Everyday Life is Social Life

Sociology tries to answer the question ‘how is social life possible?’

The technique of thinking first in terms of the group (i.e. of the SOCIAL dimension)
and only afterwards in terms of the individual is the essence of what we mean when
we talk about thinking sociologically.
The Sociological Imagination –
Asking questions that are:

 Historical
 Cultural
 Structural
 Critical
 The Sociological Imagination (1)
• C. Wright Mill’s book of the same
name.
• With the sociological imagination we
can see that sociological
understanding takes place at the
intersection of biography and history.
• Biography happens to individuals

• History happens to societies

 The Sociological Imagination (2)
• Every individual lives out their own
individual biography
(autobiography) within (in the
context of) the big picture of
history. History is the story of the
aggregation of individual lives that
we call society.
• An individual life begins at birth and
ends at death. We come, we are, we
depart. The social world was there
before us and remains after we die.
• So, we live our individual lives as
best we can within the social
conditions around us.
 The Sociological Imagination (3)

When we use the sociological imagination to look at

the intersection of history and biography we will see
both the large structural forces which shape our lives
and the small areas of self that we live inside.
Our lives are lived in a complex loop between the
two.
The loop between inside and outside
Society is inside and outside of every individual
 The Sociological Imagination (4)
•It is outside us in all the formal institutions
of government, religion, education, and the
economy. These were made by humans but
continue through time with a life and force
separate from any single individual or even,
today, any single ethnic group or nation.
•And it is also inside us in the form of
language, culture, of learned knowledge,
beliefs and values. People do things
because they find them personally
meaningful.
•But the thoughts that guide their actions
are not isolated and random. They are
learned within social life e.g. gift giving
 Sociology as the Study of Social Interactions: Gift Giving

‘Estrangement is also intrinsic to sociology: defamiliarizing the familiar, representing the practices of daily life as needing explanation, if not
critique.’ Ruth Levitas (2013) , p. 119.

Puzzle-solving: Why do we give gifts? Keeps fragile relations intact: bonds groups/individuals
• Symbolises you (you give something of yourself)
• It locks the receiver into ties of reciprocity (they must gift back)
• A gift therefore initiates a social relationship (just as acknowledgement of the gift is acceptance of the relationship)

Pattern Recognition: But – need to get it right:

• Right gifts to the right people
• Right time, place & presentation
• Given & received in the right way

Alice Robb (2013) ‘A Sociologist Studied Christmas Gifts, and Here's What He Learned’, New Republic, 16 December.
Self-made? Recall fugurations…
‘From a sociological standpoint, the answer … is a resounding
NO. After all, one of the basic principles of sociology suggests
that we are social animals living in a social world who are
socially created through our social interaction. It goes without
saying that we are not self-contained individuals living
independently and becoming ourselves through self-reflection,
self-direction, or any other solitary experience.

The notion of the self-made person is arguably the most anti-

sociological sentiment that we hear about in a society that often
fails to grasp the sociological imagination. By invoking such a
claim we are ignoring and discounting the whole array of social
influences that make us who we are.’

Peter Kaufman (2013) ‘The Myth of the Self-made Person’

 The Sociological Imagination: Where You are Born Matters

Rutger Bregman (2018): ‘And why is more than 60% of your income dependent on the country where you just happen to be
born?’ Utopia for Realists and How We Can get There, Bloomsbury: London, p. 14.

Branko Milanovic, ‘Global Inequality: From Class to Location, from Proletarians to Migrants’:
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/827451468315337249/Global-inequality-from-class-to-location-from-proletarians-to-
migrants
The Sociological Imagination: When You are Born Matters