“How many sociologists does it take to change a light bulb?”
A: One, but the lightbulb has to sign a consent form before the
sociologist can touch it.
A: None. It’s an institutional problem.
A: Typical quantitative methodologists, always trying to reduce a
problem to numbers.
A: Our purposes are (1) to describe the state of the light bulb, (2)
to explain how the light bulb came to be that way (e.g., ‘burned
out’), and (3) to provide some insight into how the light bulb might
respond to different interventions. As scientists, it is not our
purpose to “change” the light bulb. Instead, we should try to inform
policymakers so that they can determine the right kind of light bulb
actions for a brighter future.
A: One, but it will take three years and two revise-and-rescrews
before it gets done.
A: The sociologist can’t find the “Change Bulb” menu option in SPSS,
and so then just writes a few paragraphs about how the dark is
preferable anyway.
A: Can we, should we, change the lightbulb when the context of
light-bulb changing hasn’t been fully deracialized?
A: The very suggestion of a light bulb is a Western hegemonic account
requiring emic validation. That is, the light bulb represents a
recursive and socially embedded focal artefact, which cannot be
decontextualized. In fact, its very “existence” points out the
localness and relativity of boundary objects. The light bulb hence is
nothing more than a cultural rhetorical device, scarcely agnostic, and
thus surely constructed. The light bulb then only exists in text and
word, and receives its ‘realness’ in text and word, only.
