Page 494 - The ISA Handbook in Contemporary Sociology

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CONFLICT, COMPETITION AND COOPERATION 465

of view of the people involved, handling allo- explore the inter-relations among the groups
cation to one or another stratum of society formed by all the statuses that are available to
requires the ability to discern complexities of human beings in different social milieus.
life in the twenty-first century and what can Rather than limit their work to dealing with
only be called the agility to adjust to the kalei- the ‘big’ categories of ethnicity, gender, race
doscopic problems one is called upon to face. and class, researchers will have to define how
Another side of the coin is the fact that status sets combine in parts or wholes. They
these very concerns can be defined as having will have to elaborate new methodologies in
to do with diversity. All the researchers rep- order to discover the interrelationships of the
resented in the collection, and perforce their various factors.
Research Committees, provide evidence that While diversity in one form or another
diversity permeates all aspects of social permeates the chapters of the Handbook, the
living. But this perception goes far beyond a salience of gender does not. That it is an inte-
mere citation of the fact of diversity. On read- gral part of at least a quarter of the analyses,
ing the chapters, one cannot escape the con- and incorporated into illustrations in at least a
clusion that among sociologists, there is an third of the other chapters indicates, however,
explicit desire to promote the recognition of how far sociology has evolved from the
diversity as legitimate and even desirable. gender blindness that characterized much of
Support for diversity whether in terms of reli- its work as recently as a quarter century ago.
gion, gender, race, ethnicity or language Both the empirical specifics of women’s
basically reflects a recognition of trends in experiences and new approaches to theorizing
the structuring of societies throughout the that have resulted (see chapters by Yuval-
world. By contrast with the advancement of Davis and Browne, for instance) provide
nominally homogeneous nation-states that wide-ranging illustrations of the ‘interna-
characterized the nineteenth century and tional feminist challenge to theory’, which
much of the twentieth, the twenty-first seems was the subject of a pre-Congress conference
to be characterized by social entities that are of Research Committee 32 (Women in
diverse – and becoming more so. Many of the Society) in 1998 and a subsequent publication
chapters note that states and regions are (Segal and Demos, 2001). Perhaps feminism,
undergoing wide-ranging changes toward as a current within sociology which has been
increasing diversity. Even when territorial instrumental in introducing intersectionality
units define themselves as exclusive in terms as an analytic concept within our discipline,
of nationality, the population count turns out will again offer leadership as we struggle with
to include significent groups of ‘others’ who the theoretical and methodological challenges
are necessarily part of the demographic land- of incorporating the interrelationships of
scape. This perception has implications for various factors into our analyses.
the type of theorizing and the directions in Another dimension of diversity is geo-
research that sociology will be taking in the graphical – this Handbook is, after all, a pub-
twenty-first century. lication of the International Sociological
As Couton, Denis, Laczko, Pietrantonio Association. Despite being officially trilin-
and Thériault sum up their findings, the case gual, the main language of communication
study of Canada/Québec alerts sociologists to in the association is English, and that is also
the ‘diversity of diversity’which, as the Canadian the language of this Handbook (although it
researchers note, requires further investiga- does include chapters that were translated
tion. By problematizing diversity, the con- from French, the second language of the
tributors to the round table have defined a conference which gave rise to it). Equally
task that awaits the engagement of teams of important has been what one could call the
sociologists within the next decade. Going Anglo-European hegemony within sociology –
beyond intersectionality, the challenge is to in terms of the ‘founding fathers’ and