. In contrast to social science, however, this reflexive process does not draw upon the awareness and the knowledgeability of the ‘objects’ of the research. Second, it is clear that the process of lay appropriation of scientific knowledge concerns natural science as much as social science. That is, people appropriate natural science knowledge and might revise their own knowledge and change their behaviour as a result of this appropriation. It is crucial to account for this appropriation process in natural science, since focusing only on social science reinforces an ‘unfortunate tendency to see the cognitive content of the natural sciences as having no direct political impact on the lives of lay actors’ (Lynch,
1993a: 200).
But it is equally crucial to recognise that, although lay appropriation of scientific knowledge concerns natural science as much as social science, this process is a reflexive one only in the latter 's case. In Giddens ' terms:
The concepts and theories produced in the natural sciences quite regularly filter into lay discourse and become appropriated as elements of everyday frames of reference. But this is of no relevance, of course, to the world of nature itself; whereas the appropriation of technical concepts and theories invented by social scientists can turn them into constituting elements of that very ‘subject-matter’ they were coined to characterise, and by that token alter the context of their application (Giddens 1993a: 86).
For example, although research about the chemical composition of nicotine might transform the behaviour of smokers, it will not transform the chemical composition of nicotine. Thus, 'while natural science theory also transforms practice, the practice it transforms is not what the theory is about ' (Taylor, 1983: 74).
Lay appropriation of natural science knowledge is especially significant in a period in which ‘nature’, as argued in the first chapter, becomes increasingly 'socialised '. To put it differently, the boundaries between the object-domain of the social sciences and that of the natural sciences are increasingly blurred. People today are less and less likely to consider

that there is a ‘natural world’ independent of their actions and that ‘natural scientific knowledge’ does not directly concern them. For example, scientists ' predictions about pollution rates can be reflexively appropriated by people who might behave so as to fulfil or to negate these predictions. Besides, theories of the natural world can be challenged, questioned and appropriated not so much regarding the explicit knowledge of the ‘natural world’ they assert but, rather, regarding the particular conception of the human agent which makes that knowledge possible, what Habermas (1987) calls the ‘constitutive interest’ of that knowledge.
3.2 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE RESEARCHER AND THE RESEARCHED
3.2.1 Protecting the people under study from the risks of social inquiry
A number of social scientists claim that social research is potentially harmful for the people under study and that, therefore, the researcher should protect his or her ‘subjects’ from the potential harms of the research (Bower & de Gasparis, 1978: 3). This conception is manifest in the debate about 'ethics ' which has flourished in social science over the past thirty years. This debate has, to some extent, followed the upsurge of ethical issues in biomedical research (Beauchamp et al., 1982: 6). It is primarily the activities of biomedical scientists, rather than those of social scientists, that 'have drawn predominant attention to the ethical problems concerning human research subjects ' (Beauchamp et al., 1982: 4). As will become clear later, this tendency to borrow concepts and arguments from the debate in biomedical research has contributed to obscure the differences between social science research and biomedical research, in particular, with respect to the actual 'powerlessness ' of the people under study and their capacity to appropriate the knowledge produced.
Social scientists ' assumption about the asymmetry of power inherent in the researcher-researched relationship has a strong historical basis. For a long time, the people who were the 'object-matter ' of social inquiry generally belonged to disadvantaged groups of society, such as ethnic minorities, welfare recipients, criminals, delinquents, college students, or military recruits. The focus of scientific attention in sociology and

anthropology was on 'the powerless rather than the powerful, the poor working class at home and the conquered tribal people overseas ' (Barnes, 1979: 34). To some extent, it is precisely this characteristic, as suggested in the first section, which partly explains why social scientists could treat their 'subjects ' merely as 'objects '. Yet in the late sixties and early seventies, social scientists became increasingly concerned with the asymmetry of power built into the dominant mode of research in social science:
Subjects for social research tend to be recruited from the relatively powerless segments of the society or organisation and thus come into the research situation at a disadvantage. This disadvantage is further exacerbated by their limited power within the structure of the research situation itself (Kelman,
1972: 990).
Two main categories of 'risks ' or of potential 'harms ' have been distinguished, namely, on one hand, the risks associated with the scientific investigation itself and, on the other hand, the risks related to the uses of the knowledge produced. The first category of risks refers, for example, to the stress, the emotional harm and the various psychological difficulties that participation in a study might cause (Bower & Gasparis, 1978: 12). These 'psychological ' risks have led to discussions about invasion of privacy, breach of confidentiality, coercion - the ‘exercise of undue pressure to induce a subject to participate when he would rather not’ (Bower & Gasparis, 1978: 12) - and deception. Deception of the 'subjects ' of social inquiry was almost systematic in psychology: the 'subjects ' of psychological studies either did not know until the study was completed that they were being studied, or did not know the true purpose of the research. More generally, deception refers to ‘misstatement of the purposes of a study or the uses that will be made of its results,
[...] disguise of the variables being measured, [...] misleading description of the study’s procedures, or [...] misinformation about its sponsorship’ (Bower and Gasparis, 1978: 17).
Many social scientists would still argue that, 'from a methodological point of view, social research is often at its best when the subject is unaware that he is being studied ' (Kelman,
1972: 999). However, most of them would now agree that, from an ethical point of view, social scientists should avoid deceiving their 'subjects '.

Social scientists’ response to this first category of risks has often been to pose the principle, borrowed from bio-medical research, of 'voluntary informed consent '
(Beauchamp et al., 1982: 28). Although social scientists are aware that the latter is no panacea, since it might be very difficult to ensure the genuine 'informed ' and 'voluntary ' character of the subjects ' consent (Bower & Gasparis, 1978: 39), they argue that 'most of the problems could be resolved or at least minimised with strict adherence to the norm of voluntary informed consent ' (Kelman, 1972: 1002). This norm acknowledges two fundamental rights of the 'researched ', namely 'the right to refuse participation in a study, and the right to withdraw from it ' (Ibid.: 1006).
The second category of risks, namely, those related to the impact of social science knowledge outside the direct context of the research itself, brings the discussion about 'ethics ' onto an entirely different level. Here, the focus is not only on the subjects who have actually been 'studied ' by the researcher during the inquiry but, more generally, on the groups which these individuals ‘represent’. In other words, these risks apply not only to types of research which involve direct contact with 'subjects ', but also to any type of social research which generates knowledge about specific groups - the poor, single-mothers, adolescents, business executives, footballers, etc. - or about the population at large. In
Bower and Gasparis ' terms, these risks are ‘collective risks’, that denote the ‘harm a study might cause to others beyond the individual subject himself’ (Bower & Gasparis, 1978: 12).
They refer to the possibility, for example, that ‘the interests of collectivities might risk some future setback as a result of a research study’ (Ibid.: 29).
Two different arguments can be distinguished as to the 'collective risks ' of social research. First, there is the argument that particular knowledge claims produced by social scientists might be detrimental to the people these claims are about. For example, Kelman argues that social research about 'deviance ' is often detrimental to the communities studied, because it perpetuates the ideology of 'blaming the victim ':
By focusing on the carriers of deviant behaviors (who are drawn most often from the ranks of the poor, the disadvantaged, and the minority groups) such research may reinforce the widespread tendency to explain such behavior more often in terms of the pathology of the deviant individuals, families, and

communities, than in terms of such properties of the larger social system as the distribution of power, resources and opportunities (Kelman, 1972: 1009).
Such an argument has been echoed by Warwick (1982: 114), who claims that, by presenting interpretations that tend to 'blame the victims of social injustice for their present position ' (Ibid.: 114), this type of study entails the 'victimization ' or 'scapegoating ' of the people under study.
Second, the argument can be pushed further by saying that social research, regardless of the particular 'findings ' and claims produced, is always detrimental to the people who are the 'subjects ' of the research. This argument has been made by Barrett about anthropological research. By exposing 'the inner workings of a social system, especially those involving the poor and the impotent ' (1984: 4), anthropological inquiry at the same time also indicates how these people can be controlled. In consequence, Barrett sees only one path open 'to an ethically-attuned’ anthropology: ‘the focus must switch from the traditional subjects of research - the victims and the powerless - to the victimizers and the affluent ' (Ibid.: 4). Only then, he argues, can the subversive nature of anthropological inquiry be transformed into an advantage. Barrett 's study of white supremists draws precisely upon this hypothesis:
In view of the lack of substantial research on victimizers compared to that on the victims, and the possibility that research actually is negative in its consequences, my judgement was that a greater scholarly and social contribution could be made by plugging into the other side, so-to-speak
(Ibid.: 7).
Barrett acknowledges, however, that studying the powerful with the aim of undermining their power cannot serve as the ethical basis of social inquiry. As he puts it, 'it is improbable that a discipline can endure if the bulk of its research has the purpose of undermining the people who are investigated ' (Ibid.: 23). What Barrett advocates, rather, is a 'muscular anthropology ' (Ibid.: 24) based on the recognition 'of the overwhelming significance of differential power ' (Ibid.), and in the active engagement of the researcher in the 'politics of fieldwork '.

Barrett 's argument is questionable on various accounts. First, he, as well as many other social scientists who stress the ‘risks’ of social research for its ‘subjects’, tend to overestimate their capacity to foresee and to evaluate the actual effects of their research on the people under study. It is, in my view, very difficult to predict the impact of a particular research on its direct and indirect 'subjects '. As Kelman puts it:
In social research, it is often impossible to predict the consequences of the research (particularly the consequences of publication of the findings) or even to describe in advance what will happen in the course of the research (Kelman,
1982: 89).
Second, the same social scientists tend to assume that the people under study will be 'harmed ' by the research unless they, social scientists, make sure that the risk is minimised.
In other words, the possibility that the people under study might act so as to benefit, rather than suffer, from the research, is not addressed. Nothing is said about the possibility that the people under study, or the people who are potentially affected by a particular research project, appropriate the 'findings ' or the 'theory ' generated by the research in order to foster their own interests. The people under study are assumed to be powerless and unaware of what is at stake in the research. It is certainly no longer true that social scientists primarily study people from 'disadvantaged ' groups of society. Research about 'those in power ', for example about the inner workings of the modern state, is probably as substantial as research on disadvantaged groups of society, and the 'subversive ' effect of social research, to use
Barrett 's term, concerns both types of research. Besides, even in cases where the 'subjects ' of research belong to disadvantaged groups of society, social scientists tend to exaggerate the powerlessness of their subjects. As is developed below, that social scientists have had to face the increasing ‘resistance’ to research on the part of their ‘subjects’ indicate that the latter are far from being powerless and dupes of ‘what is going on’ in social research.
3.2.2 Neutralising the resistance of the people under study
Since the early seventies, social scientists have been confronted to the explicit resistance of people who refuse to ‘be studied’, or who tend to impose their conditions before agreeing to be studied: people 'increasingly resist being subjects of inquiry,

especially for purposes not their own ' (Hymes, 1974: 5). This resistance primarily refers to the 'collective risks ' of social research, rather than to the risks associated with the inquiry itself. That is, the 'subjects ' of social research, before agreeing to be 'researched ', increasingly want to assess the possible impact of the research for them and the groups or collectives to which they belong. Citizens, as Barnes puts it, 'have begun to organise in order to exercise control over the inquiries made about themselves ' (Barnes, 1979: 72).
In this context, social scientists ' concern is not so much the 'protection ' of their 'powerless subjects ' as, rather, the need to convince knowledgeable 'subjects ' that the research will be useful from their point of view rather than exclusively from the point of view of the researcher. Resistance to research, then, has led to the recognition that the 'subjects ' studied by social scientists are in principle 'capable both of grasping the new knowledge generated by social research and of inferring its implications for their activities '
(Giddens, 1987: 47).
Although the phenomenon of resistance to social research is certainly as old as social research itself, it is only recently that it has been taken seriously by social scientists.
Initially, resistance was taken as a sign of the incompetence of the people under study, rather than as a manifestation of their competence, and of their awareness of potential negative effects of social research from their point of view. For example, survey researchers, since the mid-seventies, have had to confront the fact that 'completion rates in sample surveys have been declining and that it is becoming more difficult and expensive to obtain satisfactory response rates '49 (Orlans, 1976: 52). People who refused to respond to social surveys were implicitly thought of as 'deviants too selfish or ignorant to perform

49 The population census, which can be viewed as ‘the longest standing social survey’
(Hakin, 1985: 46), represents a unique case regarding resistance and nonresponse, since it is usually compulsory. In other words, people have no choice but to 'respond ', unless they 'choose ' to pay the fine or to risk imprisonment for refusing to respond. The census, however, is a very good illustration of the debate about the potential harms of social research for the people studied. Every time it is conducted, the census generates public debate about the data collected, the confidentiality procedures, the utilisation of the data and, more generally, about 'the political dangers of conducting, and publishing such a detailed account of the whole populations ' (Ibid.: 39).

their duty when approached by researchers ' (Goyder, 1987: 16). Social scientists assumed that nonrespondents were 'the uneducated, the foreign, the seemingly least estimable portion of society ' (Ibid.: 35). Only recently has nonresponse been considered as an active strategy of 'resistance to social research ', from 'subjects ' who often see surveys 'as part of a drift towards an authoritarian information society in which privacy and confidentiality mean nothing ' (Ibid.: 4).
Beyond issues of privacy and confidentiality, people refuse to be 'studied ' for the more fundamental reason that they often believe the research will be detrimental to their own interests and freedom. As Barrett puts it:
Perhaps there was a time when we were able to persuade our subjects, and believed ourselves, that our research efforts would be of great practical benefit to them. But most people are too sophisticated to swallow this line now. The residents of ghettos, for example, have become apprehensive about researchers, and often unwilling to accept them into their communities
(1984: 3).
When presented with a particular research proposal, the subjects of the research are increasingly inquisitive, or simply curious, about many aspects of the research, from methodological procedures to interpretation of results, from sponsorship to publication arrangements. The issue of resistance has therefore forced social scientists to consider the usefulness of the knowledge they produce for the people who are the 'object-matter ' of that knowledge: Resistance to social research will be overcome when we have done far more than heretofore to win the confidence of the communities and populations we are studying by protecting their rights to privacy and by demonstrating that what we are doing can be of some value to them - in other words, by committing ourselves as social scientists to major social change (Josephson,
1979: 110).
Most social scientists today acknowledge both the extent and the legitimacy of their subjects ' resistance to social research. Some argue that they should act as their subjects ' advocates. The term of 'advocacy research ' has come to refer to a form of social inquiry, the aim of which is to serve the interests of the people under study, who generally belong to

minorities and disadvantaged groups (Mishler, 1986: 129). The idea of 'advocacy research ' implies that the people under study usually lack the resources to foster their own interests by themselves, and that they need the support of the researcher who agrees to be their 'advocate ' (Kutchins & Kutchins, 1978: 28).
It can be argued that situations in which social scientists de facto act as their subjects ' advocates extend beyond the explicit practice of 'advocacy research '. For example, research sponsored by the people who are 'researched ' is often an implicit form of 'advocacy research '. The role of advocate is increasingly imposed on social scientists by the 'subjects ' of the research, who only agree to be 'studied ' if the researcher agrees to act as their advocate. The new 'rules of the game ' in anthropology imply, for example, that a researcher studying Native American culture 'may expect, perhaps as a requirement for continuing research, to testify in support of land claim litigation’ (Clifford, 1986a: 9).
The notion of advocacy is useful insofar as it rejects the idea that social scientists can, and should be, 'detached observers '. To some extent, social research is always advocacy research, although social scientists ' advocacy role was generally not directed to the people under study. Social scientists have come to acknowledge that they have often acted as the passive advocates of certain actors, and especially of the governments that hired them, although this advocacy role was denied in order to preserve the natural science principle of 'scientific detachment '. They acknowledge that the social scientist, whether he or she wants it or not, plays a political role, and that this role has often been to serve the interests of the powerful50:
50 The argument that all social research is 'advocacy research ' has also been made from a different, a-political point of view. Lane, for example, claims that all social research is advocacy, ‘at the minimum advocacy for certain ways of viewing society and its problems '
(Lane, 1978: 184). Sociological findings about the negative impacts of racial discrimination, for example, imply, in his view, a form of advocacy which consists in improving 'the perceived or actual advantage of a client or target group’, in this case, blacks and other minorities (Ibid.: 180). The social scientist de facto plays the role of an advocate,
‘whether for an intellectual viewpoint on social reality, for the rights of a given set of actors, for a desired policy outcome, or for a specific set of social processes’ (Lane,
1978: 184). In the same vein, Weber argues that 'sociology 's major contribution to advocacy has been in producing theories which have been used to develop rationales for

Science and professional practice, in their attempts to develop 'objective truth ' and actions in the 'public interest ', have served the socio-politically dominant sectors of the society to the exclusion of those that are marginal (Schensul &
Schensul, 1978: 122).
In the sixties and seventies, 'advocacy anthropology ' emerged precisely as a response to the criticism that anthropologists had been the passive advocates of the colonial state, and had served indirectly to perpetuate 'colonial rule '. Anthropologists acknowledged that their work lacked tangible benefits for the populations under study (Stull et al., 1987: 33). 'Advocacy anthropology ' was aimed at reorienting the impact of anthropological research, by showing that anthropologists could work 'directly for and within the community and not on behalf of external institutions ' (Schensul, 1987: 212). The earliest activities involving advocacy in American anthropology concerned American Indians and their claims to religious freedom and to land (Schensul & Schensul, 1978: 134). In the sixties and seventies, projects emerged involving the association of anthropologists with ethnic minorities and community activists. These projects were based on the idea that anthropological research could be used to facilitate the empowerment of local communities '
(Schensul et al., 1987: 10). In the mid-seventies, minority communities acknowledged the need for scientific knowledge in order to support their action, and accepted that 'anthropologists became collaborators with community activists in research directed toward social change ' (Ibid.). 'Advocacy research ', then, rather than implying that other forms of research do not involve some form of advocacy, refers to social research in which advocacy is explicitly directed towards the 'subjects ' of the research.
A major difficulty with the idea of advocacy research is that it implies that people cannot be their own 'advocates '; that they cannot, or are unable to, appropriate the social change and in producing research findings that have been used to effect change '
(Weber, 1978: 8). Lane and Weber 's conception of 'advocacy ' mainly relies on the 'enlightenment ' function that social science supposedly exercises regarding policy-making
(cf. Chapter two). Lane assumes that ‘social policy is the most appropriate vehicle for applying sociological understanding to the amelioration of social problems’ (Lane,
1978: 174). In this view, as social science knowledge is incorporated into the policymaking process, it is assumed that this process will prove useful for the relevant actors in society. knowledge produced by the researcher for fostering their own interests. Therefore, to some extent, the point of criticism expressed above regarding the idea that social scientists ' role is to protect their 'subjects ' from the risks of social research also extends to the idea that social scientists ' role is to be their subjects ' advocates. In both cases, the impact of social science knowledge on the people being researched is viewed as a process which occurs independently, as it were, of these people 's knowledgeability.
3.2.3 Participatory research
The third and last conception of the researcher-researched relationship to be explored in this chapter is, on many counts, more satisfactory than the two others. It is based on the notion of 'participatory research ', and its core idea is that, by participating actively in the research process itself, and in the production of social science knowledge, the 'subjects ' of the research can be empowered51. Participatory research consists in involving the people studied as active participants in a joint effort with the social scientist52 (Kelman, 1972: 1004). Thus, in participatory research, the people under study 'are not "subjects", or "clients", or "data sources", they are co-learners ' (Elden & Levin,
1991: 128). Both participatory and advocacy research aim at fostering the interests of the people under study. The major difference between the two forms of research is that

51 I use the term 'participatory research ' as a generic term to refer to the various forms of research based on the idea that the 'subjects ' of research can be empowered through their active participation in the research process. Certain forms of action-research, participatoryaction research, cooperative inquiry, etc., are thus included in the broad category of 'participatory research '. Although there are significant differences between these various forms of participatory research (Heron, 1996), it is beyond my concern to review them here. 52 Participatory research has sometimes been merely a way to 'neutralize ', as it were, the resistance of the people under study, by including them in the very conduct of the inquiry, and by suggesting that the research would be useful for them, and not only for the social scientists. Participatory research is often used as a way to obtain the consent of the subjects, without really involving them in the research process. As Heron notes: 'It is rare to find any full-blown commitment to collaboration about research method. In practice, it may be reduced to no more than seeking fully informed consent of all informants to the researcher 's pre-existent or emerging operational plan, and to modifying the plan in order to obtain such consent ' (Heron, 1996: 9).

participatory research is based on the idea that the 'subjects ' of the research, through their active participation in the research process, can be their own advocates. In other words, participatory research aims at promoting 'self-advocacy ' (Davidson & Rappaport,
1978: 85). Participatory researchers reject the idea that social research is systematically degrading, intrusive or potentially harmful for the people under study. They claim, rather, that social research, when it is based on the active participation of the 'subjects ' in the research process, 'may represent an enriching and personally satisfying experience for the subject ' (Kelman, 1972: 1001).
Participatory research is generally a form of 'action-research ', since it implies two basic characteristics of action-research – ‘feedback’ and ‘change’. (Bowes, 1996: 2.7).
Feedback means that there is 'some sort of explicit interaction between the researcher and the field ' (Bowes, 1996: 2.7), and 'change ' means that the research aims 'to alter existing professional practice, or organisational structure, or community activity ' (Ibid.).
Participatory action-research can be seen as a 'form of action-research that involves practitioners as both subjects and coresearchers ' (Argyris & Schön, 1991: 86). Another point of connection between action research and participatory research is what Winter calls a ‘consensual politics of inquiry’ (1987: 21), which refers to the principle that the researcher acts ‘in collaboration with the subjects of the research, so that his problems are also their problems (Ibid.). In participatory action-research, then, the researcher works with, rather than on, the researched (Bowes, 1996: 2.8).
Participatory research is viewed as a means of reducing the differential of power between the researcher and the researched, and as a means of avoiding the 'exploitation ' of the latter. For example, participatory research has been developed by feminist researchers, who 'do not want to exploit women as research subjects, but prefer to empower them to do their own research on what interests them ' (Heron, 1996: 7). Two kinds of participation are generally involved in participatory research, namely epistemic participation and political participation (Heron, 1996: 20). Epistemic participation refers to 'the relation between the knower and the known ', while political participation refers to the relation between the 'subjects ' of the research and the decisions that affect them (Ibid.).

Participatory research has been described as a way of 'democratising science '
(Maclure & Bassey, 1991: 190), insofar as the 'subjects ' of research become active participants in activities in which they traditionally have no role to play, and which are often considered as the scientist’s chasse-gardée. Participatory research can also be a way of 'demystifying ' science: ‘collaborative research demystifies the research process,

allowing those who will utilise the results the opportunity to understand and shape the data collection process’ (Schensul, 1987: 212-3). This partnership between the researcher and the researched also implies that 'the subject, along with the investigator, [is] interested personally in the process or outcome of the research and involved actively in making it a success ' (Kelman, 1972: 1003).
Participatory research can be criticised for its 'patronising ' or arrogant assumption that researchers 'have the power to emancipate, by giving power ' (Bowes, 1996: 2.17). The concept of empowerment tends to perpetuate a dichotomy between a ‘powerful outsider’ and a ‘powerless insider’, and to suggest an 'injection of power ' from outside (Ibid.: 2.10).
Participatory researchers often tend to exaggerate the helplessness or the incompetence of their 'subjects ' before they become involved in the research and, consequently, they tend to overstate the empowering or emancipatory effect of participatory research. In opposition to this arrogance of many participatory researchers, Bowes stresses that the competence and the autonomy of the women with whom she worked in an action-research project:
[T]he women with whom we worked [...] were completely competent and capable of speaking, presenting their views of the world and acting upon them: they did not need an action-research project to do this, though the project did become an effectively mobilised resource which helped strategies, which might otherwise have been difficult, to be pursued (Bowes, 1996: 8.3).
In my view, participatory researchers tend to perpetuate an epistemological fallacy regarding the reflexivity of social science. This fallacy consists in viewing the reflexive process between social science and its ‘subjects’ as a characteristic of participatory research rather than a characteristic of social science in general. In particular, they tend to see the process whereby the 'subjects ' of social science appropriate social science knowledge, and

 'talk back ' to the researcher, as an attribute of participatory research. Or they suggest that in participatory research only, the use of social science knowledge is built into the research process, whereas in non-participatory research the use occurs a posteriori, once the knowledge has been produced by social scientists. For example Elden & Levin claim that, in 'non action ' and 'non participatory ' research, it is 'only the researcher or those who can extract meaning from research reports (largely other researchers) ' who can learn from the research (1991: 131). The same epistemological fallacy can also consist in claiming that, in participatory research, the knowledge produced during the inquiry is fed back into the situation under study and immediately used by the people whom the knowledge is about, transforming the situation under study through a process of 'collaborative learning '. Zuñiga, for example, describes the participatory research he conducted in the following way:
The knowledge generated was simultaneously fed back into the situation, altering the scientific research model into a fluid one, in which the scientific products were diffused as they were produced and were immediately utilized to alter the situation that had originated them (Zuñiga, 1983: 343-4).
In Zuñiga’s claim and in the others mentioned above, the epistemological fallacy consists in attributing to participatory research characteristics that are by no means specific to participatory research. It is crucial to acknowledge that the reflexive process between social science and its ‘subjects’ characterises social research in general, as I have argued in the first section of the chapter, and not participatory research only. The difference between participatory and non-participatory research is that the participatory researcher acknowledges the process and try to play an active and positive role in it. In contrast, other social scientists either do not acknowledge the reflexive process between social science knowledge and its 'subjects ' or, when they do, they try to minimise its effects.
The epistemological fallacy also leads participatory researchers to assume first, that the people studied by social scientists are generally 'naïve ' and, second, that only participatory research can reduce this naïveté. Kelman, for example, in promoting participatory research, argues that ‘unlike many of the procedures that are now in common use, participatory research [calls] for increasing the sophistication of potential subjects, rather than maintaining their naïveté’ (Kelman, 1972: 1003). The condescension of some

participatory researchers towards the ‘subjects’ involved in their research is manifest in the following remark by Bower & Gasparis: ‘[i]t is not beyond imagination that subjects may learn something as a result of their participation in some social research studies’
(1978: 45).
A positive aspect of participatory research, thus, is that the reflexive process between social science knowledge and its 'subjects ' is not viewed as a 'vice ' of social inquiry. But participatory researchers, make the misleading assumptions that, first, this reflexive process is characteristic of participatory research alone and, second, that the reflexive process can be controlled and 'supervised ', as it were, by the researcher. They suggest that the appropriation of social science knowledge by its ‘subjects’ is conditional on the participation of the ‘subjects’ in the research process. Equally misleading is their argument about the necessary involvement of the social scientist as a 'mediator ', a 'facilitator ', or a 'translator ', in the process of appropriation of social science knowledge by its subjects. In short, the reflexive process between social science knowledge and its 'subjects ' is recast into the restricted framework of the collaborative interaction between the researcher and the researched. In contrast, I have argued that the appropriation of social science knowledge by its 'subjects ' is not a process which is limited to the practice of participatory research. In fact, the practice of participatory research is marginal to the wideranging and routine process of appropriation of social science knowledge by its 'subjects ' which, in a period of reflexive modernity, is a pervasive process of social life.
3.3 THE APPROPRIATION OF SOCIAL SCIENCE KNOWLEDGE BY ITS 'SUBJECTS '
3.3.1 The reflexivity of social science in a period of reflexive modernity
In the second chapter of this dissertation, I argued that social scientists have seldom discussed the uses of social science knowledge by 'lay people ' but, rather, have focused almost exclusively on policy-makers. The discussion conducted above in this chapter completes and modulates the argument. Social scientists have indeed been concerned with the usefulness of social science knowledge for its ‘subjects’. This concern, however, has

generally been fuelled by the assumption that the 'subjects ' of social research can benefit from it only through the active engagement of the researchers in forms of advocacy research or participatory research. It is primarily the inquiry itself, and the circumstances in which it is conducted, that are seen as the primary elements ensuring that the knowledge produced will be used by, and useful for, the 'subjects ' of the research.
In contrast, I argue that the reflexive process between social science knowledge and its 'subjects ' becomes, in a period of 'reflexive modernity ', generalised and radicalised, and that, in other words, the appropriation of social science knowledge by its 'subjects ' is a process which extends far beyond the 'moment ' of social research itself. Two series of arguments support this view. First, as claimed earlier in this chapter, social scientists have often underestimated the capacity of their 'subjects ' to appropriate the knowledge produced during the research. The people under study tend to be considered as powerless, naïve, or incompetent agents. Second, social scientists have often failed to recognise that the 'subjects ' of social research, in conditions of reflexive modernity, are not only those
‘physically’ involved in the research, but that they refer also to a vast range of other people and often to the population at large.
The following example borrowed from Giddens (1984) will serve to illustrate my argument. Let us suppose that a researcher produces the claim that 'the higher up children of working-class origins are in an educational system, the lower the chance they will drop out, as compared to children from other class backgrounds ' (Giddens, 1984: 347). The reflexive process between social science knowledge and its object-matter means that, if parents or children got to know about this claim, 'they could build it into their assessment of the very situation it describes and therefore in principle undermine it ' (Ibid.). To repeat, such a process is not restricted to research that includes direct contact with the people under study. The reflexive process between social science and its subjects is the epistemological basis of institutional reflexivity and, thus, a crucial element of ‘reflexive modernity’. Many social scientists are still reluctant to acknowledge the significance of this reflexive process in contemporary society. Murray, for example, whose definition of reflexivity - ‘the human capacity to comprehend and respond to description and prediction in confounding ways’

(1983 : 311) - is typical of the view that reflexivity is a ‘vice’ of social science, claims that it is not a significant process :
While reflexivity may act to frustrate some kinds of predictions (face to face) and may act generally to shorten the half-life of scientific theories (by inducing people to modify their reactions), practically speaking I doubt that it has much effect on the general relevance of social science to social policy
(Murray, 1983: 312).
Social science knowledge cannot be kept insulated from its potential appropriation by the people who are the 'object-matter ' of that knowledge, or from its incorporation within everyday action (Giddens, 1993a: 9). In the example given above, a large range of agents, from the working-class and from other classes, can appropriate this particular 'finding ' about class and education, and incorporate it into the way they make sense of their own, or of others ', dropping out from school.
Lay people are increasingly aware that virtually every aspect of their lives is being studied; they are increasingly likely to have access to that knowledge, to have the educational and cultural 'resources ' to understand it, and to appropriate it in some way. To come back to the example of Malinowski mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, new conditions of production and of the diffusion of knowledge mean that 'the Trobriand
Islanders now know of Malinowski 's books and one of them has reported that Malinowski did not understand their system of clans and chiefs ' (Barnes, 1967: 205). In anthropology, the traditional conception of a ‘native’ largely ignorant of the knowledge produced about his or her culture has been increasingly put into question. As Clifford argues, different rules of the game are emerging due to the increasing presence of what he calls the ‘indigenous ethnographer’ (Clifford, 1986a: 9):
If the ethnographer reads culture over the native 's shoulder, the native also reads over the ethnographer 's shoulder as he or she writes each cultural description. Fieldworkers are increasingly constrained in what they publish by the reactions of those previously classified as nonliterate’ (Clifford,
1986b: 119).
There have been numerous illustrations that people increasingly know when they are the object of a particular social inquiry and, more importantly, that they know how to ‘use’, and

how to take advantage of, the knowledge produced through this enquiry. As Barrett puts it: '[w]e have lost our anonymity. No longer can we assume that our books and reports will not be read by the 'natives '. Indeed, the ranks of anthropologists have begun to include the latter themselves ' (Barrett, 1984: 1). A world of developed reflexivity is one in which 'those who are the subjects of anthropological treatises are likely to read them, react to them, and perhaps use them in local and even political battles ' (Giddens, 1996: 122).
3.3.2 The responsibility of social scientists
The recognition that the reflexive process between social science knowledge and its 'subjects ' has unprecedented scope in contemporary society raises a number of issues about the 'role ' of social scientists and their responsibility regarding the knowledge they produce.
A crucial characteristic of the reflexive process between social science knowledge and its 'subjects ' is its uncontrollability. This uncontrollability concerns the two principal
‘moments’ of the reflexive process: it concerns, first, the reflexivity which is simultaneous to the inquiry itself and, second, the reflexivity which follows the diffusion of the knowledge produced, and which can consist in the appropriation of that knowledge by the people directly and indirectly concerned by that knowledge.
In face of the important effects that can be enmeshed in the reflexive process between social science knowledge and its subjects, social scientists have tried to set the outlines of their responsibility as producers of knowledge. Barnes, referring more particularly to ethnography, presents two options which, in his view, are open to the social scientist: one option is to minimise the reflexive process so as to minimise its potential effects; the other is to try to control the reflexive process:
[the ethnographer] is aware that what he writes may well become the basis for action designed to alter what he describes and will therefore either take special steps to prevent this happening or, alternatively, he will seek consciously to influence and even to take responsibility for such action (Barnes, 1967: 195).
I have suggested above that Barnes’ first option, namely trying to prevent the reappropriation of social science knowledge by its 'subjects ', is mistaken in at least two

respects. First, the reflexive process between social science and its 'objects ' is inescapable, whether social scientists acknowledge it or not. Second, this reflexive process is at the basis of institutional reflexivity: it is precisely through the reflexive process between social science knowledge and the people this knowledge is about, that social science has such an important impact on contemporary society. Only in the perspective of a mythical 'natural science approach ' can social science 's reflexivity can be considered as a 'vice ' whose effects should be minimised.
Barnes ' second option, namely, trying to control the reflexive process in order for the social scientist to maintain a sense of responsibility regarding the knowledge he or she produces, raises a fundamental issue. This issue has been identified in the first chapter of the dissertation, in which I argued that lay people routinely have to come to terms with situations in which they have to maintain a sense of responsibility for events which largely escape their individual control. To some extent, the social scientist today is caught in the same situation. The 'uses ' of social science knowledge or, rather, the appropriation of social science knowledge by the extended 'subjects ' of that knowledge, largely escape social scientists ' control. Few social scientists nowadays would argue that they should not be concerned with the uses of the knowledge they produce, and that they should not feel responsible for them. The figure of the 'distant researcher ' has become untenable in contemporary society and in the new mode of knowledge production that characterises it53.
The ‘distant researcher’ is one of three possible positions outlined by Piron (1996) regarding the issue of responsibility54. The distant researcher, which she calls the 'classical researcher ' denies that social scientists have a responsibility regarding the effects of the knowledge they produce, since their task is only one of production of knowledge. The classical researcher 'keeps a distance he deems necessary between his [or her] work and its consequences ' (Piron, 1996: 148). The second position is that of the 'guilty researcher ' who, being acutely aware of the differential of power between the scientists who 'name the
53 Cf. the discussion of Gibbons et al. (1994) in chapter two.
54 Piron 's argument refers more particularly to anthropology, but it can be generalized, in my view, to other social sciences.

world ' and the people 'who are being named ', becomes almost paralysed by this power. As
Piron puts it, the guilty researcher 'is submerged by his position of power towards those he studies and tries to escape from this predicament ' (Ibid.: 148). The position of the 'guilty researcher ' is characteristic of many of the scientists whose work I have examined in the second part of the chapter, that is, scientists concerned with protecting the 'subjects ' of research from the 'risks ' of social research, and even the scientists engaged in advocacy research and participatory research.
The position of the 'guilty researcher ' is equally inadequate. The guilty researcher has an 'inflated ' conception, so-to-speak, of his or her own importance, and of the specificity of his or her activity. As argued earlier, the activity of 'naming the world ' is by no means exclusive to social scientists. There is, in contemporary society, an increasing competition for the representation of the social world, and many other agents, apart from social scientists, are legitimate competitors engaged in the activity of 'naming the world '.
Besides, the ‘guilty researcher’ tends to exaggerate his or her 'subjects ' powerlessness and inability to 'use ' social science knowledge to foster their own interests.
The third position examined is what Piron calls the 'responsible researcher '
[chercheur solidaire]. The latter acknowledges that he or she cannot control the effects of the knowledge she produces, but assumes that he or she nevertheless has a responsibility towards them. This responsibility, in Piron 's view, is located in the 'production ' of knowledge, but in a way which is radically different from the classical researcher 's concern for 'production ', as opposed to utilisation. The responsible researcher 's concern for the production of social science knowledge is based on the idea that the future 'uses ' of social science knowledge are built into the knowledge-claims themselves and into what Piron calls the 'forms of humanity ' [formes d 'humanité] conveyed through that knowledge (Piron,
1996: 144). By this she means that the production of social science knowledge, instead of being exclusively governed by a concern for the 'validity ' of knowledge, should also be governed by a concern for the forms of humanity - that is, the implicit conception of the

human agent, his or her freedom, and his or her capacity for action - that underlies that knowledge55. Piron’s figure of the ‘responsible researcher’ parallels the argument that the responsibility of social scientists crucially concerns the forms of identities that social science knowledge conveys, especially the senses of freedom and of individuality that are constitutive of modern identity (Taylor, 1989). Later in the dissertation, I will develop the argument that sociologists ' responsibility refers more particularly to the way sociological knowledge enables to ‘see the social in the individual’, in a way which does not lead to the paralysis of individual or collective action.

55 The idea that the responsibility of scientists lies primarily in the 'forms of humanity ' implicitly contained in the knowledge they produce, and which is appropriated by lay people, has been developed by Wynne, albeit in different terms. In the context of his analysis of the relation of lay people to expertise (cf. section 1.2.1), Wynne emphasises scientists ' neglect of the cultural/hermeneutic character of expert knowledge. Expert knowledge, in his view, 'tacitly and furtively impose prescriptive models of the human and the social upon lay agents ' (Wynne, 1996: 59).

CHAPTER 4 : ORDINARY KNOWLEDGEABILITY
AND THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOCIAL SCIENCE AND COMMON SENSE

Common sense refers to lay people’s ordinary knowledge, a type of knowledge which, despite its likely inaccuracies, enables most of us to cope successfully with day-today life. It is usually assumed that social science knowledge breaks away from common sense, and that it often demonstrates that particular common sense knowledge claims are false. The opposition between common sense knowledge and social science knowledge and, arguably, the ‘superiority’ of the latter over the former, can be addressed at two distinct levels. The first level is the one referred just above: it is the level of the knowledge claims themselves. Thus we can compare common sense knowledge claims and social science knowledge claims on a particular issue and show, for example, that the former are being contradicted by the latter, and that the claims produced by social scientists, by virtue of their scientific status, are more accurate than commonsensical claims. But the comparison between social science knowledge and common sense knowledge can also be addressed at a second level, which concerns the form of knowledge. This second level is the level of knowledgeability rather than knowledge. At this level, the question is whether common sense knowledge and social science knowledge refer to two distinct forms of knowledge, that is, whether they share the same epistemological bases or not.
The two levels are of course tightly connected. It can be argued that the difference, or the opposition, between social science claims and commonsensical claims (i.e. the first level described above) results from the difference between two distinct forms of knowledgeability (i.e. the second level). It is therefore the second level which is the main focus of the chapter, insofar as an argument regarding differences in forms of knowledge is more consequential, as it were, than an argument about the accuracy or inaccuracy of knowledge claims. Or, to put it more adequately, the first level of knowledge claims, in the following discussion, will be addressed only insofar as it is often based on an argument regarding the second level, namely that of knowledgeability or form of knowledge. I will draw particular attention on the work of social psychologists – in particular theorists of

social representations and attribution theorists – who have devoted many empirical studies about the ‘content’, as it were, of common sense, and about the comparison between commonsensical knowledge and scientific knowledge.
The clarification of what should be understood by ‘common sense’, and the discussion of the relationship between social science knowledge and common sense knowledge, are essential for the general argument of the dissertation. They are essential, more precisely, in order to assert the very plausibility of the process of lay appropriation of social science knowledge. The present chapter aims at clarifying what conception of common sense and of its relation to social science underlies the very idea of a lay appropriation of social science knowledge. Claiming that lay people routinely appropriate social science knowledge implies that this knowledge somehow becomes incorporated into people’s common sense knowledge. Such a process can not be taken-for-granted, and does in fact challenge several assumptions frequently made by social scientists about the notion of common sense and about the relationship between social science and common sense.
The chapter breaks down into three sections. The first two sections are devoted to the notion of common sense, understood at the second level presented above, that is, the level of ordinary knowledgeability. In the first section, I discuss three characteristics of ordinary knowledgeability that social scientists have repeatedly stressed, namely that common sense is a non-reflexive form of knowledge, which is driven by psycho-affective processes rather than by logical or scientific criteria, and which essentially stems from firsthand experience. In the second section of the chapter, I question these presumed attributes of ordinary knowledgeability by suggesting that, instead of assuming that ordinary knowledgeability is an invariable form of knowledge with immutable characteristics, we should view ordinary knowledgeability as a ‘transformable’ form of knowledge which, in contemporary society, might be undergoing significant transformations. Finally, in the third section of the chapter, I turn to the level of knowledge claims themselves, and I examine the relationship between commonsensical claims and social scientific claims, in light of the conception of ordinary knowledgeability developed in the first two sections. This relationship is essentially circular: on one hand, scientific claims draws upon

commonsensical claims in many acknowledged and unacknowledged ways; on the other hand, social scientific claims continuously infuse common sense as they are disseminated throughout society, and as they are appropriated by the people this knowledge is about.
Without denying the importance of the first ‘half’, as it were, of the circular relationship, I will focus on the second one, namely the incorporation of social scientific claims into common sense.
4.1 COMMON SENSE AS A FORM OF KNOWLEDGE : ORDINARY KNOWLEDGEABILITY
4.1.1 Practical and non-reflexive knowledge
As noted in introduction, common sense can be explored at the level of ordinary knowledgeability, that is, the level of the ontological and epistemological basis upon which commonsensical knowledge claims draw. The notion of ordinary knowledgeability suggests that there are procedures and basic assumptions which are characteristic of the way ‘lay people’ construct common sense knowledge. Exploring ordinary knowledgeability means exploring ‘mundane reason’ (Pollner, 1987), which comprises a ‘network of beliefs about reality, self and others’ (Ibid.: ix). In the same vein, Forguson defines common sense as a
‘shared network of beliefs about the world and our relation to it, which informs our own behaviour and which we implicitly presuppose whenever we interpret others as rational beings inhabiting a common world with ourselves’ (Forguson, 1989: 157).
Several traditions in social science have devoted attention to ordinary knowledgeability. The general aim was often one of rehabilitation of common sense: social scientists showed that, contrary to appearances, the most mundane social practices of dayto-day life mobilise a large range of implicit knowledge, and that ordinary agents display a fundamental competence when dealing with the routine activities of day-to-day life.
Students of ordinary knowledgeability often aim at showing how sophisticated common sense is, in contrast to a traditional view which regards common sense as an approximate, simplistic, or misleading form of knowledge. Forguson, for example, begins his study of ordinary knowledgeability with the statement that ‘the individual members of our species

would not get along as successfully as they do on this earth if their common sense beliefs about the world, and about why people act as they do, were not for the most part true’
(Forguson, 1989: iv).
The exploration of ordinary knowledgeability owes much to ethnomethodology. The latter has significantly contributed to the raising of common sense as a legitimate and crucial object of inquiry in social science. Ethnomethodology offers a way of ‘of revealing the richly layered skills, assumptions and practices through which the most commonplace
[...] activities and experiences are constructed’ (Pollner, 1987: ix). In part based on phenomenology and the work of Schütz, as is especially clear in Garfinkel’s writings, ethnomethodology refers to the study of ‘the body of common-sense knowledge and the range of procedures and considerations by means of which the ordinary members of society make sense of, find their way about in, and act on the circumstances in which they find themselves’ (Heritage, 1984: 4). The object of study in ethnomethodology is the procedures routinely used by social agents ‘to analyse, make sense of, and produce recognisable social activities’ (Furnham,

1988: 213).

