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Historiography and National Histories of Sociology: Methods and Methodologies

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The Palgrave Handbook of the History of Human Sciences

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Abstract

Histories of Sociology have become increasingly popular in recent decades, particularly national histories of Sociology, yet there have been few attempts to articulate a methodology and methods appropriate for the tasks at hand. This chapter examines the History of Sociology as a speciality of the discipline, defining its boundaries and tracing its own history. It investigates many national histories of sociology to ascertain their methods and methodologies, and reveals the extent to which these engage with existing methods and methodologies as found in the disciplines of Sociology and History, but also their related specialities, including the History of Ideas and History of Intellectuals, as well as Historical Sociology, the Sociology of Science, the Sociology of Ideas, the Sociology of Intellectuals, the Sociology of Institutions, and the Sociology of Knowledge. This systematic review suggests the subspecialty has recently shifted from an emphasis on the Sociology of Ideas to a Sociology of Institutions, and begun to adopt, albeit implicitly, the principles of the Sociology of Knowledge in its increasing acknowledgement of the shaping of Sociology’s terrain by the geo-socio-political context.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sociology and Social Policy, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Fran Collyer

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  1. Fran Collyer
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Correspondence to Fran Collyer .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Victoria University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    David McCallum

Section Editor information

  1. University of Sydney, Camperdown, NSW, Australia

    Fran Collyer

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Collyer, F. (2022). Historiography and National Histories of Sociology: Methods and Methodologies. In: McCallum, D. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of the History of Human Sciences. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-7255-2_64

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