I1 Discussion/Discussion/Diskussion

THE MYTH OF “CLEAN” RESEARCH

A REPLY TO BRUNO BEWENUTI.

6u CHRISTIAN GIORDANO and ROBERT HEI?UGE

F i t we asked ourselves if such a review article, which had apparently bccn knocked together with a mallet, deserved to bc answered at all. The author’s style and arrogance made us doubt it. But then we dccided to correct some points, because we klt the subject was sufficiently

1. This review article in itself appears to bc the k t evidence of the difficulties into which one fills when one undcmtimates the context “Verstehcns” method, as Bcnvenuti docs.

2. It gives us mother oppormnity to discuss a fcw open methodological questions in rural

To put it plainly, the author has neither understood the concepts we used, nor our intentions, nor the field in which we conducted our m u c h .

importurt.

JodOlOgy.

“ Verstehen” of concepts 1. Bcnvcnuti asks us whether all organisations’ structures are not based on authority, whether universities or factories can be organised other than on the basis of authority, and whether, by describing cooperatives as products of dominance, we arc not therefore stating the obvious.

Bcnvcnuti could not havc r a d our text properly, or he would not have made this mistake. We bclicved we had made it very clear that we did not understand cooperatives to be authority-bued StrUCtuZeS with strong hierarchical relations of subordination. Rather, as has always been thought - in the tradition of Tonnics, Webcr, Viahnd t , Gurvitch, and so on - we regarded cooperatives as predominantly horizontally rather than vertically structured social organisations.

T h i s antagonism occus again, by the way, as a recurrent theme in self-management discussions, in the alternative movement and espccidly in ~ n l communes, just as it belonged as a matter of course to the ar ly cooperative movement and to the thcory of cooperation. But it scans that the author was not familiar with this one-time chssical distinction in sociology. We could have ignored this, if Bcnvenuti had at lcast shown himself willing to bc instructed. As some comfort for him it must certainly be pointed out that modern cooperative rnearch too has forgotten its own traditions, which we think is a

* B. Bcnvcnuti, Bctwccn Marx and the Reader‘s Digest: On an upcoming intellectual style in “doing research”, Soriohgia Rurah XXI (1981), 1: S7-63.

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gmt pity. W e have attempted to show elsewhere (Hettlage, 1979) how fruitful thinking in terms of the sociological category “cooperative” could be today - without wanting to underestimate the dificulties it might involve.

2. It may possibly also be due to this misunderstanding that Benvenuti - as his title shows - frlsely attributes to our statements a leaning towards “Marxism”. If he managed to get this idea from our use of the word “dominance” then we can only exclaim “0 J U ~ U ~ U

rinrplirirarr’. Then indeed is Pan-Marxism conceptually achieved! This is not the place for ideological conkssions, but we want to sate this much for our

people: there is no family resemblance at all. If one wants to assume elective affinities, then Benvenuti should have taken into account the family trees of Pareto, M o m and Weber. Moreover, the most important Sicilian historians such De Stef?no and Titone arc also of the opinion that the problems of foreign domination and collective mentality of the subordinate groups provide the key to understanding the island’s social structure (Titone, 1911). Benvenuti has evidently made the wrong assumption. Whoever wants to see a close affinity with Mux in our arguments, has at least to be able to prove in the sense ofTh. Kuhn (1972, Postscript) that we place ourselves in this research matrix, not only by using typical examples but also by applying standards of value, symbolic generalisations and metaphysical components We do not see how Bcnvenuti can prove it, but of couzsc wc would be surprised if he still succeeds in making us Marxists against our will. In any case the methodological difficulty of “Verstehen” of the other is overwhelmingly evident.

3. We need not waste many words on the point about Mafia and illegitimacy. It is simply wrong. For it is precisely characteristic of the Sicilian milieu that it is not the Ma& which lacks legitimacy so much as the official structures. This very point l ads in pan to the “success” of the khaviour of the “Mafiosi”. A glance at the scientific, and not only at the “journalistically puffed up” literature on this problem would easily have sorted out this mistake (Hess, 1970; Blok, 1969).