The

fundamental

question

at

the

heart

of

ethnomethodology is: ‘How do social actors come to know, and know in common, what they are doing and the circumstances in which they are doing it?’ (Heritage, 1984: 76).
For Garfinkel, this question constitutes a direct challenge to the Parsonian treatment of human action, which is based on the ‘internalisation of values’, and which amounts to a
‘disregard for the entire common-sense world in which ordinary actors choose courses of action on the basis of detailed practical considerations and judgements which are intelligible and accountable to others’ (Ibid.: 34). Parsons analyses human action as ‘the product of causal processes which, although operating “in the minds” of the actors, [are] all but inaccessible to them and, hence, uncontrollable by them’ (Ibid.: 22). For Garfinkel, this implies treating people as 'cultural dopes ', enmeshed in a normative system that operates behind their backs. Hence, he sees the task of the social scientist as being the elucidation of the ‘ethnomethods’ routinely used by ordinary members of society, and which are the basis of the production and reproduction of society.

The rationality of social life, instead of being treated as a ‘given ', is viewed, rather, as an active accomplishment of human agents, whose reflexivity is involved even in the most constraining of social norms. Reflexivity, in ethnomethodology, is a fundamental component of ordinary knowledgeability. Ordinary agents are ‘reflexive’ in the sense that they 'continuously monitor the circumstances of their activities as a feature of doing what they do’ (Giddens, 1991: 35). As noted in the first chapter of the dissertation, Giddens has termed this commonsensical reflexivity the ‘reflexive monitoring of action’. For the ethnomethodologist, acknowledging this fundamental reflexivity of ordinary agents is crucial, since it implies that ‘the actors have “insight” into the normative background of their own actions’ (Heritage, 1984: 23). The competence of ordinary people means that they continuously use ‘“seen but unnoticed” procedures for accomplishing, producing and reproducing “perceivedly normal” courses of action’ (Ibid.: 118). In other words, the ethnomethodologist rejects the ‘rule-governed’ model of action, which bluntly states that social rules and norms operate as determining and constraining factors on human action. In contrast, Garfinkel shows, through concrete cases like the ‘greetings exchange’, that norms and rules are reflexively constitutive of the situations to which they are applied.
We need to be very clear, however, as to what ‘reflexivity’ actually means in this context. When it is used to characterise ordinary knowledgeability, reflexivity refers to a form of competence which is practical and, as it were, oblivious to itself. Lay agents are reflexive, but this reflexivity does not ordinarily reach the level of discursive consciousness, and it does not entail any questioning of the procedures which are used in order to make sense of the world. Common sense knowledge is not ordinarily reflected upon; it is mobilised in order to deal with day-to-day life, and it is not questioned explicitly.
In fact it is this practical, ‘unreflective’, and taken-for-granted character which enables people to go on with their lives in an efficient way. For this reason, ordinary knowledgeability has often been described precisely as a non-reflexive, or even ‘antireflexive’ form of knowledge. It is non-reflexive insofar as reflexivity would entail a certain measure of discursiveness, reflection, critical distance, or ‘objectification’56. In this
56 The notion of ‘objectification’ will be explored in detail in the next chapter, in the discussion of Bourdieu’s work.

sense, one of the chief characteristics of common sense becomes its ‘non-reflexivity’. And this ‘non-reflexivity’ has often been ‘glorified’ by students of common sense as a necessary condition for its ‘efficiency’.
The non-reflexive character or ordinary knowledgeability, and the positive aspect that is associated with it, are central in phenomenology. Phenomenological terms for
‘common sense’ are the ‘life-world perspective’, or the ‘natural attitude’, which refers to
‘the normal pre-reflective attitude within which we do our daily living’ (Giorgi, 1990: 67).
The central feature of the natural attitude is that it takes the everyday world for granted
(Natanson, 1967: xxvi), in the sense that ‘[it] does not raise serious and persistent questions concerning the nature of the everyday experience but, instead, takes that experience as a fact’ (Douglas, 1973: 14). The task of the phenomenologist is precisely to suspend the
‘belief in the reality of the world as a device to overcome the natural attitude’ (Schütz,
1967b: 229), what Husserl calls the ‘phenomenological epoché”, or the ‘transcendental phenomenological reduction’. In ordinary life, there is normally no occasion or reason to perform this reduction:
No motive exists for the naïve person to raise the transcendental question concerning the actuality of the world or concerning the reality of the alter ego, or to make the jump into the reduced sphere’ (Schütz, 1967b: 135).
Only in exceptional circumstances, when, for example, ‘a newly appearing phenomenon of meaning resists being organised within the store of experience’ (Ibid.: 136), can the natural attitude momentarily reach a reflection of a higher order. Thus, the break from the natural attitude performed by the phenomenologist aims at understanding the natural attitude
‘better than it understands itself’ (Giorgi, 1990: 67). The ‘theoretic stance’ of the phenomenologist implies to ‘stand back from, to reflect upon, to re-view the experience taken for granted in the natural stance’ (Douglas, 1973: 15).
The necessary absence of reflexivity, thus, is a crucial element which is brought to the fore when social scientists try to characterise the difference between common sense and social science: for many social scientists, ordinary knowledgeability is essentially non-

reflexive, whereas scientific knowledgeability is reflexive. This argument will be examined further in the second part of the chapter.
4.1.2 A form of knowledge driven by a practical interest and oriented toward control For many social scientists, there is another fundamental difference between ordinary knowledgeability and scientific knowledgeability, which has to do with the interest, or the
‘psychological function’, that are rooted in common sense knowledge. For these scientists, ordinary knowledgeability is driven by a practical interest, that is, an interest for making sense of the world in the ‘here and now’, in order to choose an appropriate course of action.
We find this argument in Schütz’ work, who argues that common sense knowledge, in contrast to social science knowledge, is 'built up ad hoc, as a product of practical, interested engagement with the world’ (Heritage, 1984: 61). Schütz asserts that ‘there is a difference in kind between the type of naïve understanding of other people we exercise in everyday life and the type of understanding we use in the social sciences’ (Schütz, 1967a: 140). For him, ‘scientific theorizing does not serve any practical purpose; its aim is not to master the world but to observe and possibly to understand it’ (1967b: 245). In contrast, common sense is always guided by a practical interest, which implies that ‘[i]n ordinary life we call a halt to the process of interpreting other people’s meanings when we have found out enough to answer our practical questions’ (1967a: 38). Therefore, ‘the maximum possible grasp of subjective meaning in the social world cannot be expected on the common-sense level’ (Ibid.). Ordinary knowledgeability, in this perspective, is driven by a practical interest which subordinates the construction of knowledge to the successful ‘elucidation’ of the concrete and urgent situations of day-to-day life.
A radicalisation of a related argument consists in claiming that ordinary knowledgeability is driven by a ‘psychological imperative’, which consists in common sense knowledge being congruent with the affective and psychological well-being of the person. Here again, the argument serves to assert the difference between ordinary knowledgeability and scientific knowledgeability: whereas the scientist follows a logic of

scientific efficacy, the lay person follows a logic of ‘affective’ efficacy. Such a perspective can be found very prominently in social psychology, and especially in the theory of social representations57. The concept of social representations is a key concept in social psychology. Social representations, for social psychologists, constitute the ‘popular knowledge’ that the members of a same group have in common. They serve as a common stock of notions whose meanings will be clear for every member of the group (Mannoni,
1998: 74).
For social psychologists, social representations are a key element of the ordinary epistemology on which common sense knowledge is based (Mannoni, 1998: 3). The main characteristic of this ordinary epistemology is the prevalence of psychological congruence:
One of the properties of social representations is that of giving the priority to psychological congruence over logical coherence, and to affective-cognitive efficiency over theoretical-scientific efficacy (Mannoni, 1998: 4).
‘Psychological congruence’ implies that the lay person constructs and sanctions knowledge claims which assist him or her in the control of his or her life. This is what attribution theorists have called the ‘control function’ of lay theories58 (Hewstone, 1983: 17).
Attribution theory consists in 'the study of perception or inference of causation, usually held by lay people about their own or other’s behaviour ' (Furnham, 1988: 1). It focuses on the 'locus of causality ' of lay explanations. For example, lay explanations of poverty have been
57 See Carugati (1990), Farr (1993), Jodelet (1989), Mannoni (1998), Moscovici (1984,
1982, 1981, 1961), Moscovici & Hewstone (1983), Purkhardt (1993). An exhaustive presentation of the theory of social representations is beyond the scope – and the object – of this chapter. Rather, I will focus on the way ordinary knowledgeability is characterised in the theory of social representations, as well as on the way social psychologists, and
Moscovici in particular, have analysed the process of transformation of social science knowledge into common sense (see section 4.3.3. in this chapter).
58 Attribution theorists have outlined three primary functions of lay theories, namely, the control function, the self-esteem function and the self-presentation function (Hewstone,
1983: 17). In their view, common sense explanations of social phenomena can be explained with respect to one or several of these 'functions '. The control function refers to the individual 's 'motivation to achieve a degree of control over the physical and social world’; the self-esteem function refers to the ‘need to protect, validate and enhance feelings of personal worth and effectiveness’; and the self-presentation function is about gaining public approval and avoiding embarrassment (Ibid.).

ranged in three categories, depending on what causes people attribute to the phenomenon of poverty, or who or what can be held responsible for poverty: ‘individualistic’ explanations consist in placing responsibility on the poor people; ‘structural’ explanations place responsibility on social and economic factors; and ‘fatalistic’ explanations rely on luck and fate to explain the phenomenon of poverty (Furnham, 1988: 136-7). Similar studies have been conducted by attribution theorists with respect to other issues, such as addiction, illness, crime, etc. Lay theories of addiction, for example, can be divided between biological, psychological, and sociocultural theories (Ibid.: 78). Likewise, lay theories of illness causation have been analysed according to four alternative assumptions as to ‘who’ can be held responsible for an illness: responsibility can be placed on the patient, the natural world, the social world, or the supernatural world59 (Ibid.: 115).
The control function refers to the individual 's 'motivation to achieve a degree of control over the physical and social world’ (Hewstone, 1983: 17). For Bains, such a motivation pertains to an 'ideology of control ' (Bains, 1983: 142) which is characteristic of at least modern society, and which means that individuals are socialised in a such a way that they will tend to maintain a view of the world that emphasises their capacity to exert control and mastery over their environment (Ibid.: 127). Thus, when accounting for a particular issue, especially a distressing one, lay people, according to attribution theorists, tend to ‘blame’ individuals themselves rather than external circumstances:
All those who have studied how […] attributions are usually made have been struck by one thing: that personal causes are generally preferred. It is more natural to blame individuals than circumstances (Moscovici, 1982:
126).
For example, the tendency of parents to blame themselves when their children contract leukaemia can be explained, according to attribution theorists, by reference to the control
59 Although they seldom acknowledge the point in these terms, these studies about the different lay theories that people develop about a particular issue cast into question the very idea of common sense, that is, the idea that it refers to knowledge claims that are common to virtually everyone in the same society. By showing how different people, or different groups of people, tend to give different, and sometimes contradictory, explanations of the same issue, students of 'lay theories ' suggest that ‘common sense’ is a multi-faceted form of knowledge, which is certainly less homogeneous than social scientists usually assume.

function performed by this type of lay explanation: blaming themselves, according to attribution theorists, enables these parents to maintain a sense of control over the situation, and to sustain the belief that, somehow, they 'can make a difference ' regarding their children 's predicament (Hewstone, 1983: 17). Attribution theorists often refer to the control function of lay explanations as the ‘fundamental attribution error’ (Hewstone, 1983: 10), or as 'control biases ' (Bains, 1983: 142). The bias, or the error, lies in lay people’s tendency to attribute internal rather than external causes to phenomena, in order to maintain a sense of control over what happens to them:
When attempting to explain other’s social behaviour, lay people tend to ignore or play down situational forces and constraints preferring to locate the ‘causes’ of human behaviour in an individual’s personality, motives, etc. (Furnham,
1988: 6).
Attribution theorists stress that the ‘attribution error’ is only an error in terms of logic; it ceases to be an 'error ' in light of the psychological function performed by internal explanations. The ‘personalism’ that characterises lay theories is what distinguishes, according to

attribution

theorists,

ordinary

knowledgeability

from

scientific

knowledgeability (Moscovici, 1982: 132). The lay person is viewed as a ‘naïve scientist’, insofar as ‘he is impervious to information, limits himself to confirming his theories instead of falsifying theories, and explains everything he observes on the basis of personal causes’
(Ibid.: 127). According to attribution theorists, this naivety is essential for preserving the individual’s ‘ontological security’. The ‘personalist’, or individualistic character of many lay attributions is thus positive in the sense that is reinforces people 's capacity for action, and their sense of responsibility for what happens to them. For example, internal explanations of health mean that people typically assume more responsibility for their health, guard against accidents and disease, seek more information about health maintenance, and learn more about illnesses and diseases that they contract’ (Ibid.: 117). In contrast, for the people who attribute illness to germs ‘which are external and random in who they affect’ (Ibid.: 118), the victims become blameless and therefore powerless. In the same vein, attribution theorists have argued that the way in which unemployed people explain their situation often shifts from external to internal explanations, as they 'decide ' to 'do something ' about their situation: ‘people out of work for long periods of time tend first

to offer societal (external) attributions for their own (and others) unemployment, but [...] these explanations then tend to become fatalistic, and finally individualistic, with the unemployed blaming themselves for their plight’ (Ibid.: 130).
Schütz’ argument about the practical interest at core of lay knowledgeability, and social psychologists’ argument about lay people’s ‘attribution error’, have at least two points in common. First, they both assert that ordinary epistemology is fundamentally different from scientific epistemology. Second, they locate the difference in the practical, immediate, and urgent interest which drive lay people’s construction of common sense knowledge, and in lay people’s preference for knowledge claims that stress the possibility of individual’s control. It is certainly accurate, in my view, to claim that common sense is driven by a practical interest. By this it should be simply understood that people construct and appropriate knowledge claims only insofar as this knowledge enables them to make sense of their world. This does not mean, however, that common sense knowledge is systematically built up in conditions of urgent solving of concrete situations. Such an argument reinforces the view, presented in the first section of the chapter, that common sense is a non-reflexive form of knowledge. In this view, lay people do not have the luxury, as it were, to reflect upon and to critically examine their knowledge. As suggested in the first chapter, my own argument is that this conception of day-to-day life is inadequate: dayto-day life should not be conceived as a mere succession of urgent situations which mobilise unreflected knowledge. There are indeed many occasions in day-to-day life during which lay people critically examine their own commonsensical knowledge, as has been amply demonstrated, for example, by research on public understanding of environmental hazards (Irwin & Wynne, 1996). We should also, in my view, be extremely suspicious of social psychologists’ argument about lay people’s systematic tendency to favour knowledge that confirms their individual capacity for control and for ‘making a difference’. This argument will be examined in the subsequent chapters of the dissertation, since it directly challenges one of the major claims made in the dissertation, namely that lay people routinely develop a ‘lay sociological imagination’.
4.1.3 First-hand knowledge

A third characteristic of ordinary knowledgeability that is often stressed by social scientists concerns the empirical basis of common sense knowledge. Ordinary knowledgeability, it is argued, draws upon first-hand experience: the lay person constructs common sense knowledge on the basis of his or her direct experience. To put it differently, ordinary knowledgeability is bounded, as it were, by direct experience. Here again, the argument serves to assert an epistemological difference between ordinary and scientific knowledgeability: [ordinary knowledge refers to] knowledge that does not owe its origin, testing, degree of verification, truth status, or currency, to distinctive professional social inquiry techniques but rather to common sense, casual empiricism or thoughtful speculation and analysis (1979: 12).
In this view, the epistemological difference between ordinary knowledgeability and scientific knowledgeability thus concerns both the construction and the validation of knowledge claims. Common sense knowledge rests entirely on practice: commonsensical claims ‘are generalisations acquired through observation and analysis of practice and tested pragmatically in practical situations ' (Furnham, 1988: 189).
It seems clear enough that there are indeed epistemological differences between the way common sense and social science knowledge are constructed and validated. However, the argument that common sense knowledge rests primarily on first-hand experience is a dubious one. Wilson stresses the absurdity of this argument:
If all we could know of the world was what we could find out on the basis of first-hand experience, we would know little [...] We mostly depend on others for ideas, as well as for information about things outside the range of direct experience (Wilson, 1983: 9-10).
The assumption which, in my view, needs to be questioned, is the idea that common sense knowledge refers to a homogeneous and unified body of knowledge, whose origin and construction exclusively rely on first-hand experience. Ordinary knowledgeability cannot be defined with respect to the origin of the knowledge claims that it comprises. What

people hold true about the world is based on a combination of first-hand experience, and of the appropriation of claims made by others, including those made by social scientists.
The argument that ordinary knowledgeability rests on local, first-hand knowledge, is especially difficult to maintain in a period of reflexive modernity. As argued in the first chapter, the notion of ‘local knowledge’ is being redefined in a society in which many forms of abstract systems and of expert knowledge pervade day-to-day life. Holzner and
Marx ' (1979) go as far as to announce the emergence of a 'post-modern common sense ', which refers to a shift from an emphasis on 'stable, substantive capsules of folk knowledge
[to] a means-oriented attitude to accessing information that is known to be socially stored '
(Holzner & Marx, 1979: 25). In their terms:
Common sense in [...] a highly differentiated, self-reflective, knowledgeoriented society must necessarily take a form that is different from the pattern it took in a society in which most knowledge at hand was traditionally transmitted, learned through apprenticeship, or generated in its use (Ibid.: 19).
For Holzner and Marx, post-modern common sense involves 'a greater willingness to utilise specialised professional services ' (Ibid.: 345) and it includes 'knowledge of how to find and benefit from the service most appropriate to a problem ' (Ibid.).
The argument that common sense knowledge primarily refers to first-hand knowledge gained through direct experience has been opposed from a different perspective by Moscovici, in his theory of social representations. He claims that common sense is now made of second-hand rather than first-hand knowledge, a phenomenon directly connected with the growth of science and the diffusion of scientific knowledge in society. Moscovici’s theory of social representations was, from its inception, ‘conceived in order to study how the game of science becomes part of the game of common sense ' (Moscovici & Hewstone,
1983: 101). More precisely, Moscovici and Hewstone argue that there are now two distinct forms of common sense knowledge, namely an 'old common sense ' made of first-hand knowledge, and a 'new common sense ' made of second-hand knowledge (Ibid., 1983: 99).
The ‘old common sense’ is a 'residue of widely shared knowledge, which may be systematised by science ' (Ibid.), and which is still prevalent ‘in the spoken world, that of

conversation and rumour ' (Ibid.: 105). The ‘new common sense’ is tied up with the development of modern science and is made of scientific knowledge that has been transformed into common sense knowledge.
It follows that lay people, for Moscovici and Hewstone, have become 'amateur scientists ' who consume, digest and transform scientific knowledge on a continuous basis.
Science has come to be a 'hobby ':
Ordinary people consume developing scientific knowledge and use it in their everyday communication and behaviour. But they do not simply process this knowledge; they turn it into a game of 'science as a hobby ', a modern version of common sense (Ibid.: 101).
The authors indicate that referring to lay people as 'amateur scientists ' aims at replacing the pejorative term of 'naïve scientists ' that is often ascribed to lay people (Ibid.: 99). The 'new common sense ', by virtue of the authority of science, and of the massive diffusion of scientific knowledge throughout society, increasingly 'dethrones ' the 'old common sense '.
Hewstone and Moscovici 's conclusion, therefore, is that 'many so-called common-sense explanations are derived and not "first-hand". They are the result of a transformation of scientific explanations that impose upon a society, or a particular group, at a given time '
(Ibid.: 125). The merit of Moscovici’s argument is that it stresses that common sense knowledge cannot be assimilated with first-hand knowledge. Moscovici, however, goes too far towards the opposite position which consists in arguing that, in contemporary society, common sense is now ‘science made common’ (Moscovici, 1984: 29). As suggested earlier, it is more adequate, in my view, to abandon the idea that common sense knowledge draws upon a unique source of knowledge or upon a unique form of experience; rather, it is best seen as an heterogeneous form of knowledge, which partly, but certainly not entirely, draws upon social science knowledge. As suggested in the first chapter, this implies that social scientists should study how lay agents ‘fashion locally useful knowledges from
“external” and “indigenous” sources (Irwin and Wynne, 1996: 213). The issue of the incorporation of social science knowledge into common sense is addressed in more detail in the last part of the chapter.

4.2 A TRANSFORMATION OF ORDINARY KNOWLEDGEABILITY?
4.2.1 Common sense as transformable knowledge
Ordinary knowledgeability has often been conceived as a form of knowledge with immutable characteristics: as argued above, common sense is assumed to be a practical, non-reflexive form of knowledge, which performs the ‘psychological’ function of preserving the individual’s ontological security at the cost of ‘attributions errors’, and which is based primarily on the individual’s first-hand experience. These supposedly fundamental characteristics of ordinary knowledgeability serve to establish the difference between common sense and social science, insofar as social science is described as a reflexive form of knowledge, which is free from ‘attribution errors’ and which goes beyond individual first-hand experience. In what follows, I explore the view which consists, in contrast to the traditional perspective presented above, in putting into question the
‘immutable characteristics’ of ordinary knowledgeability, and in suggesting that ordinary knowledgeability is a heterogeneous and evolving form of knowledge. Specifically, I want to examine the argument that ordinary knowledgeability is a ‘transformable’ form of knowledge which, in a period of ‘reflexive modernity’ is indeed being transformed in important ways.
The argument about the ‘transformability’, as it were, of ordinary knowledgeability, has already been introduced above through the works of Moscovici and Hewstone, and of
Holzner and Marx. In both works, the authors claim that common sense, as a form of knowledge, is being transformed, and both relate this transformation to the unprecedented role, in contemporary society, of expert and scientific knowledge. In my view, however, the transformation of ordinary knowledgeability does not amount to a one-way causal relationship between the growth of science and the transformation of common sense. It refers, rather, to conditions of ‘reflexive modernity’, which have been examined in the first chapter of the dissertation. These conditions refer specifically to institutional reflexivity and the ‘reflexivity of the self’, to the problematisation of day-to-day life, to the imperative of
‘discursivity’, which means that tends to explain discursively what was, to some extent,

only implicitly known, and to the new tensions that characterise the way one might articulate a sense of control, of responsibility, and of capacity for action in contemporary society. 4.2.2 Increased reflexivity?
The argument that ordinary knowledgeability is a practical and non-reflexive form of knowledge – whereas the hallmark of science is reflexivity - can be challenged on at least three accounts. First, one can argue that reflexivity is, and has always been, a characteristic of ordinary knowledgeability which many social scientists have failed to grasp. I mentioned this argument in the first chapter of the dissertation about the reflexive modernity thesis. Second, the argument can be, conversely, that the reflexivity of science is largely overrated and that, therefore, reflexivity is not a key for distinguishing between ordinary knowledgeability and scientific knowledgeability. Third, it can also be argued that, although it might have been true that ordinary knowledgeability is a practical and nonreflexive form of knowledge, this is less and less the case in contemporary society.
Although I shall briefly address the first two arguments, I shall devote particular attention to the third one, that is, the argument about an ‘increased reflexivity’ of ordinary knowledgeability. This argument will be specified and developed in the next two chapters of the dissertation. In the present chapter, my aim regarding this argument is twofold. First,
I want to argue that common sense is malleable, not only at the level of knowledge claims, but also at the level of knowledgeability. Second, I suggest that one aspect of this malleability concerns the evolving capacity of lay agents to be reflexive about their own life and practice.
The argument that lay knowledge is reflexive, and that, conversely, science is not as reflexive as often assumed, has recently taken a renewed significance in the field of ‘public understanding of science’. Wynne, in particular, has devoted several works (Irwin &
Wynne, 1996; Wynne, 1996a&b, 1993, 1992), to the twofold thesis that, on one hand,
‘“modern” science exhibits much less reflexive capacity to problematize its own founding commitments than is supposed’ (Wynne, 1993 : 334), and that, on the other hand,

“traditionalist” lay publics enjoy a much greater capacity for such reflexivity in relation to science than is usually recognised’ (Ibid.: 334). Wynne uses the concept of reflexivity in the particular sense that is prevalent in the sociology of knowledge: it refers to the ‘process of identifying, and critically examining (and thus rendering open to change), the basic, preanalytic assumptions that frame knowledge-commitments’ (Ibid.: 324).
Wynne notes that the dominant approach in research about lay understanding of science places science as ‘the ultimate repository of reflexivity in that it is thought to expose its own founding assumptions and to be able to reflect critically upon them’ (Ibid.:
323). In this same traditional perspective, ‘publics are usually seen as unreflexive cultural dupes who are tradition-bound and incapable of critical reflection upon epistemic issues and their own relationship to knowledge’ (Ibid.: 325). Ordinary knowledgeability, in this dominant perspective, draws upon traditional modes of thought and is immune, as it were, to critical testing (Ibid.: 323-4). In a way related to the way attribution theorists have viewed lay people as being ‘control-minded’60, many students of public understanding of science have assumed that lay people are ‘security-minded’, that is, that they ‘crave for certainty, [and are] unable to face up to the inevitable uncertainties in scientific knowledge about, for example, environmental hazards’ (Wynne, 1993: 324).
In opposition to this traditional approach, Wynne claims that research about public understanding of science ‘has found ample evidence about the reflexivity of lay people in problematising and negotiating their own relationship to “science”’ (Ibid.: 330).
Conversely, the same authors argue that science is not reflexive, insofar as it is usually unable to question its own precommitments, ‘so that these can be negotiated, rather than blindly imposed on society’ (Ibid.: 324). Wynne’s (1996a&b) research about sheepfarmers in the Lake District of Northern England illustrates both claims61. Lay reflexivity, in this case, means that the farmers ‘showed themselves to be more ready than the science experts

60 Cf. section 4.1.2.
61 Following the Chernobyl accident in 1986, these farmers experienced radioactive fallout which contaminated their sheep flocks and upland pastures, and were restricted from selling their sheep freely.

to reflect upon the status of their own knowledge, and to relate it to that of others and to their own social identities (Wynne, 1996b: 40).
The thrust of Wynne’s argument is that lay reflexivity is not a ‘new’ process as such, but one that social scientists have often failed to grasp. As suggested in the first chapter, Wynne explicitly rejects the view, supported in particular by theorists of ‘reflexive modernity’ such as Giddens, that lay people used to be unreflexive in their relation to science and expertise. For Wynne, ‘the supposed earlier conditions of unqualified public trust have never prevailed, and […] Giddens has reproduced what is a widespread confusion between unreflexive trust, reflexive dependency and private ambivalence
(Wynne, 1996a: 48). In his view, people have always been reflexive towards expertise, in the sense that they 'informally but incessantly problematise their own relationships with expertise of all kinds, as part of their negotiation of their own identities ' (Ibid.: 50).
In contrast, Wynne also claims that scientists and experts, contrary to what is often assumed, are not reflexive, insofar as they showed ‘no overt ability to reflect upon their own social positioning, that is, upon the latent social models which their scientific interventions imposed on the farmers’ (Wynne, 1996b : 43). Wynne formulates an interesting hypothesis in order to account for scientists’ lack of reflexivity, namely that
‘perhaps the distribution of reflexive capability (or impulse) is itself a contingent function of social relations of power’ (Ibid. : 43). Reflexivity, in other words, should not be viewed as a ‘natural’ or ‘intrinsic’ property of social agents but, rather, as a highly social feature, which might be ‘brought about only by criticism and a related sense of insecurity, rather than by any intrinsic qualities of self-criticism’ (Ibid. : 43).
The same line or argument can be pursued regarding the explicit or implicit character of lay knowledge, or regarding the practical or discursive character or ordinary knowledgeability. Instead of viewing the practical character of lay knowledgeability as an essential and immutable feature, it can be argued, first, that the boundary between the implicit and explicit components of lay knowledge is a shifting one and, second, that the key to understand this ‘malleability’ of lay knowledgeability is eminently social. Only by

accepting these two claims as valid ones can it then be possible to suggest that, in a period of reflexive modernity, the discursive and explicit component of lay knowledge takes a new significance. The arguments that lay knowledge is first and foremost implicit or practical knowledge, and that lay knowledgeability precludes reflexivity, are tightly connected.
Wegner and Vallacher’s (1981) work in social cognition can be used here in order to clarify this point. Their argument concerns what they call ‘common-sense psychology’, but it can be generalised, in my view, to refer to common sense knowledge in general. Wegner and
Vallacher draw an important distinction between an implicit and an explicit form of common-sense psychology: the implicit form refers to ‘how people think about the social world’, whereas the explicit form refers to ‘how people think they think about the social world’ (Wegner & Vallacher, 1981: 226). The implicit form of common sense knowledge has been the one to which social psychologists, and social scientists more generally, refer first and foremost when analysing common sense. In this dominant perspective, common sense knowledge is implicit ‘because the individual understands aspects of the social world through his system of common-sense theory, and not by looking at the theory itself’ (Ibid. :
229). This implicit character of common sense knowledge implies that such knowledge, or
‘theory’, is undiscoverable by means other than scientific investigation by social scientists
(Ibid. : 230). Or, to put it differently, this dominant perspective about ordinary knowledgeability means that ‘the matter of whether the everyman can describe or report on some aspect of his common-sense theoretical system is largely irrelevant to scientific decisions on the existence or form of such a system’ (Ibid. : 230). The assumption about the implicit character of common sense knowledge, thus, goes hand in hand with the assumption that ordinary knowledgeability is a non-reflexive form of knowledge.
In the ‘explicit theory’ of common sense, the everyman’s ‘accounts, descriptions, hypotheses, attributions and explanations themselves are seen as the corpus of commonsense [knowledge] that is to be studied by [social scientists]’ (Ibid. : 231). It is in this

perspective that the work of attribution theorists62, for example, can be situated. The interest of Wegner and Vallacher’s work in this respect is that they raise very explicitly the question of the shift from implicit to explicit common sense knowledge : ‘How does the person come to know explicitly the features of implicit theory? To what extent does this happen?’ (Ibid. : 232). Their answer, although it springs from a very different perspective, parallels Wynne’s argument’s presented above, namely that one of the keys to lay reflexivity lies in the global social environment, in particular social characteristics of the group considered, and in the social incentives which make it both possible and necessary for the lay person to shift from implicit to explicit common sense knowledge.
For Wegner and Vallacher, thus, ‘explicit self-knowledge is available to the individual only because of the social functions such knowledge may serve’ (Ibid. : 237).
There are two social factors, in their view, which are at stake in the shift from implicit to explicit common-sense knowledge, namely, first, the ‘availability of descriptive terms in the social lexicon’ (Ibid. : 237) and, second, ‘the degree to which social forces promote attention to implicit theory’ (Ibid. : 238). Regarding the first factor, the authors refer explicitly to the process which is at core of the present dissertation, namely the lay appropriation of social science knowledge, in their case psychological knowledge :
As the terminology of scientific psychology becomes assimilated into popular culture, it is possible that social cognitive psychologists will becomes increasingly amazed at the ‘insights’ of the everyman that are produced by this new common lexicon (Ibid. : 238).
As will be developed in the third part of the chapter, at stake here is a process of transformation of common sense, in part prompted by the massive diffusion of social science knowledge in society.
The key point in this section has been to suggest that the practical character of common sense knowledge, and the lack of lay reflexivity that is associated to it, are contingent characteristics which may well, in a period of ‘reflexive modernity’, undergo important transformations. The current period, in my view, provides the ‘social incentives’
62 Cf. section 4.1.2.

to which the authors presented above refer : people have increasingly to articulate in a discursive way their understanding of their actions, and of the social world more generally.
The key to such a process is not that 'lay people ' are more 'clever ' than they used to be, or that they behave more and more like 'amateur scientists ', as Moscovici has suggested.
Rather, it can be argued, in my view, that the current version of what ‘being a competent agent’ implies an effort toward reflexivity, that is, toward the continuous and discursive examination or re-examination of one’s life and practice.
4.3 THE

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN COMMONSENSICAL CLAIMS AND SOCIAL SCIENTIFIC

CLAIMS

I now turn to the second level at which the notion of common sense, and the relationship between social science and common sense can be addressed, that is, the level of knowledge claims. The first level, namely the level of knowledgeability, has been the focus of the first two parts of the chapter. As suggested in introduction, the two levels are tightly connected: the differences that many social scientists note between commonsensical claims and social scientific claims are the direct consequence of the essential difference they see between ordinary knowledgeability and scientific knowledgeability. More specifically, those who claim that ordinary knowledgeability is first and foremost a practical and non-reflexive form of knowledge (whereas scientific knowledgeability is discursive and reflexive) stress the opposition between the claims produced by the two forms of knowledge and, further, tend to assert the superiority of social scientific claims over commonsensical claims. The tendency to treat common sense as an immutable form of knowledge also applies to the level of knowledge claims: the transformation of commonsensical claims has not drawn much attention from social scientists.
4.3.1 The superiority of social science knowledge over common sense knowledge
A common view of the relationship between commonsensical claims and social scientific claims is that social science should aim at improving 'upon the presumptions of common sense beliefs, correcting when they happen to be false and remodelling them when

they are expressed in an imprecise fashion ' (Giddens, 1987: 57). Although a lot could be said about the way Giddens, and many other social scientists, designates common sense knowledge63, such a view seems to be a non-problematic and convincing one. Thus it seems reasonable to assume that commonsensical claims are sometimes mistaken or imprecise, and that one of the roles of social science is precisely to shed light on these inaccuracies. Yet beyond this general and non-problematic view, three points need to be noted regarding the way social scientists, and sociologists in particular, have addressed the relationship between social scientific claims and commonsensical claims.
First, the view that commonsensical claims are sometimes inaccurate or imprecise is often radicalised to the point where commonsensical claims are considered to be systematically false. Such a radicalisation often characterises the introductory chapters of textbooks in social science. Wegner gives the following description, in my view very accurate, about the way social scientists – in his case social psychologists – assert the superiority of scientific claims over commonsensical claims :
A standard ploy in the introductory chapters of several social psychology textbooks [is] the presentation of a set of maxims, proverbs or bits of folk wisdom as ‘common sense theories’ of social psychology. Then, when certain pairs of maxims are shown to conflict, and the utter senselessness of commonsense psychology has thereby been demonstrated, the writer is free to appraise students of the virtues of the scientific approach to these matters (Wegner,
1981 : 231).
Joseph’s (1986) introductory book to sociology provides an illustration of the ploy described by Wegner. Entitled Sociology For Everyone, Joseph 's book aims at demonstrating the usefulness of sociological knowledge regarding the decisions ordinary people have to make in day-to-day life. Joseph does so by exposing what he takes as 'common sense assumptions ' about various phenomena of everyday life. He then shows how these assumptions are false in light of the sociological knowledge produced about these phenomena. Examples of common sense assumptions are: 'only a stable family can ensure the successful upbringing of children ' (Joseph, 1986: 8), 'the increasing divorce
63 In particular the way commonsensical claims are designated as ‘presumptions’ and
‘beliefs’ rather than as knowledge claims as such.

figures indicate something is seriously wrong with society ' (Ibid.: 51), or 'class is less important now than it was fifty or hundred years ago ' (Ibid.: 71). Joseph 's general argument, as stated by Giddens in the preface of the book, is that [t]he common sense beliefs which individuals hold both about their own societies and those of others, can frequently be shown either to be bluntly mistaken, or to be at least contentious ' (Ibid.: ivx).
The example of Joseph’s textbook brings us to the second point, which consists in noting that social scientists, when asserting the difference between commonsensical claims and social scientific claims, tend to assume, rather than investigate, what claims can be counted as commonsensical claims. Joseph, for example, does not indicate how he came up with these 'common sense assumptions ' such as those mentioned above. We do not know about any empirical evidence which enables him to assert that the claim 'only a stable family can ensure the successful upbringing of children ' is a commonsensical assumption made by a large number of ‘lay people’. It could be argued somewhat ironically that Joseph endorses a very commonsensical view of what common sense knowledge is.
The same criticism could be addressed to Giddens (1989) who, in his own textbook, lists a number of statements which are supposed to be part of 'common sense ', and which, in the light of sociological research, are proven to be 'wrong or questionable ' (Giddens,
1989: 14). These statements include: 'how long people live is dependent upon their biological make-up and cannot be strongly influenced by social differences ', or 'most people everywhere value material wealth, and will try to get ahead if there are opportunities to do so ' (Ibid.). Many people, in my view, and not only 'sociologists ', would contest that such statements are an accurate description of 'what they think '. In other words, it remains to be seen that statements such as those listed by Joseph and Giddens are actually part of 'common sense '. Ultimately, this argument raises the question of the plausibility of the very idea of 'common sense ', as a body of knowledge claims that are shared by everyone. As suggested in the first section of the chapters, it is mainly social psychologists who have tried to investigate the knowledge claims made by lay agents about particular social issues.
Sociologists, in contrast, have shown little interest in the matter.

Finally, the third point of criticism that can be addressed to the way social scientists frequently assert the superiority of social scientific claims over commonsensical claims concerns the ‘versatility’ of commonsensical claims. Just as ordinary knowledgeability is often seen as an immutable form of knowledge, the transformation of commonsensical claims is hardly addressed by social scientists. In particular, the educating and 'correcting ' role of social science vis-à-vis common sense is never pushed to the point where common sense becomes effectively 'corrected ' by social science, that is, where commonsensical claims are transformed and ‘incorporate’ claims produced by social scientists. It is crucial, in my view, to acknowledge that, as Giddens puts it, social science findings ‘both disturb and contribute to our common sense beliefs about ourselves and others’ (Giddens,
1989: 14). ). This apparently paradoxical claim loses its contradictory character when seen in a dynamic rather than in a static perspective. A particular social science 'finding ' or theory can first contradict common sense, but can then gradually lose its ‘disruptive’ character by being diffused throughout society, and eventually incorporated into common sense. The question of the ‘superiority’ of social scientific claims over commonsensical claims is a critical one for social scientists, insofar as they have often had to face the devastating comment that social science is merely common sense 'disguised ' with scientific jargon, a 'pseudo-science that expends a great deal of effort describing or proving what we already know ' (Furnham, 1983: 105). The phenomena that social scientists investigate, and about which they produce scientific knowledge, are already the object of common sense knowledge. The business of social science 'is everybody 's business and not left by default to academic social scientists to investigate ' (Wilson, 1983: 89). In Bauman 's terms:
Those human actions and interactions that sociologists explore had all been given names and theorised about, in however diffuse, poorly articulated form, by the actors themselves. Before sociologists started looking at them, they were objects of commonsensical knowledge (Bauman, 1990a: 11).
For some social scientists, this means that social science de facto 'compete ' with common sense for the elucidation of the social world. Some see this feature as the source of their difficulty in asserting the truly scientific character of social science, as well as its

usefulness. Lange, for example, clearly condemns what he calls the ‘pseudoscientific competition’ of common sense:
Sociology 's central topics are aspects of everyday life for which common sense has already provided workable explanations and socially appropriate action guidance. Perhaps no other science faces such formidable pseudoscientific competition, and this competitive situation probably adds to societal impatience or hostility toward the state of sociological knowledge and its relatively low level of direct applicability (Lange, 1987: 25).
That social science and common sense aim at grasping the ‘same’ phenomena implies something rather different from, and much more consequential than, Lange’s frustration. It means that common sense knowledge is an integral part of the ‘object’ the social scientist wants to study: ‘common sense beliefs cannot be treated as mere impediments to a valid or veridical characterisation of social life, [f]or we cannot describe social activity at all without knowing what its constituent actors know, tacitly as well as discursively’ (Giddens,
1984: 336).
The crucial argument that common sense knowledge is the necessary and inescapable basis for the construction of social science knowledge has been developed in a large range of traditions and schools of thought in social science, among which hermeneutics and phenomenology figure prominently. Schütz’ phenomenology, in particular, is based on the interplay between the ‘first-level constructs’ used by ordinary agents in order to make sense of their social world, and the ‘second-level constructs’ created by social scientists in order to develop models of ordinary agents’ actions. The key point in phenomenology is that understanding ordinary agents ' ‘first-level constructs’ is a precondition for creating accurate
‘second-order constructs’: ‘the thought objects constructed by the social scientist refer to and are founded upon the thought objects constructed by the common sense thought of man living his everyday life upon his fellowmen’ (Schütz, 1953: 3). Phenomenologists ' argument about the interplay between first- and second-level constructs has been echoed by
Giddens with his notion of the 'double-hermeneutic ':
The conceptual schemes of the social sciences [...] express a double hermeneutic, relating both to entering and grasping the frames of meaning involved in the production of social life by lay actors, and to reconstituting

these within the new frames of meaning involved in technical conceptual schemes’ (Giddens, 1993a: 86).
An important difference between Schütz ' and Giddens ' conceptions of the relationship between social science and common sense, however, is that Schütz fails to insist on the fundamentally circular relationship between the two levels of the 'double-hermeneutic '.
Schütz stresses that common sense is a necessary resource for the construction of social science knowledge but he never addresses the reverse process, namely that social science knowledge is also a resource for common sense knowledge.
4.3.2 The homology between scientific and lay theories
It is mainly in the fields of social psychology and of social cognition that research has been conducted about the first level of common sense, that is, the level of knowledge claims. Social psychologists have explores the ‘lay theories’ which ordinary agents construct in order to make sense of their lives:
In an attempt to make sense of the social and physical world and to see it as stable, orderly, predictable and understandable, people develop theories or arrive at explanations for phenomena salient to their lives (Furnham, 1988: 19).
Referring to common sense knowledge as ‘theories’ is not innocuous. It suggests the
‘comparability’, as it were, of scientific and lay knowledge. Using the term ‘theory’ which usually suggests a sophisticated form of knowledge, and is often associated with science - in order to refer to lay knowledge, indicates a parallel between the lay theorist 's thinking and the scientific theorist 's thinking (Groeben, 1990: 21). In particular, students of lay theories stress that the lay agent, just as the scientist, aim at the explanation, prediction and change of the world, and that, further, the argumentational structure of lay and scientific theories is similar, although it generally remains implicit in the case of lay theories (Groeben, 1990). These social psychologists suggest that ‘lay people’ are much more knowledgeable about psychological phenomena than other psychologists have usually been ready to acknowledge.

