2009. vol. 8. No. 1

Albion Small was the head of the first in the USA and worldwide university department of sociology (1892) and founder of the first professional sociologists’ journal (1895). Fighting with the wide audience’s wrong opinions and jealous preconceptions of specialists in venerable and accepted social sciences for identity of sociology, he tries to specify what does it mean to be a sociologist. Contrary to the opinion of the audience, it is necessary to differentiate sociologists from practical social workers and not to reduce the activity of the former to attendance of rookery, organization of charity, trusteeship over the poor and other socially unsuccessful elements. The specificity of sociologists’ engagement is not reducible to residual concrete topics not brought up by other social sciences. This specificity must be looked for in the use of definite method of research of social facts. The author calls this method philosophical, but its description is similar to what later will be called the system approach. The decisive point of sociological position, according to Small, lies within the art to contemplate and evaluate every particular aspect or fragment of social life in the past, present or future with its relations and mutual influences with other manifestations of human life in general. Such «master» has the right for the title of sociologist irrespective of his self-entitlement as economist, political scientist etc. In the context of this generalized definition of method author differentiates types (generic categories) of sociologists: from ones dealing with wide generalizations, to the interested in urgent concrete improvements, but following the standards of scientific method. In the end of the article questions of interrelation between professional «technical» language of sociology and ordinary language of perception of social facts by the public, and dangerous trespasses proclaimed from the name of sociology and provoking to ideologically crude mass movements, are considered. Author makes a call for delimitation, during the outset of sociological science, with the task of development of exact formulations of social problems and valid methods of their resolution.

The reviewed book is based on ethnographic research in Moscow in late 1990s. The author explores the phenomenon of «crisis» becoming a dominant framework of interpretation for ordinary Muscovites in postsocialist Russia, and shows how the framework functioned in ordinary processes of making sense of the world and in ordinary practices of everyday life. Particular attention is devoted to the phenomenon of autonomy of household as a social unit. The reviewer outlines the main points of the book and discusses its importance for understanding everyday life in postsocialist metropolis. Two main critical points are drawn: the lack of discussion of Moscow as an urban environment and of its specificity within Russia; and the problem of autonomy as autonomy from the state as compared to autonomy from the society.

In the paper an attempt is made to view some of the most fruitful approaches to defining a sociology's subject. It is argued that something becomes a sociology's subject only inasmuch as it can be pointed to with a finger. Pointing with a finger is viewed as a research procedure referring to a concrete ways of organization and production of the social order phenomena. The main object of the critique here is the three approaches to defining sociology's subject: frame analysis, theory of practices and sociology of things, which try to distinguish an observable features of social situations as something that participants must assign a meaning to. The alternative is to view social order phenomena as through and through local, accountable, competent, reproducible concerted sequences of action those accomplishment provide the participants with an observable and understandable features of the current situation of activity.