THE HIDDEN ABODE: SOCIOLOGY AS ANALYSIS of the UNEXPECTED* 1999 Presidentialaddress
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THE HIDDEN ABODE: SOCIOLOGY AS ANALYSIS OF THE UNEXPECTED* 1999 PresidentialAddress Alejandro Portes PrincetonUniversity Purposive social action has provided the bedrockfor theoretical develop- ments and model building in several social sciences. Since its beginnings, however, sociology has harbored, a "contrarian" vocation based on exam- ining the unrecognized, unintended,and emergentconsequences of goal-ori- ented activity. I present several examples of the sociological practice of bashing myths based on the logic of purposive action and offer a typology of alternative goals, means, and outcomes illustrated by both classic sociologi- cal writings and contemporary research. The multiple contingencies docu- mented by sociologists in the past cautions against attempts to build institu- tions or implementprograms grounded on grand blueprints. The cautionary tale supported by sociological analysis of concealed goals, shifts in mid- course, and unexpectedeffects does not lead, however,to the conclusion that scientific prediction and practical interventionare futile endeavors. It leads instead to an emphasis on the dialectics of social life, and on the need to take into account the definitions of the situation of relevant actors. I offer some illustrations of successful mid-range theories that are based on the analysis of dilemmas in social processes and the importance of sensitivity to the unexpected in the implementationof programmatic interventions. A little while ago, duringone of his pe- Businessin his privateschool was booming, A riodic trips to New YorkCity, I met despiteits steep tuition-unusual for a Third RobertoFernandez Miranda, principal of the Worldcountry. The secret was that his stu- La Luz school in the DominicanRepublic. dents were mostly children of expatriates, not those who had returnedhome, but immi- * Direct all correspondenceto Alejandro Portes, grantsstill living and workingin New York. Department of Sociology, Princeton University, About the same time, an articlein TheNew Princeton, NJ 08544 ([email protected]). YorkTimes reported on the proliferationof American Sociological Review, 2000, Vol. 65 (February: -18) 1 2 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW such schools in major Dominican cities indi- port that immigrants from other nations also cating that the experience of La Luz was not send their children home to protect them exceptional. 1 from what they see as the perverse conse- For this bounty, Dominican educators have quences of excessive American freedom American legislation to thank. Traditionally, (Matthei and Smith 1996.) raising children in the Caribbeanhas entailed From our first days in the discipline, we the use of physical discipline to enforce par- social scientists have been trained in the for- ents' and teachers' authority. In most fami- mulation of hypotheses about aspects of so- lies, corporal punishment is used sparsely, cial reality. Scientific hypotheses explicitly but it stands as the ultimate sanction for seri- assume the lawfulness of the real world that ous violations and as an accepted instrument makes a number of regularities predictable of proper child rearing. Upon arrival in the and observable. More implicitly, the logic of United States, Dominican immigrants are hypothesis formulation commonly assumes promptly deprived of this means of control. that consequences follow more or less lin- Children soon learn that they can neutralize early or rationally from certain antecedents. any threat of physical punishment by the Linearity implies a cumulative process where counter threat of calling 911 and denouncing the presence and growth of given factors lead their parents for child abuse. They are then logically to their culmination in specific ef- at liberty to explore the many lures offered fects. Rationality implies intentionality when by American youth culture, including the these effects are brought about by the delib- semi-open use of drugs. erate actions of those involved. Immigrantparents thus face a dilemma. By Many aspects of social life are linear and working in New York, they escape the grind- rational in this sense and, hence, lend them- ing poverty in which they were mired at selves to a science of cumulative and predict- home, but they risk losing their children to able consequences. Examples include the the streets-perhaps to a tragic end. Many transformation of parental aspirations into come to a logical but wrenching solution; children's educational achievements; the namely, to split the family by sending chil- translation of years of formal education into dren back to live with grandparentsor other money wages; the conquest of political kin to attend private schools in the Domini- power by movements able to mobilize hu- can Republic (Itzigsohn et al. 1999). These man and material resources; and the achieve- schools are expected to apply the same stern ment of higher growth rates by nations that discipline in which parents themselves were have invested for many years in physical in- socialized, untroubledby foreign legislation. frastructureand technology. Once some immigrant families took this The presence of so many linear regulari- drastic step, it quickly spread, to the benefit ties has stimulated many social scientists and of private educators in the island. The com- large subsets of established disciplines to passionate framers of child protective legis- constitute themselves on the basis of the for- lation in the United States could not possibly mulation and refinement of theories based on have expected that it would end up building this general assumption: The world is pre- a private school sector in another country. dictable, and consequences follow cumula- The experiences of Dominican parents are tively from certain premises. Much contem- apparentlynot isolated, since researchers re- porary economic theorizing provides a suit- able example of grounding formulations on the assumption of stable preferences and ac- I This meeting took place in the course of field- tion guided by the rational search for indi- work for a project on TransnationalCommunities vidual gain. There is certainly nothing wrong among Latin American immigrants in the United with the analysis of such outcomes or with States. The project's co-investigator is Luis E. grounding a field on a family of predictable, Guarnizo, of the University of California at cumulative events. Davis, and it has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and the Ford But sociology seems to have a different, Foundation. The actual interview took place in alternative vocation, defined by its sensitiv- the Washington Heights district of Manhattan, ity to the dialectics of things, unexpected November 1997. turns of events, and the rise of alternative SOCIOLOGY AS ANALYSIS OF THE UNEXPECTED 3 countervailing structures. It is to this "con- versions of doctrinal Marxism, and a consen- trary-to-expectations" family of outcomes sual perspective can pay attention to latent and sociology's affinity to it that I call atten- dysfunctional as well as functional conse- tion because it holds both the basic promise quences of institutions whose manifest pur- and the principal challenge for our discipline poses are quite different (as noted by Merton at century's end. [1949] 1968:92-96). The key feature I wish to focus on is the sociological penchant for skepticism-for looking at the "hidden SYSTEM-BUILDING AND abode" (Marx's term) behind the appearance COUNTER-SYSTEM CRITICS: of things, and for unearthing the unexpected A TWO-CENTURY TRADITION in social structures and events. This "con- Efforts to build systems of sociology have a trarian"tradition owes much to social theo- history of almost two centuries, coinciding rists of different orientations, but it is not ex- with the very beginnings of the discipline. clusively identified with them. In fact, the For the most part, system-builders grounded institutionalization of this mode of thinking their efforts in a cumulative logic that identi- owes as much or more to its empirical prac- fied certain master principles of society from titioners. which a series of predictable consequences would follow. Not only Durkheim, but every FROM THE FIELD: THE French, German, and then American sociolo- SURPRISES BASHING MYTHS gist worth his salt at the turn of the twentieth PRACTICE OF century tried his hand at this intellectual en- The military regime of General Augusto deavor. The resulting books, variously titled Pinochet in Chile succeeded in drastically Sociology, Principles of Sociology, Commu- transforming that country's economy and nity and Society and the like form a core part putting it on a "free market"footing that con- of our heritage.2 forms strictly to the neoliberal model of de- But along with these efforts, there has al- velopment. Analysts of this experience have ways been an alternative tradition that ques- described it as a drastic departure from the tions the validity of explicitly stated inten- socialist policies sponsored by the deposed tions and of linear predictions. This alterna- Allende regime and the state capitalist model tive camp has encompassed a heterogeneous fostered by earlier Christian Democratic ad- group, ranging from theorists that gave pri- ministrations. What these analysts failed to macy to nonrational and charismatic factors notice is that it was the policies of these ear- to those that elevated conflict to the category lier regimes that furnished the basis for the of the true motor of history. This second and success of Chilean