Students of lay theories, thus, have stressed the similarities between lay and scientific theories, rather than the differences. To some extent, they oppose the view that scientific understandings are superior to lay understandings, and that the former ‘appear as true reflections of what the lay person understands only feebly’ (Gergen & Semin,
1990: 2):
Lay people can, and do, formulate theories that are explicit, coherent, and falsifiable, as do ‘scientists’ who are frequently far from infallible in their own model-building (Furnham, 1988: 7).
In the same vein, Semin & Krahé have argued that lay conceptions of personality contain well-formed propositions similar to those of scientific theories of personality. This finding, in their view, casts into question 'the implicit and thus unexamined assumption that lay persons do not have access to so-called higher-order explanations ' (Semin & Krahé,
1987: 206). The parallel established between lay and scientific theories involves a reconsideration of science as much as it does a reconsideration of common sense:
‘scientific, explicit theories are not as sophisticated and unambiguous as presupposed, nor are lay theories as muddled or fallacious’ (Furnham, 1988: 208). Students of lay theories have stressed the homology between lay and scientific theories, that is, the similarities between scientific and lay explanations about particular social phenomena. Semin et al.
(1981), for example, have compared commonsensical conceptions of extroversionintroversion, and a scientific conception of it, namely that of Eysenck. The question the authors set out to answer was the following:
If subjects naïve to psychology were asked to describe what they understand by extroversion-introversion, would their account correspond to that offered by
Eysenck as long as a viable method for the comparison were obtained? (Semin,
Rosch & Chassein, 1981: 77)
They conclude that the major traits of Eysenck 's theory of extroversion-introversion are present in lay conceptions of these notions, and that 'lay people ' therefore share an 'implicit personality theory ' which enables them to categorise people as extrovert or introvert in a way consistent with the scientist 's categorisation (Ibid.: 78). Semin et al. conclude that there is an 'inter-penetration of common-sense with scientific conceptions ' (Ibid.: 207), which has

not been addressed by social scientists, because of their implicit assumption that 'lay persons do not have access to so-called higher-order explanations ' (Ibid.: 206).
Furnham (1988) has extended the comparison between lay and scientific theories to a large range of phenomena. His exploration of 'lay theories ' focuses not only on
‘psychological phenomena’, that is, phenomena studied by psychologists, but also on social phenomena addressed by other social sciences such as poverty, wealth, unemployment, alcoholism, delinquency, etc. His work is organised according to the various social sciences to which the phenomena under study refer: thus he successively examines lay theories in psychology, in psychiatry, in medicine, in economics, in statistics, in law, and in education64. In each case, Furnham reviews studies which have demonstrated the parallel between scientific and lay theories. For example, he cites Rock 's finding that 'all the different academic theories of crime and delinquency are to be found in common-sense formulations ' (Furnham, 1988: 27). Yet Furnham also identifies major differences between scientific and lay explanations of social phenomena. Apart from the banal argument that scientific theories tend to be more explicit and more coherent than lay theories, he notes that lay people 'generally underestimate the importance of external or situational factors in explaining behaviour ' (Ibid.: 6). This argument refers to the ‘psychological function’ that lay theories, according to attribution theorists, necessarily perform, and to the ‘attribution errors’ that lay people regularly commit. As will be developed in the last chapter of the dissertation, the two assertions that, first, lay people’s attributions are systematically internal rather than external, or personalist rather than ‘social’ or ‘structural’ and, second,

64 There is no chapter, in Furnham 's book, devoted to ‘lay theories in sociology’, although
Furnham includes sociological theories at various points in his analysis, when he wants to contrast biological, psychological and sociological models of lay explanations. As will become clear later, this absence is not fortuitous, but refers, rather, to what I consider to be a major misconception of attribution theorists’ perspective on 'lay theories '. A major argument of attribution theorists is that 'sociological issues ' tend to be re-translated by lay people in psychological terms, and that, therefore, there is not any sociological lay theory.
This argument springs in part from the functionalist perspective characteristic of many social psychologists. This point will be developed later, since it contradicts the central argument of the next two chapters, namely, that lay people’s knowledgeability includes, in a period of reflexive modernity, a ‘lay sociological imagination’.

that this characteristic stems from a ‘psychological function’ that lay explanations have to perform are, in my view, deeply mistaken.
4.3.3 The transformation of social science knowledge into common sense knowledge
The above discussion of the two levels of common sense – the level of knowledgeability and the level of knowledge claims – leads us to a process which is at core of the dissertation, namely the incorporation of social science knowledge into common sense knowledge. It can be argued that a number of commonsensical claims derive from social science research, and that ‘[m]uch of what we regard as common-sense, “what everyone knows”, is based on the work of sociologists and other social scientists’ (Giddens,
1989: 15). The process of incorporation of social science knowledge into common sense knowledge has been addressed in the second chapter about the ‘uses’ of social science. I argued then that the significance of social science for lay people is seldom analysed in terms of the routine and active appropriation of social science knowledge by ‘lay people’.
In light of the analysis conducted in this chapter, three elements, in my view, need to be acknowledged in order to address properly the process of lay appropriation of social science knowledge. First, at the level of ordinary knowledgeability, we need to acknowledge that there is no difference in nature between lay and scientific knowledgeability and that, in particular, reflexivity and discursiveness are certainly not the privilege of scientists only. Second, it is important to recognise that common sense knowledge draws upon a number of sources which goes far beyond first-hand experience.
In contemporary society, expert and scientific knowledge, diffused through mass media, become an important source of knowledge, on which lay agents routinely draw in order to make sense of their lives. Third, the dynamic character of common sense - at both levels of knowledgeability and of knowledge claims - should be acknowledged. Common sense knowledge is continuously produced and reproduced by lay agents and new knowledge claims become incorporated into common sense, partly under the impetus of social science.

The incorporation of social science knowledge into common sense is a process which is difficult to grasp empirically and to ‘demonstrate’. The more social science knowledge is incorporated into common sense through its routine appropriation by 'lay people ', the more this impact of social science tends to be concealed: original ideas and findings in social science tend to ‘disappear’ to the degree to which they are incorporated within the familiar components of practical activities (Giddens, 1993a: 15). If common sense in part derives from expert claims which have become commonsensical through their widespread appropriation by lay people, these claims have lost their expert character in the process and are often no longer recognised as such. As Geertz puts it:
Whether the plain man has become a genuine Copernican or not, he has surely been brought round, and quite recently, to a version of the germ theory of disease. But it is as a bit of common sense, not as an articulated scientific theory, that he believes it (Geertz, 1983: 87).
The process, then, is one of transformation of knowledge from the realm of expertise into the realm of common sense, and not only one of ‘transfer’ or even of ‘translation’. Once transformed into common sense, social science knowledge has lost the very attributes which made it identifiable as expert knowledge. Abrams humorously refers to this phenomenon as the ‘Cheshire Cat problem’:
Insights, concepts, language which began life as sociology filter into the world of taken-for-granted common-sense and common discourse and to the extent that they are indeed used in that world are no longer perceived as sociology [...]
[W]hat is seen as sociology is likely to be that which has not yet been found useful. When demystification fails the demystifier is an irritant; when it succeeds the demystifier is redundant (Abrams 1985: 202).
This argument can also be a response to the frequent accusation addressed to social scientists that ‘social science is merely common sense’: instead of denoting the 'triviality ' of social science knowledge and the worthlessness of social science, such an assertion can also be viewed as denoting the actual and significant efficiency and usefulness of social science.
As Furnham puts it:
One argument used by psychologists to refute the ‘all psychology is common sense’ objection is that because psychology is frequently popularised people

become more knowledgeable about psychological principles, which in turn are regarded as common sense (1988: 56).
In the same vein, Brickman gives the following account of the gradual incorporation of social psychological knowledge into common sense:
A finding in social psychology cannot remain non obvious as people hear it again anymore than a joke can remain funny to people who hear it again and again. More generally, we may propose that discoveries emerge from a region in which we disbelieve them into a zone in which we find them interesting, and then a zone in which we find them obvious, and eventually perhaps, into a further region in which we are again oblivious to them (cited in Furnham,
1988: 27).
As noted in the second chapter of the dissertation, the process whereby social science knowledge is transformed into common sense cannot be a predictable or controllable one. It would be extremely difficult to anticipate, in view of a particular social research finding, what impact this finding will have on our everyday beliefs, and whether it will lead to any transformation of our commonsensical views. Thus, ‘[t]here is no necessary match between changing common-sense interpretations of social phenomena and the ideas and theories of social science. Many different connections and oppositions between these are possible '
(Giddens, 1993a: 14). Yet despite this ‘uncontrollability’, I have suggested that the
‘incorporation’ of social science knowledge into common sense is a crucial aspect of social science’s usefulness in contemporary society, and of the way social science contributes to
‘changing the world’. What Semin & Krahé note here about psychological theories concerns social science knowledge at large:
If one were to take a general interactionist perspective on lay and psychological models of behaviour, i.e. that they stand in a relation of mutual influence, then one can assume that behaviour can be influenced and modified to the extent that psychological theories are assimilated by lay theories, which in turn should, at least theoretically, lead to a consequent modification of the psychological model, etc. (Semin & Krahé, 1987: 200)
It is crucial to acknowledge, as Semin & Krahé do, that there is a 'dialectical relationship’ between social science knowledge and ‘social reality’ (Ibid.: 206).

Few social scientists have devoted empirical research to the transformation of social science knowledge into common sense. In sociology, a few studies have traced specialised terms created or popularised by sociologists, which have passed into common sense.
Because they can easily be related to a body of expert knowledge, a specific theory, or a particular expert or scientist, it is argued that these ‘catchwords’ provide evidence of the influence of sociological knowledge upon common sense. Wrong’s work about the influence of sociological ideas on American culture (1990) represents one of these few attempts to grasp empirically the impact of sociological knowledge on common sense.
Wrong tries to ‘identify broadly concepts and notions originating in academic sociology that have entered the awareness, or at least the vocabulary, of Americans during the past half century’ (Wrong, 1990: 19). The first step of his inquiry concerns terms and catchwords, since ‘[a]t the most obvious and direct level, a few terms of unmistakable academic sociological provenance have passed into popular parlance, or at least into the common argot of journalists’ (Ibid.: 24). Wrong mentions, for example, ‘charisma’,
‘Gemeinschaft’, and ‘life-style’.
Yet the mere use of a catchword does not mean that the analysis, or the theory of which it was part, has actually been appropriated by the people who use the catchword.
Beyond the presence of particular terms in the commonsensical vocabulary, it is difficult to demonstrate that the related knowledge claims have passed into common sense, and to show how they have been transformed in the process. More interesting in Wrong’s article, therefore, is the second step of his inquiry, namely his attempt to identify ‘vague and inchoate sociological ideas affecting the outlook of Americans’ (Ibid.: 25). His list of
‘sociological ideas’ is not based, however, on empirical investigation. The first of these sociological ideas is about ‘the loss of community and the wish to recover it’; the second is the idea that ‘society made us so we should not be blamed’; and the third is the idea that
‘we made society and can remake it into something different’ (Ibid.).
Beyond the question of the empirical validity of what Wrong assumes to be commonsensical claims made by American people, the difficulty with his research and, for that matter, with any research that focuses on the transformation of social science

knowledge into common sense knowledge, is that it tends to be oblivious to the two-way relationship between social science and common sense. What Wrong presents as the result of a one-way impact of sociology upon common sense could also be seen as a manifestation of the impact of common sense on sociology, and it seems impossible to disentangle the two processes which are involved in a relationship that is essentially circular. In other words, the difficulty with any sort of study that seeks to grasp the impact of social science knowledge on common sense comes from the circular relationship between the two forms of knowledge. Wrong himself acknowledges the difficulty: ‘How can one identify the source of an idea common to both academic sociologists and a larger public?’ (Wrong, 1990: 24). To repeat, common sense is as much a resource for social science knowledge as the latter is a resource for commonsensical knowledge:
The relation between technical vocabularies of social science and lay concepts is a shifting one: just as social scientists adopt everyday terms and use them in specialised senses, so lay actors tend to take over the concepts and theories of the social sciences and embody them as constitutive elements in the rationalisation of their own conduct’ (Giddens 1993a: 165).
Another attempt at grasping the incorporation of social science knowledge into common sense has been made by Berger (1965), in his work about psychoanalysis. Insofar as psychoanalytic theory constitutes a relatively well-defined body of knowledge, with a specific vocabulary that can be readily identified, it seems easier to point to commonsensical terms and ideas which derive from lay appropriation of psychoanalytic theory65. Berger’s argument is that ‘everyday life, as expressed in the common speech, has been invaded by the terminology and interpretative schemes of psychoanalysis66’ (Berger,
1965: 27). He points to terms such as ‘repression’, ‘frustration’, and ‘rationalisation’, and to the very concept of ‘unconscious’, which ‘have become matter-of-course expressions in broad strata of the population’ (Ibid.). Psychoanalysis has come to pervade everyday life 65 This does not mean that the concepts and ideas of psychoanalysis do not themselves derive from common sense. A term like 'repression ', for example, although it has a very specific meaning in psychoanalytic theory, is also part of the common vocabulary; its psychoanalytic meaning draws upon the meaning that the term 'repression ' has outside of psychoanalytic theory.
66 By psychoanalysis, Berger is referring to ‘an assortment of ideas and activities derived in one way or another from the Freudian revolution in psychology’ (Ibid.: 26).

particularly in the US - through a range of ideas and assumptions concerning, for instance, sexuality, marriage and child-rearing. These ideas and assumptions are the expressions of what Berger calls ‘psychologism’, that is, a ‘psychological model’ which has become
‘operative in the taken-for-granted world of everyday life in our society’ (Ibid.: 35), and which consists of propositions that ‘every sane person in a society believes as a matter of course’ (Ibid.: 27). Some of these propositions include the following: ‘Only a relatively small segment of the total self is present to consciousness. The unconscious is the matrix of decisive mental processes [...] Sexuality is a key area of human conduct. Childhood is the key phase of human biography’ (Ibid.: 35). A related argument in made by Moscovici
(1961), in his early study of the transformation of psychoanalytical knowledge into common sense, which is at the origin of his theory of social representations. Moscovici’s study, which is discussed below, is certainly the most systematic attempt to study the transformation of social science knowledge into common sense.
4.3.4 Moscovici’s theory of social representations
In the first part of this chapter, I discussed Moscovici’s argument about a ‘new common sense’ based on the transformation of scientific knowledge into commonsensical knowledge, and which increasingly supersedes an ‘old common sense’. The initial aim of
Moscovici’s theory of social representations was to ‘describe and explain how the innovations and discoveries of science diffuse into and transform common sense understandings in modern societies (Purkhardt, 1993: xiv). Common sense, for Moscovici, is made of social representations, which can be defined as ‘a set of concepts, statements and explanations originating in daily life in the course of inter-individual communications’67
(Moscovici, 1981 : 181). Social representations, in his view, are characteristic of ‘modern’
67 Moscovici’s concept of ‘social representations’ draws upon – yet breaks with –
Durkheim’s concept of ‘collective representations’. For Durkheim, collective representations, which are opposed to individual representations, ‘constitute a social reality sui generis that exists independently of individuals’ (Purkhardt, 1993:3). Moscovici, in contrast, ‘asserts the potency of the individual in the dynamics and transformation of social representations (Ibid.: 20). Rather than a sociological concept, the notion of ‘social representations’ is, in Moscovici’s theory, a social psychological phenomenon which is intimely related with the individual’s psychology and cognition.

society as opposed to ‘traditional’ society’ : they ‘are the equivalent, in our society, of the myths and belief systems in traditional societies; they might even be said to be the contemporary version of common sense’ (Ibid. : 181). As already suggested, Moscovici argues that social representations are rooted in science or, to put it differently, that common sense is now ‘science made common’. ‘If science in former times took common sense as its starting point and stripped it of its commonplace character, in our times, common sense is science made more commonplace’ (Ibid. : 192).
Such an argument is based on Moscovici’s distinction between the ‘consensual’ and the ‘reified’ universes. For him a distinctive feature of contemporary society lies in the division between these two types of universe. Science is the mode of knowledge characteristic of the reified universe, whereas social representations are the one characteristic of the consensual universe of common sense (Ibid. : 187). Social representations are the ‘translation’, or the ‘accommodation’, so-to-speak, of scientific knowledge into the consensual universe68. They provide explanations for ‘things and events so as to be accessible to each of us and relevant to our immediate concerns’ (Ibid. :
187). Thus ‘every representation tends to turn an unfamiliar thing, or the unfamiliar in general, into something familiar’ (Ibid. : 188). In Moscovici’s perspective, the process of transformation of social science knowledge into common sense is one in which ‘meaning is

68 A major difficulty with Moscovici’s argument concerns his characterisation of the reified and the consensual universes. As Purkhardt notes, many of the attributes that
Moscovici associates with the consensual universe and the formation of common sense are, in fact, equally characteristic of science and of the so-called reified universe. In particular,
‘science (as well as common sense) is an historical and cultural endeavour that involves the social construction of reality through people’s interactions with and communication about their environment’ (Purkhardt, 1993: xiii). More generally, Moscovici’s theory is oblivious of the reciprocal impact that common sense has on social science. Commonsensical knowledge does influence the questions that scientists ask, the evidence they ‘discover’, as well as the conclusions at which they come (Ibid.: 89). There is therefore a two-way relationship between social science and common sense, which Moscovici, in my view, fails to acknowledge with his dubious distinction between a reified universe (a universe of
‘forces, objects and events unaffected by our desires and consciousness’ [Moscovici, 1981:
187]) and a consensual universe (a universe of ‘objects and events […] accessible to everyone and [which] coincide with our immediate interests’ [Moscovici, 1984: 22]).

conferred on something that was devoid of meaning in the consensual universe’ (Ibid. :
197).
Moscovici explores this process in La psychanalyse. Son image, son public, published in 1961. At least two differences can be noted between Moscovici 's and Berger’s analyses about the incorporation of psychoanalytic theory into common sense. First,
Moscovici 's work is an empirical study – based on sample surveys, questionnaires, and indepth interviews - of common sense knowledge about psychoanalysis. In other words,
Moscovici, in contrast to Berger, and the others authors mentioned in the preceding section, does not assume the content of commonsensical knowledge; rather, he tries to investigate it.
This characteristic in part accounts for the second difference between Moscovici and
Berger 's work, namely that the former, unlike the latter, insists on the transformation – as opposed to a mere transmission – of psychoanalytic theory as it becomes incorporated into common sense.
Moscovici’s research first consists in identifying the psychoanalytical terms that people spontaneously associate with psychoanalysis, such as 'complex ', 'repression ', 'unconscious ', or 'libido ' (Moscovici, 1961: 34). He then argues that psychoanalytic theory has led to new classifications which have changed people 's conception of 'madness ' and 'normality ' (Ibid.: 50). His point is also that the incorporation of psychoanalytic theory into common sense is a selective process, since there are some important concepts and ideas from psychoanalytic theory which have not become part of common sense. For exemple, the concept of 'libido ' was initially not incorporated into common sense, because of its 'incompatibility with social norms ' (Moscovici, 1961). In view of the answers given by his respondents, Moscovici shows that the commonsensical model of psychological activity, at the time of the study, was based upon the core concept of 'complex ', that it included the explanatory notions of 'unconscious ', 'conscious ' and 'repression ', but that it ignored the notion of 'libido ' (Ibid.: 296).
The effective incorporation of scientific knowledge into common sense depends, for
Moscovici, on the capacity of the former to give sense to otherwise meaningless or

unfamiliar experiences in day-to-day life. It is at this point that his work on psychoanalysis serves as an empirical basis for establishing his theory of social representations. The formation of social representations about psychoanalysis requires specific processes which, in Moscovici’s perspective, are common to all social representations. In particular, the formation of a social representation requires a double process of 'anchoring ' and of 'objectification ', which transforms abstract, unfamiliar concepts into familiar and concrete experiences69 (Moscovici, 1961: 404). The psychoanalytical concept of neurosis, according to Moscovici, has passed into common sense and allowed otherwise unfamiliar and strange behaviours to be categorised and labelled. Purkhardt, in her discussion of
Moscovici’s work, gives a good account of this non-mechanical incorporation of social science knowledge into common sense:
Common-sense knowledge does not act as a sponge that soaks up scientific innovations indiscriminately. Rather, we select those scientific ideas and objects which, in one way or another, are useful to us in everyday life. That is, they have some connection with what we already know or do, or they impinge on our lives in such a way that we are forced to take notice (Purkhardt,
1993: 113).
This argument echoes the claim I made in the second chapter that lay appropriation of social science knowledge cannot be viewed as a new form of ‘erudition’. People appropriate social science knowledge insofar as they consider that it concerns them directly and to the extent that it can be used as a reflexive resource in order to make sense of their lives and in order to fashion their own ‘self-identities’.
***
Common sense is not a static and invariable form of knowledge. At the level of ordinary knowledgeability, the way in which people provide themselves, as it were, with knowledge about themselves and the world, is being transformed. The ‘non-reflexive’ - in

69 More specifically, ‘anchoring’ consists in ‘reducing threat and unfamiliarity by imposing familiar categories and providing linguistic names’, and ‘objectification’ is the process that ‘transforms abstract, unfamiliar concepts into familiar and concrete experiences’ (Moscovici, 1961: 404).

the sense of ‘practical’ rather than ‘discursive’ - and ‘first-hand’ character of common sense, which have usually been seen as essential properties of ordinary knowledgeability, have to be re-considered. At the level of ordinary knowledge, people’s ‘lay theories’ also need to be seen as socio-historical constructs which reflect the way people’s comprehension of the world is being transformed, in part as a result of the appropriation of social science knowledge. In particular, people’s sense of control and of capacity for action, rather than being determined once and for all by some psychological ‘functions’ – as attribution theorists have argued - are likely to be re-defined in crucial ways in a period which involves radical transformations of the relationship between the ‘local’ and the ‘global’, and between the ‘individual’ and the ‘social’. This hypothesis is explored further in the final chapter of the dissertation.

CHAPTER 5
SOCIOLOGY AND 'LAY PEOPLE ':
A CRITICAL DISCUSSION OF BOURDIEU’S RECENT WORK

The four preceding chapters served to pave the way for the exploration of the main proposition of the dissertation about a ‘lay sociological imagination’, which is presented in the two remaining chapters. In the present chapter, the argument about a ‘lay sociological imagination’ is introduced through a critical discussion of Bourdieu 's recent work. In recent publications70, he develops arguments which, as noted by several commentators71, clearly depart from some of his earlier positions about the role of sociologists in contemporary society, and about the relationship between sociology and ‘lay people’. Bourdieu has generally stressed the fundamental difference between ordinary knowledgeability and scientific knowledgeability. On that respect, he can be ranged among those who argue, as discussed in the preceding chapter, that common sense and social science refer to fundamentally different forms of knowledge. At first sight, Bourdieu’s conception of ordinary practice and of ordinary knowledgeability seems to rule out the very possibility of a lay appropriation of sociological knowledge. In order to appropriate sociological knowledge, one needs, according to Bourdieu, to adopt what he calls a scholastic posture, and this posture is normally at odds with ordinary practice. In other words, people outside the scholastic fields do not normally have the dispositions to grasp and to appropriate scientific knowledge, including sociological knowledge.
In his recent work, however, Bourdieu’s position about the way lay people can relate to sociology has undergone significant changes. In particular, the collective work done in La Misère du Monde (Bourdieu et al., 1993) under his direction marks, in my view, a significant turning point in his position about the possibility of a lay appropriation of sociological knowledge. The nine hundred pages of in La Misère du Monde consist for the

70 Bourdieu (1998a&b, 1997, 1996, 1991b); Bourdieu et al. (1993).
71 See for example Verdès-Leroux (1998), Hamel (1998, 1997), and the commentators in the special issue of Magazine Littéraire (1998) devoted to Bourdieu.

most part in the transcription of about sixty life-stories collected during interviews with
‘ordinary people’, who were experiencing various forms of distress and suffering in their day-to-day lives. This work represents ‘the most varied collection of biographical excerpts gathered by a single team of researchers to date, a rich synchronic slicing of French society’ (Simeoni & Diani, 1995: 27). Each transcription of interview is preceded by the sociologist 's72 presentation of the interviewee or, in Bourdieu’s terms, by the analysis of the relevant social conditions and social determinants which enable the reader to 'decode ' the narrative. Thus the guiding principle of the book, as presented by Bourdieu in the preface, is to give the reader the sociological instruments which will enable him or her to apprehend the people interviewed as ‘necessary’ (Bourdieu et al, 1993: 8). By this he means that, once we know the social conditions that ‘make’ people what they are, we come to understand why they could not be and think otherwise. This principle is reaffirmed throughout the book, and especially regarding people whose views and lives would be, in other circumstances, quickly judged and condemned by many readers, for example, people who are overtly racist, or who regularly commit violent acts. The point of La Misère du
Monde is also to demonstrate the ‘socially induced’ character of many forms of despair and suffering experienced by the people who were interviewed.
Contrary to most of Bourdieu 's previous works, La Misère du Monde is aimed at a large audience, that is, an audience of both specialists and non specialists. This characteristic represents an important evolution of Bourdieu 's position regarding the potential usefulness of sociology for lay people or, to put it differently, regarding the possibility of a lay appropriation of sociological knowledge. Bourdieu seems now to acknowledge the possibility that lay people can use sociology to objectify their own practices, that is, to uncover the objective structures that 'govern ' these practices. His argument in La Misère du Monde indicates that the particular circumstances that would enable such a process can primarily be found in the process of sociological inquiry itself, that is, during the interview between the sociologist and the person ‘under study’.

72 Bourdieu and/or one of the twenty-two other sociologists who conducted the interviews.

The chapter is composed of three main parts. In the first part, I discuss Bourdieu’s position about the usefulness of sociology for society in general, and for ‘lay people’ in particular. Bourdieu holds a very persuasive position regarding the ‘enlightening’ or
‘emancipatory’ impact of sociology, which lies in the uncovering of social determinants.
The awareness of the social determinants that bear upon one’s life and actions contributes to, rather than denies, individual freedom. Yet Bourdieu has usually been pessimistic as to who in effect benefits from sociology. Until recently, Bourdieu indicated few ways in which lay people could benefit from sociology’s ‘enlightening’ impact.
The second part of the chapter deals precisely with the conditions and limits of a lay appropriation of sociological knowledge. I examine Bourdieu’s concept of sens pratique on one hand, and his concept of scholastic posture on the other, the former characterising ordinary knowledgeability, while the latter primarily concerns sociologists and other scientists. The key difference between the two forms of knowledgeability lies in a concept discussed extensively in the dissertation, namely reflexivity. Lay people, for Bourdieu, do not normally have the ‘luxury’ to be reflexive about their own lives and actions. Pretending that they do, and that they could appropriate sociological knowledge in order to objectify their own practice would amount to committing what Bourdieu calls the ‘scholastic fallacy’. Finally, in the last section of the chapter, I turn to Bourdieu’s conception of sociological inquiry, which is exposed very explicitly in La Misère du Monde. The sociological interview, under specific circumstances, can be, for the interviewee, a form of self-analysis prompted and guided by the sociologist. This self-analysis is based on the lifestory produced by the interviewee during his or her interaction with the sociologist. The sociological interview, in other words, can sometimes be the occasion, for the interviewee, to adopt a reflexive or scholastic posture vis-à-vis his or her own life. Yet I shall argue that the epistemological and methodological options taken by Bourdieu and his colleagues in La
Misère du Monde deny, rather than demonstrate, the interviewees ' reflexivity regarding their own lives and practices, and their ability to appropriate sociological knowledge in order to objectify their own practices. In fact, nowhere in Bourdieu 's work is the contrast

between the sociological imagination of the researcher, on one hand, and the sociological naïveté of the researched, on the other, made so blatant and, apparently, empirically 'valid '.
I shall argue that, had Bourdieu’s epistemological and methodological options been different, the sociological interviews with the same persons could have served to demonstrate exactly the opposite, namely, the reflexive and 'theoretical ' capacities of the interviewees who, in my view, routinely employ a sociological imagination in order to make sense of what happens to them. This discussion of the status and the use of life stories in La Misère du Monde will be the basis of a more general argument, developed in the next chapter, about the use of life-stories in sociology, and about the way sociologists have tried more generally to 'give a voice ' to their 'subjects ' and, in certain cases, to ‘enlighten’ them in the process.
5.1 THE USEFULNESS OF SOCIOLOGY
5.1.1 The power of naming
Bourdieu’s position about the potential usefulness of sociology can be introduced with his more general argument about all forms of representation of the social world, sociology being only one of these forms. At stake in any activity - scientific or otherwise of representation of the social world is a struggle over what Bourdieu calls the 'power of naming '. Knowledge claims about the social world have a 'theory effect ', which means that 'a more or less authorised way of seeing the social world [...] helps to construct the reality of that world '73 (Bourdieu, 1991: 106). The more widely a particular representation of the social world is authorised, the more powerful the theory effect will be. For Bourdieu, contemporary society is marked by an increasing competition for the representation of the social world. By this he means that a growing range of agents produce more or less authorised and legitimate knowledge claims about the social world74. The 'authorised '
73 Bourdieu’s argument about the ‘theory effect’ of social science knowledge parallels the argument made in the fourth chapter about a 'dialectical relationship’ between social science knowledge and ‘social reality’ (section 4.3.3).
74 Bourdieu’s point about an increasing competition for the representation of the social world is in line with the argument developed in the first chapter of the dissertation about the

character of these claims often stems from an explicit reference to their scientific character, and thus to social science:
Due to the existence of a social science, and of social practices that claim kinship with this science, such as opinion polls, media advising, publicity, but also pedagogy and even the conduct of politicians or government officials, businessmen, and journalists, there are, within the social world itself, more and more agents who engage scholarly, if not scientific, knowledge in their practices and more importantly, in their work of production of representations of the social world and of manipulation of these representations (in Bourdieu
& Wacquant, 1992: 250).
Social scientists, and other agents involved in the competition for the representation of the social world, are de facto imposing particular concepts, categorisations, and ideas which, 'by structuring the perception which social agents have of the social world [...] [help] to establish the structure of this world ' (Ibid.: 105). In contrast to a traditional view which states that science, and social science in particular, should be and remain a-political,
Bourdieu acknowledges that social science is an eminently political activity. This characteristic has nothing to do with the explicit political positions or activities of particular social scientists; rather, it refers to the inherent possibility of changing the social world by changing the representations people have of the social world. In Bourdieu 's terms:
Specifically political action is possible because agents, who are part of the social world, have a (more or less adequate) knowledge of this world and because one can act on the social world by acting on their knowledge of this world (Ibid.: 127).
Therefore, there cannot be any 'neutral ' statement about the social world. Social facts in particular, are no less 'neutral ' than a theoretical or explicitly prescriptive statement. Any descriptive statement about the social world is potentially prescriptive:
Even the most strictly constative scientific description is always open to the possibility of functioning in a prescriptive way, capable of contributing to its own verification by exercising a theory effect through which it helps to bring about that which it declares ' (Ibid.: 134).

demonopolisation of science and the pluralism of expertise in a period of ‘reflexive modernity’. Bourdieu 's analysis of the 'theory effect ' of social science knowledge refers to the reflexivity of social science, which I discussed in the third chapter of this dissertation. His conception of sociology 's eminently 'political ' character is also, in my view, a direct reference to the process of appropriation, by ordinary agents, of social science knowledge.
Rather than the result of an active process of appropriation, however, Bourdieu analyses this impact of social science in terms of the ‘reification’ of social science knowledge. The social world is increasingly pervaded by a 'reified sociology ' (Bourdieu, 1990: 54), in the sense that sociologists 'must expect to encounter the social science of the past concretised in the object of their study ' (Ibid: 182). As will be developed later in the chapter, it is a general characteristic of Bourdieu’s work that the impact of sociology on society, or its usefulness, are never addressed in terms of an active and positive process which is in part accomplished by ordinary agents. The idea of a ‘lay appropriation of sociological knowledge’ is, on many accounts, at odds with Bourdieu’s perspective. This is precisely what makes it particularly interesting to examine the idea of a lay appropriation of social science knowledge in light of Bourdieu’s arguments about the relationship between sociology and lay people.
5.1.2 Sociology, common sense and reflexivity
In the increasing competition for the representation of the social world, sociologists and other social scientists, in Bourdieu’s view, have a special status, by virtue of their position in scientific fields and of the specific dispositions that this social location enables.
For Bourdieu, the hallmark of scientific knowledge is the break with common sense that it sets out to achieve:
The construction of a scientific object requires first and foremost a break with common sense, that is, with the representations shared by all, whether they be the mere commonplaces of ordinary existence or official representations, often inscribed in institutions and thus present both in the objectivity of social organisations and in the minds of their participants (Bourdieu & Wacquant,
1992: 235).
The break with common sense is a fundamental characteristic of both social and natural science, but is more important in social science, 'where the separation between everyday

opinion and scientific discourse is more blurred than elsewhere (Bourdieu et al., 1991: 13).
The construction of the scientific object implies rejecting the 'pre-constructed ' objects provided by common sense, which other ‘experts’ in the representation of the social world often take for granted instead of questioning it. The construction of the scientific object is an absolute requisite in order to avoid falling into a ‘spontaneous sociology’:
The task of constructing the object cannot be avoided without abandoning research to preconstructed objects - social facts demarcated, perceived, and named by spontaneous sociology (Ibid.: 34).
The social scientist needs to realize that ‘the preconstructed is everywhere’ (in Bourdieu &
Wacquant, 1992: 238). Like any other social agent, he or she relies on common sense in many acknowledged and unacknowledged ways. Breaking away from common sense is, thus, far from being an easy task:
There are all sorts of preconstructed objects that impose themselves as scientific objects; being rooted in common sense, they immediately receive the approval of the scientific community and a wider public (Bourdieu et al.,
1991: 249).
The social scientist thus needs to deny his or her familiarity with the social world, which he or she experiences like any other agent: ‘familiarity with his social universe is the epistemological obstacle par excellence ' (Bourdieu et al., 1991: 13). The sociologist has to resist the 'illusion of immediate knowledge ' (Ibid.: 111) provided by common sense, an idea directly borrowed from Durkheim, who argues that the sociologist 'must feel himself in the presence of facts governed by laws as unsuspected as those of life before the science of biology has evolved ' (Durkheim, 1982: 38). Bourdieu 's conception of the preconstructed objects of common sense draws heavily on Durkheim 's concept of 'pre-notions '75 and on his principle that the basis of all scientific method consists in discarding systematically the prenotions provided by common sense (Durkheim, 1982: 72) and formed 'by and for

75 For Durkheim, pre-notions are ‘the products of common experience, [and] their main purpose is to attune our actions to the surrounding world ' (1982: 61).

experience ' (Ibid.: 61)76. In Durkheim 's terms, the break with pre-notions is a necessary condition for the construction of 'social facts ':
As soon as we consider facts per se, when we undertake to make a science of them, they are of necessity unknown for us, things of which we are ignorant, for the representations that we have been able to make of them in the course of our lives, since they have been made without method and uncritically, lack any scientific value and must be discarded (Ibid.: 37).
In contrast to Durkheim, however, Bourdieu is very suspicious of the notion of 'social fact ', and of the scientific imperative of submission to the facts which, in his view, 'leads to pure and simple surrender to the given ' (Bourdieu et al., 1991: 37). What is often presented as a given social fact - a piece of social statistics, for example - is always, in Bourdieu 's view, the product of a construction which the sociologist should examine carefully, in order to avoid submitting herself or himself to it without even being aware of this submission.
Breaking free from commonsensical understanding is a task which implies that the social scientist be reflexive about his or her own practice. Reflexivity, in Bourdieu’s perspective should be a crucial characteristic of social science. A reflexive sociology is a
‘sociology of sociology’, understood as an indispensable instrument of the sociological method, rather than just a specialty among other 'specialised sociologies ' (Bourdieu,
1990: 178). The sociology of sociology, in other words, ‘is not an end in itself: if it is the alpha of any rigorous sociological practice, it is not its omega’ (Bourdieu, 1991c: 385). A reflexive sociology is a sociology of intellectual practice: it involves the ‘inclusion of a theory of intellectual practice as an integral component and necessary condition of a critical theory of society’ (in Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992: 36). For the social scientist, being reflexive implies being aware of his or her own presuppositions and, more particularly, of the social roots of his or her scientific dispositions:
The sociology of sociology is the means of giving its full force to what
Bachelard called ‘epistemological vigilance’ and to arm the scientist against all the presuppositions he or she tacitly accepts as a social agent and that she
76

Bourdieu also explicitly draws upon the work of Bachelard, and on the latter 's conception of the natural scientist 's necessary break with common sense (Bourdieu et al.,
1991: 248).

is forever tempted unknowingly to reintroduce into his or her discourse
(Bourdieu, 1991c: 385).
Sociologists, for Bourdieu, need to be aware of their own position in the social space, and of the social determinants which structure their modes of reasoning, and their scientific practice more generally. The sociologist, like any other social agent, is situated in a particular 'field ', and has a particular 'habitus '77: sociologists are not ‘above’ or ‘outside’ the social space and the social struggles, but are inevitably part of them, whether or not they want to be. On the other hand, sociologists, unlike most other social agents, do have an instrument - namely, sociological analysis - by which they can bring to light what, in ordinary practice, remains hidden from view.
Sociologists therefore can achieve an awareness of the social conditions and determinants of their own practice that ordinary agents normally cannot achieve.
Sociologists can also gain insight into other agents’ practices, and bring to light the social determinants which are embedded in others practices, and of which the agents themselves are unaware. In this sense, sociologists occupy a special position in the social space by virtue of their scientific habitus, which includes particular reflexive abilities. The scientific status of sociology, then, does not stem from the deliberate seclusion of scientific activity from social space. Bourdieu’s argument is precisely that such a seclusion can never be achieved and that it refers to a fallacious view of science. The scientific status of sociology stems, rather, from sociologists’ continuous effort to objectify their own practices as well as others. Although the sociologist cannot help being part of the competition for the representation of the social world, her specific task is to take the competition itself as her object of study, and to uncover the mechanisms of symbolic domination at stake in this competition. Sociology, then, 'must take as its object, instead of letting itself be caught in it, the struggle for the monopoly of the legitimate representation of the social world '
(Bourdieu, 1990: 180). Sociologists can and must raise themselves to a 'second degree ', which other competitors cannot normally reach:
77 The concept of habitus is discussed in section 5.3.2.

