Sociological Writing in the Wake of Postmodernism

Abstract

The author argues that sociological writing needs to shift out of the positivist mode of the report of findings and become unashamedly literary. That is, it must confess its "authoriality," the fact that it has been written with perspective, passion, and political standpoint by an author. In this sense, sociology is science fiction-a way of making an argument using data and analysis. Much positivist sociological writing erases the author's fingerprints from the text with methodology, which is seen to end arguments Informed by Derrida and the Frankfurt School, the author contends that nonpositivist sociological writing confesses its animating assumptions and invites others to join an endless argument about the good. Writing models community in this way and helps bring it about. For sociology to be told as a "story" need not delegitimize its findings; objectivity and a literary subjectivity need not clash but can be seen as mutually reinforcing once we abandon the positivist goal of perfect representation.