Sociological imagination refers to a way of seeing the world which transcends the individual and takes a sociological view of the world.
In simple terms, we can think of it as stepping back and looking at the larger picture. Or when we ask someone to look at things “in context of” something, we are, in a way, exhorting them to view things with a sociological imagination.
Academically speaking, sociological imagination is a little more precise than that.
The Academic Definition of the Sociological Imagination
The sociological imagination involves viewing the world and everything in it through the lens of social and historical consciousness.
This means that an individual who possesses a sociological imagination is conscious of the numerous social and historical processes that resulted in his or her being present and alive at the specific time and place that they are.
The term sociological imagination was coined by the American sociologist C. Wright Mills in his highly influential book of the same name published in 1959.
Mills was concerned with two opposing paths that the discipline of sociology was taking to study society – the individual and the systemic. The latter was most evident in the rise of structural functionalism in Mills’ time.
Thus, Mills defined the sociological imagination as the ability to “grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society.” (Mills, 1959)
With his formulation of the concept of sociological imagination, Mills sought to reconcile the two diverging approaches, insisting that neither the individual nor the structure can be adequately understood in isolation.
Definition of Sociological Imagination
For Mills the sociological imagination exists at the intersection of the unfolding of the grand narrative of history, and one’s own personal biography.
Mills identified three elements of the sociological imagination:
- Recognizing the connections between our personal experiences ( biography) and larger socio-historic forces (history).
- Learning to identify when certain phenomena are the result of structural forces acting upon an individual.
- Learning to isolate and identify all the social forces acting upon an individual.
Examples of Sociological Imagination
Example 1: Ethically Sourced Products
When sourcing a product that is ethical, you are demonstrating a sociological imagination because you’re balancing individual need with social good.
The use of ethically sourced products has seen a rise in the last few decades, especially in First World countries.
An ethically sourced product is one which assures the end user that it was sourced and produced using ethical, humane, and non-exploitative means.
Often this also means that producers and laborers involved in its production were paid fair wages, were provided safe and healthy workplaces, that no child labor was used, that local communities benefitted from its production, etc.
More consumers today insist that the products they buy be ethically sourced.
In making this decision, the consumers are demonstrating a sociological imagination in which they are conscious of not just their own needs and benefits, but also of those who produce the products they consume.
For instance Starbucks prominently displays on its website its ethical sourcing protocol called Coffee and Farmer Equity (C.A.F.E.) under which it sources coffee grown using sustainable and environment-friendly methods, from farmers who are paid just compensation for their produce.
Starbucks does this because several of its customers view their everyday cup of coffee with a sociological imagination, and realize that most coffee is grown in poor third world countries where farmers have to grapple with the challenges of poverty, environmental degradation, and climate change.
Moreover, coffee cultivation outside of its place of origin – Ethiopia and the Arabian peninsula – is directly the product of European colonialism.
Dutch traders took the coffee bean from Ethiopia and planted it first in India and later in Indonesia. From there, its cultivation spread to South America. At each place, large plantations owned by exploitative colonial masters and worked by poorly paid indigenous labour was the standard mode of coffee production until the early 20th century.
A consumer of a Starbucks coffee who insists on seeing its ethically sourced label ( or C.A.F.E., as Starbucks calls it), is likely conscious of this entire sequence of events in history, and his or her own place within it.
Example 2: Conflict Resources
Similar to ethically sourced products, the concept of conflict resources is used to identify certain raw materials, especially minerals, that originate in war zones, and may be used to fund warring militias in those regions. By avoiding conflict resources, you’re demonstrating a sociological imagination.
The most common conflict resources are known as the 3TG – tin, tungsten, tantalum, and gold. Tantalum and Tungsten are trace minerals used for making tiny but critical internal components that go inside electronic and electrical equipment such as mobile phones, computers, and light bulbs.
As a result, they are not as prominently visible to the end user as fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) and edible consumer items.
Nonetheless, their use in funding brutal wars has been flagged by socially conscious members of civil society.
In 2009, Time magazine used the term “blood computers” to refer to the widespread use of microcomponents sourced from conflict zones in Africa that went into the making of computers and mobile phones (Dias, 2009).
The term “blood computers” was a reference to the better known phenomenon of blood diamonds or diamonds sourced from war-torn regions of Africa the proceeds from which went into fuelling bloody armed conflict in the region often involving child soldiers.
As a response, the US government introduced the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010, one of whose provisions was the mandatory disclosure of the use of conflict resources, if any, that went into the manufacture of products sold in the USA. (Spelliscy, 2013)
Example 3: Common But Differentiated Responsibility
The principle of common but differentiated responsibility (CBDR) is an example of the sociological imagination being applied to the global policy framework by the United Nations.
The concept of common but differentiated responsibility (CBDR) is used in the context of climate action to combat global warming and climate change.
