Possibly -- though of course social integration was high, and suicide low, in the mercenary or long-term military societies of (say) 1500-1650 (see Redlich's economic/sociological study, The German Military Enterpriser and His Work Force), and drinking to excess high. It has been argued that the drinking culture in NA pre-1790 was communal and thereafter less so, hence the "alcoholic republic" and the rise of the temperance movement. Whether AA is always or even principally a re-integration force is not clear (to me) -- some alcoholics see it as their Higher Power in effect sanctifying to himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. But I agree that sociological theory -- though not any single set of sociological percepts -- provides a useful touchstone for examining AA and the history of AA -- Jared
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Jared,
Isn't that a version of Durkheim's theory of suicide? He found that suicide rates were higher where social integration was lowest. I think of suicide as one of several indicators of "social pathology." Destructive drinking is one of them. The genius of AA, in part, is that it socially reintegrates drunks.
Maria
Jared Lobdell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
I have a vague feeling that we're getting a little heavy on the need for choosing one set of theoretical percepts over another -- cultures of leisure and tourism -- Foucault vs Bourdieu -- soft constructivism. Nothing wrong with all this, but since it's been known for years (for example) that rootlessness and far-traveling (as with soldiers and sailors) go hand in hand with heavy (or heavier) drinking, it seems to me that alcohol uses can be used to test theory (as with cultures of tourism) as much as -- or more than -- the theory illuminating alcohol use. I hold my Ph.D. in Applied Social Sciences -- one of which is history, one of which is sociology, one of which is decision science (including economics and political science): they don't need to be a hundred separate circling camps glaring at one another over their watchfires. I've heard that they say in AA "Take what you need and leave the rest" -- hmmm.
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David and Maria --
David's question reminded me of something the historian Allan Mitchell said in the summing-up session of the 1984 Berkeley conference on the Social History of Alcohol. So I went back and found it, on p. 287 of S Barrows et al., eds., The Social History of Alcohol: Drinking & Culture in Modern Society (Berkeley: Alcohol Research Group, 1987) (thanks to the ministrations of the court reporters who so fascinated many of the historians at the conference):
"What struck me as remarkable about the conference was the fact that historians and sociologists have been able to co-exist through so many sessions, although I must confess that initially I was rather annoyed at a certain image of the relationship between historians and sociologists that was proejcted in some quarters. It was suggested that the historians are like scholarly oxen who plod ahead in the mud, pulling along an elegant carriage in which sits a merry band of brilliant sociologists. Thus the historian's function is to do the heavy work, and the sociologist's function is to comment on the progress of the voyage. But as the conference has gone on I have, as they say in California, mellowed. And I have come to see the accuracy and the justice of this image, because it emphasizes the leading role played by historians, and the essential frivolity of sociologists!".
To David's question: Gusfield is certainly a good place to start, but presumably needs little introduction, since temperance historians have been using his work as a whetstone for several decades. Gusfield can be seen as a founder of sociological constructivism (which sometimes used to be called historical social constructionism), although it went on after him into a radical cul-de-sac from which most have now retreated to a more Gusfield-like "soft" constructivism.
Then Harry Levine brought the Foucault/Rothman perception of the post-Enlightenment shift of gaze into the alcohol/addiction field, in turn becoming a whetstone for the historians Roy Porter and Jessica Warner (although I agree with Peter Ferentzy that Harry's basic point about the timing of the shift in popular conceptions stands). And Mariana Valverde came along and did another Foucauldian synthesis on addiction in Diseases of the Will.
What is notable about this is that sociology in particular, and maybe social sciences in general, took a "historical turn" along with a "cultural turn" 20 or more years ago, so that the traffic between history and sociology has become much denser and more two-directional.
Somewhat in contrast to Maria, I would say that the place for historians to look for social science borrowings, presumably they are looking mostly for theory, is outside the alcohol and drug field entirely. This tends to be true, anyway, for where social science graduate students look. For better or for worse (worse, sometimes, though this is not Foucault's fault), social science dissertations still rely a lot on Foucault, although it seems that each one I read chooses another fragment of Foucault as their baseline. These days, Bourdieu is receiving more attention, though mostly his Distinction.
In sociology, alcohol and drugs have mostly been academically classed under "deviance" (née "social problems"), but deviance theory seems to have run out into the sand. The one rivulet still running strong is constructivism. More hopeful territories for ransacking for theoretical gems might be sociologies/anthropologies of leisure & tourism, of the professions, of possession/dissociation, of youth cultures, of marginalization/stigma, of globalization, of the structuring and regulation of markets. This is a quick listing of some of the subtopics in academic bookstores (besides the historical ones) I find myself lingering over.
Robin
From: Alcohol and Drugs History Society [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Maria Swora
Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2005 1:59 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: what can alcohol/drug historians learn from the social sciences?
I recommend anything by Joseph Gusfield, Steve Kunitz, and Dwight Heath. Mary Douglas' edited volume is very good. Mac Marshall is another author to hunt down. There's a couple of things on the use of hallucinogenic drugs in ritual. Look also to some of Walter Becker's early work, like "Becoming a Marijuana Smoker."
Social scientists also need to be historically informed. You can't have good anthropology or sociology without a historical perspective, and unfortunately, many social scientists are out of step in that regard.
I think about C. Wright Mills' sociological imagination. That is the ability to see the relationship between personal life and social conditions, and between history and biography.
Maria
David Fahey <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
I benefited greatly from the responses to my last question, so I feel
emboldened to ask a broader and more controversial question: what can
alcohol/drug historians learn from the social sciences? The old, sad
joke is that historians are a generation or two out of date in their
borrowings from the social sciences. What do ADHS social scientists
think? What would they recommend historians read?
Maria G. Swora, Ph.D. MPH
Department of Sociology
Benedictine College
Atchison, Kansas 66002
Don't believe everything you think.
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Maria G. Swora, Ph.D. MPH
Department of Sociology
Benedictine College
Atchison, Kansas 66002
Don't believe everything you think.
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site!
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