[i]t is one and the same thing to find oneself inevitably involved in the struggle for the construction and imposition of the legitimate taxonomy and, by raising oneself to the second degree, to take as one’s object the science of this struggle, that is, the knowledge of the functioning and functions of the institutions that are involved in it - such as the education system or the great official organisations of census and social statistics (Bourdieu, 1990: 180-1).
In other words, sociologists must refrain from using the same strategies of symbolic domination that are used by the other agents involved in the competition for the representation of the social world. The political character of social science, therefore, does not mean that social scientists can use their knowledge as instruments for symbolic imposition; on the contrary, Bourdieu claims that social science 'can constitute itself only by rejecting the social demand for instruments of legitimatization or manipulation '
(Bourdieu, 1990: 186).
Bourdieu is well aware, however, that knowledge claims produced by sociologists become part, whether they want it or not, of the competition for the representation of the social world:
Due to the fact that he produces representations of the social world endowed with the authority of science, the sociologist is engaged willy nilly in the symbolic struggles for the imposition of legitimate principles of vision and division of the social world involving other specialists in symbolic production
(Bourdieu, 1991c: 375-6).
Moreover, Bourdieu’s position about the ‘detachment’ of sociologists from symbolic imposition has considerably evolved in recent years. Regarding issues which seem to concern him greatly, Bourdieu has been increasingly engaged in the resolute defense of particular sociological representations and explanations, and has accepted the idea of using his knowledge of ‘how symbolic domination works’, in order to promote particular notions or ideas issued from sociological research, and in order to undermine those which he thinks are fallacious or dangerous78. His recent work Contre-feux (1998a) brings together articles

78 He has also been actively involved in French public and political events such as students’ demonstrations in 1986, strikes of the French railway employees in 1992 and
1995, a demonstration of unemployed people in 1997, etc.

originally published in French newspapers such as Le Monde and Libération, in which
Bourdieu, for example, takes a stand against neoliberalism, rejecting specific policies or political figures which, in his view, exemplify neoliberalism.
5.1.3 Freedom, social determinants, and collective responsibility
Sociology, for Bourdieu, potentially has an enlightening or emancipatory impact on those who can understand and use sociological knowledge. Sociological analysis consists in unveiling the social structure and the social determinants that condition people 's life, by being internalised in their habitus: ‘the sociologist discovers the necessity, the constraint of social conditions and conditionings, right in the very heart of the “subject”, in the form of
[…] the habitus’ (Bourdieu, 1990: 15). It is precisely the study of social determinants which, in his view, represents a major contribution of social science to human freedom:
Contrary to appearances, it is by increasing the degree of perceived necessity and by providing a better understanding of the laws of the social world, that social science gives more freedom. Any progress in the understanding of necessity is also a progress in the possibility of freedom (Bourdieu, 1980b: 44-5)79.
For Bourdieu, social life would be much less distressing if people knew about the social mechanisms that make them foster their own distress (Bourdieu, 1980b: 33). Sociology’s enlightening effect, thus, lies in the consciousness of social determinants that it enables: ‘by expressing the social determinants of different forms of practice […], the sociologist gives us the chance of acquiring a certain freedom from these determinants’ (Bourdieu, 1990:
15).
Bourdieu reaffirms this conception of the usefulness of sociology in La Misère du
Monde (1993), which was explicitly devoted to studying forms of suffering routinely
79 My translation. For this and the following quotations from Bourdieu 's works (especially
La Misère du monde and Méditations pascaliennes), for which no published English translation is available, the original French text is generally given in the corresponding footnote. Here: 'Contrairement aux apparences, c’est en élevant le degré de nécessité perçue et en donnant une meilleure connaissance des lois du monde social, que la science sociale donne plus de liberté. Tout progrès dans la connaissance de la nécessité est un progrès dans la liberté possible '.

experienced by ordinary people in today’s society. Sociological analysis, by exposing the social conditions and conditionings of one’s distressing situation, could enable one to get rid of the guilt one often feels for one’s own distress (Bourdieu et al., 1993: 944). In his terms: However sceptical one may be regarding the actual usefulness of sociology, one cannot ignore the positive effect that the sociological message can have in enabling those who are suffering to impute their misfortune to social causes and therefore to feel exculpated, and in uncovering the often concealed social origin of all the forms of distress, including the most intimate and secret ones
(Bourdieu, 1993: 944)80.
The empowering project of sociology consists in giving people the sociological 'clues ' which would enable them to understand why they are what they are and, further, to claim 'the right to be what they are '.
We should try to display and disseminate the scientific stance, which is both objectifying and empathetic and which, when it is turned back on itself, enables one to accept what one is, and even to claim the right to be what one is
(Bourdieu, 1980b: 42)81.
Such a position is an unequivocal response to the frequent criticism addressed to sociologists who, like Bourdieu, stress the deterministic character of 'objective ' social conditions which escape individual control. The criticism consists in accusing Bourdieu and others of virtually annihilating the capacity for individual action, and of ruling out the possibility of freedom, since the individual is trapped, as it were, by social determinants. In response to this criticism, Bourdieu claims that ‘it is through the illusion of freedom from social determinants that social determinations win the freedom to exercise their full power’
(Bourdieu, 1990: 15). Freedom, in Bourdieu 's view, does not imply 'being free from social determinants '. No one, in his perspective, can be free from social determinants. Those who
80 'Pour si sceptique que l’on puisse être sur l’efficacité sociale du message sociologique, on ne peut tenir pour nul l’effet qu’il peut exercer en permettant à ceux qui souffrent de découvrir la possibilité d’imputer leur souffrance à des causes sociales et de se sentir ainsi disculpés; et en faisant connaître largement l’origine sociale, largement occultée, du malheur sous toutes ses formes, y compris les plus intimes et les plus secrètes '.
81 'Ce qu 'il faudrait divulguer, disséminer, c 'est le regard scientifique, ce regard à la fois objectivant et compréhensif qui, retourné sur soi, permet de s 'assumer et même de se revendiquer, de revendiquer le droit à être ce qu 'on est '.

tend to think that they are - intellectuals and sociologists, for example - are fundamentally mistaken. Freedom, rather, implies being aware of the social determinants that impinge on one 's life.
Stressing the social constraints which determine one’s life is only one aspect of sociology’s twofold purpose. The sociologist’s role is also to ‘denaturalise’ or to
‘defatalise’ those social phenomena which are considered to be ‘bound to happen’ or simply ‘natural’ (Bourdieu, 1990: 15). In this sense, sociology stands very much against the idea of determinism and of social ‘laws’. Against proponents of neoliberalism who, in his view, have an interest in diffusing the idea that there are economic and social laws, which we can only hope to learn to cope with, Bourdieu emphasises that ‘economic and social laws operate only insofar as we let them operate’ (Bourdieu, 1998a: 62). In the same vein, he claims that ‘sociology teaches us how groups work and how to use these sociological laws in order to invalidate them’ (Ibid.: 63). In sum, depending which social phenomena he or she is studying, the sociologist might stress either concealed possibilities of individual action or, at the opposite, the illusion of individual action. In Bourdieu terms: ‘sociology
[…] discovers the arbitrary and the contingent where we like to see necessity or nature, and
[…] it discovers necessity, social constraints, where we would like to see choice and free will’ (Bourdieu, 1990: 14).
A crucial key to Bourdieu’s conception of the emancipatory impact of sociology lies in the notion of collective responsibility. As suggested above, sociology can enable one to understand that the responsibility for one’s distress is collective as much as individual. It is structural conditions which ‘cause’ poverty, illness, unemployment, violence, etc., and for which members of a society are collectively responsible. For Bourdieu, this notion of collective responsibility is one of the most important notions ‘invented’ by social and sociological thought (Bourdieu, 1998a: 14). For example, Bourdieu welcomes the fact that, regarding the issue of a child’s good or poor results at school, ‘the logic of collective responsibility gradually tends to supplant the logic of individual responsibility’ (Bourdieu et al., 1993: 598), in part thanks to the diffusion of sociological findings. For Bourdieu, however, the notion of collective responsibility is currently being endangered by

neoliberalism and the form of individualism that it promotes, and which Bourdieu vigorously opposes. For him, individualism is what leads one to ‘blame the victim’ and to put the responsibility of social suffering on the individual (Ibid.: 15). Neoliberalism, which
Bourdieu claims is expanding in today’s society, and in France more particularly, tends to deny the relevance of sociological imagination and sociological research.
5.1.4 Sociology for whom?
It is clear from his position about freedom and social determinants discussed above, that Bourdieu regards sociology as a discipline which can be useful for society in general, and which carries a strong ‘enlightening’ or ‘emancipatory’ component. Being useful, however, does not necessarily imply the sociologist’s active engagement in the
‘competition for the representation of the social world’. Until recently, Bourdieu advocated a detachment of sociologists from public debate and pressing ‘social problems’, this detachment being based on the relative autonomy of the scientific field, and being a requisite for sound scientific research. More importantly, Bourdieu was very pessimistic as to the effective usefulness of sociology: in his view, the people whose interest would be to appropriate sociological knowledge, do not possess adequate 'instruments of appropriation ' to do so. In contrast, those who do possess these instruments have no interest in 'using ' sociological knowledge, and sometimes have a strong interest in ignoring it, since it would unveil mechanisms of domination, the effectiveness of which is conditional on their hidden and unacknowledged character (Bourdieu, 1990: 50).
In the past ten years, however, Bourdieu has multiplied his direct interventions, as a sociologist, in the French public debate82. This has sometimes meant denouncing particular political viewpoints, politicians, or policies. As already suggested above, his most recent work, Contre-feux (1998a) is a plea against ‘neoliberalism’ which, in his view, carries a fallacious discourse consisting in reifying social or economic laws, instead of stressing the ways these laws could be changed or could cease to apply (Bourdieu, 1998a: 61-2). There
82 About topics such as the construction of Europe, immigration, the education system, the impact of television, etc.

has been, in my view, a significant turn in Bourdieu’s work regarding the audience at which his works are aimed, and regarding the potential usefulness of sociology for lay people, including in particular the people who are the ‘subjects’ of sociological research.
Bourdieu’s position about the relationship between sociology and lay people can be explored by distinguishing between the same two levels I distinguished in my discussion of the reflexive process between social science knowledge and its ‘subjects’83. The first level is the level of sociological inquiry itself which, in this case, takes the form of qualitative research and involves a direct interaction between the sociologist and the lay person who is the ‘subject’ of the research. In La Misère du Monde, the research consisted in interviewing a large range of ‘lay people’ and in constructing their life-stories in a way which would display the social conditions which enable the reader to understand these people and their lives. What is of interest at this level are the implications, for the interviewees, of the interaction with the sociologist, and the way the interviewees may, or may not, appropriate the sociological knowledge produced about their own lives and practices.
The second level refers to the relationship that lay people have with sociological knowledge outside the particular context of a research situation in which they are directly interviewed by a sociologist. It refers in particular to the way lay people might appropriate sociological knowledge diffused through the mass media. Here the issue is whether lay people, outside the context of sociological inquiry and of a direct contact with sociologists, can use sociological knowledge in order to make sense of their own lives and practices (or that of others). There in one allusion, in La Misère du Monde, to this large-range process of lay appropriation of sociological knowledge. As already mentioned above, this allusion concerns the way in which people – parents in particular – explain why some children fail at school. The argument reads as follows:
One cannot but assume that the diffusion of major social science findings about education, particularly findings about the social determinants of success and failure at school, must have contributed to transform children’s and parents '

83 Cf. chapter 3.

perceptions of the education system, whose effects they already know in practice (Bourdieu et al., 1993: 598)84.
This example refers to Bourdieu’s argument, which I presented in the preceding section, about the notion of ‘collective responsibility’. The massive diffusion of sociological knowledge about education and the school implies that virtually everyone has appropriated the idea that failure at school cannot be explained only by reference to individual 'aptitudes '. Lay people increasingly tend to include ill-defined social factors in their explanations, such as insufficient resources allocated to the education system, the way teachers are trained, or the logic of the whole education system and the need to reform it
(Bourdieu et al., 1993: 598). This means, as will be argued later, that people are not 'sociologically naïve ' vis-à-vis the issue of children 's success or failure at school and that their 'sociological imagination ' is tied up with the massive diffusion of social science knowledge in society. What Bourdieu and Champagne note here about schooling can, in my view, be extended to many other social issues.
Bourdieu, however, has often expressed pessimistic views as to the effective usefulness of sociology for lay people. Although people, were they to appropriate sociological knowledge, could benefit from the ‘disculpation’ effect of sociology, this process is fraught with difficulties, due in particular to the fact that lay people often do not have the resources - both material and cultural - for appropriating sociological knowledge.
He claims that 'those who have an interest in unveiling the mechanisms of domination [...] hardly ever read sociology and, in any case, they can 't afford it ' (Bourdieu, 1990: 50).
Bourdieu 's doubts about the process of lay appropriation of sociological knowledge in part refer to people’s lack of material resources, and of cultural and linguistic capacities - or
‘capital’. Although, as will be developed below, people are certainly not equally
‘equipped’, both materially and intellectually, regarding their capacity to be reflexive and to appropriate sociological knowledge, this form of inequality escapes any simple reference to social class or material wealth. Numerous studies have shown that lay people, even among
84 'L 'on ne peut pas ne pas supposer que la diffusion des acquis majeurs des sciences sociales à propos de l 'éducation, et en particulier à propos des facteurs sociaux de la réussite et de l 'échec scolaires, a dû contribuer à transformer la perception que peuvent avoir de l 'École des enfants et des familles déjà instruits en pratique de ses effets '.

the disadvantaged groups of society, are able to grasp and to appropriate scientific knowledge, to see how such knowledge can serve their interests, and to resist social research when they believe it threatens their interests85. Contrary to what Bourdieu claims, people, in my view, 'read - or hear - sociology ' virtually every day.
In his recent work Bourdieu seems to have a more optimistic view about the capacity of lay people to benefit from sociology. La Misère du Monde exemplifies his intention, which departs clearly from his intention in earlier works, to write a book aimed at a large audience, and whose sociological perspective could potentially be used by lay people in order to make sense of their lives and to understand others’ lives. In his recent discussion of
Bourdieu’s work, Hamel refers to La Misère du Monde as a ‘daring experiment in qualitative methodology in sociology’ (Hamel, 1998: 11), precisely ‘insofar as the work is presented in such a way that anyone can understand it’ (Ibid.). Bourdieu himself describes his work in La Misère du Monde as a step toward the ‘democratization of the hermeneutic posture’ (Bourdieu et al.: 923). That ‘lay people’ could use, and benefit from, sociological knowledge, is a goal that Bourdieu reaffirms very explicitly in his recent work Contre-Feux
(1998a). More particularly, he expresses the wish that sociology be useful for social movements: That of which we may dream, us researchers, is that a part of our studies be useful to the social movement, instead of being lost, as it is often the case today, because it is interpreted and distorted by journalists or hostile interpreters86 (Bourdieu, 1998a: 64-5).
To that purpose, Bourdieu acknowledges the need to ‘invent new forms of expression, which would enable to communicate to militants the most advanced results of sociological research’ (Ibid.: 65). The work La Misère du Monde illustrates one of these new forms of expression, aimed at communicating the sociological perspective to lay people in general, and not only to militants in social movements. This new form of expression lies in the
85 Cf. section 3.2.2.
86 ‘Ce à quoi nous pourrions rêver, nous chercheurs, c’est qu’une part de nos recherches puisse être utile au mouvement social au lieu de se perdre, comme c’est souvent le cas aujourd’hui, parce qu’interprétée et déformée par des journalistes ou par des interprètes hostiles’. transcription verbatim of the interviews conducted by the sociologists, that is, of the lifestories produced by the interviewees during their interaction with the sociologists. For
Bourdieu, the transcription of the interviews permits ‘the delivery of a more accessible equivalent of complex and abstract conceptual analyses […]. [They are] capable of touching and moving, of appealing to sensibility, without pandering to sensationalism,
[and] can bring about conversions of thought and view that are often the prior condition to understanding’ (Bourdieu et al.: 922).
The most obvious transformation of Bourdieu’s position regarding the way lay people can relate to sociology concerns the first level identified above, namely the level of sociological inquiry itself. The turning-point in his position lies in the expression
‘accompanied self-analysis’, which Bourdieu uses for characterising the type of qualitative research he and his colleagues conducted in La Misère du Monde. During these interviews, the people under study became involved in a form of self-analysis, which was provoked and guided by the sociologist. In some cases, interviewees were able to appropriate the sociological stance imported by the researcher, and to benefit from it. This particular conception of the relationship between the researcher and the researched87 is discussed in the third part of this chapter.
5.2 The conditions and limits of a lay appropriation of sociological knowledge
5.2.1 Symbolic violence
The effective impact of sociology on society and, more specifically, its potential usefulness for lay people is approached with considerable suspicion by Bourdieu, insofar as it can easily become a case of 'symbolic violence '. Concepts, ideas and categorisations, especially those produced by social scientists, have an effect of imposition which can be seen as a form of symbolic domination:

87 Which completes the analysis of various conceptions of the relationship between the researcher and the researched conducted in chapter 3.

[W]e are exposed to the ontological slippage which leads from the existence of the name to the existence of the thing named, a slippage all the more probable, and dangerous, in that, in reality itself, social agents struggle for [...] symbolic power, of which this power of constitutive naming, which by naming things brings them into being, is one of the most typical demonstrations
(Bourdieu, 1990: 55).
The characteristic of symbolic domination is that the dominated - that is, the people who have appropriated these concepts, ideas and categorisations - are unaware of being dominated. Symbolic violence is a type of violence that 'can be exercised only with the complicity of those who do not want to know that they are subject to it or even that they themselves exercise it ' (Bourdieu, 1991: 164).
In denouncing the symbolic violence associated with many forms of authorised naming, including social science, Bourdieu has more particularly in mind what he calls 'official naming ', that is, the categorisations and concepts formulated by the agents of the state, such as the occupational categories, which everyone is familiar with, and tends to take for granted. Official naming refers to a form of symbolic violence which is all the more pervasive as it 'has on its side all the strength of the collective, of the consensus, of common sense (Bourdieu, 1991: 239).
What I call in this dissertation ‘the appropriation of social expert knowledge by lay people’ can very well, according to Bourdieu’s perspective, be the result of symbolic domination. Bourdieu’s denunciation of symbolic domination is aimed primarily at what is, in his view, pseudo social science knowledge, particularly the type of expert knowledge about ‘social issues’ diffused in the mass media. Bourdieu 's repeated denunciation of the way the media ‘talk’ about social issues is a leitmotiv of his recent work. In Sur la télévision (1996), Bourdieu argues that mass media, and television in particular, tend to involve ‘a pernicious form of symbolic violence’ (Bourdieu, 1996: 16). Television pretends to be an instrument of ‘recording’ of social reality, whereas it is essentially an instrument of
‘creation’ of that reality (Ibid.: 21). About television, Bourdieu enumerates various mechanisms which, in his view, have transformed what could have been a ‘great instrument for direct democracy’ (Ibid.: 8) into one of reproduction of the symbolic order (Ibid.: 14).
These mechanisms refer to the constraints of the journalistic field which, for example,

prompt journalists to look for the ‘scoop’ and to ‘dramatise’ social issues, instead of conducting a ‘detached’ analysis of these issues.
In La Misère du Monde, Champagne 's criticism of the media 's vision [vision médiatique] echoes that of Bourdieu (in Bourdieu et al., 1993: 61-79). Champagne strongly criticises the media coverage - especially television coverage - of 'social problems '.
He focuses more specifically on a 'social problem ' that has been omnipresent in the public debate in France in the past ten or fifteen years, namely, the 'problem of the suburbs '
[le mal des banlieues]88. Champagne observes that many inhabitants of these suburbs have appropriated the concepts and the explanations proposed by various 'experts ', and relayed by journalists, about this so-called 'mal des banlieues '. These inhabitants tend to 'talk back ' to the journalists who regularly interview them, by using the notions and ideas that the media have imposed on the problem, thus telling the journalists what the latter want to hear
(Ibid.: 68). For Champagne, this appropriation process is the result of the interviewees ' cultural deficit, which leads them to appropriate blindly the claims diffused by the media, and which prevent them from being critical of these claims. In Bourdieu’s perspective, the 'social knowledge ' used by journalists and diffused in mass media is not 'proper ' social science; it has the 'appearance ' of social science, but is aimed primarily at serving the interests of the powerful.
Symbolic violence, thus, represents an important limit to a positive appropriation of sociological knowledge by lay people. People might use concepts or ideas that have been imposed upon them by experts who promote particular representations of the social world, without being aware of this imposition. Without denying the possibility of symbolic violence, it would be deceiving, in my view, to assimilate systematically the appropriation of social science knowledge by lay people with a case of symbolic violence. Lay appropriation of social science knowledge can very well be, in some cases, a form of

88 This problem refers to the high levels of unemployment, poverty, delinquency, and crime, especially among young people, in many suburbs of the major cities in France. The population in these suburbs is often characterised by a large proportion of immigrants.

resistance to symbolic domination. In my view, people are in general less powerless and naive vis-à-vis the media than Bourdieu and Champagne tend to suggest. In fact,
Champagne himself acknowledges that some people, among those he interviewed, do question the social representations diffused by the media and be critical of the journalists that produce or reproduce them. He notes that a proportion of the inhabitants in the 'banlieue à problèmes ' firmly reject the 'journalistic vision ' of the problem, and are aware of the stigmatisation involved in the label 'banlieue à problèmes ' that is used to describe the place where they live (Ibid.: 73)89. Bourdieu, in his analysis of mass media, and of television in particular, also tends to overstate, in my view, the facility with which lay people let themselves be caught in processes of symbolic violence. He indicates one way of counteracting the manipulative processes embedded in television: this way is to try to
‘generalise the conditions of access to the universal’ (Bourdieu, 1996: 77). By this he means that, in order to be able to appropriate in a lucid way the knowledge claims diffused through television, people need special dispositions which they can acquire only if the conditions of access to this kind of ‘knowledgeability’ are developed. Although, as already noted, I certainly do accept the idea that the generalisation of these conditions of ‘access to the universal’ is far from being completed, a large number of ‘lay people’, in my view, are able to develop the kind of knowledgeability which prevents them to be the dupes of journalists, or of other social experts consecrated by television.
5.2.2 Lay people 's sens pratique and sociologists’ scholastic posture
The most serious limit to the process of lay appropriation of social science knowledge that can be found in Bourdieu’s work concerns his characterisation of the fundamental difference between ordinary practice on one hand, and of scientific practice on the other. For him, common sense and social science refer to two different forms of

89 In the same vein, the French film-director Mathieu Kassowitz, in his powerful film “La
Haine”, which is half-way between documentary and fiction, stresses the way people living in these so-called banlieues à problèmes are able to ‘play’ very consciously the journalists’ game’. Young people especially, who are often the target of the media’s attention, are far from being ‘cultural dopes’, unaware and uncritical of the representations that journalists tend to impose about them and their lives.

knowledge, or modes of relating to the world, namely the practical and the theoretical modes respectively. The practical mode that is characteristic of common sense involves an immediate 'competence ' in making sense of the world, but a competence that is, as it were, oblivious to itself. In contrast, the theoretical mode of the social scientist involves a distance vis-à-vis the immediate intelligibility of the world. Thus, theoretical knowledge 'owes a number of its most essential properties to the fact that the conditions under which it is produced are not that of practice ' (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992: 70). In order to be able to study social processes, the sociologist adopts a theoretical or scholastic posture, which is fundamentally different from the logic of the agents actually involved in these processes:
‘as soon as we observe the social world, we introduce in our perception of it a bias due to the fact that, to study it, to describe it, to talk about it, we must retire from it more or less completely’ (Ibid.: 69).
The concept of 'practical sense ' [sens pratique] is the chief notion proposed by
Bourdieu for characterising ordinary knowledgeability. The practical mode of relating to the social world is a relation of 'placid ignorance ' [docte ignorance] insofar as it does not contain the knowledge of the practices that it generates (Bourdieu, 1980a: 175). That is, practical sense implies immediate comprehension, but a comprehension which is unaware of itself (Ibid.: 37). By this, Bourdieu means that practical sense is what enables people to act in a way that is in general appropriate in the circumstances, and which is taken-forgranted as being the only way to act in the circumstances90. People 's practical sense is the direct manifestation of their habitus, that is, of ingrained dispositions which both enable and determine particular patterns of perception, thought and action. Habitus is defined as 'a system of durable, transposable dispositions which functions as the generative basis of structured, objectively unified practices ' (Bourdieu, 1979: vii). As the result of the 'internalisation ' of the objective structures that constrain one 's actions, habitus is what enables one to experience the world as 'natural ' and predictable. To put it differently, the day-to-day familiarity of practical experience is the result of the correspondence between objective structures and internalised structures [structures incorporées] (Bourdieu,
90 Cf.: 'Le sens pratique est ce qui permet d 'agir comme il faut sans poser ni exécuter un "il faut", une règle de conduite ' (Bourdieu, 1997: 166).

1980a: 44). This correspondence gives the illusion of immediate knowledge (Ibid.), in the sense that what appears to the agent as natural and 'given ' is the result of an active process of incorporation of social structures. This immediate knowledge excludes any interrogation about its own conditions of possibility (Ibid.). One of the virtues of the concept of habitus, in Bourdieu 's view, is that it enables one to grasp the immediate comprehension of the world that people routinely achieve, without having to assume that agents are 'rational ' in the sense that their action is based on the explicit analysis of the processes pertaining to it
(Bourdieu, 1997: 185).
In Bourdieu 's perspective, then, social agents are actively and inventively engaged in practice, insofar as they continuously construct their social world through the 'choices ' of their habitus (Bourdieu, 1991: 51). This construction, however, operates on a practical level, without involving reflexivity vis-à-vis this construction, and without involving discursive consciousness:
The essential part of one 's experience of the social world and of the labour of construction it implies takes place in practice, without reaching the level of explicit representation and verbal expression (Ibid.: 235).
To the extent that he emphasises the active and creative character of ordinary practice and of 'common sense ', Bourdieu is in line with traditions such as phenomenology and ethnomethodology that

share

this

concern

for

demonstrating

agents '

ordinary

knowledgeability, which is mobilised even in the most mundane practices. Beyond this shared concern,

however,

Bourdieu

clearly departs

from

phenomenology and

ethnomethodology. These traditions, in his view, tend to take for granted the ideas of 'a universal subject ' and of a 'natural attitude ', instead of showing the structural conditions which both enable and constrain ordinary practice. In other words, the sociologist must explain, rather than assume, 'what appears as a universal property of human experience, that is, the fact that the familiar world tends to be 'taken-for-granted ', perceived as natural '
(Bourdieu, 1990: 130).
For Bourdieu, in sum, reflexivity is a key concept that marks the difference between ordinary and scientific practice or, to put it differently, between lay people’s sens pratique

and scientists’ scholastic posture. In this perspective, the lay appropriation of social science knowledge is at best a rare and unusual process, which means that a lay person, perhaps only temporarily, has been able to take the disposition characteristic of the scholastic fields, that is, to be reflexive about his or her own life and action. There are circumstances which enable such a process to happen. These circumstances, however, Bourdieu sees as being extra-ordinary. People’s potential capacities for reflexivity are, according to Bourdieu, de facto severely limited, for reasons which are exposed next.
5.2.3 Lay people 's limited capacities for reflexivity
There is a quasi glorification, in Bourdieu 's work, of the practical, tacit, and 'antireflexive ' knowledge of lay people. Any attempt by a lay agent to depart from his or her 'practical posture ' is often judged negatively by Bourdieu; that is, it is judged to be doomed to fail, and it is usually seen as usurpation of the sociologist 's role. It is almost as if lay people are not supposed to reflect upon their own practices:
As soon as agents reflect upon their practice, thereby adopting a quasi theoretical posture, they lose any chance of expressing the truth about their practice and, above all, the truth about their practical relation to practice: the scholastic approach leads them to take a position on their practice which is neither the position of the actor, nor that of the scientist (Bourdieu,
1980a: 152)91.
In certain circumstances, however, Bourdieu does acknowledge that ordinary agents can develop forms of reflexivity which departs from their usual ‘anti-reflexive’ sens pratique.
But these capacities for reflexivity are, according to Bourdieu, severely constrained and limited. Although in principle, ‘habitus is one principle of production of practices among others’ (Bourdieu, 1990: 108), it is only in exceptional circumstances that it ‘may be superseded […] by other principles, such as rational and conscious computation’ (Ibid.).

91 'Dès qu 'il réfléchit sur sa pratique, se plaçant ainsi dans une posture quasi-théorique, l 'agent perd toute chance d 'exprimer la vérité de sa pratique et surtout la vérité du rapport pratique à la pratique: l 'interrogation savante l 'incline à prendre sur sa propre pratique un point de vue qui n 'est plus celui de l 'action sans être celui de la science '.

Practical sense, as argued above, is based on the correspondence between objective structures and the internalised structures of the habitus, which implies that 'the "choices" of the habitus are accomplished without consciousness of constraint ' (Bourdieu, 1991: 51).
Bourdieu recognises, however, that the coincidence between structure and habitus is sometimes disrupted. In fact it is in such a situation that the sociologist can easily demonstrate the 'constructed ' and constraining character of what generally appears as given and natural. It is by studying a situation in which the correspondence between people 's habitus and their social conditions was broken, that Bourdieu first developed his argument about the practical mode of relating to the world.
This situation refers to Bourdieu’s early study of proletarian and sub-proletarian
Algerian people. In this study, Bourdieu notes the permanent discrepancy between, on one hand, these people 's habitus and, more precisely, their economic dispositions, which were adapted to a 'pre-capitalist ' world and, on the other hand, the capitalist economy in which they now have to act (Bourdieu, 1979: vii). The object of the study, thus, was the problem of the genesis of new economic dispositions (in particular, the genesis of a particular temporal consciousness) adapted to the developing capitalist economy, which had been, to a large extent, abruptly imported and imposed on Algerian people. The discrepancy between habitus and structure indicated, in this case, that the economic structures changed more rapidly than Algerians’ economic dispositions:
Because they do not change in the same rhythm as the economic structures, dispositions and ideologies corresponding to different economic structures, still present or already swept away, coexist in the same society and sometimes even in the same individuals (Bourdieu, 1979: 4-5)
Bourdieu acknowledges that a form of reflection can result from the temporary suspension of the familiarity of the social world. This form of reflection, however, remains oriented toward practice and cannot be compared with the theoretical or scholastic posture of social scientists. It does not mean, in other words, that people 's practical sense gave place to a form of reflexive and discursive consciousness of structural conditions. In Méditations
Pascaliennes, Bourdieu makes this point explicit:

Habitus has its defects, its critical moments of puzzlement and discrepancy: then the relation of immediate adaptation is suspended in an instant of hesitation which can prompt a form of reflection which has nothing to do with scholastic thinking, and which is always oriented towards practice (Bourdieu,
1997: 191-2)92.
Bourdieu, in my view, underestimates the occasions in which there is such a disruption of the usual coincidence between people 's dispositions and the structural conditions of their position in the social world. For him, this disruption of the ‘immediate adjustment of habitus to field’ refers to situations of crisis (Bourdieu, 1990: 108). The reflection resulting from this disruption, which Bourdieu tends to regard as exceptional, temporary, and incomplete is, in my view, an omnipresent characteristic of ordinary knowledgeability in today’s society. In the concluding pages of his Méditations
Pascaliennes (1997), Bourdieu acknowledges that the perfect coincidence between structure and habitus is increasingly lost in contemporary society, and briefly alludes to the large-scale social processes involved in this transformation, such as the generalisation of access to education:
We no longer live in a world where an almost perfect coincidence between objective tendencies and expectations meant that one 's experience of the world was a continuous succession of confirmed anticipations (Bourdieu,
1997: 276)93.
However, he never pushes this argument to a point at which it puts into question his conception of ordinary practice and of people 's practical sense. As argued in the fourth chapter94, social scientists have often tended to treat ordinary knowledgeability as an
‘immutable’, rather than a ‘transformable’ form of knowledge. Bourdieu never contemplates the argument, which I made in the preceding chapters of the dissertation, that

92 'L 'habitus a ses ratés, ses moments critiques de déconcertement et de décalage: la relation d 'adaptation immédiate est suspendue, dans un instant d 'hésitation où peut s 'insinuer une forme de réflexion qui n 'a rien à voir avec celle du penseur scolastique et qui
[...] reste tournée vers la pratique '.
93 'C 'en est fini à jamais de ces univers où la coincidence quasi parfaite des tendances objectives et des attentes faisait de l 'expérience du monde un enchaînement continu d 'anticipations confirmées '.
94 Cf. paragraph 4.2.1.

new large-scale social processes might be tied up with a fundamental transformation of people 's knowledgeability, and that such a transformation might involve that lay people routinely develop a theoretical posture that superimposes, as it were, their practical orientation to the social world. Ordinary knowledgeability, in my view, now involves a form of reflexivity which means that lay people routinely develop a theoretical posture regarding their own practices and others ' practices.
In his work about Algeria, Bourdieu stresses the sociological naïveté of the proletarian and sub-proletarian Algerian people whom he studied, and their lack of reflexivity regarding their own practices. They were generally sociologically naive, in particular, regarding the issue of unemployment. The interviewees, depending on their experience, showed different levels of awareness of their situation of unemployment
(Bourdieu, 1979: 56). Bourdieu distinguishes between three levels of awareness: at the first level, there is no awareness of unemployment as such; at the second level, the awareness is not formulated but exists 'in practice '; and at the third level, the awareness takes a discursive form. More precisely:
Unemployment can first exist 'in itself ', without being grasped as unemployment; at a second level, 'consciousness ' of unemployment can manifest itself in practice without becoming explicit, or becoming so only in very rudimentary forms of discourse such as the pleonastic statement of the given. The expression of consciousness of unemployment therefore marks the transition to a third level. From this point on, consciousness and its expression come hand in hand; the wealth and clarity of the content of consciousness grow at the same time as the wealth and clarity of the expression it receives
(Bourdieu, 1979: 57).
The third level, that of ‘consciousness of unemployment’, means that one becomes aware that one 's individual and personal situation of 'not having a job ' is experienced by many others, and that it is part of a social problem named 'unemployment ', the causes of which go largely beyond their individual and personal circumstances. It means, in Bourdieu 's terms, grasping one 's own situation 'as one aspect of a whole system ' (Ibid.: 61).
Bourdieu stresses that most of the Algerian sub-proletarians he interviewed never reached the third level of discursive consciousness. They had no ‘sociological imagination’

regarding their situation of unemployment. More precisely, Bourdieu argues that these persons never reach the consciousness that unemployment originates in the inadequacies of the 'system ' rather than in their own inadequacies. Here again, Bourdieu 's argument deserves to be quoted at length:
Because their awareness of the objective barriers to getting a job or adequate wages brings them back to their awareness of their incapacities, their lack of education or occupational skill for example, the sub-proletarians tend to attribute their inadequacies to the inadequacies of their own being rather than to the inadequacies of the objective order. They can never attain an awareness of the system as being also responsible for their lack of education or occupational skill, that is, both for their inadequacies and for the inadequacies of their being (Ibid.: 61).
For Bourdieu, the capacity to fully grasp the relation of one 's own situation to the whole system cannot normally be achieved by any ordinary agent, since 'the social agent necessarily cannot grasp as a totality a system which only ever appears to him in profiles '
(Ibid.: 93).
He notes, however, that the relative consciousness of the relation between one 's experience and the 'system ' varies considerably from one class situation to another (Ibid.).
Reflexive abilities, and the capacities to adopt a theoretical posture, are certainly distributed unequally within the population, and depend upon the individual’s social conditions. One can wonder why, then, all the interviewees in La Misère du Monde are treated as equally sociologically naïve, although their class situations vary from one extreme of the social scale to the other95. A major interest of the life-stories collected in La Misère du Monde is, in my view, the remarkable diversity of the interviewees, with respect to their age, sex, education, experience, occupation, geographic origin, political convictions, etc96. This

95 The two extremes being represented, for example, by two homeless people (pp. 505-15) on one hand, and an engineer from the most prestigious Grande École (pp. 799-807) on the other. 96 This diversity can be illustrated by the following list of some of the interviewees, as they are named by Bourdieu and his colleagues: 'a young female police inspector (pp. 290-8); a couple of Portuguese immigrants (pp. 480-6); a teacher in literature (pp. 655-72); a journalist (pp. 725-35); an elderly woman (pp. 896-901); a communist worker (pp. 340-8);

diversity gives its force to the general argument of the book, which is, as already noted, that any agent is legitimate in thinking what she or he thinks and that any agent experiences forms of distress originating in specific social conditions of which she or he is the 'product '.
The exceptional diversity of the people studied could, in my view, have been exploited in another way, namely in order to illustrate how these people are able to adopt a 'theoretical posture ' regarding their own lives and practices. It could have served to study how ordinary knowledgeability has come to include the capacity to employ a 'sociological imagination ' when reflecting upon one 's life. The ability to take a 'theoretical posture ' and to employ a 'sociological imagination ', in my view, tend to become a generalised feature of ordinary knowledgeability in a period of reflexive modernity. The diversity of the people studied in La Misère du Monde could have served to examine people 's differential capacities to adopt a theoretical posture and to employ a 'sociological imagination '97.
Bourdieu’s argument about the sociological naiveté of Kabyle peasants, who live in an oral and non-literate social environment, does not apply, in my view, to the majority of people in ‘developed societies’. In La Misère du Monde, Bourdieu never takes into account the differences in the social conditions of the people he studies, such as the level of education or of literacy, and which should imply, according to his own perspective about social determinism, different propensities to develop theoretical, reflexive, or scholastic dispositions. Although the general orientation of his work is precisely to stress the determining character of social conditions, which shape the way people - sociologists and 'lay people ' alike - think and act, this orientation is absent from his analysis of ordinary a magistrate (pp. 305-15); a young militant from the Front National (pp. 768-76); three unemployed executives (pp. 585-92); two agricultural labourers from Béarn (pp. 524-9) '.
97 In particular, it would have been interesting to study how people who are engaged in political and militant activities which are based on the notions of 'social system ' and of collective action have, or do not have, an increased propensity to adopt a sociological imagination regarding their own lives. It seems reasonable to suppose that interviewees such as a worker attached to the Communist Party (pp. 340-8), a local delegate of the
Socialist Party (pp. 437-45), a feminist militant (pp. 453-65), or a militant from the Front
National (pp. 574-77), have acquired the capacity to relate individual and personal experiences to general characteristics of a 'social system ', independently of the question of how inadequate or deceptive the sociologist thinks this characterisation of the 'system ' is.

knowledgeability. Lay people’s practical posture is treated as a universal and immutable characteristic, which does not appear to vary according to social conditions. The director of a French high school in 198998 seems to be as 'sociologically naive ' as the Kabyle peasant in the Algeria of the 1960s. Yet Bourdieu does acknowledge elsewhere that schooling, for example, implies the opportunity to gain the permanent disposition to be reflexive and to put some distance with the ‘real’ (Bourdieu, 1997: 29). Since going to school concerns a vast majority of the population, we should then conclude, following his own argument, that reflexivity and the capacity to adopt a ‘scholastic posture’ extend far beyond scholastic fields. 5.2.4 The 'scholastic fallacy '
Bourdieu’s warning about the unlikeliness, so-to-speak, of a process of lay appropriation of social science knowledge can be encapsulated in his concept of ‘scholastic fallacy’. To repeat, the social scientist, for Bourdieu, adopts a theoretical or ‘scholastic’ posture, which ordinary agents usually do not, and cannot, adopt. If the sociologist is not aware of his or her 'intellectual bias ' (Ibid.: 39), he or she runs the risk of committing the 'scholastic fallacy ', which consists in studying ordinary practice as if ordinary agents were using a theoretical, instead of a practical logic, and as if they could free themselves from the urgencies of practice:
[The scholastic fallacy] induces to think that agents involved in action, in practice, in life, think, know and see as someone who has the leisure to think thinks, knows and sees, as the scientists whose mode of thought presupposes leisure both in its genesis and its functioning, or at least distance and freedom from the urgency of practice, the practical bracketing of the necessities of practice (Bourdieu, 1990: 112).
The fallacy thus consists in ‘putting into the minds of the people you are studying what you have to have in your own minds in order to understand what they are doing’ (Bourdieu,
1990: 80). Avoiding the scholastic fallacy is the aim of a reflexive sociology which, as described earlier in this chapter, refers to the 'inclusion of a theory of intellectual practice as

98 One of the interviewees in La Misère du Monde (pp. 685-98).

an integral component and necessary condition of a critical theory of society ' (Bourdieu &
Wacquant, 1992: 36). Sociologists need to be reflexive about their own practice precisely in order to maintain the distinction between the theoretical and the practical modes of relating to the world:
Whenever we fail to subject to systematic critique the presuppositions inscribed in the fact of thinking the world, of retiring from the world and from action in the world in order to think that action, we risk collapsing practical logic into theoretical logic (Ibid.: 39).
The scholastic fallacy, in short, can be viewed as a form of ethnocentrism (Bourdieu,
1997: 65) which consists in ignoring, or in 'forgetting ', that the way in which sociologists approach the social world is generally not the way in which other agents approach the social world.
The sociologist 's posture includes a disposition to regard his or her experience and practice as an object about which one talks and thinks (Ibid.: 74). Such a scholastic disposition implies the possibility to put aside, as it were, the economic and social constraints pertaining to the situation, as well as the actions and the practical engagement that these constraints tend to induce (Ibid.: 24). In the recent Méditations Pascaliennes,
Bourdieu reaffirms that the scholastic disposition is the exclusive posture of those who have access to academic and scientific fields. Although he admits that the scholastic posture is a 'universal anthropological possibility ' (Ibid.: 27), and that scholars and scientists do not in principle have a monopoly on the scholastic posture, the conditions for its actual development can mainly be found in scientific and intellectual fields. Consequently scientists and scholars are de facto the principal agents who can have a scholastic posture regarding the social world: ‘although they do not have the monopoly on the scholastic posture, only those who have access to the scholastic universes are in a position to fully achieve this universal anthropological possibility’99 (Bourdieu, 1997: 27).

99 ‘Force est de constater que, s’ils n’ont pas le monopole de la posture scolastique, seuls ceux qui accèdent aux univers scolastiques sont en mesure de réaliser pleinement cette possibilité anthropologique universelle’ (Bourdieu, 1997: 27).

Bourdieu 's argument about the scholastic fallacy represents, in my view, one of the most serious attacks that can be addressed to my argument that 'lay people ' routinely appropriate social science knowledge in order to make sense of, and to reflect upon, their experience and that of others. Only a very small proportion of the population, in Bourdieu 's view, have the scholastic disposition that would enable this process of appropriation to occur. Arguing, as I do, that such a process characterises virtually every social agent, would certainly be regarded by Bourdieu as a patent case of scholastic ethnocentrism. When characterising the social interaction between the sociologist and the people he or she is studying, Bourdieu does in fact acknowledge that lay people can be reflexive and can appropriate sociological knowledge in order to objectify their own lives. In the third part of the chapter, I shall argue that this capacity for reflexivity is not restricted to the interaction with a sociologist. Drawing upon the difference, as Bourdieu himself does, between an
‘oral, non-literate culture, and a literate, scholarly culture’ (1990: 103), I suggest that contemporary society, at least in developed countries, is increasingly characterised by a
‘scholarly culture’. The scholastic disposition, in other words, tends to become a generalised characteristic of ordinary knowledgeability.
5.3 THE

SOCIOLOGICAL INTERVIEW AS THE OCCASION FOR A LAY APPROPRIATION OF

SOCIOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE

5.3.1 A provoked and accompanied self-analysis
In the first part of the chapter, I examined Bourdieu’s position about the usefulness of sociology and, more specifically, its usefulness for lay people, through their capacity to appropriate sociological knowledge in order to objectify their own lives and practices.
Although lay people, in principle, could benefit from sociology in such a way, Bourdieu makes strong arguments suggesting that a lay appropriation of sociological knowledge is, in practice, an unlikely process. In this section, we turn to Bourdieu’s characterisation of the interaction between the sociologist and the people he or she is studying. The research situation or, more precisely, the interview conducted by the sociologist with his or her
‘subject’ provides, in Bourdieu’s view, the occasion for an appropriation, by the

interviewee, of sociological knowledge, although Bourdieu does not refer to the process in those terms. He argues, rather, that the sociological interview can be the occasion for the
‘subjects’ of the research to conduct a ‘self-analysis’ which, in his view, is otherwise unlikely to occur in the normal course of day-to-day life.
The research that led to the publication of La Misère du Monde marks a real turningpoint in Bourdieu’s conception of sociological inquiry100 and, more specifically, of the interaction between the sociologist and the people whom he or she studies. For Bourdieu, the type of sociological inquiry conducted in La Misère du Monde amounted, for the people who were being interviewed by him and his colleagues, to a form of ‘self-analysis’ that was provoked and directed by the sociologist who was conducting the interview (Bourdieu,
1991: 3). The research interview was the occasion, for the interviewees, to put into question, and to reflect upon, their own lives and conditions, which are usually, in the course of day-to-day life, taken-for-granted: ‘in many cases, we had the feeling that the interviewee took the opportunity given to her to question herself’ (Bourdieu, 1991b: 3). For
Bourdieu, the interview with the sociologist represents a unique episode in the lives of these people, for it gives them the opportunity to talk about their experience in the context of a non-violent communication (Bourdieu et al., 1993: 905) and to construct a viewpoint about themselves and the world:
Some of the interviewees, especially among the most destitute, seem to grasp this situation [the sociological interview] as an exceptional opportunity offered to them to testify, to make themselves heard, to transfer their experience from the private to the public sphere; an opportunity also to explain themselves, in the fullest sense of the term, namely to construct their viewpoint on themselves and on the world and to display the point from which they see themselves and the world and from which they become comprehensible, justified, and primarily for themselves (Ibid.:915)101.
100 Various extracts from La Misère du Monde had been published beforehand, especially in the journal Actes de la Recherche en Science Sociale, which is directed by Bourdieu.
Besides, Bourdieu has explained and commented the research conducted in La Misère du
Monde in other publications, for example in Méditations Pascaliennes (1997) and in
Contre-Feux (1998).
101 ‘Certains enquêtés, surtout parmi les plus démunis, semblent saisir cette situation comme une occasion exceptionnelle qui leur est offerte de témoigner, de se faire entendre, de porter leur expérience de la sphère privée à la sphère publique; une occasion aussi de

The sociologists in La Misère du Monde assisted the interviewees in an attempt to be reflexive about their own lives, and to reach a certain level of self-knowledge, the latter usually being, for Bourdieu, the exclusive privilege of those situated in the scholastic fields:
‘our task was to assist the interviewees who were the most remote from the scholastic condition in a process of comprehension and self-knowledge which [...] is usually restricted to the world of skholé’ (Bourdieu, 1997: 75)102.
The sociological interview, provided that it is done under specific conditions that are detailed below, can be a truly exceptional form of communication (Bourdieu et al.,
1993: 914): ‘the researcher contributes to create the conditions for an extra-ordinary discourse, which could have never been spoken, although it was already there, waiting for its conditions of actualisation’ (Ibid.). The interviewees could sometimes express experiences and reflections that they had so far repressed or kept for themselves (Ibid.:
915). For Bourdieu, the work done in La Misère du Monde was a political as much as a scientific experience, in the sense that it gave people the opportunity to express their deeply ingrained distress and discontent, by using, as it were, the authorised voice of the sociologist who was to expose their problems and preoccupations (Ibid.: 529). In order to perform this task, the sociologist must be in a position of complete receptivity, a position which hardly ever occurs neither in public nor in private life (Ibid.: 530).
In his discussion of La Misère du Monde, Hamel goes as far as to say that this work exemplifies a new qualitative method in sociology, which he terms ‘provoked and accompanied self-analysis’ (Hamel, 1997: 1). The self-analysis is ‘provoked’ insofar as ‘in all cases it takes place when requested or ‘provoked’ by sociologists in order to pursue the object of their study’ (Ibid.: 5); it is ‘accompanied’, since ‘the interviewer must accompany s’expliquer, au sens le plus complet du terme, c’est-à-dire de construire leur propre point de vue sur eux-mêmes et sur le monde et de rendre manifeste le point, à l’intérieur de ce monde, à partir duquel ils se voient eux-mêmes et voiet le monde, et deviennent compréhensibles, justifiés, et d’abord pour eux-mêmes’.
102 '[il s 'agissait d '] assister les enquêtés les plus éloignés de la condition scolastique dans un travail de compréhension et de connaissance de soi qui, comme le 'souci de soi ' qu 'il présuppose, est d 'ordinaire réservé au monde de la skholé '.

the interviewee’ (Ibid.: 5) in her process of ‘objectification’, which she could not conduct on her own. The interviewee 's self-analysis is a consequence that might, under certain circumstances, result from the interaction with the sociologist. Contrary to what Hamel suggests, it is not, in Bourdieu 's perspective, an explicit goal of sociological inquiry. Or, to put it differently, leading the interviewee to conduct a self-analysis is a means serving the ultimate goal of the inquiry, namely to grasp the objective structures which bear upon the interviewee 's life.
It is certainly not qualitative research as such which represents a turning-point in
Bourdieu 's La Misère du Monde; as presented in the preceding section, his first studies about, for example, Algerian people were based on qualitative methods and on in-depth interviews with the 'subjects ' of the study. What differs markedly from his earlier work, however, is the idea that sociological inquiry, and more precisely, the life-story constructed during the interview between the sociologist and the 'subject ', is the result of a joint effort toward objectification [objectivation participante] (Bourdieu et al., 1993: 8). Participatory objectification consists for the sociologist in helping the interviewee to uncover the social determinants that bear upon his or her life:
The interviewer assists the interviewee in an effort, which is both painful and gratifying, at uncovering the social determinants of the interviewee’s opinions and practices, particularly those which are difficult for him or her to accept or to even acknowledge (Ibid.: 912-3)103.
It is clear for Bourdieu that such a process of ‘participatory objectification’ does not characterise any form of qualitative research or any interview between the sociologist and the people under study. On the contrary this process can only occur in very specific circumstances, which refer, on one hand, to the social familiarity between the interviewer and the interviewee and, on the other hand, to the competence of the interviewer, who must have a thorough knowledge of the interviewee’s conditions, and who must be used to dealing with the social effects of the research situation.

