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Disciplines Unbound: Notes on Sociology and Ethnic Studies Author(s): Yen Le Espiritu Reviewed work(s): Source: Contemporary Sociology, Vol. 28, No. 5 (Sep., 1999), pp. 510-514 Published by: American Sociological Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2654984 . Accessed: 31/03/2012 02:48 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. American Sociological Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Contemporary Sociology. http://www.jstor.org 510 Symposia management is notforeveryone. It is acomfort- ideas into management. Since I like moving able locationonly if you are willingto move betweendisciplinesand betweentheoryand beyondthe boundaries of sociologyand,at the practice,I wouldn'ttradeplaceswithanyone. sametime, are inclinedto bringsociological Disciplines Unbound: Notes on Sociology and Ethnic Studies YEN LE ESPIRITU University of California, San Diego The new social movementsof the 1960s and the post-1965 increasesin racializedimmigrant populations transformedthe academy,ushering in new subjectsof socialknowledgeas well as new criticalsocial knowledges(Seidman1994). These new subjectsposed new questions,challengedthe dominantparadigmsof academicdisciplines, and contested the separation of knowledgeandpolitics.The new criticalknowledge seeped into the traditionaldisciplines,but took full shapein the emerginginterdisciplinary fieldsof EthnicStudies,Women'sStudies,Third World Studies, Cultural Studies, and Queer Studies. It was amid this changing intellectual and political milieu that I entered the United States and eventually the university.Arriving fromVietnamin 1975 and enteringhighereducation in the early 1980s, I inherited a more democratizedand diversifieduniversity and a more critical and politicized body of social knowledge.By the time I begangraduateschool in the mid-1980s,I had come to view the university as a potentially important site for activism a site to generate critical social knowledgeandpracticesaimedat socialchange. Focusingmy scholarshipon comparativerace and ethnic relations, I received my graduate trainingin sociologybuthave workedsince then in the interdisciplinary field of EthnicStudies.It is the relationshipbetweensociologyandEthnic Studies both the gapsand the overlaps that I will attemptto sketch in this briefessay. At its best, sociologygrapplesseriouslyand effectivelywith issuesof social inequality,power, and collective action. From its inception, sociology has asked difficult questions about importantsocialissuesandbelievedthat it could inform social action in answeringthem. The founding sociologists Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Simmel,and others all respondedto the crises of emerging industrial capitalism and intendedto shapethe courseof historicalevents throughtheir social theories.Within American sociology,the ChicagoSchool sociologistsspoke powerfullyto the socialissuesof industrialization and urbanizationthrough their attention to everyday experience. In the late 1950s, C. WrightMills'sTheSociological Imagination advocateda criticalsocialscience,urgingsociologists to committhemselvesto an activistcritiqueand reconstructionof society. But there were also prominentcountertrends;in particular,during the postwardecades,the growthof the research universityand of fundingsourcesfor the social sciences "scientized"sociology (Long 1997: 9-10). Anchored in positivist epistemologies, the disciplinarymainstreamof sociologybecame increasinglymore specializedand correspondingly less engaged with related disciplines;its claim to universaland objectiveknowledgealso moved the field awayfroman explicit commitment to social activism(Sprague1998). Paradoxically,even as sociologistswrestled with issues of power, conflict, and inequality, they have largelyneglectedor subordinatedrace and thus have missedthe mannerin which race has been "afundamental axis of social organization in the U. S." (Omi and Winant 1994: 13). The greatsocialtheoristsof the nineteenthcenturyall predictedthat race and ethnicity conceptualized as remnants of a preindustrial order woulddecline in significancein modern society. For example, the classical Marxist understandingthat capitalseeks"abstractlabor" overlooksthe waysin which capitalhas profited precisely from the "flexible"racializationand genderingof labor.In the United States,before the 1960s, much of the sociology of race expressedassimilationistprinciplesand predicted that with each succeedinggeneration,U.S. ethnic groups would improve