4. A similar comment can be made about the objection that the historical method we used - by referring to Cahnman - was invalid. Evidently Benvenuti was critiasing the fict that the history of the Sicilian cooperative movement was omitted. We have expmscd ourselves on chis point elsewhere (Giordano & Hettlage, 1971). But that is not our point at all. History in the sense we put forward is always personally “scdimented”, processed in the system of values and beliefs and patterns of behaviour, ie. internalised social history (cf. Huwrl). Therefore history for us was not primarily counting and filing “positive” facts but more the effm of these facts on the psychic structure of the people and the resulting historidy-imbued experiences (Hyde, 1980). This kd us to the thesis which we thought we had clarly presented, that it is the historical experience of centuries of foreign domination which holds back thinking patterns which are indispensable for cooperative functioning.

“Versteben” of intentim 1. Benvenuti reproaches us with having traced too lightly the very serious and broadly structured theories and investigations about modanisation, because we dedicated too little space to them. Bcnvenuti completely misunderstands our intention, for this was neither to write a book about modernisation theories nor to dismiss them wholesale. Rather, we wanted to demonstrate that these do not put a high enough value on an essential aspect, which we give special emphasis to, and that is the a s p of persistence. The cooperatives served us in this context as a case study. N a m d y , a detailed knowledge of the problems of modemisation was a pre-requisite for this. Our summary was intended simply to enable the mder to put the cooperatives and persistence problems in context. (Moreover, our critical

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attitude to theories of dependence makes it clcv from this aspect as well, that our work is not dosely aligned with Marx.) h unbnsed reader might perhaps have fewer difficulties in correctly valuing our intcn-

[ions. He will also rcsolvc the “contradiction” which Bcnvenuti enjoyed attributing to us, that we maintain on the one hand that Sicily is to a considerable degree “modernised” (in so far as one looks at consumer habits, media cxposure, urbanisation, the building boom, etc.) but that at the same time it is “traditional” as far as the basic system of values and beliefs and patterns of bchaviour goes with dl that this implies for coopcrativc functioning. The “contradiction” can be explained immediately, if one takes into account the distinction made by Finh (and which wc quoted!) between “organisational change” and “structural change”. Benvenuti unfortunately did not try to do so. But in this very distinction lies an essential impdmen t for possible success in modernisation. From this one can sct that probably nowhere in developing arcaS can modernisation of a middle- and north-European type succeed. All that will emerge arc forms of post-traditional societies (Eixnstadt, 1973) where western patterns of organisation are filled with the “spirit of tradition”.

2. Similarly the argument that with the four u s e s of coopcrativc developments, we prcscnted a typology, seems to us to be a misinterpretation. Of course thee are gps, as far as bchaviour patterns which can be expccted and thox which are practised in this social milieu, are concerned. The reproach Scems evidently to be that we suggested h a t a & - n i t h gphgy. That was never the question. In any ax, typologies arc only an aid which, as Weber underlined, always change with changing rcalities, and constantly have to be rcpiaccd. For him who sham Schiitz’s opinion that wc constantly categoria cays as socially acting pawns and not only as scientific observers, the reproach of arrogance will be maningless (Schiitz. 1974, p. 252; Schiitz, 1971, I, p. 7; Cicourel, 1970, pp. 97 f, 315 f.: hereby, we refer to the Schiitzian distinction between first-ordcr and xcond-order constructs). Did not &nvcnuti himself typify arrogance by accusing us of it?

3. Due to one of his ill-considered statements, Benvenuti docs not accept our various total numbas of Sicilian coopcratives. Yet this apparent “contradiction” is explained, too, for careful mding shows that the figures are always different as a rcsult of successive elimination of coopcratives which do not belong to the nnge of investigation. One like Bcnvcnuti who puts such high demands on figures, should not let himself bc led to such wrong conclusions by such a simple operation.