103 ‘l’enquêteur assiste l’enquêté dans un effort, douloureux et gratifiant à la fois, pour mettre au jour les déterminants sociaux de ses opinions et de ses pratiques dans ce qu’elles peuvent avoir de plus difficile à avouer et à assumer’.

In La Misère du Monde, the familiarity, or the social proximity, between the sociologist and the people under study meant that the interviewers were invited to choose their interviewees among friends and acquaintances104, or people to which they could be introduced by friends or acquaintances, as a way to ensure the conditions of a ‘non-violent communication’ between interviewer and interviewee (Bourdieu et al., 1993: 907). The social proximity between interviewer and interviewee is a way to minimise the fact that ‘the biographical interview is a particular case of encounter between two social classes’ (Peneff,
1995: 53) and that this asymmetrical relation can sometimes result, ‘at least in the case of working-class informants, in self-censored utterances downplaying, even sometimes inverting the experience of the interviewee’ (Ibid.: 54). When there is a social proximity between the sociologist and the people he or she is studying, the interview is more likely to turn into a joint process of objectification, in which socioanalysis concerns as much the sociologist’s as the interviewee’s practice:
When a young physicist questions another young physicist (or an actor another actor, an unemployed person another unemployed person, etc.) with whom he shares almost all the characteristics likely to operate as major factors for explaining his practices and his representations, and to whom he is related by a relationship of profound familiarity, his questions find their principle in his own dispositions, which are objectively in agreement with those of the interviewee; the most brutally objectifying of these questions have no reason to appear as threatening or aggressive because his interlocutor knows perfectly well that he shares with him most of what his questions prompt him to reveal, and thus the risks which he runs in doing so. Nor can the interviewer forget that in objectifying the interviewee, he objectifies himself (Bourdieu et al.,
1993: 908).
As is suggested in the last part of this long quotation, the methodological option which consists in seeking the social proximity and the familiarity between interviewer and interviewee is also, for Bourdieu, a crucial way to minimise the interviewee’s resistance to objectification. This point is developed in the next section of the chapter.

104 Or, rather, the interviewers were chosen and given subsequent training, according to their social proximity with the people whom Bourdieu wanted to study (Ibid.: 907).

The second condition for participatory objectification, namely the competence of the interviewer, refers primarily to the sociologist’s prior sociological knowledge of the interviewee’s life conditions (Bourdieu et al., 1993: 919). Only with this prior knowledge can the interviewer assist the interviewee in his or her attempt to conduct a self-analysis.
The success of the joint process of objectification also lies in the sociologist’s capacity to control the possible distortions produced by the social interaction between the interviewer and the interviewee. Although the social proximity between interviewer and interviewee is a way to minimise these distortions, it has to be accompanied by the sociologist’s constant vigilance and reflexivity. Not all sociologists, for Bourdieu, have achieved this level of competence. 5.3.2 Objectification and resistance to objectification
As noted above, the interviewee’s self-analysis prompted by the sociological interview takes the form of a participant objectification. In Bourdieu’s perspective, objectification means uncovering the objective structures which determine the interviewee’s life and practice; it means elucidating the person’s dispositions or habitus, by relating them to her social positions, to which her dispositions are objectively linked. In this joint effort toward objectification, the interviewee’s and the sociologist’s contributions are, however, markedly different. As developed in the second section of this chapter, lay people’s knowledgeability, for Bourdieu, primarily lies in their sens pratique, which normally excludes a consciousness of objective relationships: ordinary knowledgeability is attached to ‘substantial realities, individuals, groups, etc.’, whereas objective relationships, which ‘cannot be shown or touched, […] must be conquered, constructed and validated by scientific work’ (Bourdieu et al., 1993: 918). In the joint process of objectification, the sociologist, thus, has the role of uncovering the objective structures which are only implicitly ‘contained’ in the interviewee’s discourse, although the interviewee herself is not aware of it. The sociologist must pay attention not only to what the interviewee says, but also, and perhaps more importantly, to what she or he does not say:
Social agents do not have ingrained knowledge of what they are and of what they do; more precisely, they do not necessarily have access to the principle of

their discontent or their distress and the most spontaneous declarations can, with no intention of dissimulation, express something quite different from what they are apparently saying (Bourdieu et al., 1993: 918-9)105.
For Bourdieu, thus, the interviewees in La Misère du Monde could not be aware of the real causes of their distress or dissatisfaction until they were assisted and ‘guided’ by the sociologist. Although they do not know these causes consciously and discursively, they do know them at a practical level, and better than anyone else (Ibid.: 919). For the sociologist, objectification, thus, implies going beyond the practical consciousness of social agents: it implies to ‘bring out into the open, to make visible’ and, further, to ‘make public, known to all, published’ (Bourdieu, 1990: 81). Formalisation, for Bourdieu, is what enables the sociologist to see the general in the particular or, in his terms, to ‘go from a logic which is immersed in the particular case to a logic independent of the individual case’ (Ibid.).
Formalisation carries a strong liberating impact for the people whose practices and forms of distress are suddenly put into words, insofar as these practices become legitimate or
‘authorised’, and cease to be experienced as personal drama:
Certain practices which had been experienced as a drama so long as there were not yet any words to say them and think them undergo a veritable ontological transmutation by virtue of the fact that, being known and recognised publicly, named and authenticated, they are made legitimate, even legalised, and may thus declare and display themselves (Bourdieu, 1990: 85).
Objectification, in the concrete situation of the sociological interview is, in
Bourdieu 's perspective, fraught with difficulties, one of the most serious being the interviewee’s resistance to objectification. There is, according to Bourdieu, a very general, if not universal, fear of objectification (Bourdieu et al.: 909), which refers to the apprehension of having ‘one’s subjective reasons reduced to objective causes, and the choices that one thinks one has made freely reduced to the effect of objective determinism’
(Ibid.: 907). Lay people, especially when put in the context of a formal interview with an 'expert ' such as a sociologist, tend to resist the latter 's attempt at objectification. This
105 ‘Les agents sociaux n’ont pas la science infuse de ce qu’ils sont et de ce qu’ils font; plus précisément, ils n’ont pas nécessairement accès au principe de leur mécontentement ou de leur malaise et les déclarations les plus spontanées peuvent, sans aucune intention de dissimulation, exprimer tout autre chose que ce qu’elles disent en apparence’.

resistance often takes the form of a 'semblance ' of reflexivity and of objectification; that is, the interviewee tries to be reflexive about her own life and to 'objectify ' it, but this attempt, according to Bourdieu, is generally fallacious and superficial. For example, Bourdieu notes the ‘artificiality of the vision that informants proposed to [him] when, in their concern to play the game, to be equal to the situation created by the theoretical questioning, they turned themselves as it were into the spontaneous theoreticians of their practice’ (Bourdieu,
1990: 21). One of the most subtle forms of resistance to objectification, thus, consists in the interviewee giving the appearances of conducting his or her own self-analysis (Bourdieu et al., 1993: 912).
During the sociological interview with the sociologist, any spontaneous attempt, on the part of an interviewee, to be reflexive about his or her own experience, is generally dismissed by Bourdieu as a self-deceiving form of objectification, whose aim is merely to resist the interviewer 's objectification (in Bourdieu et al., 1993: 912-3). Bourdieu is rather severe with his interviewees’ spontaneous attempts to objectify their own practices:
Nothing is more remote […] from participant objectification […] than the false and complacent objectification which, being only half-demystifying, is thus all the more mystifying, and which brings all the pleasures of awareness without in fact putting anything essential in question (Ibid.: 913)106.
Only when it is directed and controlled by the sociologist is the lay person 's reflection on the social determinants of his or her opinions and practices considered as valid and empowering (Ibid.: 919). The sociologist, however, can sometimes be tricked, as it were, by the interviewee, when the latter is especially efficient in imposing his or her own vision of the situation that is discussed during the interview (Ibid.: 910).
5.3.3 The produced naïveté of lay people

106 ‘Rien n’est plus éloigné […] de l’objectivation participante […] que la fausse objectivation complaisante, démystification à demi, et par là doublement mystificatrice, qui procure tous les plaisirs de la lucidité sans rien mettre en question d’essentiel’.

In La Misère du Monde, Bourdieu and his colleagues were particularly careful to avoid the 'scholastic fallacy ', since sociologists, in Bourdieu’s view, are especially likely to commit the scholastic fallacy when their work involves collecting lay agents ' discourses about their actions or others ' actions. In his Méditations Pascaliennes, Bourdieu comments on the empirical work done by him and the other sociologists who took part in La Misère du Monde and explains that the main difficulty, for the interviewers, was to avoid introducing a scholastic bias, by asking questions that call for a scholastic disposition, which the interviewees generally did not have (Bourdieu, 1997: 74-5). The major aim of La
Misère du Monde, which Bourdieu sees as an eminently political one, was to give a discursive expression, that is, a quasi theoretical status, to experiences lived by people who do not have access to the conditions allowing the development of the scholastic posture
(Ibid.: 74). It was, in his words, to ‘give a voice […] to people who, usually, are spoken rather than speak themselves’ (Bourdieu, 1991b: 4)107. The sociologist, through a constant reflexive attitude vis-à-vis her interaction with the interviewee, was to avoid imposing her own scholastic posture, that is, her own ‘reflexive’ and ‘theoretical’ way of talking about the interviewee 's experience.
Although the interaction with the interviewee is described as a joint effort to grasp the objective structures that bear upon him or her, I have argued above that the sociologist in fact has the privilege of identifying and of analysing the social conditions of which the people studied are the ‘product’. The social conditions and determinants of an interviewee’s life are implicitly contained in his or her self-narrative108, but they necessarily escape the consciousness of the interviewee. The interviewees, thus, are assumed to be 'sociologically naive ', that is, unable to reach on their own a consciousness of the objective conditions which would enable them to understand their own suffering.

107 ‘donner la parole […] à des personnes qui, d’ordinaire, sont parlées plus qu’elles ne parlent’. 108 For Bourdieu, this is not a characteristic of self-narratives in general. Rather, the selfnarratives in La misère du monde contain the sociological keys for their elucidation, only because the sociologists have asked ‘the right questions’ during the interviews out of which the narratives are produced (cf. Bourdieu et al., 1993: 903-39).

I claim, however, that the interviewees’ 'sociological naiveté ' in La Misère du
Monde, is the consequence of the methodological orientations adopted by the interviewers.
Although it has all the appearances of a valid empirical ‘finding’, this sociological naïveté, in my view, is primarily the product of specific methodological options advocated by
Bourdieu and made particularly clear in his methodological appendix (Bourdieu et al.: 90339). Had these options been different, the interviewees would not have been sociologically naive. One major methodological option lies in the type of questions asked to the interviewees. Most of these questions can be described as voluntarily 'factual ', in the sense that they only call for constative and factual informations about a particular event of the interviewee 's life. For example: 'What are your contacts with the young people who live here? How do get on with them? ' (p. 145); 'What do your daughters do now? ' (p. 666); 'I would like you to tell me about the difficulties you have had... ' (p. 896); 'At school, when you were a child, did your parents help you with your homework? ' (p. 88); 'Do people have trouble finding jobs here? ' (p. 113).
As suggested above, such a characteristic is, in Bourdieu 's perspective, part of a deliberate strategy aimed at minimising the symbolic violence inherent in the relationship between the researcher and the ‘researched’. Although I agree with this aim, this strategy, in my view, has the ‘side-effect’ of confining the interviewees in a non-reflexive and practical mode, thereby suggesting that they are unable to adopt a reflexive, theoretical posture regarding their own lives. In other words, the 'sociological naïveté ' of the interviewees is produced by the type of questions asked by the sociologists.
Had these questions been different, the same people, in my view, would have been able to talk about their own lives from a 'theoretical posture ', employing what I shall call in the next chapter a 'sociological imagination '. They could have done so only to the extent that the interviewers would have allowed themselves to ask questions that invite a critical and reflexive posture, for example, questions like 'How come there is so much tension between you and the young people who live here? ', 'Why do you think there is such a high level of unemployment in your area? ', ‘Why do you think your daughters have difficulties at school?’, etc. I am aware that such questions and, more generally, the project of inviting

and of displaying the interviewees ' sociological imagination, is not immune to the pitfalls identified by Bourdieu, such as symbolic violence, the interviewees ' resistance to objectification, or the artificial production of stereotyped answers. Acknowledging these potential difficulties, however, need not entail abdicating the entire project of displaying lay people 's sociological imagination, especially when this abdication implies the risk of producing a misleading representation of lay people as being sociologically naive. In short, instead of supposing that the sociologist should not prompt the interviewees to adopt a theoretical posture, in order to avoid the scholastic fallacy and symbolic violence, I suggest that the sociologist, on the contrary, could facilitate the reflexive discourse of the interviewees who, in any case, have numerous occasions in day-to-day life to adopt a theoretical posture regarding their own lives. Such a project would involve a radically different form of interview from the one adopted in La Misère du Monde, as well as a different conception of the use of 'life-stories ' in sociology.
In the next and final chapter of the dissertation, I extend my criticism about
Bourdieu’s tendency to treat lay people as sociologically naive agents. This criticism, in my view, concerns more generally many social scientists who have tried to give a voice to their
‘subjects’, by interviewing them and by collecting their ‘life-stories’. Without anticipating the argument of the next chapter, it is worth, in drawing the present chapter to a close, examining the argument made by Chambon (1995) in a recent article about biographical research. Chambon’s position about the way the type of questions asked by the sociologist
‘produce’ the type of answers given by the interviewee parallels my own argument about the produced character of the sociological naiveté of the interviewees in La Misère du
Monde. In this article eloquently entitled ‘If you ask me the right questions, I could tell you’, Chambon examines the asymmetric distribution of roles in interviews between sociologists and lay persons, and the extent to which the ‘question/answer arrangement’
(Chambon, 1995: 126) shapes the constitution of the interviewee’s life-narrative. Once it has been admitted that the type of questions asked by the sociologist is crucial in order to understand the variations that exist in the narratives produced by the interviewees, the question for Chambon becomes ‘how to encourage complexity [or, in my terms, reflexivity] in the conduct of life histories’ (Ibid.: 133).

Chambon takes the example of an interview that Bourdieu conducted in 1978 with the Moroccan poet Mouloud Mammeri, in which the narrative produced during the interview contained three types of material, namely ‘descriptive, reflective and reflexive material’ (Ibid.: 134). Mammeri was able to be a ‘partner’ in the interview (Ibid.: 134) rather than a naive interviewee, and to display forms of reflection and reflexivity that were an integral part of his life-story. Of course, the long-term acquaintance of Bourdieu and
Mammeri, as well as the ‘commonality of their social positions as intellectuals’ played an important role in the process. As Chambon puts it, ‘the immediate question which comes to mind is whether such methods of interviewing can be used other than with highly verbal or intellectual respondents’ (Ibid.: 134). Here Chambon, in line with my own argument, gives an affirmative response, namely that lay people in general, rather than intellectuals or highly educated respondents only, are able to produce reflexive accounts of their own lives and practices. In support of this argument, Chambon mentions a research conducted by
Hugues (1971) about race relations in a factory settings, which was based on a series of interviews with factory workers. In contrast to what Bourdieu and his colleagues did in La
Misère du Monde, the questions that Hugues asked to his interviewees were not confined to a descriptive or ‘factual’ level. Rather, Hugues’ interviews were based on three different types of questions:
The first is at the descriptive level; the second, ‘what do you mean’ elicits a reformulation of and reflection on the description; the third, ‘why do you think?’ and ‘how do you account for that’, elicits a stepping back from the description and a more distanced reflection on the first reflective statement
(Chambon, 1995: 135).
When the sociologist tries to ‘give a voice’ to his or her ‘subjects’ by interviewing them and by transcribing their discourse, it is possible, in my view, to give them a ‘space of interpretation’ (Ibid.: 135) without necessarily falling into the pitfalls identified by
Bourdieu, in particular symbolic violence and scholastic fallacy. It is possible to allow the interviewees to be reflexive about their own lives and practices, without assuming that this lay reflexivity is merely a fallacious form of resistance to the sociologist’s objectification.
Allowing the interviewees this ‘space of interpretation’ would amount to acknowledge that lay people are not ‘sociologically naive’. Their reflexivity, and their ‘sociological

imagination’, can only be displayed, however, insofar as the sociologists’ epistemological and methodological options enable it. As sociologists, we need to acknowledge that ‘there is no reason to suppose that we are different from those we study’ (1994: 16). As Law puts it, this is certainly a necessary component of a ‘modest sociology’ (Ibid.: 16).
***
Bourdieu’s general position about the usefulness of sociology is, in my view, a very powerful one. At a general level, the usefulness of sociology for society lies in the diffusion of the notion of collective responsibility and in the elucidation of forms of symbolic domination. Sociological imagination enables one to uncover the objective structures that bear upon one’s life, and to feel ‘disculpated’ from forms of suffering rooted in social conditions that escape one’s individual control and responsibility. I share Bourdieu’s position about the importance of the notion of ‘collective responsibility’, about the potentially ‘disculpating’ effect of sociology, and about the awareness of social determinants as a contribution to individual freedom. The point at which I depart from
Bourdieu’s position, however, concerns the actual possibilities for the actualisation, as it were, of the potential usefulness of sociology for lay people.
Bourdieu, particularly in his recent work, has addressed the issue of sociology’s usefulness at the level of the research interview between the sociologist and the person under study. For Bourdieu the sociological interview gives the interviewee the opportunity to conduct a self-analysis, which is accompanied by the sociologist, and which can lead to the consciousness of the social determinants that bear upon his or her life. I have developed three principal points of criticism regarding Bourdieu’s argument.
First, I have argued that it is misleading to suggest that the main occasion for a lay appropriation of sociological knowledge occurs during the process of sociological inquiry and, more precisely, during the interview between the sociologist and a lay person.
Although I agree that the sociological interview may often entail an appropriation, by the interviewees, of sociological knowledge, there are, in my view, many other occasions in

day-to-day life for a lay appropriation of sociological knowledge, a process which draws in part upon the massive diffusion of sociological knowledge throughout society, and the increasing level of education among ‘lay people’. This also means that a lay appropriation of sociological knowledge does not necessarily require the ‘assistance’ of a sociologist, and that the self-analysis which leads to an awareness of social determinants evoked by
Bourdieu can take place without it being guided and accompanied by a sociologist. This point echoes the argument I made in the third chapter, about the tendency of participatory researchers to overstate their role in the process of appropriation of social science knowledge by its ‘subjects’.
The second point of criticism concerns the way Bourdieu, in his recent empirical work, has managed to ‘give a voice’ to the lay persons interviewed by him and his colleagues. In contrast to his assertion that the interviewee’s life-story, which is produced during the interview with the sociologist, is the result of ‘participant objectification’, it is the sociologist, and the sociologist only, who seems to have the privilege of objectifying the interviewee’s life and practice. Partly as a result of his methodological options, his interviewees are presented as ‘sociologically naive’, and unlikely to be reflexive about their own practice. The unintended consequence of Bourdieu’s methodological options aiming at minimising the risk of symbolic violence and of resistance to objectification is to prevent the interviewees from displaying their ‘sociological imagination’ and their capacity to objectify their own lives and practices. As a result, lay people are portrayed as
‘sociologically naive’ although, in my view, there are far from being so.
Beyond methodological considerations, I have also argued – and this is my third point of criticism - that lay people’s ‘sociological naiveté’ is also the result of Bourdieu’s conception of lay people sens pratique. The concept of practical sense implies that lay people, in contrast to sociologists and other experts situated in scholastic fields, cannot normally develop a scholastic and theoretical posture vis-à-vis their own lives and conditions. For Bourdieu, lay people can only experience the social world with their 'practical sense ', and are necessarily involved in practice in such a way as to be unable to develop the form of reflexivity characteristic of the scholastic posture. In contrast, I claim,

as developed in the fourth chapter of the dissertation, that there is no difference in nature between lay people’s knowledgeability and sociologists’ knowledgeability. The concept of sens pratique, in my view, does not do justice to lay people’s knowledgeability, especially in a period of late modernity, in which the capacity to take a ‘reflexive’, ‘scholastic’ or
‘theoretical’ posture is more generalised than ever. In sum, the process of lay appropriation of sociological knowledge, in my view, is a much more generalised and mundane process than Bourdieu seems to be ready to acknowledge.
Despite the above points of criticism, three of Bourdieu’s arguments need to be taken seriously, when studying lay appropriation of sociological knowledge. First, I have examined the extent to which studying the appropriation of social science knowledge by lay people is merely a manifestation of what Bourdieu calls the 'scholastic fallacy '. The interest of Bourdieu 's argument is that it points to the inequality regarding the acquisition of the material and symbolic instruments that enable the development of a theoretical and reflexive posture. Although ordinary knowledgeability includes the possibility of appropriating social science knowledge, the conditions for this appropriation are certainly not the same for all people. Second, we need to take seriously the argument that the appropriation of social science knowledge by lay people is a form of symbolic violence.
This argument is tied up with the third one, which states that the appropriation of social science knowledge by its 'subjects ' is a form of resistance to 'objectification '. We cannot assume, in my view, that the lay appropriation of social science knowledge necessarily refers to a disempowering process of symbolic domination. Such a possibility is certainly enmeshed in the process. But my point is precisely that we need to acknowledge that there are both disempowering and empowering aspects in the process of lay appropriation of social science knowledge.

CHAPTER 6 'SEEING THE SOCIAL IN THE INDIVIDUAL ':
THE DEVELOPMENT OF A LAY SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION

This final chapter brings together the threads of the preceding chapters in order to explore the core argument of the dissertation about a ‘lay sociological imagination’. The two main concerns which have guided the discussion in the previous chapters are made very apparent in the present chapter. The first concern refers to the characterisation of lay knowledgeability and to the argument about a possible transformation of lay knowledgeability in conditions of what has been characterised in the first chapter as
‘reflexive modernity’. The second concern refers to the relationship between sociologists and the lay agents that constitute their ‘objects of study’ or, to put it differently, it refers to the reflexive process between social science knowledge and the people this knowledge is about. The idea of a ‘lay sociological imagination’ directly refers to this reflexive process, and it has important implications about the way in which sociologists relate to ‘lay people’, and the way in which they can pretend to ‘give a voice’ to the lay agents they study, in particular by collecting and analysing lay agents’ life-stories. The idea of a lay sociological imagination, thus, involves a reconsideration of the way sociologists treat lay people 's accounts about the social world. It involves, in other words, a reconsideration of the relationship between, on one hand, the narratives constructed by sociologists about their subjects’ lives and experiences and, on the other hand, the narratives constructed by these
‘subjects’ themselves about their own lives and experiences.
The argument about a lay sociological imagination consists in three related points: first, on the basis of the analysis conducted in the two preceding chapters, I suggest that lay knowledgeability increasingly includes the capacity to be reflexive about one’s own life and practice, and to give a discursive form to this reflexive posture. Second, I argue that this lay reflexivity is in part fuelled by what can be called a lay sociological imagination, which consists in a particular way of ‘seeing the social in the individual’. Third, acknowledging that lay people routinely use this sociological imagination when making sense of their lives has important implications regarding the relationship between

sociologists and lay agents or, to put it more bluntly, between ‘professional sociologists’ and ‘lay sociologists’. It implies, in particular, the revision of epistemological and methodological options which tend to produce sociological research in which lay agents invariably seem to be ‘sociologically naive’, such as in Bourdieu’s La Misère du Monde discussed in the preceding chapter.
The chapter consists of two main parts, which respectively deal with the two concerns outlined above. In the first part, I clarify the outlines of what can be understood by a ‘lay sociological imagination’. In the perspective of the ‘transformability’ of common sense (cf. chapter 4), sociological imagination can be seen as one aspect of the transformation of ordinary knowledgeability. A lay sociological imagination consists in
‘seeing the social in the individual’, in both a ‘simple’ and a ‘strong’ versions which are explored below. Insofar as it seems to contradict the widely-accepted idea that contemporary society is an individualised society, the idea of a lay sociological imagination is examined in light of the individualisation thesis, which has been presented in the first chapter of the dissertation. Although many sociologists would consider that a sociological imagination is a form of enlightenment, I stress that processes of both empowerment and disempowerment are attached to the development of a lay sociological imagination.
In the second part of the chapter, I examine the implications of the argument about a lay sociological imagination for the practice of sociological research, and for the relationship between sociologists and the lay agents they seek to study. As already introduced in my discussion of Bourdieu’s recent work (cf. chapter 5), a traditional perspective in social science consists in assuming that sociological imagination is sociologists’ distinctive competence, and that lay agents, in contrast, are essentially
‘sociologically naive’, that is, unable to ‘see the social in the individual’ when making sense of their lives and conditions. This traditional perspective largely infuses what has been called in sociology the ‘life-story approach’, that is, sociological research which is based on the collection and analyses of lay agents’ life-stories. In opposition with this traditional perspective, I try to specify the kind of social research that could be done once it is acknowledged that lay people routinely use a sociological imagination, which is not,

therefore, the exclusive competence of professional sociologists. I also examine the way sociologists could study, display, and nourish lay agents’ sociological imagination, by comparing such a project with Touraine’s method of sociological intervention.
6.1 OUTLINES OF A LAY SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION
6.1.1 Sociologists’ distinctive competence?
The term of ‘sociological imagination’ – or other equivalent terms, such as
‘sociological consciousness’ or ‘sociological eye’ – has been used to refer to sociology’s particular way of thinking about the human world. Several authors, such as Mills (1959),
Berger (1963), Hugues (1971), and Bauman (1990a), have tried to characterise this particular ‘imagination’, ‘consciousness’ or, in my terms, ‘knowledgeability’. Two major points should be noted regarding the way such authors have characterised sociological imagination. First, ‘sociological imagination’ is often characterised in terms which seem to refer to social science in general, rather than to sociology only.
Berger 's analysis of ‘sociological consciousness’ is a case in point. It starts with the argument that sociological consciousness is a mode of thinking characteristic of modernity, which could not have emerged in pre-modern times (Berger, 1963: 37). Sociological consciousness supposes the idea of relativism, which is itself an idea that becomes 'possible ' and dominant with the advent of modernity:
Sociology is so much in tune with the temper of the modern era precisely because it represents the consciousness of a world in which values have been radically relativised’ (Ibid.: 61).
For Berger, sociological consciousness is likely to emerge in a society marked by
‘alternation’, that is, by the ‘possibility of choosing between varying and sometimes contradictory systems of meaning’ (Ibid.: 68). Accordingly, the first dimension of sociological consciousness is what he calls the ‘relativising motif’, which refers to the awareness that ‘not only identities but ideas are relative to specific social locations’
(Ibid.: 66). Berger identifies two others dimensions of sociological consciousness, namely

‘debunking’ and ‘unrespectability’. The ‘debunking motif’ refers to the ‘awareness that human events have different levels of meaning, some of which are hidden from the consciousness of everyday life’ (Berger, 1963: 41). This awareness in part implies a
‘measure of suspicion about the way in which human events are officially interpreted by the authorities, be they political, juridical or religious in character’ (Ibid.). It is in this sense that sociological consciousness also comprises, according to Berger, an ‘unrespectability motif’.
Berger stresses that unrespectability by no means implies a revolutionary attitude. On the contrary, he argues that ‘sociological understanding is inimical to revolutionary ideologies, not because it has some sort of conservative bias, but because it sees not only through the illusions of the present status quo, but also through the illusionary expectations concerning possible futures, such expectations being the customary spiritual nourishment of the revolutionary’ (Ibid.: 60).
It could easily be argued, in my view, that the dimensions of ‘sociological consciousness’ outlined above are not exclusive to sociologists and that they concern, rather, other social scientists as well. For example, one could claim that the ‘relativizing motif’ stressed by Berger is even more relevant in anthropology and history than in sociology. In a similar vein, the ‘debunking motif’ seems to characterise psychology as much as sociology. Rather than being the 'hallmarks ' of sociology, the aspects of
‘sociological consciousness’ identified by Berger refer more generally to the advent of social science in a so-called ‘disenchanted’ secular society. When seen in light of the reflexive modernity thesis explored in the first chapter of the dissertation, ‘sociological imagination’ is by no means a mode of thinking characteristic of sociologists alone; rather, it refers to a generalised mode of thinking, and to a dominant discourse, in modern society.
The second point precisely concerns the ambiguity as to who actually possesses and employs sociological imagination in modern society. As suggested above, Berger and others stress the symbiotic link between modernity and sociology, and they describe sociological imagination in such general terms that it seems to refer to the way of thinking of an entire society. Berger explicitly notes that the ‘relativizing motif’ has become part of everyday imagination, and is no longer ‘the possession of a small group of intellectuals’

(Ibid.: 64). At the same time, however, sociological imagination is presented as sociologists’ ‘trademark’, that is, as their distinctive mode of thinking and competence.
The ambiguity thus lies in the simultaneous claim that 'sociological imagination ' is the common mode of thinking in modern society, and that it is sociologists ' specific 'imagination ', which is markedly distinct from, and which breaks with, common sense. Lay people, for many sociologists, do not normally use a ‘sociological imagination’. Mills, for example, is quite explicit:
Ordinary men [...] do not possess the quality of mind essential to grasp the interplay of man and society, of biography and history, of self and world.
They cannot cope with their personal troubles in such ways as to control the structural transformations that usually lie behind them (Mills, 1959: 5).
Although he argues that sociological imagination 'is becoming the major common denominator of our cultural life ' (Ibid.: 14),

Mills claims that its acquisition by the

population at large is slow and uncertain, and that 'many social scientists are themselves quite unaware of it ' (Ibid.: 15). Thirty years after Mills, Bauman (1990a) reasserts the same point but, rather than mentioning Mills ' dubious argument of 'quality of mind ', he argues that 'lay people ' are so much involved in the flow of day-to-day life that they cannot have the opportunity to acquire a 'sociological imagination '. In his terms:
Deeply immersed in our daily routines, we hardly ever pause to think about the meaning of what we have gone through; even less often have we the opportunity to compare our private experience with the fate of others, to see the social in the individual, the general in the particular - this is precisely what sociologists can do for us. We would expect them to show us how our individual biographies intertwine with the history we share with fellow human beings (Bauman, 1990a: 10).
Bauman also argues that sociological imagination is an ‘antifixating power’ which consists in opening up 'the possibilities that common sense naturally tends to close down’ (Bauman,
1990a: 15-6).
Sociologists’ argument that ordinary people do not have the ability or the opportunity to develop a sociological imagination rests upon a view of contemporary day-

to-day life which is, in my view, highly misleading. As argued in the first chapter, I contest the view that day-to-day life implies action and urgency through and through, and that 'lay people ' cannot have the 'luxury ', as Bauman puts it, of pausing to think about what is happening to them. This view of lay people as being totally 'submerged ' by the necessities and the urgencies of day-to-day life, to a point at which they cannot be reflexive about their lives, is particularly mistaken when it is used for making sense of day-to-day life in a period of 'reflexive modernity '. One could say that one of the necessities or urgencies of day-to-day life in reflexive modernity, is precisely for 'lay people ' to be reflexive about their own lives and experience.
When discussing ordinary knowledgeability, sociologists, as argued in the fourth chapter, tend to overestimate the taken-for-granted and the familiar character of people 's day-to-day experience of the social world. They tend to exaggerate the extent to which ordinary experience is treated by lay people as something unproblematic and natural. This tendency, of course, serves sociologists ' claim that sociology is useful precisely because it enables one to ‘defamiliarize the familiar’ (Bauman, 1990a: 15). Only by overstating the familiarity of day-to-day life can sociologists praise their discipline as playing the role of a 'meddlesome and [...] irritating stranger ' (Ibid.: 14). In Bauman 's view, sociology is what enables lay people to become aware of, and to reflect upon, their taken-for-granted conceptions of day-to-day practices: 'Suddenly, the daily way of life must come under scrutiny. It now appears to be just one of the possible ways, not the one and only, not the
"natural" way of life ' (Ibid.: 15).
Sociologists ' tendency to exaggerate the familiarity of day-to-day life for lay people can be opposed on at least two counts. First, there are many other elements, apart from sociology, which disturb the familiarity of day-to-day life, and disrupt its taken-for-granted character. One only has to think of the way people are now regularly confronted with other ways of life, for example, through travelling or through television. Numerous studies about the impact of mass media on contemporary day-to-day life have suggested that 'exposure to the media stimulates the faculty of imagination and enables individuals to distance themselves from their immediate social circumstances ' (Lerner, cited in Thompson,

1996: 94-5). In contrast to what Bauman implies, it seems clear that, nowadays, one can hardly consider one 's way of life as the only possible one.
Second, even if one accepts the idea that sociology is a major, if not the only, 'meddlesome and irritating stranger ' in people 's day-to-day life, the argument developed in the preceding chapters suggests that lay people routinely 'defamiliarise the familiar ' through the routine appropriation of sociological knowledge. Social science knowledge has come to pervade day-to-day life and is routinely called for, among other ‘reflexive resources’, in order to make sense of one’s life. It seems increasingly difficult, thus, to assume that familiarity is the hallmark of day-to-day life. This idea is coextensive with my argument about ordinary knowledgeability: in contrast to what many social scientists argue, ordinary knowledgeability does not exclude the possibility of adopting a 'theoretical posture '109, and of being reflexive about one 's life and experience.
My argument about a lay sociological imagination can be illustrated by using the very same example that Mills give in order, precisely, to rule out the idea of a lay sociological imagination, that is, to show that lay people do not ordinarily employ a sociological imagination. Mills takes the case of marriage and divorce to illustrate how sociologists’ imagination on these topics differs from the lay perspective. The latter, in his view, does not comprise the notion of 'social structure ' but, rather, consists in interpreting issues such as divorce only in terms of 'personal troubles '. For example:
Inside a marriage a man and a woman may experience personal troubles, but when the divorce rate is 25% this is an indication of a structural issue having to do with the institutions of marriage and the family and other institutions that bear upon them (Mills, 1959: 9).
In contrast to what Mills seems to imply, it seems to me quite clear that virtually everyone is now aware of the statistics concerning divorce rates, and that anyone experiencing 'personal troubles ' in his or her marriage will also be aware that these personal troubles are in many ways similar to what other couples experience, and that they are related to social processes affecting society at large. It is difficult to imagine someone getting married
109 Understood in Bourdieu 's sense (cf. section 5.3).

nowadays who would not be aware of the statistics regarding divorce rates and of the discourse of social experts about this particular 'social problem '. It is very likely that social science knowledge about marriage and divorce will be appropriated in some way and integrated into the person’s decision to get - or not to get - married. As is developed below, lay people are increasingly able to ‘see the social in the individual’.
6.1.2 A component of ordinary knowledgeability
The conception of sociological imagination which I want to develop in this chapter opposes the idea that sociological imagination is sociologists’ exclusive competence.
Sociological imagination, in my view, has become part of ordinary knowledgeability. In the fourth chapter of the dissertation, I examined the notion of common sense by distinguishing between two levels, namely the level of ordinary knowledgeability – common sense as a form of knowledge – and the level of ordinary knowledge – the knowledge claims routinely used and appropriated by lay people in the course of day-to-day life. I have suggested that, instead of considering ordinary knowledgeability as an immutable form of knowledge characterised by a non-reflexive and non-discursive relationship to what is ‘known’, ordinary knowledgeability should be viewed as a ‘transformable’ form of knowledge which, in contemporary society, increasingly takes a reflexive and discursive mode. In the fifth chapter, the discussion of Bourdieu’s work has led to the argument that lay people increasingly do have the ‘capital’ and the structural possibilities for developing a theoretical posture vis-à-vis their own practices and the social world in general. That is, they are able to develop a form of discursive reflexivity in order to ‘objectify’ their own lives and conditions. The idea of a lay sociological imagination is an extension of the argument about the transformation of ordinary knowledgeability. Sociological imagination refers to one particular way in which lay people, in contemporary society, turn back upon their own practices and reflect upon them.
Sociological imagination, in other words, is a particular way in which one may
‘objectify’ one’s own life and practice. It consists, more specifically, in ‘seeing the social in

the individual’110. A first approximation of what can be understood by the ability to 'see the social in the individual ' can be found in Mills ' (1959) well-known work about sociological imagination. Mills claims that the hallmark of sociological imagination lies in the relation it establishes between the 'individual ' and the 'social '. Sociological imagination, in his terms, 'enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society’
(Mills, 1959: 6). Sociology 's fundamental assumption, in Mills ' view, is that ‘the individual can understand his own experience and gauge his own fate only by locating himself within his period, [...] he can know his own chances in life only by becoming aware of those of all individuals in his circumstances (Ibid.: 5).
Numerous authors have echoed Mills ' characterisation of 'sociological imagination ', and have made a similar argument that sociology is essentially about seeing the social in the individual. Bauman, for example, claims that sociology’s task is to view ‘human actions as elements of wider figurations’ (Bauman, 1990a: 7). 'What sociologists can do for us ', according to him, is to ‘compare our private experience with the fate of others [...], [to] see the social in the individual, the general in the particular’ (Bauman, 1990a: 10). In a similar vein, Kennedy affirms the usefulness of sociology by noting that ‘[m]any problems and opportunities you face as an individual will be similar, though not identical, to those facing thousands, if not millions, of other people your age’ (Kennedy, 1989: 1). Bierstedt makes the same point by claiming that 'sociology helps us to free ourselves from [...] particularistic controls and to learn to see a more universal society and a single human race '
(Bierstedt, 1970: 50). Sociology, in his view, enables us 'to see the eternal in the passing present, the universal in the particular fact, and the abstract in the concrete event ' (Ibid.).
‘Seeing the social in the individual’, thus, first implies seeing the general in the particular, or seeing the collective scope of what one experiences at an individual level. It implies acknowledging that what one first experiences as personal and individual issues is generally experienced by many other people in similar circumstances, and that these

110 This definition can be found in Bauman 's account of 'what thinking sociologically ' means (1990a: 10). As is made clear below, Bauman 's characterisation of sociological imagination, however, differs from mine in an important way.

collective experiences seem to refer to processes which go beyond one 's individual experience. I shall refer to this first characterisation of sociological imagination as the
‘simple’ version of what sociological imagination means. As is developed below, this simple version will be complemented by a ‘strong’ version of what a lay sociological imagination means. The ‘simple’ version of sociological imagination, that is, the capacity to see the supra-individual dimension of one 's personal and individual experience, refers to social science in general, rather than exclusively to sociology111.
In its ‘simple’ version, sociological imagination consists in acknowledging the very existence of the 'social '. Social science in general is based on the assumption that 'singular human beings can be treated as externally related individuals ' (Österberg, cited in Wagner,
1994: 107). As such, it is a mode of thinking that pervades sociology as much as psychology, for example, does. The latter, as Rose notes, 'is inextricably bound to the emergence of the "social" as a territory of our thought and our reality ' (Rose, 1990: 103).
Psychological knowledge, to that extent, is infused by a 'sociological imagination ':
As human beings at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries came to understand themselves as inhabited by a psychological interiority that was simultaneously unique to the individual and subject to general processes and laws, a reciprocal 'social ' territory was born (Rose, 1996: 318).
A lay sociological imagination thus means that the lay agent has learned to gauge her or his experience by situating it at a 'supra-individual ' level and by appropriating the idea that there are social processes which need to be taken into account in order to make sense of personal experience.
It could be argued that situating one 's individual life and experience at a 'supraindividual ' and general level has always been a characteristic of the way in which human
111 To that extent, one could object to the term 'sociological imagination ', and suggest, instead, terms such as 'social imagination ' or 'social scientific imagination '. I nevertheless choose to retain the term 'sociological imagination ' for two main reasons. First, its ‘strong’ version is, in contrast to the 'simple ' version, tightly connected to sociology. Second, my argument about a 'lay sociological imagination ' is a direct challenge to sociologists ' conception of their own exclusive mode of thinking, and of their conception of lay people 's sociological naïveté.

beings relate to their world and give meaning to their lives112. In fact, it could even be argued, at the opposite of my argument, that a characteristic of the contemporary way of situating oneself in the world is the tendency to see oneself as a unique individual rather than as a mere element of general and supra-individual categories. Heelas mentions
Burckhardt 's claim that, during the Middle Ages, 'man was conscious of himself only as a member of a race, people, party, family, a corporatism - only through some general category ' (Heelas, 1996: 8). What I call the 'simple ' version of sociological imagination is, however, very different from the consciousness of the Middle Ages described by
Burckhardt. The capacity to 'see the social in the individual ' implies, rather than opposes, the category of the 'individual ', and the notion of 'individuality '.
More precisely, seeing the social in the individual does not mean that people in contemporary society are not conscious of themselves primarily as individuals with unique properties. It means, rather, that the contemporary way of seeing oneself as a unique individual is itself based on the capacity to relate one 's individual experience to the 'social ' sphere. This idea can be found – albeit in other terms – in Bauman’s work about modern expertise. The 'existential foundation’ of modern expertise, for Bauman, lies in what he calls a 'paradox of individuality ', that is, in the fact that people 'feel both the need to belong and the need to be individuals ' (Bauman, 1992b: 81). Individuality, in contemporary society, can only be constructed through social confirmation113 (Bauman, 1992b: 88):
On the one hand, the individual needs to establish a stable and defensible difference between his own person and the wider, impersonal and impenetrable social world outside. On the other hand, however, such a

112 Religion, for example, can be seen as being based precisely on this ability to see one 's life as part of general, supra-individual processes.
113 Bauman’s analysis of modern expertise, as notes in the first chapter, essentially consists in stressing the new forms of dependency and of disempowerment attached to modern expertise and, in particular, to this paradox of individuality upon which it partly draws. My argument is very different. In my view, Bauman 's 'paradox of individuality ' refers more generally to people 's 'new ' capacity to 'see the social in the individual ', and should not be viewed as an alienating process tied up with expertise dependency and market dependency, although, as is argued below (cf. section 6.1.3), the development of a lay sociological imagination is certainly marked by specific processes of disempowerment.

