Sarah Schultz is the author of several books, including the forthcoming sociology of the commons: How we share our commons, and how we create new ways of living.
In this episode of the podcast, she speaks with the hosts about the sociologists and sociographers who have influenced her work.
What is sociological imagination?
Schulz defines sociological imaginary as “the thinking that society is fundamentally in the service of our collective aspirations and needs.”
In her book Sociology of the Commons, she shows how we can imagine our shared spaces as places where we can make collective decisions and take collective risks without any intervention by others.
For instance, we can share the commons without having to pay for the use of the shared space.
We can set up a cooperative system that uses a shared space for sharing, which means we have the right to decide how to use the shared spaces and the rights of others to manage and regulate them.
In other words, we create a commons without creating a property right.
What are the sociologist-analyst types?
The sociologist Anil Madhavapeddy has developed the sociology of the state as a way of thinking about the way governments and societies function.
He defines sociological imaginary as the “imagination that society functions in the interests of individuals, the state, and the state-administered public sphere.”
Madhvapeddy explains that sociologically imaginary thinking is an important part of sociological theorizing because it helps us to understand and make sense of the ways in which we interact with the public sphere.
In addition, he says, sociological imaginaries help us understand how the public realm is shaped by a variety of social, political, and economic forces.
And sociologizing the commons in ways that challenge traditional conceptions of the public is part of that process.
So, why do sociology of public goods authors find it necessary to engage with sociological imaginative ideas?
As Madhviapeddy puts it, “Socio-economic and socio-political theories that are based on sociological assumptions and practices can be quite problematic for theorists of public good policy.”
That is because sociologies often depend on “the assumption that society can be understood only in terms of its interactions with other, more socially-distinct societies and institutions.”
As a result, “social welfare programs are often viewed as providing goods and services to individuals and groups that are not socially-different from others.”
The sociological picture of society often obscures the ways that people interact with others and the social context in which they live.
In fact, the very concept of “public goods” can be misleading.
According to sociologist Andrew Ross, the public goods theory of public services is based on a “non-social, and therefore not socially differentiated, theory of value.”
Ross describes the public good theory as “a theory of the social relations of economic activity and of social goods.”
The public goods framework posits that there are two kinds of goods or services: the “social good” goods (which are goods that are distributed according to social rules and norms) and the “private good” services (which the private market does not provide).
But the public services framework ignores the “public good” role of the market.
Ross writes, “The market is not an entity that exists in a separate social sphere, but rather a unitary entity that provides a service to the social sphere.”
This is because the public benefit of the services provided by the market is “unlimited and unlimited,” and cannot be compared to the value of the goods that people receive from the market, because there is no price mechanism in place.
Social scientists often view the market as a unit that provides goods and service to individuals.
In the public service theory, the market acts as an agent in the production of social benefits.
So while the market produces a certain amount of goods and a certain number of services, the marketplace does not create these goods and they do not serve individuals.
How sociocultural imaginations and sociological imagining interact in practice is important because sociological and sociologist imaginations are very different.
Sociologists are often more interested in analyzing the social processes that shape the social world and the way society works than they are in explaining how the world is organized.
Sociological imaginings, on the other hand, focus on the social interactions that occur within the social domain.
As Madhapoddy says, “Sociological imaginations often are very focused on the process of social organization.
Sociology is concerned with social change in society and with the social structure that creates social order.”
What is a sociologist, and why should we care about the sociology of public affairs?
In her 2011 book Social Politics and the Sociology.
sociologist Jennifer Hutton argues that sociological thinkers have focused on social relations and the relations between individuals and communities more than they have been concerned with the processes that affect social