It implies that all nations of the world have a common responsibility to curb emissions and counter climate change.
At the same time, it recognizes that certain nations, particularly those of the developed world, must bear a greater burden of this responsibility on account of social and historical reasons which allowed them to achieve a much higher level of industrial development due to the early start they had in the race for industrialization.
It follows then that these industrialized countries of the First World are likely to have contributed more to global emissions, and for far longer, than those that are still undergoing industrialization.
The CBDR principle also recognizes that the industrialized countries have accumulated a larger share of global wealth, and thus possess greater capability to act against climate change compared to developing countries.
The principle of CBDR was first adopted during the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. It recognizes that climate change and global warming are the result of specific historical and social processes that unfolded over the course of the last 3 centuries with the onset of the industrial revolution in Europe, and needs to be viewed within this context.
Example 4: Affirmative Action Policies
Affirmative action policies are the result of applying the sociological imagination to the fact of the under-representation of non-dominant groups of people in society.
Affirmative action policies are policies that seek to correct imbalances in society arising out of historical and social reasons. Their benefit is that they can increase inclusion and diversity, while others argue that they unfairly discriminate against individuals based upon identity markers alone.
Examples of affirmative action policies include reservations in jobs or educational institutes for members of underrepresented or historically marginalized communities.
For instance, in the USA, several universities reserve seats for members of the African-American, indigenous American, and other marginalized communities.
The rationale behind such policy action is that several studies conducted throughout the 20th century showed that university enrolment in the African-American community stood well below the national average.
Viewing such a fact from the perspective of a sociological imagination pushes us to uncover the reasons that underlie it.
Sociological studies have demonstrated that low levels of university enrolment among African-Americans is due to a host of socio-economic reasons that have their roots in the historical marginalization and stigmatization of the community in the United States that continued well into the first half of the 20th century.
Similarly, members of other disadvantaged or underrepresented groupings such as women, differently abled applicants are encouraged by both state-run and private organizations to apply for positions, recognizing the fact of their historical marginalization.
Example 5: The Four-Day Work Week
The four-day work week is a proposed arrangement under which employees would work for four days a week and be off-work for the remaining three. This policy represents an understanding of both the individual need for recreation and the social need for a productive workforce.
The arrangement is gaining traction over the last few years and several companies around the world have conducted trial runs that have reported encouraging results in terms of employee productivity and satisfaction.
It is speculated that the four-day work week may well become the norm in the future and replace the present professional norm of the five-day work week.
The five-day work week itself gained widespread adoption only in the early twentieth century. It was the result of large-scale agitation by labor unions worldwide for better working conditions.
These agitations reached a boiling point during the 1917 October Revolution in Russia when workers and miners went on strike en masse protesting against poor working conditions.
Taking his cue from the events in Russia, Henry Ford was among the earliest industrialists to introduce a five-day work week. (Counter, 2021)
Before the tumultuous labor unrest of the 20th century, the six-day work week was the norm for most of human history.
We thus see that the evolution of the work week is not a phenomenon that cannot be viewed in isolation, but rather needs to examined as a part of the long history of the struggle between labor and capital in which it is embedded.
Conclusion
When you exercise a sociological imagination, you have the ability to understand context. You can see both the needs of individuals and the needs of society and attempt to juggle them when coming up with policies, ethics, and simple decisions in your life.
References
Counter, R. (2021) Blame Henry Ford: Why the work week as we know it is all wrong Financial Post https://financialpost.com/fp-work/blame-henry-ford-why-the-work-week-as-we-know-it-is-all-wrong
Kaur, H. (2013) What studies reveal about gun ownership in the US CNN https://edition.cnn.com/2022/06/02/us/gun-ownership-numbers-us-cec/index.html
Mills, C.W. (1959) The Sociological Imagination Grove Press.
Dias, E. (2009, July 24) First blood diamonds, now blood computers? Time https://web.archive.org/web/20101205121726/http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1912594,00.html
Torres-Speliscy, C. (2013, Sept 20) Blood on your handset Slate https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2013/09/conflict-minerals-from-the-congo-is-your-cellphone-made-with-them.html
Sullivan, D.M. (2003) “The conception view of personhood: A review” Ethics & Medicine, 19 (1): 11-33.
This article was co-authored by Kamalpreet Gill Singh, PhD. Dr. Gill has a PhD in Sociology and has published academic articles in reputed international peer-reviewed journals. He holds a Master’s degree in Politics and International Relations and a Bachelor’s in Computer Science.
This article was peer-reviewed and edited by Chris Drew (PhD). The review process on Helpful Professor involves having a PhD level expert fact check, edit, and contribute to articles. Reviewers ensure all content reflects expert academic consensus and is backed up with reference to academic studies. Dr. Drew has published over 20 academic articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education and holds a PhD in Education from ACU.