difference, precisely to be stable and reliable, needs social affirmation and must be obtained in a form which also enjoys social approval (Ibid.: 84).
‘Social approval’, in my view, refers in an important way to the large-scale diffusion of social science knowledge and, more precisely, to the social facts and the categories produced by social scientists and disseminated throughout society. The ability to ‘see the social in the individual’ consists in relating one’s individual experience to some social category or social fact produced by social scientists. To put it differently, a lay sociological imagination primarily consists in acknowledging that there are ‘social facts’ about society which can be brought to light by social experts, and to which one 's personal and individual experience can be related. In contemporary society, the idea that one is a unique, noninterchangeable, individual means that one 's individual life is a unique combination of experiences which all refer to 'social ' processes, and can be understood at a general, supraindividual level. The capacity to see the social in the individual, in sum, leads to the redefinition, and certainly not to the eradication, of the idea of 'individuality '.
Lay sociological imagination is tied up with the massive diffusion of ‘factual social knowledge’. Although it is certainly accurate to affirm that the belief in the possibility of the ‘cognitive mastery of society’ (Wagner, 1994: 133) has seriously eroded, the very idea of ‘social facts’ is one which remains widely accepted. In particular, one routinely sees oneself as an element of a ‘statistically analysable population’ (Stanley, 1978: 145). As noted in the second chapter, statistics is the dominant form of expression of ‘social facts’, and it represents a very large proportion of the social science knowledge actually diffused through mass media (Weiss & Singer, 1988). The omnipresence of social statistics in dayto-day life is, in my view, a crucial element that accounts for the development of a lay sociological imagination, in the ‘simple’ version discussed so far.
There is little doubt that the current period is one in which the observational capacities of society have reached an unprecedented level. People see it as a routine and
‘natural’ feature of social life that virtually every aspect of day-to-day life is the object of some sort of social research, that it has been 'labelled ' by experts and translated into ‘social facts ', and that it is related to specific ‘social problems’, the latter generally leading to

specific policies and governmental actions. As a component of lay knowledgeability, sociological imagination means that an ordinary procedure, in order to make sense of one 's experience, is to relate this experience to 'social problems ' and 'social facts ' constructed and analysed by social experts. It consists in making sense of one’s experience by ‘translating’ it into the language of ‘social facts’ and ‘social problems’. This procedure, in my view, corresponds to a way of grasping one 's experience which has no equivalent before the massive dissemination of factual social knowledge throughout society. In that sense, the ability to ‘see the social in the individual’ is tied up with the development of empirical social inquiry and with the multiplication of social expert claims about every aspect of dayto-day life. To that extent, 'seeing the social in the individual ' is a distinctive characteristic of people’s knowledgeability in contemporary society.
The simple version of sociological imagination thus implies relating one 's personal troubles to a clearly identified 'social problem ', such as divorce, depression, 'mid-life crisis ', etc. When confronted with a particular issue in day-to-day life, a commonsensical procedure now consists in assuming that this issue is being addressed at a 'social ' and collective level, that it has been named and circumscribed by social experts, who provide people with legitimate ways of elucidating what happens to them. Making sense of one’s experience or of others’ experience thus implies being able to describe and explain it in terms of the categories and the ‘social facts ' offered by social experts and scientists. The lay sociological imagination consists in an enlarged capacity and propensity to compare one 's personal and private experience with the fate of others. The possibility of such a comparison is rooted in the growth and omnipresence of factual social knowledge, be it akin to sociology, psychology, economics, or other social sciences.
6.1.3 A lay sociological imagination in an individualised society?
There are two facets to a lay sociological imagination, to which I refer as the
‘simple’ and the ‘strong’ versions. The 'strong ' version of the capacity to ‘see the social in the individual’ consists in acknowledging that there is a 'social structure ' which pervades one 's individual experience and conditions of action, and which largely escapes individual

control. In this strong version, sociological imagination implies to see that the individual is, to some extent, 'shaped ' by the social. This aspect of sociological imagination has often been stressed as the specific insight offered by sociology:
It is in sociology that the student is most likely to discover the ways in which the structure of his society, the content of its culture, and the character of its norms all help to socialize him, carving out of the biological material the person that he has become (Bierstedt, 1970: 55).
Seeing how the individual is shaped by the social is often referred to in terms of determinants, constraints, or pressures. Kennedy, for example, in his book aimed at introducing sociology to lay people, defines the 'sociological view of life ' as one that consists in ‘realising how important social pressures are to you’ (Kennedy, 1989: 2). More accurately, the ‘strong’ version of 'sociological imagination ' refers to the very idea of a social 'structure ', independently of the more or less 'deterministic ' or constraining senses one confers on the notion of 'structure '. It implies acknowledging that there is such a 'thing ' as a social structure that 'inhabits ' one 's individual experience (Abbott & Wallace, 1990: 4), and which lies beyond one 's control and, to some extent, one 's awareness.
The argument about the strong version of sociological imagination refers to the same kind of processes explored by social psychologists, namely the issue of the way in which lay people attribute causes to particular events, and the way in which they achieve a sense of control and of responsibility. People 's ‘attributions’ - to borrow the terms of attribution theorists presented in the fourth chapter – are, in my view, increasingly infused by their capacity to see how the individual is shaped by the social. Their sense of control and of responsibility regarding what happens to them is being transformed, in part because they are increasingly aware of the large-scale social processes which impinge upon their day-to-day lives114. Contradictory aspects can be distinguished in the way in which people,
114

Thus I disagree with Calhoun’s (1991) argument, according to which maintaining a sense of autonomy in current society implies the suppression from consciousness of ‘social determinants’: ‘the very notion of being an autonomous individual consists of freedom from the bonds of determination by direct relationships and certain ascribed statuses of traditional culture and the suppression from consciousness of the equally strong determinations of indirect relationships and disciplinary patterns of culture (Calhoun,
1991: 114).

in a period of reflexive modernity, define the extent to which they are in control of, and responsible for, what happens in their lives.
Some of these aspects can be examined by going back to the widely-held view that contemporary society is an 'individualised ' society, and by examining how my argument about a lay sociological imagination opposes or confirms such a view. The notion of individualisation has been discussed in the first chapter as one of the chief concepts associated with 'the reflexive modernity thesis ': individualisation is tied up with detraditionalisation and the expansion of social reflexivity, and means that forms and conditions of existence have now to be individually chosen and treated as such. The idea of 'individualisation ' seems to deny any possibility of lay sociological imagination, especially in the perspective developed by Beck and other authors whose claims I have discussed in the first chapter. In their perspective, individualisation implies 'the dissolution of the social into the self ', insofar as people tend to perceive social issues exclusively in terms of individual and personal issues, and tend to lose sight of the rootedness of these issues in the 'social ' sphere.
In my view, however, the fact that people have to treat their conditions of existence as the product of their own decisions does not mean that they are unaware of the 'social ' dimension of the issues they encounter. On the contrary, the imperative of a 'do-it-yourself biography ' (Beck, 1994a: 15) has to be combined with the ability to 'see the social in the individual '. This combination produces a tension that marks the way people construct their identities and define their span of control and responsibility. In the first chapter, I described this tension as a rupture of the traditional link between control and responsibility. This tension results from the combination of, on one side, the consciousness of the limited character of individual capacity for control and change and, on the other side, the 'imperative of responsibility ' rooted in conditions of reflexive modernity, which implies that people have to act as if they were mastering their conditions of action, and have no choice but to feel responsible for what happens in their lives.

Social science knowledge is involved on both sides of the coin. That the keys for individual action to a large extent lie beyond individual’s control and power, is an idea that derives partly from the routine appropriation of social science knowledge, sociological as well as psychological, economic, etc. Equally, though, the idea that people are responsible for their lives, and can work upon their conditions of action, is also fuelled by social science knowledge, especially by the ‘counselling’ branch of social expertise. As argued above, lay sociological imagination implies that people tend to translate their troubles into
‘social problems’, which are presented by social experts as 'resolvable '. People are encouraged to work on these problems with the help of appropriate experts. By treating a large range of social phenomena as ‘problems’ demanding ‘solutions’, social science routinely conveys the message that people, through the appropriate use of expert knowledge - and the occasional recourse to particular experts - can work on the problems they encounter in their day-to-day lives. Thus, to come back to an example used in earlier chapters, when trying to make sense of their child’s poor results at school, parents can appropriate expert claims which stress their responsibility and their capacity to 'make a difference ', and to change the situation. At the same time, they are increasingly aware, in part through the same process of appropriation of social science knowledge, of the largescale social processes which have 'produced ' the situation, and over which they have little control. The argument about a lay sociological imagination, in its ‘strong’ version, challenges two different theses about the 'individualised ' consciousness of ordinary people in contemporary society. As already suggested, it first opposes the argument that the contemporary period implies, as it were, the 'collapse of the social into the self '. Such an argument has been developed, albeit in different ways, by authors like Beck, Bauman,
Lasch and Sennett, whose views have been presented in the first chapter. The common ground between these authors is that each argues that people 's 'individualised consciousness ' is the product of conditions characteristic of the current period. These authors thus share a socio-historical view of lay people 's individualised consciousness.
Beck 's argument is that individualisation is coextensive with reflexive modernisation, and with the ubiquity of choices and risks in day-to-day life. Bauman 's perspective concerns

modern conditions of expertise and the disempowering effects of the omnipresence of experts and expert knowledge. He argues that the relation of people to expertise is marked by a 'consumer attitude ', which implies that the burden of social issues in placed on the individual, who is supposed to 'consume ' expert knowledge in order to solve privatised issues. The consumer attitude, in Bauman 's terms, 'privatises issues so that they are not perceived as public; it individualises tasks so that they are not seen as social ' (Bauman,
1990a: 204).
The second thesis that is challenged by the idea of a lay sociological imagination is the one developed by attribution theorists regarding the ‘fundamental attribution error’ that lay people systematically make115. It is a functionalist and a-historical view of lay people 's individualised consciousness, based on the idea that there are fundamental, ‘natural’ and immutable characteristic of human cognition. As presented in the fourth chapter, attribution theorists have argued that the lay person tends to be a 'psychologist ' rather than a 'sociologist ', insofar as he or she attributes internal and individual causes to phenomena, rather than external and social ones. Attribution theorists explain people’s individualised consciousness by the ‘functions’ performed by internal explanations, in particular the control and the self-esteem functions. In this perspective, the individualised consciousness of lay people, although certainly mistaken, is 'functional ': it enables people to maintain a sense of control of their lives, however illusory this control may be.
The two theses about individualisation can be contrasted as follows. On one hand, social psychologists have stressed the individualised consciousness of people who always favour explanations that reinforce their belief in their capacity to control what happens to them, and to ‘make a difference’ through individual action. In this view, an individualised consciousness is a necessary feature of lay knowledgeability, and one which is empowering insofar as it encourages individual action. On the other hand, various sociologists have argued that people’s individualised consciousness is the recent product of conditions of late modernity, and that it undermines their capacity for action, by obscuring the social and structural determinants of social processes, and by mistakenly putting the ‘keys’ to social
115 Cf. section 4.3.3.

problems on the individual, rather than on collective action. In this view, people’s individualised consciousness is a disempowering feature of lay knowledgeability.
I do not contest social psychologists’ assumption that, inherent in the modern, and primarily western, conception of self-identity, and of what ‘being in the world’ means, lies the capacity to ‘make a difference’ and to have a measure of control over what happens in one’s life. As Law puts it:
Personally reductionist causes, origins and explanations are comforting.
Order is appreciated. Other orders are interpretable as disorder, or as stodge.
Furthermore, many agents (male agents?) like agents: they like to think that they too are autonomous and creative (Law, 1994 : 61)
I contest, however, social psychologists’ assumption that only internal explanations can maintain this sense of control or, to put it the other way, that external explanations systematically undermine people’s sense of control and are necessarily disempowering.
Lay people, in my view, are increasingly aware that the conditions and consequences of their actions in part refer to processes which are beyond their individual control, and beyond the intended ‘difference’ these actions were supposed to make. Attribution theorists, in my view, have been oblivious of the capacity of ‘lay people’ to appropriate knowledge which stresses ‘external’ causes of social phenomena, and to articulate this
‘sociological imagination’ in a way which does not deny their individual or collective responsibility and their capacity for action.
The analyses of Beck, Bauman, and others, about individualisation, are more convincing insofar as their argument about people’s ‘individualised consciousness’ is based on an analysis of specific conditions of late modernity, and insofar as it does not draw upon the functionalist perspective characteristic of attribution theory. As argued in the first chapter of the dissertation, I agree with the argument that, in a period of reflexive modernity, people have to treat the conditions of their actions as if they were the product of their own decisions. This conception of the individualisation process, however, does not imply the ‘privatisation’ of social issues and the generalisation of an individualised

consciousness. Rather, the imperative to treat one’s conditions of action as the product of one’s decisions, is itself fuelled by an increased capacity to see the social in the individual.
In short, I reject the idea that ‘lay people’ are increasingly driven by an
‘individualised consciousness’ which leads them to the illusion that they can control their conditions of action, and which has disempowering effects by obscuring ‘real’ possibilities for action. One could say that the fundamental debate which has animated sociologists since the beginnings of the discipline, namely, the question of the individual capacity for action and change, is now enmeshed in the fundamental tension that marks people 's sense of control and responsibility in contemporary society. Virtually everyone has now routinely to confront the question of the limited character of individual action, and to constantly readjust a conception of responsibility, in order to maintain a sense of ‘being in control’, while at the same time acknowledging the impossibility of individual omnipotence. Thus people’s sense of individual control and responsibility is not the product of them being oblivious of the social and supra-individual character of social issues. In a period of reflexive modernity, people have no choice but to 'invent ', on a routine and continuous basis, new ways of maintaining a sense of individual or collective responsibility, and of capacity for action, on the basis of their growing awareness of the social and globalised phenomena affecting their conditions for action. Although I will not pursue this argument here, new forms of collective action could be analysed, in my view, in light of the argument that lay people increasingly employ a 'sociological imagination ' when making sense of their world. 6.1.4 Sociological imagination, empowerment and disempowerment
Various social scientists have stressed the negative impact of the strong version of sociological imagination. In their perspective, sociological imagination can lead to a deterministic conception of social action, and one which evacuates individual capacity for action and freedom. It leads one to be convinced that ‘society and social pressure entirely determine one’s life’ (Kennedy, 1989: 2). Wrong, in a well-known article about the 'oversocialized conception of man ' in modern sociology, claims that ‘the insistence of

sociologists on the importance of "social factors" easily leads them to stress the priority of socialised or socializing motives in human behavior’ (Wrong, 1977: 40). For him, this oversocialised conception of human action is coextensive with an overintegrated view of society, and has come to pervade society at large. In this restricted sense, 'sociological imagination ' has become a generalised mode of thinking, and one which Wrong rejects as being 'ideological '116.
In a related vein, Schelsky has developed the view that a sociological mode of thinking has come to influence modern consciousness in an excessive and negative way
(Stehr, 1996: 1.29)117. Sociology, for Schelsky, has become the key science in contemporary society, and has come to exert a powerful influence on the collective consciousness of modern society (Stehr, 1992: 86). Sociology 's influence consists in the transformation of individual identities. The latter, for Schelsky, are now 'governed primarily by views which stress the social embeddedness of the conduct and the beliefs of individual actors ' (Stehr, 1992: 141). Sociological imagination thus consists in the 'deemphasis of the individual and the stress it places instead on the collectivity and the influence of the collective formations on individuals ' (Stehr, 1996: 1.29). To that extent, it leads to the 'dissolution of the person ' (Stehr, 1992: 142). Like Schelsky, I argue that the impact of social science - and not only of sociology - on contemporary society is very significant, and that 'sociological imagination ', in the sense of ‘seeing the social in the individual’, has come to be disseminated throughout society, rather than refers to sociologists’ exclusive mode of thinking. I also support the idea, introduced in earlier chapters, that ‘sociological imagination’ pertains to the way in which people define and construct their identities. Unlike Schelsky, however, I do not think that 'sociological
116 Cf. Wrong 's argument about the 'ideological effects ' of social science, presented in the second chapter (section 2.1.3). Wrong 's (1990) work about 'the influence of sociological ideas on American culture’ is, in my view, more satisfactory than his thesis about the generalisation of an 'oversocialised conception of man ', insofar as it addresses the process whereby sociological ideas and concepts become incorporated into common sense. This work has been discussed in chapter four (section 4.3.3).
117 The work of Helmut Schelsky has not been translated into English, which is why I rely here on Stehr 's (1996; 1992) account of Schelsky 's work. Stehr refers more particularly to the following work: Schelsky, Helmut (1975), Die Arbeit tun die anderen. Klassenkampf und Priesterherrschaft der Intellektuellen, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag.

imagination ' implies the ‘dissolution’ of the person, nor that it necessarily implies the disempowerment of ‘lay people’.
Specific disempowering and empowering effects are associated with the 'strong ' version of sociological imagination, that is, with the increasing awareness that individual action is partly 'shaped ' by determining social forces that escape individual control. In line with Bourdieu’s position discussed in the fifth chapter, it is crucial, in my view, to acknowledge that the recognition of 'external ' causes to personal and individual issues is not necessarily disempowering, as attribution theorists have generally assumed. A lay sociological imagination, in its strong version, implies a consciousness that many of the issues one has to deal with in day-to-day life are beyond one’s individual control. This facet of sociological imagination can be empowering, in the sense that it enables one to feel exempted from situations which largely escape one 's control and for which one is not entirely 'to blame '.
As already argued, such an argument is central in Bourdieu’s position about sociology’s usefulness and empowering impact. The same argument has also been made from a different perspective by students of 'new social movements '. For example, Kroll
Smith et al. (1995), whose work has already been presented in the first chapter118, have shown that movements organised around the appropriation of expert knowledge are often based on a 'shift in moral accountability away from the individual and towards society '
(1995: 9). The authors have studied the two movements of 'environmental illness ' and of 'popular epidemiology '; in both movements, lay people, through the appropriation of expert and scientific knowledge, have managed to 'direct attention to sources outside themselves as the causes of their misery ' (Ibid.: 10), and to suggest collective courses of action that could not be contemplated when the locus of causality for the illnesses under scrutiny was considered to be internal rather than external.
The combination of empowering and disempowering elements that are enmeshed in sociological imagination equally concerns the 'simple ' version, which consists in seeing the
118 Cf. section 1.2.2.

general in the particular, and in relating one 's individual and personal experience to 'social issues ' identified, analysed and documented by experts. An empowering aspect of this simple version consists in claiming that people, by using their sociological imagination, commonly know that 'they are not alone ' when dealing with particular problems. The massive diffusion of factual social knowledge about virtually every issue that one can encounter in the course of day-to-day life implies that people are increasingly aware that they share their predicament with many others. Such an awareness can be comforting, in the sense that, for example, ‘[i]f infertile couples read multiple-case reports about other infertile couples, they probably would feel a sense of liberation to know that they are not alone with their feelings’ (Rosenwald, 1988: 258). A potentially empowering aspect of sociological imagination thus consists in stressing the common and comparable character of one 's personal and private experience, and the 'systematicity of what seemed random and inexplicable ' (Ibid.: 262). By relating one 's private and 'puzzling ' experience to a welldocumented 'social problem ', one can avoid a sense of 'helplessness ' vis-à-vis a particular distressing event, and might take a particular course of action as a result.
The very same process, however, carries potentially disempowering effects, related in particular to the standardisation of experience, and to the potential stigmatisation that might result from the ready-made categorisations that more or less impose on the way people make sense of their own and others’ experience. Bauman, as suggested in the preceding section, claims that the capacity to see the social in the individual is entirely ruled by expertise, and is merely a manifestation of the colonisation of the life-world by expertise: The expertise enters the life-world of the individual already at an early stage when diffuse and vague personal unease [...] is articulated in the interpersonal language of individual problems demanding the application of supra individual solutions ' (Bauman, 1991: 208-9)
It could thus be argued, in a Foucauldian vein, that my argument about a lay sociological imagination merely is the acknowledgement that representations of the social world have become standardised through the massive intrusion of social expert knowledge in day-today life. It is difficult, in a world of omnipresent expertise, to escape the categories and

labels put forward by experts, and the implicit definition of ‘normality’ resulting from this authorised activity of ‘naming’ the social world. The capacity to see the social in the individual is certainly not immune to forms of symbolic domination which consist in the imposition119 of 'ready-made problems ' and 'ready-made solutions ' by experts. In Bauman 's terms: ‘Expertise offers socially approved solutions to individual discomforts and anxieties, having first equally authoritatively articulated them as problems that require solutions’
(Bauman, 1991: 208).
The capacity to 'see the social in the individual ' cannot, in my view, be reduced to a mere manifestation of the omnipresence of expertise in contemporary society, or of people 's compliance to a dominant discourse based on the collusion between social science and the state, as Bauman and other theorists would suggest, although it can certainly happen that people are caught up with ready-made problems and ready-made solutions 'created ' by social experts. The argument about standardisation is put into question by the multiplication of discourses on society. The development of a lay sociological imagination does not suppose the stability of an 'organised mode of representation ' (Wagner, 1994) based on the unchallenged translation of social issues into social problems. In fact, a lay sociological imagination is more likely to emerge in a period of 'pluralisation ' of modes of representation, that is, in a period in which there is a competition for the representation of the social world120.

6.2. EXPLORING

LAY SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION: REVISITING THE RELATIONSHIP

BETWEEN THE RESEARCHER AND THE RESEARCHED

6.2.1 ‘Giving a voice’ to lay people: the use of life-stories in sociology
119 In the non-overtly violent way stressed by Bourdieu in his notion of 'symbolic violence '
(Cf. section 5.2.1).
120 Cf. section 5.1.1. See also Berger’s argument below about the relationship between
‘sociological consciousness’ and the pluralisation of systems of meaning.

The proposition developed about a lay sociological imagination has important implications pertaining to the way sociologists study lay people and to the way the former have tried to ‘give a voice’ to the latter. In my discussion of Bourdieu’s work, I suggested that the type of ‘voice’ given by sociologists to their ‘subjects’ is often one which constrains lay people to appear as sociologically naive agents, rather than as agents who are able to employ a sociological imagination. Here I want to develop this argument by exploring what has been called the ‘life-story approach’ in sociology. This approach refer to types of sociological research which consist in the collection and analysis of lay agents’ life-stories. As will be developed below, the researchers who promote the life-story approach often praise themselves to treat their subjects as competent and knowledgeable agents, in contrast to other qualitative or quantitative methodologies. In my view, however, the recognition of lay people’s knowledgeability in the life-story approach never goes as far as to acknowledge their sociological imagination.
Ordinary people 's self-narratives or life-stories have been the object of considerable, though irregular, attention on the part of sociologists. The 'life-story approach ' partly refers to some of the Chicago sociologists of the 1920s and 1930s (Bertaux, 1981: 5). It has been brought back to the fore of sociologists ' agendas in the past twenty years, through the work of, among others, Bertaux, Denzin, and Ferrarotti. In 1985 Bertaux created a journal entitled Life Stories, the purpose of which was ‘not just to publish life stories, [but] to encourage discussion of a central issue which still has to be resolved: is there a real place in social and historical research for life stories?’ (Bertaux, 1985: 3). The popularity of the lifestory approach, as well as the purposes that sociologists have assigned to it, vary sometimes significantly from one country to another (Bertaux & Kohli, 1984). It is the work by
Thomas and Znaniecki conducted in the 1920s about the immigration of Polish peasants in
Europe and America which is often cited as inaugurating the use of personal documents, letters and autobiographies in sociology121 (Chasalinski, 1981: 119). For Thomas and

121 For Bertaux, Poland is considered to be the ‘true homeland of the life-story approach in sociology’ (Bertaux, 1981: 3), insofar as this method has been used continuously over the past seventy years, through public competition for the ‘best’ pamietniki. These are written

Znaniecki, 'personal life-records, as complete as possible, constitute the perfect type of sociological material ' (1958: 1832).
Rather than written documents, however, the life-story approach now refers primarily to research based on oral interviews, during which the interviewee construct his or her life-story with the sociologist’s assistance. In the following discussion, I will focus precisely on this type of research based on interviews with lay agents, and in which the interviewees’ narratives represent a specific form of 'data ' for sociological analysis.
Included in my analysis are not only the works of sociologists who explicitly situate their work within the ‘life-story approach’, but also the work of sociologists who do not refer to the life-story approach as such, but who nevertheless base their research on their subjects life-stories or self-narratives. Included in this second category is, for example, Bourdieu and his colleagues’ work in La Misère du Monde.
As suggested above, sociologists ' interest in their subjects ' self-narratives is associated with the recognition that 'lay people ' are more knowledgeable and competent than what is usually assumed in orthodox social science. Bertaux, who is a fervent proponent of the life story approach, stresses that ‘if given a chance to talk freely, people appear to know a lot about what is going on, a lot more, sometimes, than sociologists '
(Bertaux, 1981: 38). Life-stories have been seen as a stimulating way of exploring lay people’s ‘first-level constructs’ about the social world, these constructs being the necessary resource for sociologists ' 'second-order constructs '122. Collecting people’s life-stories through interviews enables, in other words, to 'elicit the expression of what people already know about social life ' (Ibid.: 39), in contrast to other methods such as surveys which, in
Bertaux 's view, assume that 'what every individual has to say is in itself meaningless '
(Ibid.: 38). For Bertaux, thus, ‘recognizing that ‘indigenous’ knowledge has sociological value is to recognise that the ordinary man is better informed than the sociologist; we should no longer consider him a simple object of observation’ (Houle, 1995: 95). autobiographies from, for example, peasants, industrial workers, and unemployed men and women, collected by the government through public competition, and which are then used and analysed by sociologists.
122 Cf. section 4.3.1.

Beyond the proclaimed principle of recognising the knowledgeability of lay people, life-stories have generally been used as a way of obtaining detailed empirical 'data ' about the lives of the people who are the ‘subjects’ of the research. To put it differently, acknowledging the competence of lay people has often merely consisted, in the life-story approach, in treating them as ‘accurate informants’. For that reason, proponents of the lifestory approach have been greatly concerned with the accuracy and the veracity of their subjects’ narratives (Chambon, 1995: 125). It has been argued that life-stories are biased or inaccurate descriptions of 'what really happened ', insofar as lay people, as Ross and
Conway put it, are ‘inadequate personal historians’ (1986: 126). By this, they mean that people 'deny change and variability that are manifestly present [...], [or] they err in the opposite direction, exaggerating the degree to which they have changed over time '
(1986: 126). In the same vein, Kárpáti stresses that 'a source of error might be the use of retrospective data biased by purposeful distortion or inaccurate recollection ' (1981: 136).
When using people 's life stories as 'documents of social significance ', sociologists should be aware, in Kàrpàti 's view, of the 'more or less unconscious post festa ideologizing of past life-events, [the] reshaping and re-evaluation of life according to the special lifeexperiences and the present life-circumstances of the respondent ' (Ibid.: 136).
Life-stories, thus, while demonstrating the so-called ‘competence’ of the interviewees, serve as a particular kind of data that is then analysed by the sociologist. Lifestories are extremely useful, according to many proponents of the approach, for getting
‘accurate descriptions of the interviewees ' life trajectories in social contexts’ (Bertaux &
Kohli, 1984: 215). They provide a basis on which the sociologist can draw in order to uncover 'the patterns of social relations and the special processes that shaped them ' (Ibid.).
The life-story approach, in other words, often aims at analysing 'the social structures that form and determine individual destinies ' (Antikainen, 1996: 17). It consists for the sociologist to ‘apply’, so-to-speak, his or her ‘sociological imagination’ to sociologically naive life-stories. The sociologist, on the basis of the interviewees’ life-stories, is thus able to bring into the open the social structures and determinants – of which the interviewee is necessarily unaware – which are embedded in the interviewees lives. The life-story

approach, in a nutshell, has generally been based on the assumption that lay agents are sociologically naive and produce life-stories devoid, as it were, of any trace of sociological imagination. It is the sociologist who has to ‘operate the mediation between the individual history and social history’ (Gaulejac, 1995: 19). What I call the ‘simple’ version of
‘sociological imagination’ is thus denied to lay agents. It is also the sociologist who is able to see how specific social processes have structured and ‘determined’ the life of the person under study: lay agents, unless they have acquired exceptional and ‘unusual’ capacities for reflexivity (Bertaux, 1997: 83), are unable to master the ‘strong’ version of sociological imagination. This point does not contradict the earlier statement that sociologists have used lifestories in order to show the active and 'competent ' way in which ordinary people make sense of their own lives. Life-stories have served to show both the competence of their lay authors and the bounded character of this competence. In Denzin 's terms, life-stories serve 'to reveal how ordinary people give meaning to their lives, within the limits and freedom given to them’ (Denzin, 1986: 17). It should be clear that my argument is intended neither to refute the idea that people 's knowledgeability is 'bounded ', nor that a crucial task of social scientists is precisely to elucidate those 'bounds ', which refer in particular to unacknowledged conditions and unintended consequences of action123 (Giddens,
1984: 282). My aim, rather, is to put into question sociologists ' assumption that ordinary people 's knowledgeability is bounded by their inability to 'see the social in the individual ', that is, by their inability to employ a 'sociological imagination ' as a way to objectify their own lives and practices.
123

We should, however, pay attention to Hamel’s argument that the major ‘limit’, as it were, of ‘practical consciousness’ precisely lies in its unlimited character – whereas sociologists’ consciousness is characterised by its restricted outlook : ‘If the dimensions of the social system escape the actors’ consciousness, it is not because that consciousness is limited. On the contrary, it may be argued that the actors’ practical consciousness is not only constituted by the ‘dimensions of the social system’ but also by the addition of the whole range of dimensions that characterise the action. All of these constitute the object of this practical consciousness which is therefore by no means limited. It is sociology that, by definition, must try to ‘limit’ or reduce it by highlighting the ‘dimensions of the social system and the conditions of the action’ that must be drawn from the practical consciousness that the social actors possess of their own action, this being the very object of sociology (Hamel, 1997 : 99).

Whereas sociologists ' use of life-stories has consisted in imprinting the sociologists ' imagination on lay people 's sociologically naïve self-narratives, I suggest that people 's lifestories are already fuelled by a lay sociological imagination, which sociologists could set out to display instead of 'neutralise’. Sociologists who praise the knowledgeability of lay people have nevertheless failed to recognise that this knowledgeability includes the potential appropriation of sociological knowledge itself and the capacity to 'see the social in the individual '. As argued in the first part of the chapter, lay people, in my view, routinely employ a sociological imagination and have learned to ‘see the social in the individual’, in both the simple and strong versions outlines above. This lay sociological imagination fuels the self-narratives and life-stories they routinely construct, including the narratives that social scientists collect when they interview lay agents.
An important implication of my argument about a lay sociological imagination refers to the status of lay people’s narratives or life-stories in sociological research. In the life-story approach, people’s life-stories have been seen as the ‘perfect material’ for sociologists insofar as their genesis was ‘untouched by the sociologist’s hand’ (Houle,
1995 : 91). As noted above, the ‘subjects’ of the research gain the status of reliable informants about their own practice and about the social contexts in which this practice is embedded (Bertaux, 1997 : 118). Or, as Bertaux puts it, life-stories are a ‘remarkable instrument for the extraction of practical knowledge’ (Bertaux, 1997 : 17). This conception of the usefulness of lay people’s self-narratives, in my view, does not put into question the traditional logic, as it were, of the relationship between the researcher and the researched : although ‘competent’, the latter’s knowledge is exclusively ‘practical’; although the researched can inform the sociologist about the social context of their practice, they are unable to articulate discursively how this social context may have determined or structured their practice. The discourse of the people under study is still viewed as a form of ‘raw data’, which has to be made sense of by the sociologist. In contrast, claiming that lay people have a ‘sociological imagination’ and are increasingly able to ‘see the social in the individual’ implies that lay people’s self-narratives cannot be considered as ‘raw data’ which is free of any trace of ‘sociological contamination’, so-to-speak. More importantly,

the role of the researched can no longer be considered to be one of ‘information’, as opposed to the sociologist’s role of transforming this information into meaningful sociological knowledge. To use the terms introduced in the third chapter of the dissertation, sociological research becomes a form of ‘participatory research’ between professional sociologists and lay sociologists. Although the former’s sociological imagination is probably more articulate, documented and systematic than the latter’s, there is no difference in nature between the two forms of knowledgeability.
6.2.2 Studying/enacting a lay sociological imagination: a comparison with
Touraine 's method of 'sociological intervention '
I have argued that sociologists, in part due to a misleading conception of ordinary knowledgeability and to inadequate methodological options, have been unable, when trying to ‘give a voice’ to their subjects by collecting their life-stories, to acknowledge and to display their subjects ' lay sociological imagination. I would like to pursue my argument by indicating how sociologists could study their subjects’ lay sociological imagination, and by raising fundamental issues which are tied up with such a project. The main issue regarding the empirical investigation of a lay sociological imagination consists in the inevitable conflation, as it were, between two activities, namely the activity of studying – or
‘recording’– a lay sociological imagination, and the activity of ‘enacting’ it, that is, of contributing to its development. In order to explore this issue, I will use Touraine 's method of 'sociological intervention ' as an illustration and, more generally, as a point of comparison between his conception of sociological research, and my own argument about a lay sociological imagination.
Sociological intervention, which Touraine first presented and applied in The Voice and the Eye (1981), is a method by which his author aims to renew sociological research and methodology (Hamel, 1998: 2). Broadly speaking, sociological intervention can be described as a ‘self-analysis that requires the active participation of social actors engaged in a collective struggle concerning political and social issues’ (Hamel, 1997: 97). With this method, Touraine explicitly acknowledges that there is no clear-cut distinction between the

activity of studying the emergence of a social movement, and the activity of enacting that emergence, that is, of being actively involved in it. Sociological intervention thus consists for the sociologist to study, thereby facilitating, the transformation of 'social struggles ' into 'social movements '.
Touraine 's method of sociological intervention concerns particular militant actions and it is aimed at the militants of particular social struggles, such as the struggle of women, students, ecologists, workers, or Solidarnosc in Poland. It aims to ‘carry out a sociological analysis of that [militant] action in cooperation with its principal actors’ (Hamel, 1997: 97).
In Touraine’s study (Touraine et al., 1983), for example, of the anti-nuclear protest, he and his colleagues aimed at examining the possibility of transforming the anti-nuclear struggle into an anti-nuclear movement. A social movement, in his view, represents the highest stage which can be reached by a social struggle when it succeeds in articulating the rejection of a particular dominant model in terms of social conflicts and social relations. The purpose of his work about the anti-nuclear protest, for example, was to see ‘how the generalised rejection of a social and cultural order can be transformed first of all into a creative utopia, and then elevated to the level of a social conflict, in which identifiable opponents fight for a stake which they both accept as cultural orientation but to which they both give entirely different social interpretations’ (Touraine, 1983: 9). His hypothesis, thus, was that 'the antinuclear struggle contains a social movement which might in future play as important a role as that once played by the working-class movement ' (Touraine, 1983: 116).
The method is based on the direct interaction between the researcher and the researched, and on the latter’s narratives, which are analysed by the sociologist in a joint process of ‘objectification’ with the people under study. The subjects’ narratives deal with the social struggle in which they are engaged. Sociological intervention involves discussions between the sociologists, on one hand, and the participants to a particular struggle, as well as other interlocutors directly or indirectly involved in the struggle, such as allies, opponents, experts, politicians, on the other hand. The sociological intervention that
Touraine conducted with anti-nuclear militants consisted in assisting the latter in conferring to their struggle a new meaning on which the emergence of a social movement would be

based. For Touraine, the anti-nuclear protest can only become a social movement if its meaning ceases to be merely an anti-industrial withdrawal, in order to evolve toward a model of post-industrial modernisation. Finding a social movement in the anti-nuclear action thus means, according to Touraine, finding 'a conflict over a stake, which implies at least the potential presence of a societal counterproject ' (Touraine, 1983: 153). The aim of sociological intervention is, thus, to enable the participants in a particular struggle to reconsider and to transform the meaning of their protest. This aim is achieved through a dialogue between the sociologist and the militants, which Touraine describes as a 'selfanalysis which militants perform upon their collective action ' (Touraine, 1981: 27). The sociologist’s role is to intervene 'by incitement or hypothesis in the actors’ self-analysis of their struggle ' (Touraine, 1983: 10). Sociological intervention thus enables the participants to adopt an ‘analytical attitude’ (Touraine, 1983: 161), and then to go back to the level of action in order to design strategies and courses of action on the basis of the new meanings assigned to their struggle. It is conceived as 'a movement back and forth between analysis and action ' (Touraine, 1983: 161).
Sociological intervention consists in four distinct stages. The first stage is the formation of 'intervention groups ' composed by participants in the struggle, who hold discussions with other interlocutors chosen by themselves - in the case of the anti-nuclear struggle, these interlocutors included industrialists, trade unionists, and ecologists
(Touraine, 1983: 10). In the second stage, the sociologists intervene in order to 'encourage the groups to analyse the conditions and the meaning of their action ' (Ibid.). The third stage is the stage of sociological intervention as such, and is called 'conversion ': during this crucial stage, 'the researchers formulate their hypotheses and tell the groups what seems, in their opinion, to be the highest possible meaning of their action, and help them to understand that action from such a vantage point ' (Ibid.: 10-1). If the conversion succeeds, that is, if the participants begin to examine their struggle from the point of view of the social movement (Touraine, 1983: 176), the last stage of the process is what Touraine calls
‘permanent sociology’. It consists in the reappropriation, by the participants, of the work done by the sociologists. In Touraine 's terms, it implies ‘handing the research back to the actors’ (Touraine, 1983: 196). 'Permanent sociology ' aims at sending the participants back

to action by studying the 'ability of the actors to transform this analysis into a programme of action ' (Ibid.: 11). Ideally, 'permanent sociology ' should extend beyond the time of the research itself, by the militants continuing the back and forth movement, initiated by the sociologist’s intervention, between analysis and action.
In the case of the anti-nuclear protest, the phase of 'permanent sociology ' involved meetings between the researchers, the members of the intervention groups, and other militants in the movement who did not take part in the analysis conducted by the intervention groups. The aim of these meetings was 'to put the precise results of the analysis to the test by submitting them for study by the militants who would use them to evaluate and understand better their own practices ' (Touraine, 1983: 148). For Touraine, the immediate impact of this phase was that the militants were encouraged to take an analytical, reflexive, or 'theoretical ' posture regarding their militant action (Ibid.: 147-8). A crucial point of Touraine’s ‘permanent sociology’ is, in my view, that the participants directly involved in the intervention groups are not the only agents who can benefit from the method; rather, other actors concerned by the struggle, who did not directly participate in the 'conversion ', can appropriate the knowledge generated by sociological intervention.
As already suggested, a chief characteristic of Touraine 's method of sociological intervention is that it intentionally merges the descriptive and the prescriptive components of social science knowledge. The aim of the sociologist, who is 'neither observer nor ideologist ' (Touraine, 1981: 27) is as much to test the hypothesis that a particular social struggle can become a social movement as it is to participate actively in the transformation of this struggle into a social movement. To put it differently, in Touraine 's method of sociological intervention, studying the emergence of a social movement and contributing to this emergence are one and the same thing. Going even further, Touraine suggests that the validity of the claim that a social movement could emerge from a particular social struggle is demonstrated with the effective transformation of the struggle into a social movement:
‘the intervention groups’ capacity for conversion demonstrated [...] the presence of a social movement in that struggle’ (Touraine, 1983: 176). The conversion of the participants is, at

the same time, the ‘proof’ that the sociologist’s hypothesis about the meaning of their struggle was a valid one:
If the sense is endorsed by the actors of the struggle invited to the discussions, this means that the sociological theory which brought it to light is validated as to its pertinence in explaining the action that is the object of the sociological intervention. […] The group’s conversion to the explanation proposed by the researchers is what gives it true validity (Hamel, 1998: 3, 4).
To some extent, the exploration of a lay sociological imagination implies the same inescapable amalgam, stressed by Touraine, between description and prescription. Studying a lay sociological imagination, on the basis of the life-stories produced during interviews with lay agents, necessarily also amounts to ‘enact’ this sociological imagination. I, however, would not go as far as to say, as Touraine suggests, that the only way to
‘demonstrate’ the validity of the hypothesis about a lay sociological imagination is to
‘enact’ this sociological imagination during research sessions between sociologists and ‘lay people’. This argument is examined further in the last section of the chapter.
6.2.3 The empirical study of a lay sociological imagination
Touraine’s method of sociological intervention has strong affinities with several of the arguments developed in this dissertation although, as is developed below, I also depart from Touraine’s position in a significant way. The first affinity concerns the reflexive process between the researcher and the researched, and the importance of acknowledging the process of lay appropriation of social science knowledge. Sociological intervention, for
Touraine, is entirely based on the reflexive process between social science knowledge and its 'subjects '. At the stage of ‘permanent sociology’, ‘the sociological theory is ready to feed its object of study: the social action originally envisaged by the sociological intervention’
(Hamel, 1997: 97). In contrast to many social scientists who are either oblivious to, or try to minimise, the appropriation of social science knowledge by their ‘subjects’124, Touraine not only acknowledges, but also encourages, the process whereby the people under study appropriate the knowledge that he produces about them. The success of his sociological
124 Cf. sections 3.1.1 & 3.1.2.

intervention in fact depends upon the process of appropriation, by the participants, of the knowledge generated through the discussions with the sociologists.
Second, Touraine’s sociological intervention is based on the self-analysis125, by the
‘subjects’ of the research – in his case the militants of a particular social struggle – about their own action. As such, Touraine seems to share the perspective developed in this dissertation about the usefulness of sociology. Specifically, I have tried to argue that sociology can be, and already is, useful for lay people as a reflexive resource for making sense of their own lives and actions. Instead of restricting this usefulness of sociology to social movements, as Touraine does, I suggest that this process of lay appropriation of sociological knowledge, and the development of lay sociological imagination that it entails, concern lay people at large and not only militants of social struggles. In other words, the type of action that can be elucidated by sociological knowledge does not refer to political action only, but refer more generally to any form of action in which lay people are engaged in day-to-day life, including routine and apparently insignificant actions. Thus Touraine’s method of sociological intervention could in principle be used for making sense of the lives and events recounted by Bourdieu’s interviewees in La Misère du Monde.
There are, however, important differences between Touraine 's epistemological position about sociological intervention, and my own argument about a lay sociological imagination. These differences concern, first, Touraine’s conception of ‘participatory research’ and, second, his conception of common sense. First, Touraine’s conception of lay appropriation of sociological knowledge can be criticised on the basis of the argument made in the third chapter regarding ‘participatory research’. In line with many social scientists involved in research which is based on the active participation of its ‘subjects’,
Touraine assumes that the successful appropriation of sociological knowledge by the militants involved in the research is conditional on the active intervention of the sociologist.
125 The similarity on this point between Touraine’s method of sociological intervention and Bourdieu’s practice of ‘provoked and accompanied self-analysis’ (cf. chapter 5), has been well noted by Hamel (1997, 1998). An important common point between Touraine and Bourdieu’s methods is that both require ‘the participation of social actors in order to explain a social struggle or a phenomenon such as suffering’ (Hamel, 1998: 16).