their economic statusand become progressivelymoresimilarto the "majorityculture" (Park 1950; Gordon 1964). Developedto explain the experiencesof Europeanimmigrantsand their children, this assimilationistframeworkdid not differentiate Syrnposia 511 minorities the complexrolesplayedby raceandethnicity of racialized betweenthe experiences andthoseof whiteethnicgroups,andtherefore in socialrelationsasa wayto producenewepis andnewdataon socialpower,social andspecific temologies couldnot accountforthe enduring in conquest, institutions, andsocialidentities. waysin whichrace asmanifested The earlyEthnic Studiesscholarshipand genocide,slavery,and immigrationhas been Writing wereintenselynationalistic. ingrainedin the nation'ssocialstructureand programs stance,manyscholfroman anti-assimilationist culture. past,"to chroniThe social upheavalsand minoritymove- arssoughtto uneartha "buried of cle traditionsof protestandresistance,and to thecentrality mentsof the 1960sunderscored havebeen populations the mythof establishthat racialized racein Americanlifeandshattered the inevitabilityandeventhe desirabilityof absolutelycrucialto the makingof history. Racerelations alongwithpover- Though important,this culturalnationalist assimilation. as an urgent paradigmtended to homogenizedifferences, ty, gender,andsexuality surfaced social problem.Sociologistsvaried in their assumingheterosexualityand subordinating Somesoughtto uncoverandfill gaps issuesof genderand socialclass.Forexample, responses. purthe earlyAsian-American culturalnationalism in sociologicalknowledgeby documenting agenda"tochalof previous- suedanaggressively masculinist andcontributions accomplishments and lengethemetonymic equationofAsianwiththe individuals ly unstudiedand uncelebrated 1995:287). Confronted raceinto feminine"(Yanagisako groups.Othersbeganto incorporate these theirresearch,but as a merevariableor as a with a historyof painful"emasculation," ratherthanasa centraltheo- malewriterstookwhitesto taskfortheirracist sourceof research race myths,butwereoftenblindto theirownaccepreticalconcept.Still othersconceptualized andto getbeyond. tanceof the racialized constructof to bemanaged patriarchal asa "problem" in termsof difference, genderstereotypes primarily (Cheung1990:236-37).The Conceptualized of broad- focus on individualgroupsalso obscuredthe component raceremainsa subordinate ethnicityis relational moreimportantsocialrela- waysin whichracialized er and supposedly anddiscrete,andthe ways tionships,especiallyclass.By treatingraceas a ratherthanatomized insteadof a principleof in which group identities necessarilyform of individuals property saw"difference"throughinteraction withothergroups through sociologists socialorganization, of conflictandcooperInotherwords,the complicated experiences butfailedto "seedifferently." contextsof power. inclusionof race in sociologyhas most often ation andin structural their groupsareheterogeneous; Butracialized beenadditive,not transformative. The EthnicStudiesresponsewas different. culturesare variedand unfixed;their group Emergingfrom the studentand community boundariesare unstableand changeable;and of the late 1960sandear- their identitiesare markedwith identitiesof movements grassroots as gender,sexualpreference,class,and religion. ly 1970s,EthnicStudiesclaimedthe academy and These complex realities the products of overculture,education, onesiteof struggles citizenship(Lowe1996:37). Explicitlycritical unevenhistoriesandunequalpowerrelationscondemned challengethe binariesimplicitin the cultural and oppositional,this scholarship the productionof"objective"and "universal"nationalistparadigm,and they demandthat and EthnicStudiesscholarspay attentionto the misinforms, knowledgethat misinterprets, conflicted,and compositenature andactionsof complicated, erasesthe histories,experiences, to the insepamoreinclu- of allsocialidentities,particularly groups;andit demanded racialized knowledge. rabilityand mutuallyconstitutiverealitiesof sive, situated,and transformative The EthnicStudiescritiquesof sociallysanc- race,class,gender,andsexuality.Forexample, echothoseraisedby writingfromand aboutthe realitiesand comtionedformsof knowledge Gloria Bothcallattentionto plexitiesof living on the borderlands, of knowledge: sociologists overthe production Anzaldua(1987)insistson the interconnectedthe waysin whichstruggles of the oftencontradictory waysof assessing nessandsimultaneity of knowledge overmeanings, and controlof discursiveproduction aspectsof hergender,ethnicity,class,sexuality, "truths," connectedto