HOW TO STUDY THE PROFESSIONAL MOBILITY? KEY ROLE OF ETHNOGRAPHY IN THE THEORY (Jak badac procesy mobilnosci zawodowej? Kluczowa rola etnografii w powstaniu nowej propozycji teoretycznej odnosnie do socjologii mobilnosci)

• Authors: Wagner Izabela
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

Some theoreticians state that the Ethnography and micro-sociology allow the researchers to ripen previously built even frequently obvious THEORIES, and constitute excellent tools to provide detailed descriptions or examples of processes, which were already in the center of Macro inquiry. Micro is, according to them, kind of picturesque supplement for the majority of Macro - studies - the supplement, which confirms (and when contradicts this is only for showing exception) the Macro- Knowledge. On the other hand, Grounded Theory practitioners follow an opposing method - from Micro to Macro - developing their own theories from their fields. Other way of QM practice is simply using of Micro without Macro perspective: Ethnographers analyze the phenomenon doing Micro-sociology, strongly close to a chosen particular example - directly from their fi eld- they avoid construction of theoretical models, because they believe that social processes are dynamic and depend on interaction (so each time different); as a consequence people's behavior cannot be 'modelized'. Started from this last perspective (micro without theoretical ambitions) I was surprised to see the whole specialty of sociology (Mobility), well organized and with a lot of publications (Macro level; large statistics) working with erroneous tools regarding wrong models. My ethnographical fi eld (started in 2003) - life-science researchers' world - done in different countries (France, Poland, Germany, USA) gives me the data for showing that this obvious and largely practical perspective is not exact. Based on the results of my research on careers and mobility of life-science scientists, I showed that starting from Micro is not only one of the way of doing science but also it is the necessary method for providing the Macro Sociology. This method of working Micro-Macro, provides the stability of research process, and, in consequence, the maturity of our 'young discipline' - sociology (according to Kuhn's and other sociologists of knowledge).

Keywords

EN

ETHNOGRAPHY; HISTORY OF SOCIOLOGY; MOBILITY AND CAREERS; TRANSMOBILITY

Discipline

• SOCIOLOGY: SOCIOLOGY

• Publisher: AGH University of Science and Technology
• Journal: Studia Humanistyczne AGH
• Year: 2010
• Volume: 8
• Pages: 41-56
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Wagner Izabela

• Izabela Wagner, Uniwersytet Warszawski; Wydzial Filozofi i Socjologii, Instytut Socjologii, ul. Karowa 18, 00-927 Warszawa, Poland

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

11PLAAAA09433