Scales of observation A micro‐sociological epistemology of social science practice∗

Thank you to Doug Harper for his help in making my ideas clearer and my English better!

Abstract

Often what is presented as conflict between schools of thought is more often based on a difference of scale of observation. Visual sociology is viewed as a way to understand the “scale issue” because the visual sociologist knows it is impossible to simultaneously photograph a macro and a micro phenomenon. We thus offer a critique of a prevalent fantasy in social science; that of catching at once all data coming from all scales.

Notes

Thank you to Doug Harper for his help in making my ideas clearer and my English better!

With the participation of Sophie Taponier, researcher at The Sorbonne Laboratory of Ethnology, editor at l'Harmattan publishing, and Head of Argonautes; Sophie Alami and Isabelle Garabuau, researchers at The Sorbonne Laboratory of Ethnology and at Argonautes (Argonautes, 94 Boulevard Barbès, 75018 Paris, France). In this text “I” means Dominique Desjeux; “we” means Argonautes, and sometimes sociologists in general. This paper is an adaptation of a my French paper: “Tiens bon le concept, j'enlève l'échelle. . . d'observation.”, Besançon, UTINAM Journal n°20, dec. 1996.