In other words, he suggests that the positive appropriation of sociological knowledge by lay people is restricted to the practice of participatory research. In contrast, I have argued that the reflexive process between social science knowledge and its ‘subjects’, and the development of a lay sociological imagination, are largely independent of sociologists ' actual involvement in participatory forms of research. Lay people do not need the assistance of sociologists, as it were, in order to appropriate sociological knowledge, and in order to develop a sociological imagination when making sense of their own lives and conditions. Second, Touraine reproduces, in my view, an obsolete conception of common sense, which has been criticised in the fourth and fifth chapters of the dissertation. In
Touraine’s perspective, the militants in a social struggle, prior to ‘sociological intervention’, only have a ‘practical consciousness’ of their own action, based on their immediate experience, and which necessarily excludes a consciousness of the ‘dimensions of the social system’ (Hamel, 1997: 98). These lay agents, in other words, are assumed to be ‘sociologically naive’, that is, unable to ‘see the social in the individual’, unless the sociologist lends them, as it were, his or her sociological imagination.
Two major methodological options are open, in my view, for the exploration of a lay sociological imagination. The first option consists in investigating the life-stories that people construct independently of any interaction with sociologists. The second option, in contrast, consists in studying the self-narratives that the sociologists and their 'subjects ' construct through interviews, in a joint process of ‘participatory objectification’, as
Bourdieu puts it126. The first option is based on the two-fold assumption that, as argued earlier, the construction of self-narratives is a routine activity in a period of ‘reflexive modernity’, and that these narratives are fuelled by a lay sociological imagination which has become an important component of ordinary knowledgeability. The guiding assumption of the first option, therefore, is that sociologists need not 'create ' what already exists.
The difficulty with the first option, however, lies in the tracing and recording of people’s self-narratives or life-stories. The more or less continuous activity of constructing and transforming one 's life-story can be traced in written documents, such as letters or
126 Cf. section 5.3.

diaries, which could be used by sociologists as the empirical basis for studying a lay sociological imagination. For another part, the activity of ‘making sense and interpreting one’s life’ takes the form of oral and conversational accounts in which the person tells someone else about him or herself, in a variety of contexts, such as during conversations with friends, lovers, or strangers, during job interviews, therapy sessions, etc. To some extent, sociologists, here again, could find ways of recording these conversations in order to analyse the self-narratives that they contain. In my view, however, most of the activity of making sense of one’s life does not ordinarily lead to oral or written documents that could be 'used ' by sociologists in order to investigate people 's sociological imagination. The construction of one 's life-story occurs primarily through the conversations that, as it were, one has with oneself. By this, I mean that, although the construction of self-narratives is a discursive activity, the words of this 'discourse ' are not necessarily spoken or written, in a way which could be ‘recorded’ by the sociologist. When they are, it is in the context of a particular relation with an 'other ', and this relation of course bears heavily upon the narratives that will actually be 'spoken '.
From this, it follows that the sociologist might want to create the context for the construction of his or her subjects ' self-narratives, a situation which refers to the second option mentioned above. This second option comes close to the methodology outlined by
Touraine in his method of sociological intervention. In this option, the relation between the researcher and the researched becomes the occasion for the elaboration of the latter 's lifestory. In other words, instead of drawing upon narratives constructed in other contexts of the people’s day-to-day lives, the sociologist asks the people under study to tell him or her about themselves. The narratives constructed during the interviews can then be 'used ' by the researcher in order to investigate the interviewees ' sociological imagination. There is, however, an immediate objection that many would raise regarding this second option, which directly connects with Touraine’s method of sociological intervention presented above. The objection consists in claiming that the investigation of a lay sociological imagination through a joint process of objectification, by the sociologist and her 'subject ', of the latters’s life and practices, is not a valid method, insofar as the sociologist runs the risk of inducing the subjects ' sociological imagination, instead of 'discovering ' it. In the same

vein, Touraine’s conception of ‘conversion’ could be rejected on the account that, for example, ‘the conversion to the hypothesis may well be caused by the friendly feelings inspired in the group by the sociologists or, on the contrary, by the group’s desire to put an end to the discussion and to take their leave’ (Hamel, 1998: 6). In such a view, the first option is more scientifically valid, because the sociologist does not interfere with the construction of the self-narratives which will be used as 'data ' for the study of a lay sociological imagination.
This objection is, in my view, inadequate, once it is acknowledged, in opposition to
Touraine, that the ‘conversion’ of the researched, to use Touraine’s terms, cannot serve as a scientific proof of the validity of the hypothesis regarding a lay sociological imagination.
The argument that the second option is not methodologically valid is based on the belief that the sociologist should try to act as a detached observer who is studying an 'object ' that is 'unperturbed ' by the inquiry. It is a position which considers the fundamental reflexivity of social science as a 'vice ', and which is either oblivious of, or asserts the possibility of ruling out, the process of re-appropriation of social science knowledge by its 'objects '. As argued extensively in the preceding chapters, I claim, in contrast, that it is neither possible nor desirable to 'neutralise ' the reflexive process between social science and its 'subjects '. It is certainly true, thus, that investigating people 's lay sociological imagination by using the second methodological option is indistinguishable from 'enacting ' it. Instead of considering this crucial feature as a 'vice ' which entails the scientific invalidity of the method, however,
I argue that such a feature is precisely what gives this method its interest and its value. This can be illustrated by relating this second methodological option to Touraine 's method of sociological intervention.
I have stressed that, in Touraine’s sociological intervention, the sociologist integrates two objectives, namely, that of studying the potential transformation of a social struggle into a social movement, and that of actively contributing to this transformation. In a related vein, studying people 's lay sociological imagination, when using the second methodological option, also entails contributing to the development of a lay sociological imagination. The interaction between the sociologist and the people he or she interviews

represents, first, an opportunity - among many others in day-to-day life - for the interviewees to verbalise their self-narratives. Second, provided that the sociologist does not assume that his 'subjects ' are sociologically naïve and that they are unable to adopt a 'theoretical posture ', the interaction between the researcher and the researched can also be an opportunity for the latter to increase and articulate his or her capacity to 'see the social in the individual '. As such, the study of the lay sociological imagination can be a form of participatory research, as this notion was characterised in the third chapter, and a form of 'socio-therapy ', although I have indicated above that we should be cautious in assuming that the development of a sociological imagination is necessarily a form of empowerment.
Finally, it should be noted that the first option, which consists in collecting narratives produced outside the context of sociological inquiry, and which some would see as more empirically valid than the second option, is not itself free from epistemological and methodological difficulties. As already noted, the actual expression of self-narratives in day-to-day life generally occurs in the context of an interaction with an 'other '. This interaction can itself favour or, on the contrary, impede, the expression of a sociological imagination. For example, a woman who, during a job interview, explains to a potential employer why she had been unemployed for a year might tell her story in a way which insists on personal and individual reasons, in order to present an image or herself as someone who accepts responsibility for what has happened, and who maintains control, although she - as well as the potential employer - might be well aware that there are other reasons which are beyond her individual control. In another context, for example during a conversation with a friend, the same person can tell the 'same ' story in a very different way, that is, in a way which displays her capacity to ‘see the social in the individual’, in both the simple and the strong version presented in this chapter. In other words, there can be no research situation in which the sociologist can have access to people 's 'consciousness ' in a direct and 'unbiased ' way. People do not make sense of their 'lives ' independently of their relation to the person to whom they 'tell ' about their lives.
***

Sociologists have sometimes seen as the ultimate - but chancy - 'enlightenment function ' of sociology, that which contributes 'to the slow and erratic formation of a more sociological collective consciousness ' (Abrams, 1985: 194). I have argued that such a consciousness - what I call a 'lay sociological imagination ' - has come to characterise lay people 's ordinary knowledgeability in contemporary society. The development of a lay sociological imagination, however, cannot be viewed as the direct outcome of sociologists ' efforts to make sociological knowledge 'useful '. Besides, as should be clear from the foregoing analysis, the notion of enlightenment is not appropriate for grasping the idea of a lay sociological imagination.
In this chapter, I tried to examine the proposition that lay people, in conditions of reflexive modernity, have acquired a sociological imagination which marks the way they make sense of their lives and construct their self-identities. I explored the significance and the implications of this proposition with respect to a major concern of the dissertation, namely, the relationship between social science knowledge and the lay agents who constitute the 'objects ' of that knowledge. The idea of a lay sociological imagination is tied up with the argument that lay people routinely appropriate social science knowledge. This process of appropriation refers, on one hand, to the fundamental reflexivity of social science and, on the other hand, to conditions of reflexive modernity which imply that people routinely have to reflect upon their own practices in order to go on in their day-today lives. The idea of a lay sociological imagination suggests that the capacity to see the social in the individual has become a commonsensical way of thinking rather than remaining the exclusive competence of sociologists.
People 's capacity to see the social in the individual can be ‘demonstrated’ by studying the self-narratives and life-stories which they routinely construct and reconstruct.
This argument has important implications as to the way in which sociologists 'use ' people 's self-narratives. It implies, more precisely, a reorientation of some of the epistemological and methodological assumptions of qualitative sociological research based on people 's selfnarratives. Lay people 's 'sociological naïveté ', which seems to characterise most of the selfnarratives collected by sociologists is, to some extent, the result of sociologists ' misguided

assumptions regarding their subjects ' capacity - or, rather, 'incapacity ' - to be reflexive about their own lives and to 'see the social in the individual '. In contrast, I have argued that, in order to be able to display people 's sociological imagination, two conditions have to be met. First, sociologists need to adopt a radically different epistemological position regarding ordinary knowledgeability and regarding the relation between social science and common sense. Second, they should try to develop methodological options which facilitate, instead of 'muffle ', as it were, the expression of their subjects ' ability to see the social in the individual. There can be no clear demarcation between the activity of displaying lay people 's sociological imagination and the activity of contributing to its development. This characteristic, which some would see as a breach of scientific rules, points, in my view, to a renewed conception of the use and usefulness of sociology in contemporary society.

CONCLUSION

Tiffany’s remark127 that her intricate family situation is a ‘brilliant picture of the collapse of the nuclear family’ can easily be seen as a very innocuous one, which hardly deserves that an entire thesis be devoted to it. Yet it is precisely at showing and elucidating the not-so-innocuous character of such a casual remark that the present thesis was aimed. I have suggested that Tiffany’s remark can be seen as a manifestation of her sociological imagination, and as the result of a routine process of appropriation of social science knowledge. Tiffany makes sense of her private, personal and ‘unique’ individual situation by relating it to the a general, supra-individual and ‘scientific’ social ‘fact’, namely that of the collapse of the nuclear family. She ‘objectifies’, in Bourdieu’s terms, her ‘subjective’ experience by appropriating social science knowledge such as social statistics about marriage and divorce, surveys about the transformation of people’s attitudes towards homosexuality, social research findings about ‘single-mothers’, expert accounts of the
‘goods and bads’ of the so-called disintegration of the ‘nuclear family’, the very concept of
‘nuclear family’, and so on. This capacity to see the social in the individual pertains to her sense of control and of responsibility regarding her family situation, that is, it fuels the way she may or may not feel distressed and guilty about the situation, the way she thinks the situation is the result of her own doing’, and the way she thinks she can change the situation through individual or collective action. Although Tiffany certainly feels that she, and the other members of her ‘disintegrated family’, are responsible for the situation, she also has a sense that the situation refers to social processes affecting society at large, and that it results from social conditions upon which she has little control. Social science knowledge is a significant reflexive resource upon which she draws in order to grasp and define the extent, and the limits, of her capacity for control and action, and in order to construct her selfnarratives and, ultimately, her sense of self-identity.
In a recent article aimed at re-affirming the significance of social science in contemporary society, Nico Stehr mentions the 'disparaging observation ' (1996: 1.1) made
127 Cf. p. 1.

by the economist Thomas Sowell, that 'the production of the field of sociology in the last five decades has not made, on balance, much of an impact on the world ' (Ibid.). Stehr firmly rejects Sowell 's claim by arguing that 'such observations are driven more by resentment than by a good understanding of the social role of ideas including those of the sociological imagination ' (Ibid.). Stehr asserts that social science has a prominent and far reaching practical effect on contemporary society, and that this effect primarily refers to the impact of the sociological perspective on 'ideological formations ' (Ibid.: 1.30). Social science, and sociology in particular, have made an impact on the world to the extent that 'the language of the sociological imagination succeeds in practice ' (Ibid.: 1.31).
The argument developed in this thesis seems is close to Stehr 's view, in at least two respects. First, I have suggested that social scientists tend to have a restrictive and misleading conception of the impact of social science on contemporary society, and of the 'uses ' of social science knowledge. Second, I have argued that 'sociological imagination ' has become a generalised mode of thinking which is now part of 'common sense '. In contrast to
Stehr, however, I do not consider the development of a 'lay sociological imagination ' as a direct impact of sociology on society, or as the direct result of sociologists ' work. Rather, the development of a lay sociological imagination is coextensive with conditions of 'reflexive modernity ' which lie far beyond the production of sociological knowledge by social scientists. The development of social science, instead of being seen as the source, or as the 'cause ', of the development of a lay sociological imagination, itself refers to the expansion and the radicalisation of society 's reflexivity which, in my view, pertains to the development of both social science and a lay sociological imagination. Sociological imagination refers to a particular form of knowledgeability which concerns sociologists and 'lay people ' alike. This form of knowledgeability is the basis for the production of social science knowledge, which is carried out by social scientists and other experts, but which is appropriated by lay people on a virtually continuous basis.
The idea of a lay sociological imagination is based on a two-fold argument regarding, first, the increasing reflexivity that characterises ordinary knowledgeability and, second, the particular form that this 'new ' reflexivity takes in the current period. The first

part of the argument is that ordinary knowledgeability increasingly implies adopting what
Bourdieu calls a ‘theoretical’ posture regarding one’s own life and practices, in contrast to the ‘practical sense’ which has generally been seen as the hallmark of ordinary knowledgeability. The second part of the argument is that one way to be reflexive about one 's own life or, to put it differently, one possible 'theoretical posture ', consists in 'seeing the social in the individual ', in the two versions presented in the last chapter of the dissertation. This particular form of reflexivity, which I call 'sociological imagination ', is tied up with the very idea of a social science, and with the omnipresence of social science knowledge in day-to-day life. Specific tensions affect the reflexive construction of selfidentity in contemporary society. They refer more precisely to the way each individual maintains and articulates a sense of capacity for action in contemporary society.
Sociological imagination, which is fuelled routinely by the appropriation of social science knowledge, enables people to define their control and their responsibility regarding their own conditions of action.
The argument about the development of a lay sociological imagination has important implications regarding, first, the ‘practice’ of social science and, second, the role of social scientists, and of sociologists more particularly. Regarding the 'practice ' of social science, the implications of the thesis concern more specifically the relationship between social scientists and their 'subjects '. Two major points can be distinguished. The first point concerns a particular form of social science research, namely research which implies grasping the 'first-level constructs ' of common sense, that is, the way 'lay people ' make sense of a particular social phenomenon. I have argued that social scientists have tended to assume the sociological naïveté of lay people and that, to some extent, the sociologically naïve accounts that they collect are the result of this mistaken assumption. In other words, the sociological naïveté of the people studied is an artefact of social scientists ' methodological and epistemological assumptions, which are themselves based on a misleading conception of ordinary knowledgeability. I have tried to argue, for example, that the interviewees ' self-narratives in Bourdieu’s La Misère du monde are sociologically naïve only insofar as the interviewers 'forced ' them, first, not to adopt the theoretical posture that, in my view, they adopt all the time in day-to-day life and, second, not to expose the

 'sociological imagination ' that, in my view, routinely infuses the way they make sense of what happens to them.
For Bourdieu, such a research strategy is a way of neutralising the symbolic violence that is potentially contained in the interviewer/interviewee relationship. Bourdieu has stressed the symbolic violence and the epistemological mistakes that can be associated with a research strategy consisting in encouraging the 'subjects ' of the research to reflect upon their lives and their conditions of action. Some of the difficulties identified by
Bourdieu are, in my view, extremely convincing. Yet Bourdieu has failed to acknowledge that the strategy consisting in confining the 'subjects ' of research to a practical and 'antireflexive ' posture is itself a pervasive form of symbolic violence, and is itself afflicted with serious epistemological defects.
The second point concerns social science in general rather than the particular form of social inquiry that implies 'giving a voice ' to lay people, or 'recording ' the voice of lay people. To put it differently, the argument about a lay sociological imagination has implications regarding the study of any social phenomenon. The reflexive process between social science and its 'object-matter ', namely 'society ', becomes radicalised in a period of reflexive modernity and, more specifically, it increasingly takes the form of the deliberate appropriation of social science knowledge by the people this knowledge is about. To that extent, the study of any social phenomenon should account for this process of lay appropriation of social science knowledge, however remote the research topic is from dayto-day life and from 'lay people '. The development of a lay sociological imagination is a process which is constitutive of any 'object of study ' in social science and which, therefore, should be taken into account by any scientist studying the 'social world '.
The idea of a lay sociological imagination means that people routinely draw upon social science knowledge to make sense of their lives and to elaborate their self-narratives.
Social science knowledge has become an important ‘reflexive resource’ for the construction of self-identity. This, in my view, raises a number of issues regarding the role and the responsibility of sociologists in today 's society. In particular, it means that sociologists have

no choice but to become actively involved in the competition for the representation of the social world. By this I mean that they cannot rest satisfied with a 'meta-theoretical ' role which would consist in taking the competition itself as their object of study, and in criticizing the strategies used by different competitors, such as politicians, journalists, other scientists, etc. If sociologists have indeed something to say about social phenomena, including those phenomena which have become social issues and are part of the public debate, then they should try to promote their ideas, concepts and 'findings ', and try to demonstrate the dubious or inaccurate character, in their view, of competing representations and explanations.
One could object that the involvement of social scientists in policy-making and in various governmental and non-governmental institutions is the sign that social scientists are indeed deeply engaged in public discourse and in the competition for the representation of the social world. Yet this conception of social scientists ' engagement is unsatisfactory in several respects. First, it is based on the assumption that social scientists’ interlocutors, as it were, are primarily other experts such as policy-makers, who have been trained to comprehend social science concepts and ideas. In contrast, I have stressed that virtually everyone can grasp and ‘use’ social science knowledge, and that the enlightenment process which has been stressed with respect to decision-makers, is only one aspect of a much larger process whereby social science knowledge pervades day-to-day life and is routinely appropriated by experts and lay people alike. Second, considering that social scientists’ engagement is confined to their role in policy-making means that the concrete impact of social science on contemporary social life concerns only a restricted category of social scientists only - namely those who choose to be involved in policy-making or other forms of institutional decision-making activities - and a restricted category of social science knowledge only - namely knowledge pertaining to public ‘social issues’. I have suggested, in contrast, that social scientists are much more deeply engaged in the social world, whether they want to be or not. This engagement refer to the continuous ‘dialogue’ between social science and common sense.

Third, the thesis suggests that more attention should be paid to the many acknowledged and unacknowledged ways in which social science knowledge pervades dayto-day life and, in particular, to the omnipresence of social science knowledge in the mass media. We need to abandon the view that the mass mediatisation of social science knowledge leads to its denaturation and to its systematic distortion, and that the omnipresence of social science knowledge in day-to-day life refers to a process of popularisation of social science knowledge. I have tried to show that such a view is based on a mistaken conception of the relationship between social science and common sense.
Fourth, the argument developed in the thesis implies that social scientists have little control over the effects and the ‘uses’ of the knowledge they produce. Such a statement is hardly original, but it assumes a new significance when seen in the context of the lay appropriation of social science knowledge. Social scientists must acknowledge that the impact of social science knowledge as a day-to-day ‘reflexive resource’ is considerable, but that they have little control over the process whereby lay people appropriate social science knowledge for making sense of their lives and for constructing their self-identity.
One of the tasks of sociologists, in light of the thesis, is to contribute to the development of people’s capacity to ‘see the social in the individual’ and, more specifically, to contribute to the development of the empowering aspects of the
‘sociological imagination’. A crucial aspect of this task concerns the articulation between the notions of control, responsibility, and capacity for action. People’s sociological imagination means that they are increasingly aware of the social, supra-individual character of the processes that impinge upon their day-to-day lives, and of the limited control they have over their conditions of action. At the same time, they have a sense of the dialectical relationship between localised and globalised phenomena, and of the ‘difference’ that localised and individual action can make. The 'imperative of responsibility ' (Jonas, 1984) means that we have no choice but to take responsibility for what happens in our lives. This sense of responsibility, however, has to be reconciled with our awareness of the limited character of the control that we have on our lives. One’s sense of responsibility for a particular event can no longer be based on the conviction that one controls this particular event of process.

The tension between control and responsibility marks personal and individual experience, for example, one’s own situation of unemployment. The idea of a lay sociological imagination means that people are able to see the social factors that impinge upon their personal experience and that ‘explain’ it, and upon which they have little control.
This ability to ‘see the social in the individual’ is combined with the imperative which consists in taking responsibility for one’s life, and in treating one’s circumstances as the product of one’s decisions. The tension between control, responsibility, and capacity for action thus pervades the day-to-day activity of making sense of one’s experience and of elaborating self-narratives. This tension can be 'resolved ' by people in various contrasting ways, and it is regarding these ways of articulating control, responsibility, and capacity for action, that sociologists, in my view, have a role to play in contemporary society, and that social science knowledge can be indeed 'useful ' for lay people.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Included in the following bibliography are only those works which are mentioned in the text and in the footnotes.
Abbott, Pamela & Claire Wallace (1990), An Introduction To Sociology: Feminist
Perspectives, London: Routledge.
Abrams, Philip (1985), ‘The Uses of British Sociology, 1831-1981’, in Martin Bulmer
(ed.), Essays on the History of British Sociological Research, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, pp. 181-205.
Adam, Barbara (1996), 'Detraditionalization and the Certainty of Uncertain Futures ', in
Paul Heelas, Scott Lash & Paul Morris (eds), Detraditionalization. Critical
Reflections on Authority and Identity, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 134-48.
Alger, Chadwick F. (1980), 'Empowering People for Global Participation ', in Hans-Henrik
Holm & Erik Rudeng (eds), Social Science - For What?, Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, pp. 155-61.
Antikainen, Ari et al. (1996), Living in a Learning Society. Life Histories, Identities and
Education, London: Falmer Press.
Argyris, Chris & Donald A. Schِn (1991), 'Participatory Action Research and Action
Science Compared. A Commentary ', in William Foote Whyte (ed.), Participatory
Action Research, London: Sage, pp. 85-96.
Aspinal, Kath (1992), ‘Biographical Research: Searching For Meaning’, Management
Education and Development, 23, 3: 248.
Bains, Gurnek (1983), 'Explanations and the Need For Control ', in Miles Hewstone (ed.),
Attribution Theory: Social and Functional Extensions, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, pp. 126-57.
Balan, Jorge & Elizabeth Jekin (1980), ‘La structure sociale dans la biographie personnelle’, Cahiers Internationaux de Sociologie, vol. LXIX, pp. 269-89.
Banting, Keith G. (1986), 'The Social Policy Process ' in Martin Bulmer, Social Science and
Social Policy, London: Allen & Unwin, pp. 41-59.
Barker, Chris (1997), ‘Television and the Reflexive Project of the Self: Soaps, Teenage
Talk and Hybrid Identities’, British Journal of Sociology, 48(4): 611-28.
Baritz, Loren (1960), The Servants of Power. A History of the Use of Social Science in
American Industry, Middletown: Wesleyan University Press.
Barnes, John A. (1979), Who Should Know That? Social Science, Privacy and Ethics,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Barnes, John A. (1967), 'Some Ethical Problems in Modern Field Work ' in D.G. Jongmans
& P.C. W. Gutkind, Anthropologists in the Field, Assen: Van Corcum, pp. 193-213.
Barrett, Stanley R. (1984), 'Racism, Ethics, and the Subversive Nature of Anthropological
Inquiry ', Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 14: 1-25.
Bartlett Steven J. & Peter Suber (eds) (1987), Self Reference: Reflections on Reflexivity,
Dordrecht; Boston: M. Nijhoff.
Bauman, Zygmunt (1992a), Intimations of Postmodernity, London: Routledge.
Bauman, Zygmunt (1992b), 'Life-World and Expertise: Social Production of Dependency ', in Nico Stehr & Richard V. Ericson (eds), The Culture and Power of Knowledge.
Inquiries Into Contemporary Societies, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, pp. 81-106.
Bauman, Zygmunt (1991), Modernity and Ambivalence, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bauman, Zygmunt (1990a), Thinking Sociologically, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Bauman, Zygmunt (1990b), ‘Modernity and Ambivalence’, in Mike Featherstone (ed.),
Global Culture. Nationalism, Globalization, and Modernity, London: Sage, pp. 14369.
Bauman, Zygmunt (1987), Legislators and Interpreters, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Beauchamp, Tom L. et al. (eds) (1982), Ethical Issues in Social Science Research,
Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.
Beck, Ulrich (1996a), The Invention of Politics. Studies in the Theory of Reflexive
Modernisation, Cambridge: Polity.
Beck, Ulrich (1996b), 'Risk Society and the Provident State ', in Scott Lash, Bronislaw
Szerszynski & Brian Wynne (eds), Risk, Environment and Modernity. Towards a New
Ecology, London: Sage, pp. 27-43.
Beck, Ulrich (1994a), ‘The Reinvention of Politics: Towards a Theory of Reflexive
Modernization’, in Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens and Scott Lash, Reflexive
Modernization. Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order,
Cambridge: Polity. pp. 1-55.
Beck, Ulrich (1994b), Ecological Politics in the Age of Risk, Cambridge: Polity (German edn.: 1988).
Beck, Ulrich (1992a), Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity, London: Sage (German edn.: 1986).
Beck, Ulrich (1992b), ‘From Industrial Society to Risk Society: Questions of Survival,
Social Structure and Ecological Enlightenment’, Theory, Culture and Society, 9: 97123.

Beck, Ulrich (1992c) 'Modern Society as a Risk Society ', in Nico Stehr & Richard V.
Ericson (eds), The Culture and Power of Knowledge. Inquiries Into Contemporary
Societies, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, pp. 199-214.
Beck, Ulrich (1989), ‘On the Way to the Industrial Risk-Society?’, Thesis Eleven, 23: 86103.
Beck, Ulrich (1987), ‘The Anthropological Shock: Chernobyl and the Contours of the Risk
Society’, Berkeley Journal of Sociology, 32: 153-65.
Beck, Ulrich & Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim (1996), 'Individualization and "Precarious
Freedoms": Perspectives and Controversies of a Subject-Orientated Sociology ', in
Paul Heelas, Scott Lash & Paul Morris (eds), Detraditionalization. Critical
Reflections on Authority and Identity, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 23-48.
Beck, Ulrich & Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim (1995), The Normal Chaos of Love, Cambridge:
Polity (German edn.: 1990).
Beck, Ulrich, Anthony Giddens and Scott Lash (1994), Reflexive Modernization. Politics,
Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order, Cambridge: Polity.
Beck-Gernsheim, Elisabeth (1996), 'Life As A Planning Project ', in Scott Lash, Bronislaw
Szerszynski & Brian Wynne (eds), Risk, Environment and Modernity. Towards a New
Ecology, London: Sage, pp. 139-53.
Becker, Henk A. (1990), ‘Achievement in the Analytical Tradition in Sociology’, in
Christopher G.A. Bryant & H. Becker (eds), What Has Sociology Achieved?, London:
Macmillan, pp. 8-30.
Becker, Howard S. (1986), ‘Biographie et mosaique scientifique’, Actes de la Recherche en
Science Sociale, 62/63: 105-110.
Bellah, Robert N. (1983), ‘Social Science As Practical Reason’, in Daniel Callahan &
Bruce Jennings (eds), Ethics, the Social Sciences, and Policy Analysis, New
York: Plenum Press, pp. 37-64.
Berger, Peter L. (1965), 'Towards a Sociological Understanding of Psychoanalysis ', Social
Research, 32: 26-41.
Berger, Peter L. (1963), Invitation to Sociology. A Humanistic Perspective,
Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Berking, Helmuth (1996), 'Solitary Individualism: The Moral Impact of Cultural
Modernisation in Late Modernity ', in Scott Lash, Bronislaw Szerszynski & Brian
Wynne (eds), Risk, Environment and Modernity. Towards a New Ecology,
London: Sage, pp. 189-202.
Bertaux, Daniel (1997), Les récits de vie, Paris: Nathan.
Bertaux, Daniel (1985), ‘Editorial’, Life Stories/Récits de Vie, 1: 3.

Bertaux, Daniel (1981), 'From the Life-History Approach to the Transformation of
Sociological Practice ' in Daniel Bertaux (ed.), Biography and Society: The Life
History Approach in the Social Sciences, London: Sage, pp. 29-45.
Bertaux, Daniel (1980), ‘L’approche biographique. Sa validité méthodologique, ses potentialités’, Cahiers Internationaux de Sociologie, vol. LXIX, pp. 197-225.
Bertaux, Daniel (ed.) (1981), Biography and Society: The Life History Approach in the
Social Sciences, London: Sage.
Bertaux, Daniel & Martin Kohli (1984), 'The Life Story Approach: A Continental View ',
Annual Review of Sociology, 10: 215-37.
Bhavnani, Kum Kum (1990), 'What 's Power Got To Do With It? Empowerment and Social
Research ', in Ian Parker and John Shotter (eds), Deconstructing Social Psychology,
London: Routledge, pp. 141-52.
Bierstedt, Robert (1970), 'Sociology and General Education ', in Jack D. Douglas (ed.), The
Impact of Sociology: Readings in the Social Sciences, New York: Appleton-CenturyCrofts, pp. 48-59.
Boggs, James P. (1992), 'Implicit Models of Social Knowledge Use ', Knowledge: Creation,
Diffusion, Utilization, 14: 29-62.
Bِhme, Gernot (1992), ‘The Techno-Structures of Society’, in Nico Stehr & Richard V.
Ericson (eds), The Culture and Power of Knowledge. Inquiries Into Contemporary
Societies, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, pp. 39-50.
Bِhme, Gernot (1984), 'Midwifery as Science: An Essay on the Relation Between Scientific and Everyday Knowledge ', in Nico Stehr & Volker Meja (eds.), Society and
Knowledge: Contemporary Perspectives in the Sociology of Knowledge, New
Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, pp. 365-85.
Bِhme, Gernot et Nico Stehr (1986), ‘The Growing Impact of Scientific Knowledge on
Social Relations’, in Bِhme, Gernot et Nico Stehr (eds), pp. 7-29.
Bِhme, Gernot et Nico Stehr (eds) (1986), The Knowledge Society: The Growing Impact of
Scientific Knowledge on Social Relations, [Sociology of the Sciences], vol. X,
Dordrecht: Reidel.
Booth, Tim (1990), 'Researching Policy Research Issues of Utilization in Decision Making ',
Knowledge: Creation, Diffusion, Utilization, 12: 80-100.
Borda, Orlando Fals (1990), 'The Application of Participatory-Action Research in Latin
America ', in Martin Albrow & Elizabeth King (eds), Globalization, Knowledge and
Society, London: Sage, pp. 79-97.
Bourdieu, Pierre (1998a), Contre-feux, Paris: Liber.
Bourdieu, Pierre (1998b), La domination masculine, Paris: Seuil.

Bourdieu, Pierre (1997), Méditations pascaliennes, Paris: Seuil.
Bourdieu, Pierre (1996), Sur la télévision. Suivi de L’emprise du journalisme, Paris: Liber.
Bourdieu, Pierre (1990), In Other Words: Essays Toward a Reflexive Sociology,
Cambridge: Polity.
Bourdieu, Pierre (1991a), Language and Symbolic Power, (edited by John B. Thompson),
Cambridge: Polity.
Bourdieu, Pierre (1991b), ‘Introduction à la socioanalyse’, Actes de la Recherche en
Science Sociale, 90: 3-5.
Bourdieu, Pierre (1991c), 'On the Possibility of a Field of World Sociology ', in Pierre
Bourdieu & James S. Coleman (eds), Social Theory for a Changing Society, New
York: Russell Sage Foundation, pp. 373-87.
Bourdieu, Pierre (1986a), ‘L’illusion biographique’, Actes de la Recherche en Science
Sociale, 62/63: 69-72.
Bourdieu, Pierre (1986b), ‘La science et l’actualité’, Actes de la Recherche en Science
Sociale, 61: 2-3.
Bourdieu, Pierre (1980a), Le sens pratique, Paris: Minuit.
Bourdieu, Pierre (1980b), Questions de sociologie, Paris: Minuit.
Bourdieu, Pierre (1979), Algerie 1960. The Disenchantment of the World; The Sense of
Honour; The Kabyle House or the World Reversed, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press; Paris: ‫ة‬ditions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (Orig. edn:
1963).
Bourdieu, Pierre (1962), The Algerians, Boston: Beacon Press.
Bourdieu, Pierre et al. (1993), La Misère du monde, Paris: Seuil.
Bourdieu, Pierre & Loïc J. D. Wacquant (1992), An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology,
Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bourdieu, Pierre, Jean-Claude Chamboredon & Jean-Claude Passeron (1991), The Craft of
Sociology. Epistemological Preliminaries, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter (orig. edn.: 1968).
Bower, Robert T. & Priscilla de Gasparis (1978), Ethics in Social Research: Protecting the
Interests of Human Subjects, New York: Praeger.
Bowes, Alison M. (1996), 'Evaluating an Empowering Research Strategy: Reflections on
Action-Research with South Asian Women ', Sociological Research Online, vol. 1, no.
1, .
Brenner, Michael, Jennifer Brown & David Canter (1985), 'Introduction ', in The Research
Interview. Uses and Approaches, London: Academic Press, pp. 1-8.

Brenner, Michael, Jennifer Brown & David Canter (eds.) (1985), The Research Interview.
Uses and Approaches, London: Academic Press.
Brint, Steven (1994), In an Age of Experts. The Changing Role of Professionals in Politics and Public Life, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Brown, Jennifer & David Canter (1985), 'The Uses of Explanation in the Research
Interview ', in Michael Brenner, Jennifer Brown & David Canter (eds), The Research
Interview. Uses and Approaches, London: Academic Press, pp. 217-45.
Brown, Richard Harvey (1989), Social Science as Civic Discourse. Essays on the Invention,
Legitimation and Uses of Social Theory, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Bruner, Jerome (1995), ‘The Auto-Biographical Process’, Current Sociology, 43(2): 161177.
Bruner, Jerome (1987), 'Life As Narrative ', Social Research, 54: 11-32.
Bryant, Christopher G.A. & H. Becker (eds) (1990), What Has Sociology Achieved?,
London: Macmillan.
Bulmer, Martin (1990), ‘Successful Applications of Sociology’, in Christopher G.A. Bryant
& H. Becker (eds), What Has Sociology Achieved?, London: Macmillan, pp. 117-42.
Bulmer, Martin (1987), 'Governments and Social Science: Patterns of Mutual Influence ', in
Martin Bulmer (ed.), Social Science Research and Government. Comparative Essays on Britain and the United States, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-23.
Bulmer, Martin (1986), Social Science and Social Policy, London: Allen & Unwin.
Bulmer, Martin (1985a), 'The Development of Sociology and of Empirical Social Research in Britain ', in Martin Bulmer (ed.), Essays on the History of British Sociological
Research, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 3-36.
Bulmer, Martin (1985b), 'Preface ', in Martin Bulmer (ed.), Essays on the History of British
Sociological Research, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. vii-xii.
Bulmer, Martin (ed.) (1987), Social Science Research and Government. Comparative
Essays on Britain and the United States, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bulmer, Martin (ed.) (1985), Essays on the History of British Sociological Research,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bulmer, Martin & Donald P. Warwick (eds) (1983), Social Research in Developing
Countries: Surveys and Censuses in the Third World, New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Bulmer, Martin (1982), The Uses of Social Research: Social Investigation in Public PolicyMaking, London: Allen & Unwin.
Bulmer, Martin (ed.) (1979), Censuses, Surveys and Privacy, London: Macmillan.
Bulmer, Martin (1979a), ‘The Impact of Privacy Upon Social Research’, in Martin Bulmer
(ed.), Censuses, Surveys and Privacy, London: Macmillan, pp. 3-21.

Bulmer, Martin (1979b), ‘Parliament and the British Census Since 1920’, in Martin Bulmer
(ed.), Censuses, Surveys and Privacy, London: Macmillan, pp. 158-69.
Bulmer, Martin (1979c), ‘Social Survey Research and Privacy: Introduction’, in Martin
Bulmer (ed.), Censuses, Surveys and Privacy, London: Macmillan, pp. 57-67.
Calhoun, Craig (1991), ‘Indirect Relationships and Imagined Communities: Large-Scale
Social Integration and the Transformation of Everyday Life’, in Pierre Bourdieu &
James S. Coleman (eds), Social Theory for a Changing Society, New York: Russell
Sage Foundation, pp. 95-121.
Callahan, Daniel & Bruce Jennings (eds) (1983), Ethics, the Social Sciences, and Policy
Analysis, New York: Plenum Press.
Campbell, Colin (1996), 'Detraditionalisation, Character and the Limits to Agency ', in Paul
Heelas, Scott Lash & Paul Morris (eds), Detraditionalization. Critical Reflections on
Authority and Identity, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 149-69.
Carugati (1990), 'Everyday Ideas, Theoretical Models and Social Representations: The
Case of Intelligence and Its Development ', in Gün R. Semin & Kenneth J. Gergen
(eds), Everyday Understanding. Social and Scientific Implications, London: Sage, pp. 130-50.
Cassell, Joan (1982), 'Does Risk-Benefit Analysis Apply to Moral Evaluation of Social
Research ', in Tom L. Beauchamp et al. (eds), Ethical Issues in Social Science
Research, Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, pp. 144-62.
Catani, Maurizio (1995), ‘Even if We Were to Tell It, We Would Not Be Believed’,
Current Sociology, 43(2): 137-60.
Cazes, Bernard (1972), 'The Development of Social Indicators: A Survey ', in Andrew
Schonfield & Stella Shaw (eds), Social Indicators and Social Policy,
London: Heinemann, pp. 9-22.
Certeau, Michel de (1984), The Practice of Everyday Life, Berkeley: University of
California Press.
Chalasinski, Josef (1981), ‘The Life Records of the Young Generation of Polish Peasants as a Manifestation of Contemporary Culture’, in Daniel Bertaux (ed.), Biography and
Society: The Life History Approach in the Social Sciences, London: Sage, pp. 119-32.
Chambon, Adrienne S. (1995), 'Life History as Dialogical Activity: "If you ask me the right questions, I could tell you" ', Current Sociology, 43(2): 125-36.
Chatwin, Mary Ellen (1988), ‘Subtle Interaction: First, Second, and Third Degree Ethics in
Anthropology’, Human Organization, 47: 176-87.
Cherns, Albert B. (1979), Using The Social Sciences, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Cherns, Albert B. (1969), 'Social Research and Its Diffusion ', Human Relations, 22: 20918.
Cherns, Albert B. (1968), 'The Use of the Social Sciences ', Human Relations, 21: 313-25.
Clifford, James (1986a), ‘Introduction: Partial Truths’, in James Clifford & George E.
Marcus (eds), Writing Culture. The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, Berkeley:
University of California Press, pp. 1-26.
Clifford, James (1986b), ‘On Ethnographic Allegory’, in James Clifford & George E.
Marcus (eds), Writing Culture. The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, Berkeley:
University of California Press, pp. 98-121.
Clifford, James & George E. Marcus (1986) (eds), Writing Culture. The Poetics and
Politics of Ethnography, Berkeley: University of California Press.
Cole, Stephen (1972), ‘Continuity and Institutionalisation in Science: A Case Study of
Failure’, in Anthony Oberschall (ed.), The Establishment of Empirical Sociology:
Studies in Continuity, Discontinuity, and Institutionalisation, New York: Harper &
Row, pp. 73-129.
Dandeker, Christopher (1990), Surveillance, Power and Modernity: Bureaucracy and
Discipline From 1700 to the Present Day, Cambridge: Polity.
Dann, Hanns-Dietrich (1988), ‘Subjective Theories: A New Approach to Psychological
Research and Educational Practice’, in Gün R. Semin & Kenneth J. Gergen (eds)
Everyday Understanding. Social and Scientific Implications, London: Sage, pp. 22743.
Davidson, William S. & Julian Rappaport (1978), ‘Advocacy and Community Psychology’, in George H. Weber & George J. McCall (eds), Social Scientists As Advocates. Views
From the Applied Disciplines, London: Sage, pp. 67-97.
Day, Peter R. (1987), Sociology in Social Work Practice, London: Macmillan.
Denzin, Norman K. (1986), ‘Interpreting the Lives of Ordinary People. Sartre, Heidegger &
Faulkner’, Life Stories, 2: 6-18.
Desrosières, Alain (1991), 'How To Make Things Which Hold Together: Social Science,
Statistics and the State ', in Peter Wagner, Bjِrn Wittrock & Richard Whitley (eds),
Discourses on Society. The Shaping of the Social Sciences Disciplines, Dordrecht:
Kluwer, pp. 195-218.
Dortier, Jean-François (1998), ‘La diffusion des sciences humaines’, Sciences Humaines, june/july 1998, pp. 42-44.
Douglas, Jack D. (1973), ‘Understanding Everyday Life’, in Jack D. Douglas (ed.),
Understanding Everyday Life. Toward the Reconstruction of Sociological Knowledge,
London: Routledge & Kegan Paul (1st edn: 1971), pp. 3-44.

Douglas, Jack D. (1970), 'The Impact of the Social Sciences ', in Jack D. Douglas (ed.), The
Impact of Sociology: Readings in the Social Sciences, New York: Appleton-CenturyCrofts, pp. 250-80.
Douglas, Jack D. (ed.) (1973), Understanding Everyday Life. Toward the Reconstruction of
Sociological Knowledge, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul (1st edn: 1971).
Douglas, Jack D. (ed.) (1970), The Impact of Sociology: Readings in the Social Sciences,
New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
Douglas, Mary & Aaron Wildavsky (1982), Risk and Culture: An Essay on the Selection of
Technological and Environmental Dangers, Berkeley: University of California Press.
Durkheim, ‫ة‬mile (1982), The Rules of Sociological Method. And Selected Texts on
Sociology and Its Method, London: Macmillan (2nd French edn: 1901).
Duveen, Gerard & Barbara Lloyd (eds) (1990), Social Representations and the
Development of Knowledge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Easthope, Gary (1974), A History of Social Research Methods, London: Longman.
Elden, Max & Morten Levin (1991), ‘Cogenerative Learning. Bringing Participation Into
Action Research’, in William Foote Whyte (ed.), Participatory Action Research,
London: Sage, pp. 127-42.
Elms, Alan C. (1982), 'Keeping Deception Honest: Justifying Conditions for Social
Scientific Research ', in Tom L. Beauchamp et al. (eds), Ethical Issues in Social
Science Research, Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, pp. 232-45.
Emerson, Robert M. & Melvin Pollner (1988), ‘On the Uses of Members’ Responses to
Researchers’ Accounts’, Human Organization, 47: 189-98.
Eriksson, Ingalill (1990), 'Use of Research and Different Discourses in Social Work ',
Knowledge: Creation, Diffusion, Utilization, 12: 14-26.
Ewer, Phyllis (1979), 'Sociology Through the Media ', The American Sociologist, 14: 77-9.
Eyerman, Ron (1994), Between Culture and Politics. Intellectuals in Modern Society,
Cambridge: Polity.
Farr, Robert M. (1993), ‘Common Sense, Science and Social Representations’, Public
Understanding of Science, 2: 189-204.
Featherstone, Mike (1991), Consumer Culture and Postmodernism, London: Sage.
Ferrarotti, Franco (1981), 'On the Autonomy of the Biographical Method ', in Daniel
Bertaux (ed.), Biography and Society: The Life History Approach in the Social
Sciences, London: Sage, pp. 19-27.
Ferrarotti, Franco (1980), ‘Les biographies comme instrument analytique et interprétatif’
Cahiers Internationaux de Sociologie, vol. LXIX, pp. 227-248.