and feministpolitics.Callingattentionto the andauthorizationareintimately betweenpatriarchyand the of powerand interconnections overthe (re)production struggles inequality.However,the primaryintellectual racializedcapitaliststate, ChandraMohanty is goalof EthnicStudiesis specific:to investigate (1991)arguesthatthedefinitionofcitizenship 512 Symposia always a gendered and racial formation. talism.In anotherinstance,RosaLindaFregoso Similarly,GeorgeLipsitz(1994) contendsthat (1994)showshow culturefunctionsas a social howgendered imagesand the riseof identitymovements duringthe 1940s forcebydocumenting reflectedhowclasscameto be increasingly lived ideasin culturalproductsandpracticesserveas andexperienced throughraceandgender.The impetusforthedevelopment of a Chicanafemiconsciousness." This recentscholarship in EthnicStudiesalso calls nistpoliticsof "differential is not onlymethodological or attentionto the waysin whichnewsocialrela- interdisciplinarity it is alsoa response to the inadequationshaveproduced newcoalitionsandconflicts theoretical; thattransform the meaningof racialandethnic cyof self-contained disciplines particularly the identity.Forexample,LisaLowe(1996)shows universalizingmodels of social analysis to how the currentglobalrestructuringparticu- addressthe new and complex connections larlythe internationalization and feminization betweencultureandsocialstructure engendered of laborforces-constitutesa shiftin the mode by a new globalcontext,new communications andnewtransnational socialrelaof productionthat now necessitatesalliances technologies, betweenracializedand ThirdWorldwomen tions (Lipsitz1997;Basch,Schiller,and Blanc within,outside,and acrossthe borderof the 1994). The criticalsocialknowledgeproducedby Unitedstates.In sum,mostof the bestworkin EthnicStudiesviewsethnicityascorljurlCtural, as Ethnic Studies and related interdisciplinary a "product of intersubjectivity andinteraction in studiesleft the baresttraceson sociologyuntil of MichaelOmiand concretehistoricaland social circumstances"the 1980s.Thepublication (EthnicStudiesDepartment 1994). HowardWinant'sRacialFormatiorl irlthe Urlited in 1994)wasgroundPerhapsmost important,the mostexciting Statesin 1986(republished the sociallyconstructed workin EthnicStudiesis relentlessly interdisci- breaking.Emphasizing plinaryand multidisciplinary. Born amid the natureof race,OmiandWinantinsistthatrace radicalflux and reconfigurations of knowledge and racial logic are ubiquitous,determining within the academy,EthnicStudiesowes its one'spoliticalrights,one'slocationin the labor existenceto the developmentof interdiscipli- market,and one's sense of identity.Perhaps theauthorslinkcultural expresrlarytrendswithintraditional disciplines, to the mostimportant, bydefiningraceas "a establishment ofnewinterdisciplinary studies,as sionswithsocialstructure andculturalrepwell as to the growingdialogueacrossdisci- matterof bothsocialstructure plines. Drawingfrom the best work in the resentation" (1994:56). Subsequent studiesof humanities andsocialsciencesandfromthebur- race in sociologyhave both drawnfromand geoningtheoretical andmethodological innova- expandedon Omi and Winant'sinfluential perspective. Forexample,in a tions in Feminist Studies, Queer Studies, racialformation PostcolonialStudies, CulturalStudies, and studyof multicultural andmultiracial California Communication Studies,EthnicStudiesschol- duringthe lasthalfof the nineteenthcentury, arsconceptualize raceandethnicityas an ele- TomasAlmaguer(1994) skillfullytracesthe ment of both social structureand culture. "racial formation" ofAnglos,Mexicans,Indians, populations by denoting Noting the mutuallyconstitutivequalitiesof Chinese,andJapanese by structural culturalforms and social structures,Ethnic how raceis mutuallydetermined Studiesscholarsdelineatethe roleof racein the and ideologicalfactors.In her pivotal study cognitivemappingof U.S. culture,emphasize Black FemirlistThought( 1991), PatriciaHill the oppositionalcultural practices among Collinsarguesthatideological representations of aggrieved groups,andexaminehowthe cultural genderand sexualityare centralin exercising symbolsgenerated by the dominantgroupseem and maintainingracial,patriarchal, and class to justifythe economicexploitationandsocial domination.Nonsociologistshave also been oppression of racialized populations overtime. influencedby the racialformationperspective. studyof AsianIn an innovativestudy of Asian-American Forexample,in an impressive womenas a problemof knowledge, LauraHyun Americanculturalpolitics,literarytheoristLisa YiKang(1997)tracesthe complexconnections Lowe(1996) tracesthe genealogyof a distinct linkingthe discursiveproductionand circula- "racialformation" of AsianAmericansthrough tion of Asian-American womenas transnation- the historyof the legislationof the Asian as al laborwiththeactualphysicallaborperformed alien and the administrationof the Asian by thesewomenin globalized, militarized capi- Americanascitizen. Symposia 513 Frontera.San As a sociologist whoworksin EthnicStudies, Anzaldua,Gloria. 