Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Akbarpur Mahavidyalaya, Akbarpur, Kanpur Dehat
JournalRPIMJ
Volume / Issue2 / 1
Pages102–110
Published09 Sep 2026
Paper IDRPIMJ21JM260014
Views / Downloads13 / 2
Article summary
Abstract
Many of those who entered the profession of sociology in the last decade, as also
those who are entering it today are dissatisfied with the existing state of the subject.
They are eager to explore new ways of undertaking their work. The search for newness
is of course central to science and scholarship, and an essential condition of their progress
and even their continuing vitality. At the same time, nothing new emerges in the world
of ideas out of a sheer desire for novelty: newness would amount to little if it did not
arise from a careful, detailed and methodical scrutiny of existing knowledge-its concepts,
methods and theories. It speaks well of a profession when its new entrants are out of
sympathy with the mere mechanical reproduction of existing and available knowledge
in their field. But that cannot justify the frantic search fur novelty for its own sake.
And if it be said that those who hunger for newness do not do so aimlessly, it can also be
said that those who transmit accepted knowledge need not do so mechanically.
On an occasion like this, it is not enough to ask: how does newness begin? One must
also ask how it becomes integrated into the practice of a discipline. This, I should stress,
is a difficult issue, particularly in the early phase of a discipline’s career when it may
not at all be clear that what seems to have become established is going to last and must
therefore provide a yardstick for the inclusion or exclusion of new components. At the
same time, it will be unrealistic to expect that everything that is new, even if it appears
sound, will be automatically accepted and accommodated. The established practice of a
discipline is itself a social fact is well to remember that practices that are taken for
granted in the discipline today did not get automatically incorporated into it without
facing any resistance; I could give many examples from the work of sociologists of my
generation and of the preceding one.
Keywords
SociologySociological DisciplineSociological ProfessionTradition and InnovationExisting KnowledgeSociological TheorySociology in India
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How to cite this article
Rashmi Pandey (2026). Newness in Sociological Enquiry. ResearchPro International Multidisciplinary Journal, 2(1), 102–110. https://doi.org/10.70650/rpimj.2026v2i1000014
Rashmi Pandey. “Newness in Sociological Enquiry.” ResearchPro International Multidisciplinary Journal, vol. 2, no. 1, 2026, pp. 102–110. https://doi.org/10.70650/rpimj.2026v2i1000014
Rashmi Pandey. “Newness in Sociological Enquiry.” ResearchPro International Multidisciplinary Journal 2, no. 1 (2026): 102–110. https://doi.org/10.70650/rpimj.2026v2i1000014
Rashmi Pandey (2026) ‘Newness in Sociological Enquiry’, ResearchPro International Multidisciplinary Journal, 2(1), pp. 102–110. Available at: https://doi.org/10.70650/rpimj.2026v2i1000014.
Rashmi Pandey, “Newness in Sociological Enquiry,” ResearchPro International Multidisciplinary Journal, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 102–110, 2026. https://doi.org/10.70650/rpimj.2026v2i1000014.
Rashmi Pandey. Newness in Sociological Enquiry. ResearchPro International Multidisciplinary Journal. 2026;2(1):102–110. https://doi.org/10.70650/rpimj.2026v2i1000014.
Rashmi Pandey. Newness in Sociological Enquiry. ResearchPro International Multidisciplinary Journal 2026, 2 (1), 102–110. https://doi.org/10.70650/rpimj.2026v2i1000014.
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