“VersteW of thefleld Bcnvcnuti’s main objection to us is that we sell “science software” and do not deliver hard facts; that we show an impressionistic “easy-going attitude towards research”; that our methodologid appanrus is eclectic and that we simply threw on the market a coloured bunch of “facts” as a book.

Apparently our critic starts from an uncompromising model of scientific explanation which should also be valid for the field of social action, and should deliver objective “hard” facts through as neutral rcxvch as possible. The recent methodological discussion showed, however, that its hidden subject-objcct dualism cannot be maintained and that followers of this idcal are almost forced to drift into an “objective crisis”, becaux it does not adquately take into account either the subjectivity of the mcarchcr or the subjectivity of those under observation. In this sense, Weber, phenomenological sociology and anthropology have stressed “the intended p u p x of the action”, in order to grasp the various spheres of human thinking and acting, and to cake seriously all indications of a subjective world view, and to adapt the techniques of cdkcting data accordingly. Clean research, as we all it, attempts the very opposite with its ideal of neutrality. Contrary to this, we would contend that even

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“gossip and coffeehouse conjectures” belong to the “hard”, because they belong to the “life-world” of decisive facts.

Our method a n certainly be understood as eclectic. We, at last, do not believe in tbr mirack method, which produces interculturally unchanged, significant results for all situ- ations. In this mse we arc consciously eclectic, and not bec?usc of wrongly attributed methodologid ignorance! Long-term investigations in Sicily, not only those carried out by the authors, haw shown that, in order to take into account the subjectively intended sense as well, methods haw to be adapted to people, and not people to methods (Cicourel 1970, p. 146 4. Otherwise, there i s a danger of carrying out distinctly “objective” research but losing the “object of its objectivity” (Bittner, 1973, p. 109 ff.) being at the mercy of arbitrarineu. We could haw easily carried out “clean mcuch” in Benvenuti’s sense, but knowing our

field, we ncfused to wrong the members of Sicilian cooperatives, just to achieve so-called accuracy. It shows that the Sicilian milieu has been misunderstood if it is assumed to be the same as in our societies. Sicilian society, with its specid Mediterranean structure, is marked by certain norms. The researcher too, in his research project, must not only take them into account but llso adapt himself to them (temporarily). This is why J. Johnson (1978, p. SO K) stresses so much “managing entrte” for the data collection. To Benvcnuti’s discomfort, we must therefore state that our p u p discussions were not conducted according to a strict pattern but - forced by the milieu - could only be loosely structured group chats carried out during work breaks. Therefore we let our subjects determine the pace and length of the talks themselves, so these wcre not arranged to produce “data”. It is self-evident that before we conducted the outs, we made ourselves familiar witb the milieu and became familiar figum in the milieu (not as inquisitive marchers but in the ascribed r+es of a “painter” and a “geographer”). The Sicilian “mentality of superimposition” (~bcrlagcrungsmentalit&) with extreme mistnut and extreme caution opposed to “usable” statements therefore necessarily. and rightly, determined the whole research process and choice of methods. It is possible that we dealt with these problems too briefly in our book, because we regarded them as methodologid common sense.

COncluJon The differences between thea two attitudes may not have k n rcsolved in this answer. They ue not manifest in the sense that some treat the problem scientifically and others adopt a literary approach, but rather in the IcnSe that some are more interested in problems of qualitative data collecton and others are more interested in data analysis.

The atk of the review article aused us g m t amusement. We ue all for cheerful science. Unfortunately the author did not sustain his cheerfulness throughout his text. He read and reviewed our book with such wrath that he made unfortunate distortions and misinterpre- cations. Even a Ruder’s Digest article would have deserved better than this.

REFERENCES

BIITNER, E. (1973), Objectivity and Realism in Sociology, in G. Psathas (ed.), Pbrnomne hgkalScdoha (New York: John Wilcy), 109-12).

