Acerca del sociólogo como escritor: (Des)gajes de un oficio

Abstract

Starting from certain concerns on the practices of a trade, this article investigates the relationships between sociology and literature, as long as both are mediated by the writing process. It is suggested that sociology can also be considered as a literary gender. In turn, literature, particularly fictional narratives, can be appreciated as a source of empirical fragments and credible metaphors about the social life. Diverse cases of use of narrative materials are mentioned in sociological analysis, in both traditional and contemporary. Although the analytic theoretical purpose of the article is to denaturalize sociological writing, it also has an instrumental intention – i.e. to postulate possible learning strategies and incorporate expressive rhetorics for sociologists, particularly young ones who want to say, to write, their own words.