Finch, Janet (1993), 'Applied Sociology in the Contemporary British Context ', in Geoff
Payne & Malcom Cross (eds), Sociology in Action. Applications and Opportunities for the 1990s, London: Macmillan, pp. 138-54.
Forguson, Lynd (1989), Common Sense, London: Routledge.
Foucault, Michel (1980), Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, New
York: Pantheon.
Freidson, Eliot (1986), Professional Powers : A Study of the Institutionalization of Formal
Knowledge, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Furnham, Adrian (1988), Lay Theories. Everyday Understanding of Problems in the Social
Sciences, Oxford: Pergamon Press.
Furhman, Adrian (1983), 'Social Psychology As Common Sense ', Bulletin of the British
Psychological Society, 36: 105-9.
Gans, Herbert J. (ed.) (1990), Sociology in America, Beverly Hills: Sage.
Gaulejac, Vincent de (1995), ‘Sociologie et psychanalyse des récits de vie’, Current
Sociology, 43, 2/3, pp. 19-26.
Geertz, Clifford (1983), Local Knowledge. Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology,
New York: Basic Books.
Gergen, Kenneth J. & Gün R. Semin (1990), ‘Everyday Understanding in Science and
Daily Life’, in Gün R. Semin & Kenneth J. Gergen (eds) Everyday Understanding.
Social and Scientific Implications, London: Sage, pp. 1-18.
Gerlach, Luther P. (1987), 'Protest Movements and the Construction of Risk ', in Branden B.
Johnson & Vincent T. Covello (eds), The Social and Cultural Construction of Risk.
Essays on Risk Selection and Perception, Dordrecht: Reidel.
Gibbons, Michael et al. (1994), The New Production of Knowledge. The Dynamics of
Science and Research in Contemporary Societies, London: Sage.
Giddens, Anthony (1996), In Defense of Sociology. Essays, Interpretations and Rejoinders,
Cambridge: Polity.
Giddens, Anthony (1994a), Beyond Right and Left. The Future of Radical Politics,
Cambridge: Polity.
Giddens, Anthony (1994b), ‘Living in a Post-Traditional Society’, in Ulrich Beck, Anthony
Giddens and Scott Lash, Reflexive Modernization. Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order, Cambridge: Polity, pp. 56-109.
Giddens, Anthony (1993a), New Rules of Sociological Method. A Positive Critique of
Interpretative Sociologies, Cambridge: Polity (1st edn: 1976).
Giddens, Anthony (1993b), ‘Une théorie critique de la modernité avancée’, in Michel
Audet & Hamid Bouchikhi (eds.), Structuration du social et modernité avancée.

Autour des travaux d’Anthony Giddens, Sainte-Foy: Presses de l’Université Laval, pp. 29-53.
Giddens, Anthony (1992), The Transformation of Intimacy. Sexuality, Love and Eroticism in Modern Societies, Cambridge: Polity.
Giddens, Anthony (1991a), Modernity and Self-Identity. Self and Society in the Late
Modern Age, Cambridge: Polity.
Giddens, Anthony (1991b), 'Preface ', in Peter Wagner, Bjِrn Wittrock & Richard Whitley
(eds), Discourses on Society. The Shaping of the Social Sciences Disciplines,
Dordrecht: Kluwer, pp. xiii-xv.
Giddens, Anthony (1990), The Consequences of Modernity, Cambridge: Polity.
Giddens, Anthony (1989), Sociology, Cambridge: Polity.
Giddens, Anthony (1987), Social Theory and Modern Sociology, Cambridge: Polity.
Giddens, Anthony (1986a), ‘Action, Subjectivity and the Constitution of Meaning’, Social
Research, 53: 529-45.
Giddens, Anthony (1986b), ‘Preface’, in Martin Joseph, Sociology For Everyone,
Cambridge: Polity.
Giddens, Anthony (1984), The Constitution of Society. Outline of the Theory of
Structuration, Cambridge: Polity.
Giddens, Anthony (1979), Central Problems in Social Theory. Action, Structure and
Contradiction in Social Analysis, London: Macmillan.
Gill, J. (1986), 'Research As Action: An Experiment in Utilizing the Social Sciences ', in
Frank Heller (ed.), The Use and Abuse of Social Science, London: Sage, pp. 99-122.
Giorgi, Amedeo (1990). ‘Phenomenology, Psychological Science and Common Sense’, in
Gün R. Semin & Kenneth J. Gergen (eds), Everyday Understanding. Social and
Scientific Implications, London: Sage, pp. 64-82.
Glazer, Nathan (1968), 'The Ideological Uses of Sociology ', in Paul F. Lazarsfeld, William
H. Sewell and Harold L. Wilensky (eds), The Uses of Sociology, London: Weidenfeld
& Nicolson, pp. 63-77.
Green, Jeremy (1985), 'Media Sensationalisation and Science: The Case of the Criminal
Chromosome ', in Terry Shinn & Richard Whitley (eds), ‘Expository Science: Forms and Functions of Popularisation’, Sociology of the Sciences, vol. ix,
Dordrecht: Reidel, pp. 139-61.
Groeben, Norbert (1990), ‘Subjective Theories and the Explanation of Human Action’, in
G.R. Semin & Kenneth J. Gergen (eds), Everyday Understanding. Social and
Scientific Implications, London: Sage, pp. 19-44.

Guillemin, Jeanne & Irving Louis Horowitz (1983), ‘Social Research and Political
Advocacy’, in Daniel Callahan & Bruce Jennings (eds), Ethics, the Social Sciences, and Policy Analysis, New York: Plenum Press, pp. 187-211.
Gusfield, Joseph R. (1990), ‘Sociology’s Critical Irony: Countering American
Individualism’, in Herbert J. Gans (ed.), Sociology in America, Beverly Hills: Sage, pp. 31-46.
Gustarsen, B. (1986), ‘Social Research as Participative Dialogue’, in Frank Heller (ed.),
The Use and Abuse of Social Science, London: Sage, pp. 143-56.
Haan, Norma et al. (eds) (1983), Social Science As Moral Inquiry, New York: Columbia
University Press.
Habermas, Jürgen (1987), Knowledge and Human Interests, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Hacking, Ian (1991), ‘How Should We Do The History of Statistics’, in Graham Burchell,
Colin Gordon & Peter Miller (eds), The Foucault Effect. Studies in Governmentality,
London: Havester Wheatsheaf, pp. 181-95.
Hakim, C. (1985), 'Social Monitors: Population Censuses as Social Surveys ', in Martin
Bulmer (ed.), Essays on the History of British Sociological Research, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, pp. 39-51.
Halloran, J.D. & Joan Brothers (eds) (1966), Uses of Sociology, London: Sheed & Ward.
Hamel, Jacques (1998), 'The Positions of Pierre Bourdieu and Alain Touraine Respecting
Qualitative Methods ', British Journal of Sociology, 49(1): 1-19.
Hamel, Jacques (1997), ‘Sociology, Common Sense, and Qualitative Methodology. The
Position of Pierre Bourdieu and Alain Touraine’, Canadian Journal of Sociology,
22(1): 95-112.
Hankins, Frank H. (1908), Adolphe Quetelet As Statistician, London: P.S. King & Son.
Hankiss, Agnes (1981), ‘Ontologies of the Self: On the Mythological Rearranging of One’s
Life-History’, in Daniel Bertaux (ed.), Biography and Society: The Life History
Approach in the Social Sciences, London: Sage, pp. 203-9.
Haralambos, Michael & Martin Holborn (1995), Sociology. Themes and Perspectives,
London: Collins (1st ed.: 1985).
Harbers, Hans and Gerard de Vries (1993a), ‘The Empirical Consequences of the “DoubleHermeneutics”’, Social Epistemology, 7: 183-92.
Harbers, Hans and Gerard de Vries (1993b), ‘Reply to Lynch’, Social Epistemology,
7: 205-8.
Harris, Jeffrey E. (1993), Deadly Choices. Coping With Health Risks in Everyday Life, New
York: Basic Books.

Heelas, Paul (1996), 'Detraditionalization and Its Rivals ' in Paul Heelas, Scott Lash & Paul
Morris (eds), Detraditionalization. Critical Reflections on Authority and Identity,
Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 1-20.
Heelas, Paul, Scott Lash & Paul Morris (eds) (1996), Detraditionalization. Critical
Reflections on Authority and Identity, Oxford: Blackwell.
Heller, Frank (ed.) (1986), The Use and Abuse of Social Science, London: Sage.
Heritage, John (1984), Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Hernstein, Richard J. & Charles Murray (1994), The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class
Structure in American Life, New York: Free Press.
Heron, John (1996), Cooperative Inquiry. Research into the Human Condition,
London: Sage.
Hewstone, Miles (ed.) (1983), Attribution Theory: Social and Functional Extensions,
Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Hewstone, Miles (1983), ‘Attribution Theory and Common-sense Explanations: An
Introductory Overview’, in Miles Hewstone (ed.), Attribution Theory: Social and
Functional Extensions, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, pp. 1-26.
Hirschman, Albert O. (1983), 'Morality and the Social Sciences: A Durable Tension ', in
Norma Haan et al. (eds), Social Science As Moral Inquiry, New York: Columbia
University Press, pp. 21-32.
Holm, Hans-Henrik & Erik Rudeng (eds) (1980), Social Science. For What?, Oslo:
Universitetsforlaget.
Holzner, Burkart & John H. Marx (1979), Knowledge Application: The Knowledge System in Society, Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Hoskins, Marie & Johanna Leseho (1996), ‘Changing Metaphors of the Self: Implications
For Counseling’, Journal of Counseling and Development, vol. 74, n° 3, pp. 243-58.
Houle, Gilles (1995), 'Common Sense as a Specific Form of Knowledge: Elements for a
Theory of Otherness ', Current Sociology, 43(2): 89-100.
Huczynski, Andrzej A. (1993), Management Gurus. What Makes Them And How To
Become One, London: Routledge.
Hughes, Everett (1971), The Sociological Eye, Chicago.
Hymes, Dell (ed.) (1974), Reinventing Anthropology, New York: Vintage Books.
Hymes, Dell (1974), 'The Use of Anthropology: Critical, Political , Personal ', in Dell
Hymes (ed.), Reinventing Anthropology, New York: Vintage Books, pp. 3-79.
Illich, Ivan (1977). ‘Disabling Professions’, in Ivan Illich et al., Disabling Professions,
London: Marion Boyars, pp. 11-39.
Illich, Ivan et al. (1977), Disabling Professions, London: Marion Boyars.

Irwin, Alan & Brian Wynne (eds) (1996), Misunderstanding Science? The Public
Reconstruction of Science and Technology, Cambridge: CUP.
Iutcovitch, Joyce Miller & Mark Iutcovich (eds) (1987), The Sociologist as Consultant,
New York: Praeger.
Janowitz, Morris (1970), ‘Sociological Models and Social Policy’, in Political Conflict.
Essays in Political Sociology, Chicago: Quadrangle Books, pp. 243-59.
Javeau, Claude (1980), ‘Sur le concept de vie quotidienne’, Cahiers Internationaux de
Sociologie, Jan/Juin, pp. 31-45.
Jennings, Bruce (1983), ‘Interpretive Social Science and Policy Analysis’, in Daniel
Callahan & Bruce Jennings (eds), Ethics, the Social Sciences, and Policy Analysis,
New York: Plenum Press, pp. 3-35.
Jodelet, Denise (ed.) (1989), Les représentations sociales, Paris: PUF.
Johnson, Branden B. & Vincent T. Covello (eds) (1987), The Social and Cultural
Construction of Risk. Essays on Risk Selection and Perception, Dordrecht: Reidel.
Jonas, Hans (1984), The Imperative of Responsibility. In Search of an Ethics for the
Technological Age, Chicago: University of Chicago Press (German Edn: 1979).
Joseph, Martin (1986), Sociology For Everyone, Cambridge: Polity.
Josephson, Eric (1979), 'Resistance to Community Surveys ', in Martin Bulmer (ed.),
Censuses, Surveys and Privacy, London: Macmillan, pp. 96-111.
Karapin, Roger S. (1986), ‘What’s the Use of Social Science? A Review of the Literature’, in Frank Heller (ed.), The Use and Abuse of Social Science, London: Sage, pp. 23665.
K‫ل‬rp‫ل‬ti, Zolt‫ل‬n (1981), ‘The Methodological Use of the Life History Approach in a
Hungarian Survey on Mobility and Urbanisation’, in Daniel Bertaux (ed.), Biography and Society: The Life History Approach in the Social Sciences, London: Sage, pp. 133-48.
Kelman, Herbert C. (1982), 'Ethical Issues in Different Social Science Methods ', in Tom L.
Beauchamp et al. (eds), Ethical Issues in Social Science Research, Baltimore: John
Hopkins University Press, pp. 40-98.
Kelman, Herbert C. (1972), ‘The Rights of the Subject in Social Research: An Analysis in
Terms of Relative Power and Legitimacy’, American Psychologist, pp. 989-1016.
Kennedy, Carol (1991), Guide to the Management Gurus: Shortcuts to the Ideas of Leading
Management Thinkers, London: Business Books Limited.
Kennedy, Robert E. Jr. (1989), Life Choices. Applying Sociology, New York: Holt,
Rinehart & Winston (1st edn.: 1987)

Kent, Raymond (1985), ‘The Emergence of the Sociological Survey, 1887-1939’, in Martin
Bulmer (ed.), Essays on the History of British Sociological Research, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, pp. 52-82.
Kerr, Anne, Sarah Cunningham-Burley & Amanda Amos (1998a), ‘Drawing the Line: an
Analysis of Lay People’s Discussions About the New Genetics’, Public
Understanding of Science, 7: 113-33.
Kerr, Anne, Sarah Cunningham-Burley & Amanda Amos (1998b), ‘The New Genetics and
Health: Mobilizing Lay Expertise’, Public Understanding of Science, 7: 41-60.
Kitwood, Tom (1980), Disclosures to a Stranger. Adolescent Values in an Advanced
Industrial Society, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Klapp, Orrin E. (1986), Overload and Boredom: Essays on the Quality of Life in the
Information Society, New York: Greenwood Press.
Knorr, David D. (1977), 'Policymakers ' Use of Social Science Knowledge: Symbolic or
Instrumental? ', in Carol H. Weiss (ed.), Using Social Research in Public Policy
Making, Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath, pp. 165-82.
Knorr-Cetina, Karin D. (1981), ‘Social and Scientific Method or What Do We Make of the
Distinction Between the Natural and the Social Sciences’, Philosophy of the Social
Sciences, 11: 335-59.
Kohli, Martin (1981), ‘Biography: Account, Text, Method’, in Daniel Bertaux (ed.),
Biography and Society: The Life History Approach in the Social Sciences,
London: Sage, pp. 61-75.
Kroll Smith, Steve, Stephen R. Couch & H. Hugh Floyd (1995), 'Non-Experts, Expert
Knowledge and Late Modernity Theory: Two Case Studies of Rational Knowledge
Movements ', unpublished.
Kruskal, William H. (ed.) (1982), The Social Sciences: Their Nature and Uses, Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Kunkel, Dale (1990), 'Role of Research in the Regulation of US Children 's Television
Advertising ', Knowledge: Creation, Diffusion, Utilization, 12: 101-19.
Kutchins, Herb & Stuart Kutchins (1978), ‘Advocacy and Social Work’, in George H.
Weber & George J. McCall (eds), Social Scientists As Advocates. Views From the
Applied Disciplines, London: Sage, pp. 13-48.
Lane, James H. (1978), ‘Advocacy and Sociology’, in George H. Weber & George J.
McCall (eds), Social Scientists As Advocates. Views From the Applied Disciplines,
London: Sage, pp. 167-99.
Lane, Robert E. (1966), ‘The Decline of Politics and Ideology in a Knowledgeable
Society’, American Sociological Review, 31: 649-62.

Lange, Jeffrey K. (1987), 'Consulting Sociology As a Vocation: Sociological and Societal
Conditions and Constraints ', in Joyce Miller Iutcovitch & Mark Iutcovich (eds), The
Sociologist as Consultant, New York: Praeger, pp. 23-39.
Lasch, Christopher (1985), The Minimal Self. Psychic Survival in Troubled Times, London:
Pan Books.
Lasch, Christopher (1979), The Culture of Narcissism. American Life in an Age of
Diminishing Expectations, New York: Norton.
Lash, Scott (1994), ‘Reflexiving and its Doubles: Structure, Aesthetics, Community’, in
Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens and Scott Lash, Reflexive Modernization. Politics,
Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order, Cambridge: Polity, pp. 110-73.
Lash, Scott (1993), ‘Reflexive Modernization: the Aesthetic Dimension’, Theory, Culture and Society, 10: 1-23.
Lash, Scott (1990), Sociology of Postmodernism, London, New York: Routledge.
Lash, Scott, Bronislaw Szerszynski & Brian Wynne (eds) (1996), Risk, Environment and
Modernity. Towards a New Ecology, London: Sage.
Lash, Scott & John Urry (1994), Economies of Signs and Space, London: Sage.
Lau, Christoph (1992), 'Social Conflicts About the Definition of Risks: The Role of
Science ', in Nico Stehr & Richard V. Ericson (eds), The Culture and Power of
Knowledge. Inquiries Into Contemporary Societies, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, pp. 235-48.
Law, John (1994), Organizing Modernity, Oxford: Blackwell.
Lazarsfeld, Paul F., William H. Sewell and Harold L. Wilensky (eds) (1968), The Uses of
Sociology, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
Lees, Ray & George Smith (1975), Action-Research in Community Development, London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Lengyel, Peter (1986), ‘The Misapplication of Social Science at Unesco’, in Frank Heller
(ed.), The Use and Abuse of Social Science, London: Sage, pp. 54-63.
Lerner, Daniel (ed.) (1973), The Human Meaning of the Social Sciences, Gloucester: Smith.
Lévy-Leboyer (1986), ‘Applying Psychology or Applied Psychology’, in Frank Heller
(ed.), The Use and Abuse of Social Science, London: Sage, pp. 24-35.
Lindblom, Charles E. & David K. Cohen (1979), Usable Knowledge: Social Science and
Social Problem Solving, New Haven: Yale University Press.
Luhman, Niklas (1986), Love as Passion : The Codification of Intimacy, Cambridge:
Polity.
Lynch, William T. (1993a), ‘What Does the Double Hermeneutics Explain / Justify?’,
Social Epistemology, 7: 193-204.

Lynch, William T. (1993b), ‘Reply to Harbers & de Vries’, Social Epistemology, 7: 209-11.
Lynd, Robert S. (1939), Knowledge for What? The Place of Social Science in American
Culture, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Lyon, David (1988), The Information Society: Issues and Illusions, Cambridge: Polity.
Lyotard, Jean-François (1984), The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge,
Manchester: Manchester University Press (Orig. Edn: 1979).
Maclure, Richard & Michael Bassey (1991), 'Participatory Action Research in Togo. An
Inquiry Into Maize Storage Systems ', in William Foote Whyte (ed.), Participatory
Action Research, London: Sage, pp. 190-209.
Mannoni, Pierre (1998), Les représentations sociales, Paris: PUF.
Marcus, Laura (1995), ‘Autobiography and the Politics of Identity’, Current Sociology, 43,
2/3, pp. 41-52.
Marris, Peter (1990), ‘Witnesses, Engineers, or Storytellers? Roles of Sociologists in Social
Policy’, in Herbert J. Gans (ed.), Sociology in America, Beverly Hills: Sage, pp. 7587.
Marsh, Catherine (1985), ‘Informants, Respondents and Citizens’, in Martin Bulmer (ed.),
Essays on the History of British Sociological Research, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, pp. 206-27.
Marsh, Catherine (1982), The Survey Method: The Contribution of Surveys to Sociological
Explanation, London: Allen & Unwin.
Mattick, Paul Jr. (1986), An Essay on the Nature and Limits of Social Science, London:
Hutchinson.
May, Tim (1998), ‘Reflexivity in the Age of Reconstructive Social Science’, International
Journal of Social Science Research Methodology: Theory and Practice, 1(1): 7-24.
McAdams, Dan P. (1988), ‘Biography, Narrative and Lives: An Introduction’, in Dan P.
McAdams & Richard L. Ochberg (eds), Psychobiography and Life Narratives,
Durham: Duke University Press, pp. 1-18.
McAdams, Dan P. & Richard L. Ochberg (eds) (1988), Psychobiography and Life
Narratives, Durham: Duke University Press.
McClung Lee, Alfred (1978), Sociology For Whom?, New York: Oxford University Press.
McClung Lee, Alfred (1976), ‘Presidential Address: Sociology For Whom?’, American
Sociological Review, vol. 41, n. 6, pp. 925-36.
Mestrovic, Stjepan (1998), Anthony Giddens. The Last Modernist, London: Routledge.
Michael, Mike (1992), 'Lay Discourses of Science: Science-in-General, Science-inParticular, and Self ', Science, Technology and Human Values, 17(3): 313-33.

Miller, William L. (1983), The Survey Method in the Social and Political Sciences.
Achievements, Failures, Prospects, London: Frances Pinter.
Mills, C. Wright (1959), The Sociological Imagination. New York: Oxford University
Press.
Mishler, Elliot G. (1986), Research Interviewing. Context and Narrative, Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Moscovici, Serge (1998), ‘Représentations sociales et réalité’, Sciences Humaines, 21: 1113.
Moscovici, Serge (1984), 'The Phenomenon of Social Representations ', in Robert M. Farr and Serge Moscovici (eds), Social Representations, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, pp. 3-69.
Moscovici, Serge (1982), ‘The Coming Era of Representations’, in Jean-Paul Codol &
Jacques-Philippe Leyens (eds), Cognitive Analysis of Social Behavior, The Hague:
Nijhoff, pp. 115-50.
Moscovici, Serge (1981), ‘On Social Representations’, in Joseph P. Forgas (ed.), Social
Cognition. Perspectives on Everyday Understanding, London: Academic Press, pp. 181-209.
Moscovici, Serge (1961), La psychanalyse. Son image et son public. ‫ة‬tude sur la représentation sociale de la psychanalyse, Paris: PUF.
Moscovici, Serge & Miles Hewstone (1983), ‘Social Representations and Social
Explanations: From the “Naive” to the “Amateur” Scientist’, in Miles Hewstone (ed.),
Attribution Theory: Social and Functional Extensions, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, pp. 98-125.
Murray, Thomas H. (1983), ‘Partial Knowledge’, in Daniel Callahan & Bruce Jennings
(eds), Ethics, the Social Sciences, and Policy Analysis, New York: Plenum Press, pp. 305-31.
Myrdal, Gunnar (1972), ‘The Social Sciences and Their Impact on Society’, in Teodor
Shanin (ed.), The Rules of the Game. Cross-Disciplinary Essays on Models in
Scholarly Thought, London: Tavistock, pp. 347-59.
Natanson, Maurice (1967), ‘Introduction’, in Alfred Schütz: Collected Papers, I: The
Problem of Social Reality, The Hague: Nijhoff.
Nathan, Richard P. (1988), Social Science in Government. Uses and Misuses, New York:
Basic Books.
Nowotny, Helga (1991), 'Knowledge for Certainty: Poverty, Welfare Institutions and the
Institutionalization of Social Science ', in Peter Wagner, Bjِrn Wittrock & Richard

Whitley (eds), Discourses on Society. The Shaping of the Social Sciences Disciplines,
Dordrecht: Kluwer, pp. 23-41.
Nowotny, Helga (1979), 'Science and Its Critics: Reflections on Anti-Science ', in Helga
Nowotny & Hilary Rose (eds), Counter-Movements in the Sciences. The Sociology of the Alternatives to Big Science, Dordrecht: Reidel, pp. 1-26.
Oberschall, Anthony (1972), 'Introduction: The Sociological Study of the History of Social
Research ', in Anthony Oberschall (ed.), The Establishment of Empirical Sociology:
Studies in Continuity, Discontinuity, and Institutionalisation, New York: Harper &
Row, pp. 1-14.
Oberschall, Anthony (ed.) (1972), The Establishment of Empirical Sociology: Studies in
Continuity, Discontinuity, and Institutionalisation, New York: Harper & Row.
Ochberg, Richard L. (1988), ‘Life Stories and the Psychosocial Construction of Careers’, in
Dan P. McAdams & Richard L. Ochberg (eds), Psychobiography and Life Narratives,
Durham: Duke University Press, pp. 173-204.
Orlans, Harold (1976), 'On Social Order and Orderly Knowledge ', in Norman Perry &
Elisabeth Crawford (eds), Demands For Social Knowledge. The Role of Research
Organisations, London: Sage, pp. 35-58.
Payne, Geoff & Malcom Cross (eds) (1993), Sociology in Action. Applications and
Opportunities for the 1990s, London: Macmillan.
Peneff, Jean (1995), ‘Entretien biographique et rapports de classe’, Current Sociology, 43,
2/3, pp. 53-59.
Perry, Norman (1976), 'Research Settings in the Social Sciences: A Re-examination ', in
Norman Perry & Elisabeth Crawford (eds), Demands For Social Knowledge. The
Role of Research Organisations, London: Sage, pp. 137-89.
Perry, Norman & Elisabeth Crawford (eds) (1976), Demands For Social Knowledge. The
Role of Research Organisations, London: Sage.
Pinto, Louis (1991), ‘La doxa intellectuelle’, Actes de la Recherche en Science Sociale, 90:
95-100.
Piron, Florence (1996), '‫ة‬criture et Responsibilité. Trois Figures de l 'Anthropologue ',
Anthropologie et Sociétés, 20: 125-148.
Piron, Florence & Marie-Andrée Couillard (1996), 'Les Usages et les Effets Sociaux du
Savoir Scientifique ', Anthropologie et Sociétés, 20: 7-26.
Pollner, Melvin (1987), Mundane Reason. Reality in Everyday and Sociological Discourse,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Poster, Mark (1990), The Mode of Information. Poststructuralism and Social Context,
Cambridge: Polity.

Prewitt, Kenneth (1983), ‘Subverting Policy Premises’, in Daniel Callahan & Bruce
Jennings (eds), Ethics, the Social Sciences, and Policy Analysis, New York: Plenum
Press, pp. 293-304.
Purkhardt, S. Caroline (1993), Transforming Social Representations. A Social Psychology of Common Sense and Science, London: Routledge.
Radway, Janice (1984), Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy & Popular Literature,
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Rich, Robert F. (1981), Social Science Information and Public Policy Making: The
Interaction Between Bureaucratic Politics and the Use of Survey Data, San
Francisco: Jossey Bass.
Rich, Robert F. (1977), ‘Uses of Social Science Information by Federal Bureaucrats:
Knowledge For Action Versus Knowledge For Understanding’, in Carol H. Weiss
(ed.), Using Social Research in Public Policy Making, Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath, pp. 199-211.
Rose, Nikolas (1996), 'Authority and the Genealogy of Subjectivity ', in Paul Heelas, Scott
Lash & Paul Morris (eds), Detraditionalization. Critical Reflections on Authority and
Identity, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 294-327.
Rose, Nikolas (1990), 'Psychology as a "Social" Science ', in Ian Parker and John Shotter
(eds), Deconstructing Social Psychology, London: Routledge, pp. 103-16.
Rose, Richard (1972), ‘The Market for Policy Indicators’, in A. Schonfield & S. Shaw
(eds), Social Indicators and Social Policy, London: Heinemann, pp. 119-41.
Rosenwald, George C. (1988), ‘A Theory of Multiple-Case Research’, in Dan P. McAdams
& Richard L. Ochberg (eds), Psychobiography and Life Narratives, Durham: Duke
University Press, pp. 239-64.
Ross, Michael & Michael Conway (1986), ‘Remembering One’s Own Past: The
Construction of Personal Histories’, in Richard M. Sorrentino & E. Tory Higgins
(eds), Handbook of Motivation and Cognition, pp. 122-44.
Rossi, Peter H. (1981), ‘Applied Sociology’, in J.F. Jr. Short (ed.), The State of
Sociology: Problems and Prospects, Beverly Hills: Sage, pp. 283-99.
Rule, James B. (1978), Insight and Social Betterment. A Preface to Applied Social Science,
New York: Oxford University Press.
Schensul, Jean J. (1987), 'Perspectives on Collaborative Research ', in Donald D. Stull &
Jean J. Schensul (eds), Collaborative Research and Social Change: Applied
Anthropology in Action, London: Westview Press, pp. 211-19.

Schensul, Jean J. & Donald D. Stull (1987), 'Introduction ', in Donald D. Stull & Jean J.
Schensul (eds), Collaborative Research and Social Change: Applied Anthropology in
Action, London: Westview Press, pp. 1-8.
Schensul, Jean J. et al.(1987), 'Urban Comadronas: Maternal & Child-Health Research and
Policy Formulation in a Puerto Rican Community ', in Donald D. Stull & Jean J.
Schensul (eds), Collaborative Research and Social Change: Applied Anthropology in
Action, London: Westview Press, pp. 9-31.
Schensul, Stephen L. & Jean J. Schensul (1978), ‘Advocacy and Applied Anthropology’, in
George H. Weber & George J. McCall (eds), Social Scientists As Advocates. Views
From the Applied Disciplines, London: Sage, pp. 121-65.
Schonfield, Andrew (1972), 'Preface ', in Andrew Schonfield & Stella Shaw (eds), Social
Indicators and Social Policy, London: Heinemann, pp. ix-xii.
Schonfield, Andrew & Stella Shaw (eds) (1972), Social Indicators and Social Policy,
London: Heinemann.
Schütz, Alfred (1967a), The Phenomenology of the Social World, New York: Northwestern
University Press (1st. edn.: 1932).
Schütz, Alfred (1967b), Collected Papers, I: The Problem of Social Reality, The Hague:
Nijhoff.
Schütz, Alfred (1953), ‘Common-Sense and Scientific Interpretation of Human Action’,
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 14, 1: 1-37.
Schwieso, Josh (1984), 'What Is Common to Common Sense? ', Bulletin of the British
Psychological Society, 37: 43-5.
Scott, Robert A. & Arnold R. Shore (1979), Why Sociology Does Not Apply. A Study of the
Use of Sociology in Public Policy, New York: Elsevier.
Semin, Gün R. & Barbara Krahé (1987), 'Lay Conceptions of Personality: Eliciting Tiers of a Scientific Conception of Personality ', European Journal of Social Psychology, 17:
199-209.
Semin, Gün R., Ekkehard Rosch & Joachim Chassein (1981), 'A Comparison of the
Common-Sense and 'Scientific ' Conceptions of Extroversion-Introversion ', European
Journal of Social Psychology, 11: 77-86.
Semin, Gün R. & Kenneth J. Gergen (eds) (1990), Everyday Understanding. Social and
Scientific Implications, London: Sage.
Sennett, Richard (1977), The Fall of Public Man, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Shinn, Terry & Richard Whitley (eds) (1985), ‘Expository Science: Forms and Functions of
Popularisation’, Sociology of the Sciences, vol. ix, Dordrecht: Reidel.

Simeoni, Daniel & Marco Diani (1995), ‘Between Objects and Subjects: the Nation-Bound
Character of Biographical Research’, Current Sociology, 43, 2/3, pp. 1-10.
Simeoni, Daniel & Marco Diani (1995), ‘The Sociostylistics of Life Histories: Taking
Jenny at Her Word(s)’, Current Sociology, 43, 2/3, pp. 27-39.
Skocpol, Theda (1987), 'Governmental Structures, Social Science and the Development of
Economic and Social Policies ', in Martin Bulmer (ed.), Social Science Research and
Government. Comparative Essays on Britain and the United States, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, pp. 40-50.
Smith, Dotothy (1987), The Everyday Life as Problematic: A Feminist Sociology, Boston:
Northeastern University Press.
Stafford, Walter W. & Joyce Ladner (1990), ‘Political Dimensions of the Underclass
Concept’, in Herbert J. Gans (ed.), Sociology in America, Beverly Hills: Sage, pp. 138-55.
Stanley, Manfred (1978), The Technological Conscience: Survival and Dignity in an Age of
Expertise, New York: The Free Press.
Stehr, Nico (1996), 'The Salt of Social Science ', Sociological Research Online, vol. 1, no. 1, .
Stehr, Nico (1994), Knowledge Societies, London: Sage.
Stehr, Nico (1992a), Practical Knowledge. Applying the Social Sciences, London: Sage.
Stehr, Nico (1992b), 'Experts, Counsellors and Advisers ', in Nico Stehr & Richard V.
Ericson (eds), The Culture and Power of Knowledge. Inquiries Into Contemporary
Societies, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, pp. 107-55.
Stehr, Nico & Richard V. Ericson (eds) (1992), The Culture and Power of Knowledge.
Inquiries Into Contemporary Societies, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Steier, Frederick (1991), 'Introduction: Research as Self-Reflexivity, Self-Reflexivity as
Social Process ', in F. Steier (ed.), Research and Reflexivity, London: Sage, pp. 1-11.
Stull, Donald D. & Jean J. Schensul (eds) (1987), Collaborative Research and Social
Change: Applied Anthropology in Action, London: Westview Press.
Stull, Donald D., Jerry A. Schultz & Ken Cadue, Sr. (1987), ‘In the People’s Service: The
Kansa Kickapoo Technical Assistance Project’, in Donald D. Stull & Jean J. Schensul
(eds), Collaborative Research and Social Change: Applied Anthropology in Action,
London: Westview Press, pp. 33-54.
Szwed, John F. (1974), 'An American Anthropological Dilemma: The Politics of the
American Culture ', in Dell Hymes (ed.), Reinventing Anthropology, New York:
Vintage Books, pp. 153-81.

Taylor, Carl C. (1947), 'Sociology and Common Sense ', American Sociological Review,
12: 1-9.
Taylor, Charles (1989), Sources of the Self. The Making of the Modern Identity, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Taylor, Charles (1983), 'Political Theory and Practice ' in Christopher Lloyd (ed.), Social
Theory and Political Practice, Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 61-85.
Thomas, Patricia (1987), 'The Use of Social Research: Myths and Models ', in Martin
Bulmer (ed.), Social Science Research and Government. Comparative Essays on
Britain and the United States, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 51-60.
Thomas, William I. & Florian Znaniecki (1958), The Polish Peasant in Europe and
America, New York: Dover (2nd edn.).
Thompson, John B. (1996), 'Tradition and Self in a Mediated World ', in Paul Heelas, Scott
Lash & Paul Morris (eds), Detraditionalization. Critical Reflections on Authority and
Identity, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 89-108.
Thompson, John B. (1995), The Media and Modernity. A Social Theory of the Media,
Cambridge: Polity.
Thompson, John B. (1991), ‘Editor’s Introduction’, in Pierre Bourdieu, Language and
Symbolic Power, Cambridge: Polity, pp. 1-31.
Thompson, John B. (1990), Ideology and Modern Culture. Critical Social Theory in the
Era of Mass Communication, Cambridge: Polity.
Thompson, Paul (1980), (1980), ‘Des récits de vie à l’analyse du changement social’ ,
Cahiers Internationaux de Sociologie, vol. LXIX, pp. 249-68.
Touraine, Alain (1981), The Voice and the Eye: An Analysis of Social Movements,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Touraine, Alain (1977), The Self-Production of Society, Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Touraine et al. (1983), Anti-Nuclear Protest. The Opposition to Nuclear Energy in France,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (orig. edn.: 1980).
Tumin, Melvin M. (1970), 'Some Social Consequences on Racial Relations ', in Jack D.
Douglas (ed.), The Impact of Sociology: Readings in the Social Sciences, New
York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, pp. 116-33.
Van den Daele, Wolfgang (1992), 'Scientific Evidence and the Regulation of Technical
Risks: Twenty Years of Demythologizing the Experts ', in Nico Stehr & Richard V.
Ericson (eds), The Culture and Power of Knowledge. Inquiries Into Contemporary
Societies, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, pp. 323-40.

Verdès-Leroux, Jeannine (1998), Le savant et la politique. Essai sur le terrorisme intellectuel de Pierre Bourdieu, Paris: Grasset.
Wagner, Peter (1994), A Sociology of Modernity. Liberty and Discipline, London:
Routledge.
Wagner, Peter, Bjِrn Wittrock & Richard Whitley (eds) (1991), Discourses on Society. The
Shaping of the Social Sciences Disciplines, Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Wagner, Peter, Carol Hirschon Weiss, Bjِrn Wittrock & Helmut Woll (eds) (1991), Social
Sciences and Modern States. National Experiences and Theroretical Crossroads,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Warde, Alan (1994), ‘Consumption, Identity-Formation and Uncertainty’, The Journal of the British Sociological Association, vol. 28, n° 4, pp. 877-92.
Warwick, Donald P. (1982), 'Types of Harm in Social Research ', in Tom L. Beauchamp et al. (eds), Ethical Issues in Social Science Research, Baltimore: John Hopkins
University Press, pp. 101-24.
Warwick, Donald P. & Thomas F. Pettigrew (1983), 'Toward Ethical Guidelines For Social
Science Research in Public Policy ', in Daniel Callahan & Bruce Jennings (eds),
Ethics, the Social Sciences, and Policy Analysis, New York: Plenum Press, pp. 33568.
Weber, George H. (1978), 'Social Science Perspectives on Advocacy ', in George H. Weber
& George J. McCall (eds), Social Scientists As Advocates. Views From the Applied
Disciplines, London: Sage, pp. 7-10.
Weber, George H. & George J. McCall (eds) (1978), Social Scientists As Advocates. Views
From the Applied Disciplines, London: Sage.
Wegner, Daniel M. & Robin R. Vallacher (1981), ‘Common-Sense Psychology’, in Joseph
P. Forgas (ed.), Social Cognition. Perspectives on Everyday Understanding,
London: Academic Press, pp. 225-46.
Weigert, Andrew J. (1981), Sociology of Everyday Life, New York: Longman.
Weiss, Carol H. (1993), ‘The Interaction of the Sociological Agenda and Public Policy’, in
William Julius Wilson (ed.), Sociology and the Public Agenda, Newbury Park: Sage, pp. 23-39.
Weiss, Carol H. (1986a), ‘Research and Policy-Making: A Limited Partnership’, in Frank
Heller (ed.), The Use and Abuse of Social Science, London: Sage, pp. 214-35.
Weiss, Carol H. (1986b), ‘The Many Meanings of Research Utilisation ', in Martin Bulmer,
Social Science and Social Policy, London: Allen & Unwin, pp. 31-40.

Weiss, Carol H. (1983), 'Ideology, Interests and Information. The Basis of Policy
Positions ', in Daniel Callahan & Bruce Jennings (eds), Ethics, the Social Sciences, and Policy Analysis, New York: Plenum Press, pp. 187-211.
Weiss, Carol H. (1980), Social Science Research and Decision-Making, New York:
Columbia University Press.
Weiss, Carol H. (1977), 'Introduction ', in Carol H. Weiss (ed.), Using Social Research in
Public Policy Making, Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath, pp. 1-22.
Weiss, Carol H. (ed.) (1977), Using Social Research in Public Policy Making, Lexington,
MA: D.C. Heath.
Weiss, Carol H. & Eleanor Singer (1988), Reporting of Social Science in the National
Media, New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Weymann, Ansgar et al. (1986), 'A Research Programme on the Utilization of the Social
Sciences ', in Frank Heller (ed.), The Use and Abuse of Social Science, London: Sage, pp. 64-73.
Whitehead, Frank (1985), ‘The Government Social Survey’, in Martin Bulmer (ed.), Essays on the History of British Sociological Research, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, pp. 83-100.
Whitley, Richard (1985), 'Knowledge Producers and Knowledge Acquirers: Popularisation
Between Scientists and Their Publics ', in Terry Shinn & Richard Whitley (eds),
‘Expository Science: Forms and Functions of Popularisation’, Sociology of the
Sciences, vol. ix, Dordrecht: Reidel, pp. 3-28.
Whyte, William Foote (ed.) (1991), Participatory Action Research, London: Sage.
Whyte, William Foote (1991), 'Participatory Strategies in Agricultural Research and
Development ', in William Foote Whyte (ed.), Participatory Action Research,
London: Sage, pp. 169-78.
Whyte, William Foote, Davydd J. Greenwood & Peter Lazes (1991), 'Participatory Action
Research. Through Practice to Science in Social Research ', in William Foote Whyte
(ed.), Participatory Action Research, London: Sage, pp. 19-55.
Wilensky, Harold L. (1997), ‘Social Science and the Public Agenda: Reflections on the
Relation of Knowledge to Policy in the US and Abroad’, Journal of Health Politics,
Policy and Law, 22, 5: 1241-1265.
Wilson, Patrick (1983), Second-Hand Knowledge: An Inquiry Into Cognitive Authority,
Wesport: Greenwood Press.
Wilson, William Julius (ed.) (1993), Sociology and the Public Agenda, Newbury Park:
Sage.

Winch, Peter (1958), The Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation to Philosophy, London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul; New York: Humanities Press.
Winter, Richard (1987), Action-Research and the Nature of Social Inquiry, Professional
Innovation and Educational Work, Aldershot: Avebury.
Wrong, Dennis H. (1990), ‘The Influence of Sociological Ideas on American Culture’, in
Herbert J. Gans (ed.), Sociology in America, Beverly Hills: Sage, pp. 19-30.
Wrong, Dennis H. (1977), Skeptical Sociology, London: Heinemann.
Wynne, Brian (1996a), 'May the Sheep Safely Graze? A Reflexive View of the Expert-Lay
Knowledge Divide ', in Scott Lash, Bronislaw Szerszynski & Brian Wynne (eds), Risk,
Environment and Modernity. Towards a New Ecology, London: Sage, pp. 43-83.
Wynne, Brian (1996b), ‘Misunderstood Misunderstandings: Social Identities and Public
Uptake of Science’, in Alan Irwin & Brian Wynne (eds), Misunderstanding Science?
The Public Reconstruction of Science and Technology, Cambridge: CUP, pp. 19-46.
Wynne, Brian (1993), ‘Public Uptake of Science: a Case for Institutional Reflexivity’,
Public Understanding of Science, 2: 321-37.
Wynne, Brian (1992), ‘Public Understanding of Science Research: New Horizons or Hall of Mirrors?’, Public Understanding of Science, 1: 37-43.
Zetterberg, Hans L. (1962), Social Theory and Social Practice, New York: Bedminster
Press.
Zimmerman, Don H. & Melvin Pollner (1973), ‘The Everyday World as a Phenomenon’, in
Jack D. Douglas (ed.), Understanding Everyday Life. Toward the Reconstruction of
Sociological Knowledge, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul (1st. edn: 1971), pp. 80103.
Zola, Irving Kenneth (1977), ‘Healthism and Disabling Medicalisation’, in Ivan Illich et al.,
Disabling Professions, London: Marion Boyars, pp. 41-67.
Zuٌiga, Ricardo B. (1983), ‘The Experimenting Society and Radical Social Reform: the
Role of the Social Scientist in Chile’s UNIDAD Popular Experience’, in Martin
Bulmer & Donald P. Warwick (eds), Social Research in Developing Countries:
Surveys and Censuses in the Third World, New York: John Wiley & Sons, pp. 33148.

Bibliography: father... a brilliant picture of the 'collapse of the nuclear family ', hey? ' (East Enders, BBC1, February 1997).