BLOK, A. (lwS), Mlfia and peasant rebellion as contrasting factors in Sicilian latifundism, EurOpan JoumalofScdbhgy 10: 95-116.

C~COUR@L, A. V. (1970), Mcthode und Messung in der Soziologie (FrankfurdM.: Suhr- hmp); original: Method and Measurement in Sociology, 1964 (GlencodIll.: Frcc PRSS).

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ELSENSTAM, S. N. (1973), Tradition, Change and Modernity (New York/London/ Toronto: J. Wiley).

GIORDANO, CHR. & HEITLACE, R. (197S), Mobilisierung cder Scheinmobiisierung? Gcnosscnschaft und tnditionelle Sozialstruktur am Beispiel Siziliens (Buel: Social

HEITLAGE, R. (1979), Genosscnxhaftsthcorie und Partizipationsdiskussion (FnnkfudM:

HESS, H. (1970), Mafia. Zcntrale Herrxhaft und lokale Gcgcnmacht (Tubingcn: Mohr/ Paul Siebeck) (Hcidelberger Sociologia, VOL 8).

HYDE, M. J. (1980), Philosophical Hermeneutics and Communiative Experience: The Paradigm of Oral History, Man and Work, 13: 81-98.

JOHNSON, J. M. (1978), Doing Field Rescarch (New York: Free Press). KUHN, TH. S. (1972), The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chiago: Univ. Press). WUTZ, A. (1971). Gcsammclte Auktze. Band 1: Das Problem der sozialcn Wirklichkeit

SCHUTZ, A. (1974), Dcr sinnhafte Aufbau dcr soziakn Welt. Eine Einleitung in die

T ~ O N E , V. (19SJ). k Sicilia dalla dominazionc Spagnuok all’Unitsl d’Italia (Bologna).

Strategies. VOL 1).

Campus).

(Collected Papers, vol. I, The Hague 1962).

verstehcnde Soziologic (Frankfun/M: Suhrkamp).

A REJOINDER TO G. HORZETZKY*

bu U. PLANCK rad J. ZlCHE

To uy to write a textbook on rural sociology may bc too daring at a time when many call for “the construction of a ‘new’ sociology”, as Howard Newby docs. T h o r who try will, unavoidably, be blamed for those uneasy fcclings which conventional rural sociology arouses in quite a number of its obscmrs and practitioners. This is exactly what happened to us, the authors of “Land- und Agnnoziologie: ane Einfiihrung in die Soziologie dcs hdlichcn Siedlungsnuma und dcs Agrarbcreichs” (Rural and Agricultural Sociology: an Introduc- tion into the Sociology of Rural Areas and of Agriculture), published in August 1979 by Eugcn Ulmer Verlag, Stuttgur/Germany. In German speaking countries the book has bccn welcomed by many, the more so because thc excellent “Einfiihrung in die Agnrsoziologie” (Introduction to Run1 Sociology) by Pcrer von Blanckcnburg (1962) has bccn out of print for many prs .

Reviews of our book neatly reflected the p m n t state of ambiguity of the science: the textbook was welcomed with unlimited approval by some as well as pulled to pieces by others, the latter including G. Horzetzky. Thus, we gratefully accepted the offer of the Editor of Sosiolgia Rvralrj to present a rejoinder to Honetzky‘s review. This we do mainly to give to a professional audience an i d a of the intentions we followed with the textbook and of its conception, howevcr brief such an undertaking may be.

Had Honetzky, blaming us for “lacking concept”, meant to say: ‘These authors do not have a clear-cut “Weltanschauung”, their students are, thus, left without a focal point of orientations hc would have been right. However, we never wanted to indoctrinate our

* d G. Honetzky, review of U. P h c k u. J. Ziche (1979), Land- und Agnrsoziologie, in smo&gia &ra/ir xx (1980). 3: 213-214.