Unit 1: Towards an introduction to the study of society:
The awakening of the sociological imagination 1
Objectives:
 Define society and explain what sociologists view as a society
 Explain and be able to use a sociological perspective
 Explain the sociological imagination
A couple of images of last week…
Society:
Society = a group of people
who shape their lives in
aggregated and patterned
ways that distinguish their
group from other groups
What does society look like?
 The study of society
 Society as an object itself (sui generis)
 if society is an object, than it can be examined closely and
analyzed like any other subject (sounds simple isn’t it?We divide
it in pieces and explore each piece carefully)
 A sociologist does to society, what a biologist does to a living
organism, or a geologist does to a rock:
 Society becomes something scientifically weighted, measured and
dissected
A geologist studying a rock:
Is Society a concrete object after all?
 But, wait…as we begin to dissect this object, we discover




that it’s made up of countless other components
Of things like: culture, working class, ethnicity
These things appear to be sui generis (objects on their own) as
well: more phenomena to examine by themselves, hmmm,
but wait….
And these components can be broken down even further into
seemly endless bits and pieces
It gets confusing: daunting, almost impossible to imagine we
could analyze something so big, with so many parts, the
shapes and boundaries are so fluid
Society looks like this painting by
Kandinsky:
Or more like this:
Relationships between individuals
in a society (social networks)
What can we see?
 If we can’t see the whole of society,
what can we see?
 We can see people living their lives,
interacting with each other, working, playing,
eating, dancing, flirting, lying, fighting, grieving,
driving in their cars, ending their lives by own
choice, partying, getting married, divorcing,
stealing, loosing their minds…..etc
 There are limitless observable phenomena for us to analyze sociologically
 In fact they are all happening around us right now, every moment of every life
 Scoping social phenomena
E.g. Addiction to alcohol?:
Mad Men and alcoholism [Sociology of Mad Men]
As a sociologist you start wondering
what happened in episode 3?
And the ladies in ‘mad men’:
This is what society looks like:
 People actively and collectively shape their lives, organizing
their social interactions and relationships to produce a real
meaningful world: and they do this in patterned ways that
(we as) social scientists can analyze.
 We are
curious to analyze the social
processes that everyone experiences and
how those social processes create the larger
society of which we are all a part of
E.g. The sociology of partying and its
possible secondary effects 
First shy, drink alcohol, dance,
dance, kiss, kiss some more, with the
guy, ‘what’s his name again?’ and
yeah, let’s go his place…
The sun shines, headache, OH NO!
a one night stand, with this guy?
(Tierra traga me)
E.g. the sociology of first loves /
You can not eat nor think clearly, or do anything else,
you just think about that person, you want to be with
that person, you want to do everything for them, you
don’t care if they don’t appreciate it, don’t care if it all
comes from one way, if it hurts, if she doesn’t call, you
want to lose yourself in their eyes, literally lose
yourself…
This is the One, I KNOW IT! (not! Or not always! Or
to be specific, 95% of the time this is not the one)
Discussion: Justin Bieber as a serious
sociological phenomena…
 Why is Justin Bieber a sociological phenomena?
 What can we study about this phenomena?
 How can we study this?
Sociology of fame/Sociology of celebrities?
 Why is Kim Kardashian popular?
 Why is Lady Gaga interesting?
 Why do we follow every step celebrities make?
 Role model
 Social constructions
 Money/Lifestyle
 Identification processes
 “gender“ issues
 Sexualizing
 Symbol?
 Moral of story?
Is sociology a science?
 Natural science is the study
of the physical features of
nature and the ways in
which they interact and
change
 Social science is the study
of the social features of
humans and the ways they
interact and change
Positioning sociology among other
sciences:
economics
Political
science
psychology
sociology
History
geography
Anthropology
Communication
studies
Sociology overlaps with other social sciences, but much of the territory it covers
is unique
How the different disciplines in social sciences see each other:
 Sociology =
 the systematic or scientific
study of human society
and social behavior, from large scale institutions and
mass culture to small groups and individual
interactions
The sociology of The Sopranos
