The onward journey

A sociology of ourselves is necessary now more than ever. We learned to do sociology of knowledge and technology (Gouldner, 1976; Latour, 1987), sociology of social movements (Offe, 1985; Touraine, 1985), and sociology of daily life of other people (Schwartz & Jacobs, 1979). But a sociology of our own practices as researchers, as scientists, as persons of flesh and blood is still pending. We don’t really know too much about ourselves as researchers, and/or as human beings, and how we came to be what we are. In some ways, the personal pathways of becoming a researcher, scientist, activist, or practitioner of any discipline are mysterious and hidden. Becoming a researcher or scientist and acting in consequence of that is equally a matter of speculation and suspicion in specific scenarios. Sometimes, for opportunistic reasons, as the president of the International Social Science Council says (ISSC Report, 2010, p. vi), social scientists “did not understand how their own creation worked”.