Generally Speaking Generally Speaking An Invitation to Concept-D riven Sociology EVIATAR ZERUBAVEL 1 3 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2021 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Zerubavel, Eviatar, author. Title: Generally speaking : an invitation to concept-driven sociology / Eviatar Zerubavel. Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2021] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020017672 (print) | LCCN 2020017673 (ebook) | ISBN 9780197519271 (hardback) | ISBN 9780197519288 (paperback) | ISBN 9780197519301 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Sociology—Methodology. Classification: LCC HM511 .Z47 2021 (print) | LCC HM511 (ebook) | DDC 301.01—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020017672 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020017673 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Paperback printed by LSC Communications, United States of America Hardback printed by Bridgeport National Bindery, Inc., United States of America To my terrific students, who “carry the torch” Contents Preface ix 1. Focusing 1 A Concept- Driven Sociology 1 The Focused Mind 7 Attentional Socialization 11 2. Generalizing 13 A Generic Sociology 13 Transcontextual Research 17 Theorizing Generically 19 3. Exampling 23 Contextual Diversity 24 Cultural and Historical Diversity 29 Situational Diversity 31 Multilevel Research 35 4. Analogizing 37 The Analogical Imagination 37 Cross- Cultural Analogizing 43 Cross- Historical Analogizing 47 Cross- Domain Analogizing 49 Cross- Level Analogizing 57 5. Eureka! 59 From “No- Nos” to Methodological Virtues 59 Analogical Transfers 64 Diving Beneath the Social Surface 70 Notes 73 Bibliography 87 Author Index 101 Subject Index 105 Preface I started practicing a “concept-d riven” brand of sociology al- ready as a graduate student in the 1970s, initially articulating the theoretico- methodological implications of doing so in “If Simmel Were a Fieldworker: On Formal Sociological Theory and Analytical Field Research,” a paper I presented at the 1977 meeting of the Eastern Sociological Society and published three years later as an article. I later expanded such a sociology to also include a “generic” and therefore transcontextual component in my books The Fine Line (1991) and Time Maps (2003), following which I was urged by my then-s tudents Asia Friedman and Thomas DeGloma to explicitly spell out how I actually produced those books, which led to “Generally Speaking: The Logic and Mechanics of Social Pattern Analysis,” a paper I presented at the 2004 meeting of the American Sociological Association and published three years later as an article. Four intellectual- stylistically similar books (The Elephant in the Room, Ancestors and Relatives, Hidden in Plain Sight, and Taken for Granted) later, I felt ready to write a book specifically addressing this common yet effectively unarticulated theoretico- methodological thread in my work. It was at that point that I was actually approached by my Oxford University Press editor James Cook to do in fact just that, and on November 10, 2017, I finally started writing this book. I am particularly indebted to Yael Zerubavel, Iddo Tavory, Asia Friedman, Tom DeGloma, Wayne Brekhus, Steph Peña- Alves, Tali Jaffe- Dax, Tzipy Lazar-S hoef, and Natalia Ruiz-J unco, who read several early versions of this book and spent many hours