Abstract
What use is literature about past research in social sciences to people carrying out empirical research in sociology? More generally, other than the celebration of academic ancestors, what is the point of a history of research in social sciences? How should we conceive this history if it is to be useful? This article develops the possible contributions that a nonpresentist history (following the model of histoire à part entière of Lucien Febvre) of the social sciences can make to research in these disciplines. The article analyzes the various obstacles that prevented, for more than fifty years, the introduction of the Chicago sociological tradition into French sociology and the changes that led, after 1980, to an increasing interest in an ethnographic approach in France.
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