1987. Borderlands/La Francisco:Spinsters/AuntLute. I drawfrombothdisciplines. Fromsociology,I learnto be attentiveto livedsocialexperience, Basch, Linda, Nina Glick Schiller, and Cristina Szanton Blanc. 1994. Nations Unbound: to graspthesocialconstructions of socialreality, TransnationalProjects,PostcolonialPredicaments, and to link the studyof individuallives with andDeterritorialized NationStates.Langhorne,PA: broader issuesof politicaleconomy. Gordon& Breach. ButI am excitedandchallengedby Ethnic Cheung, King-Kok. 1990. "The NVomanNVarrior Studies'aggressivetheoreticaland empirical Versus the Chinaman Pacific: Must a Chinese engagement with the realityandcomplexityof AmericanCritic Choose Between Feminismand race,by its insistencethatknowledgeis always Heroism?"Pp. 234-51 in Conflictsin Feminism, edited by M. Hirsch and E. F. Keller.New York: partialandsituatedin relationship to power,and Routledge. by its explicitinterdisciplinarity. Theseconceptualandmethodological framesprovidemewith Collins, PatriciaHill. 1991. BlackFeministThought: Knowledge, Consciousness,and the Politics of alternative waysof gainingknowledge aboutthe Empowerment. New York:Routledge. worldthat betterreflectmy experienceas a 1998. "On Book Exhibits and New racialized immigrant woman.This is not to say Complexities: Reflections on Sociology as that sociologists havenot producedimportant, Science."Contemporary Sociology27: 7-11. even indispensable scholarship on race.To the Ethnic Studies Department.1994. "A Proposalfor a contrary,sociologicaltheoryand researchon Programof GraduateStudiesin EthnicStudiesfor race have grownexponentially, producingan the M.A. and Ph.D. Degrees." University of California,San Diego. enormous bodyof criticalstudieson the issuesof social difference,social conflict, and social Gordon,Milton. 1964. Assimilationin AmericanLife: The Role of Race, Religion,and NationalOrigm. change.Butit is to saythattheinstitutionofsociNew York:OxfordUniversityPress. ologycontinuesto resistchange. Rosa Linda. 1994. The Bronze ScreerL . Evenasracewasincorporated intoindividual Fregoso, Minneapolis:Universityof MinnesotaPress. research projects,no corresponding changehas Kang, Laura Hyun Yi. 1997. "Si(gh)ting beenmadein the discipline's concepts,theories, Asian/AmericanTomen as TransnationalLabor." methods,andepistemologies. Consequently, the Positions5: 403-37. racialparadigm, whichpositionsraceasa promi- Lipsitz,George. 1994. Rainbowat Midnight:Laborand nent socialcategorycreatinghierarchies of difCulturein the1940s. Urbana:Universityof Illinois Press. ferencein society,remainsa minorityposition . 1997. "FacingUp to NVhat'sKilling Us: withinmainstream sociological paradigms. Like Artistic Practiceand GrassrootsSocial Theory." PatriciaHill Collins(1998),I suspectthatthis resistance hassomethingto dowithsociologists' Pp. 234-261 in FromSociologyto CulturalStudies, editedby ElizabethLong.Oxford:Blackwell. effortsto guarddisciplinary bordersandin turn Long, Elizabeth. 1997. "EngagingSociology and to protecttheirassignedplacesin the naturalCultural Studies: Disciplinarity and Social izedsociological hierarchy. Butin aneraofglobChange."Pp. 1-32 in FromSociologyto Cultural alization, newtechnologies, andparadigm shifts, Studies, edited by Elizabeth Long. Oxford: theboundaries of sociologycontinueto be "ever Blackwell. Acts:On AsianAmerican moreslippery" (Long1997:12)associologists- Lowe,Lisa.1996. Immigrant CulturalPolitics.Durham, NC: Duke University especially graduate studentsandyoungfacultyPress. stretchbeyondsociologyfor otherconceptual framesmorefullyto gainknowledge abouttheir Mills, C. NVright.1959. The SociologicalImagination. New York:OxfordUniversityPress. world.If the goalof ourscholarship is to better Mohanty,Chandra.1991. "Cartographies of Struggle: understand andthusbetterbuilda morejustand Third NVorld NVomen and the Politics of humanesocialorder,then it seemsimperative Feminism."Pp. 1-47 in ThirdWorldWomenand that we learnfromas manyareasof academic the Politics of Feminism, edited by Chandra expertiseaspossible.A goodplaceto startis to Mohanty, Ann Russo, and Lourdes Torres. establishdialogueacrossdisciplines,beginning Bloomington:Universityof IndianaPress. Omi, Michael and Howard Winant. 