would deal with family, mafia,
loyalty, the experience of crime,
morality, immigration, integration
etc.
Socius Logos [study of society]
 Another more pragmatic definition by Becker (1986): sociology is
the study of
“people doing things together”
 Above definition reminds us of the fact that neither society nor the
individual exists in isolation but each is dependent on the
intertwined with the other…
 Humans are social beings :
 Not only for survival, but importantly because our very
sense of self derives from our membership in
society (E.g. family, neighborhoods, etc.)
Awakening the sociological imagination
Micro and Macro sociology
 The different sociological perspectives are like the
photographers' lenses, allowing different ways of looking at a
common subject (Newman, 2000):
Sociologist can take:
Micro sociological lens: zoom lens
 a Macro sociological lens:wide-angle lens
 a
 or any number of perspectives
located on the
continuum between the two
Macro and Micro perspectives:
 The
micro perspective assumes that society’s larger
structures are shaped through individual
interactions;
while,
 The
macro perspective assumes that society’s larger
structures shape those individual interactions
 Think of these perspectives as being on a
continuum
Levels of analysis: micro- and macro sociology:
society
culture
Social institutions
(economics, politics, education, mass media, religion)
Social inequality (class, gender, ethnicity)
Groups
Roles
Socialization
Interaction
self
Sociology covers a wide range of topics at different levels of analysis
Sociological Imagination (1)
 One quality of mind that
all the great social analysts
need to possess in order to
study social phenomena
 The ability to understand
“ the intersection
between biography
and history”
 The interplay between the
self and the world
C. Wright Mills (1916 -1962)
Sociological imagination (2)
 The sociological imagination requires that we search for the
link between the micro and macro levels of analysis
 Mill’s characterization of sociology as the intersection
between biography and history reminds us that the process
works in both directions:
 While larger social forces influence
individual lives, there are many ways in
which our individual lives can affect society
as well
Sociology and Common Sense?
 Our theories and opinions typically come from
‘common sense’ , every
day knowledge and experiences. These can be biased and
incidental 
 This is
not the sociological imagination!
 The commonsense knowledge, while sometimes accurate, is
not always
reliable, because it rests on commonly held beliefs rather or
assumptions than on systematic analysis of facts.
 Doing
sociology
is a
radical undertaking: it
requires from us a willingness to suspend our own pre-conceptions,
assumptions and beliefs about the way things are 
Example of the awakening of the sociological imagination:
How to think like a sociologist 
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Never assume anything
Get ready to be wrong
Ask even more questions
Make the everyday strange
Embrace life’s complexities
http://nortonbooks.typepad.com/everydaysociology/2009/06/how-to-think-like-a-sociologist.html
Ways to stimulate the sociological
imagination:
1.
Try to create in ourselves a sense of what anthropologists call

This term was coined in Anthropology to describe the experience of
visiting an exotic foreign country.
The first encounters with the local natives and their way of life can
seem so strange to us that they produce a kind of disorientation and
doubt about our ability to make sense of things. Putting all judgments
aside for the moment

Culture Shock
 This state of mind is very useful 

At this point: when we completely lack an understanding of our
surroundings we start truly perceiving what is in front of
our eyes
Culture shock
In the TV show Lost, six of
the characters return from
a deserted island to
discover that ordinary
experiences that they
previously took for granted
seem strikingly different or
unfamiliar
What about the
Tourists that come
for the first time
to Aruba, would
they experience a
similar culture
shock?
Or my favorite
analogy for the
awakening of the
sociological
imagination that
started with an
unbelievable
culture shock:
Alice in
Wonderland
Assignment:
An experiment in “Doing nothing”
 Practice the opposite of the expert’s mind which is so filled
with facts, projections, assumptions, opinions and
explanations that it can’t learn anything new 
 You need a
Beginners mind: approaching the
world without preconceptions in order to see things in a new
way…DISCOVERY 
 Make the assignment Analyzing everyday life: for the next
session on Monday (August 22nd)
 We will then test your ability to apply a beginner’s mind