1986. Racial withsociologyandEthnicStudies. References Almaguer,Tomas. 1994. Racial Fault Lines: The HistoricalOriginsof WhiteSupremacy in California. Berkeley: University of California Press. Formationin the United States. New York & London:Routledge. . 1994. RacialFormationin the UnitedStates Fromthe 1960s to the 1990s. 2d Ed. NewYork& London:Routledge. 514 Symposia Orientalism: Park,RobertE. 1950.RaceandCulture.Glencoe,IL: Yanagisako,Sylvia. 1987. "Transforming Gender,Nationality,andClassin AsianAmerican FreePress. Power:Essays Studies."Pp. 275-98 in Naturalizing Seidman,Steven.1994.ContestedKnowledge:Social in FeministCulturalAnalysis, edited by Sylvia Blackwell. Era.Oxford: Theoryin thePostmodern YanagasikoandC. Delaney.New York:Routledge. Sprague, Joey. 1998. "(Re)MakingSociology: Breaking the Bonds of Our Discipline." Sociology27:24-28. Contemporary A Gray Zone? Meetings between Sociology and Gerontology 0. HAGESTAD GUNHILD Northwestern University and Agder College, Norway It is nearlyimpossibleto discussthe border withoutconbetweensociologyandgerontology Whilesomepeople sideringseveraldisciplines. withme,I donotconsidergeronwoulddisagree tologya discipline.Rather,I see it as a fieldof address inquiryin whicha numberof disciplines questionsrelatedto agingand old age. Thus, whohaveparticiwhenweconsidersociologists patedin this field,we askhow theyhavecontributedto and have been affectedby its roots withetymological Gerontology, discourse. in theGreekger-(to growold)andgeron(anold and Levin 1989),brings person)(Achenbaum and perspectives, theoretical togetherquestions, fromvariousdiscipreferences methodological plines,rangingfrombiologyand medicineto psychologyand sociology. Very often, as AchenbaumandLevinpoint out, attemptsto haveusedthe wordproblem. definegerontology tenfairlycontinuous Thefieldhasexperienced sion between two goals: buildingscientific understandingversus seeking to ameliorate andpopulawithindividual associated problems in therelationaging.Thistensionis important tionshipsbetweensociologyandgerontology. Long before gerontologywas a field of inquiry,classicsin the socialsciencesincluded For of age and socialstructure. considerations andhow it example,Comteponderedprogress successionand mightbe linkedto generational the averagelengthof life.MarxandEngelsconwouldaffectthe sideredhow industrialization significanceof age and gender. Durkheim exploredconnectionsbetweenage and social integration.Earlyin the twentiethcentury, gaveus his influentialessayon how Mannheim in the flowof history,and ageplacesindividuals unitsconstitutea sociallocation, generational of such location.It with subjectiveawareness intelthatlong-standing wouldseemreasonable in lectualconcernsin sociologycouldbepursued questions gerontology,throughwell-anchored abouthow age is relatedto socialintegration, andthe creationof meansocialdifferentiation, wouldalsoseemto allowfor ing. Gerontology of explorations theoreticalandmethodological micro-macroconnections. In her ASA Address,MatildaRiley(1987)gave Presidential thatageis andshouldbe reminder usa powerful significantin sociology.Yet, aboutthe same arguedthat: time,a groupof Britishcolleagues Any sociologistworkingon old age (in how at least)knowsself-evidently England as hasbeentosociology thesubject marginal has a whole and how under-represented withinthe perspective beenthesociological under working ofdisciplines conglomeration (Fennel, of socialgerontology. theumbrella andEvers1988:170) Phillipson, To beginthinkingaboutthe meetingground I contacted betweensociologyandgerontology, a numberof colleaguesin NorthAmericaand Europewho have been active in the field of aging.I askedthemwhenthe borderstartedto exist,whothe earlykeyactorswere,howsociolinflumighthavemutually ogyandgerontology encedeach other,and what mightconstitute potentialsforcross-fertilization. unrealized wasin useearAlthoughthewordgerorltology ly in this century,a seriesof new institutions, usingthename, andjournals suchasassociations aroseshortlyafterWorldWarII. It is therefore how thatwhenI askedcolleagues not surprising the farbacktheywouldtraceinterconnections, 1940swasthe earliestpoint.Nearlyall of them oftenalsoanthropolTalcottParsons, mentioned ogist RalphLinton.Both Parsonsand Linton essayson ageandsexasbasesof social published Sociological rolesin the 1942volumeof Americarl