Friday, February 8, 2019

Are you a criminologist or a sociologist? Sara Wakefield Responds

1. the tensions surrounding how a person is labeled (sociologist or criminologist), especially for people who could be labeled both

I have no idea how I am labeled. Or put better, if I conducted the most narcissistic nationally-representative survey ever of sociologists and criminologists in order to ask, I’m not certain a clear answer would emerge. Aside from a healthy number of “Sara who?” responses, I suspect the sociologists would split a bit, the criminologists would call me a sociologist, and age of reporter would matter. I remember a time when I cared about the label – I strongly identified as a sociologist early on – but I no longer have a stake in being one or the other. Both is probably right but the best answer is that it depends on who else is in the room (context matters, who knew?).

That I’m not worried about it anymore is a function of tenure, an idiosyncratic set of opportunities and constraints as one half of an academic couple, and some fairly large changes in my areas of interest since I received my PhD. That said, it is clear to me that some heterogeneity in how other people define me probably limited me early in my career but now benefits me in demonstrable ways. Clear ‘branding’ seems important for junior scholars but it becomes limiting pretty fast.

Right before tenure and certainly after it, I noticed my tendency to put the criminology hat on among sociologists and socio-legal scholars and to put the sociology hat on among criminologists and economists. [It’s a tossup with psychologists, no idea why.] A charitable interpretation of this tendency is that I’ve been lucky through the windy path of my career and friendships to be exposed to a variety of scholars, projects, and literatures and that I most enjoy learning from those who form a core in their own areas/disciplines. The less charitable interpretation of this is that I’m a (hopefully kind) contrarian at heart, that I lack the discipline (pun intended) to become part of any core, or that I really and truly hate working alone. I’m okay with any of those interpretations.

2. what other people make of these tensions and how they navigate them

The labels are important – after all, someone has to form the core and police the boundaries, yes? There is also a place for criticism of those boundaries and upending long-held assumptions. Especially for junior scholars, ‘branding’ yourself as any one thing is hard enough, without adding in multiple audiences, constituencies, and fields. I’m less certain that remaining in your core after the first few years is required for career success everywhere and I harbor suspicions that it is not good for social science, especially if your interests clearly cross-cut a number of fields. One of the things I like about criminology, criminal justice, and socio-legal studies (broadly defined) is that they are much less invested in policing boundaries because we’ve always borrowed from many other disciplines – this is why generalizations about these fields more often than not scream ignorance to me. Sociology is much the same though – it’s everything and nothing so good luck figuring out where it stops and starts. It strikes me that the main challenge for those of us in between is to consistently spend enough time in each space so you can talk like an insider without anyone laughing too hard.

I now think less about how to navigate these minefields (or worse, planting my flag in them) and instead I’m simply trying to be a person who sees them clearly. Once you see them, you can quietly navigate around them (and, if you’re lucky, say something useful by pointing them out). I don’t think this necessarily means you can’t stick to a topic or you constantly have to reinvent yourself – I’ve been unsuccessfully trying to stop writing about incarceration for at least four years now – but if you wouldn’t re-write everything you wrote five years ago a little differently today, you’re doing something wrong. The main benefit of straddling multiple fields is you’re less likely to get stuck and miss the important stuff.

3. context of the job market, publication, or other opportunities like speaker series or field-level service

JOB MARKET: I struggled with these questions because I think the world has changed a lot since I was on the market out of grad school. I’m also less certain that the idiosyncrasies of my current situation translate well to others, especially junior scholars. Suffice it to say, I’ve applied to both crim and soc programs (out of grad school and since) and received offers from both (out of grad school and since). I spent a long time trying to write about this well but I ended up cutting all of it and would simply say that I am always happy to talk to people about applying to crim programs and you don’t have to know me in order to set up coffee or a call.

Here’s what I will say: Crim programs are as heterogenous as sociology. The question I get most often from sociologists/law & society scholars applying to crim programs is some version of “Will they make me be a ‘C’riminologist or only publish in crim journals?” The short answer is no. The long answer is it depends (see below).

PUBLICATIONS: I seem to specialize in writing things published in weird places that some people read. Writing a book was great – I found writing one simply solidified the perception that I occupy some sort of interstitial space between criminology and sociology, thereby freeing me from the constraints of both. I wish I could say I planned that – I didn’t and am astonished to find myself writing a second one – but it’s fantastic. I have watched colleagues and friends in Crim/CJ and in Sociology get pressure to publish in Criminology or ASR or whatever but I’ve never been subject to the same pressures overmuch (or I’m so obtuse that I failed to notice it). Some departments really care about this but it seems like they only care about it for some people. I try and think broadly about who to work with and what I can learn from them – insofar as people may think of me as both a sociologist and a criminologist, I suspect it reflects 1) a lot of effort to stay involved in sociology while working in a crim program and 2) collaboration and friendship networks across both fields because it sure isn’t where I publish or don’t.

TALKS AND SERVICE: This is the one context you asked about where I have been planful, rather than just doing what I do and being relieved it worked out. I give a fair number of talks and I spend a lot of time at conferences. I navigate conferences very differently based on how close or far they are to my “home” areas, however. At ASA and ASC, my “home” conferences, I do not often attend panels beyond my own and those of my students – I’m there to do core work and I’m usually swamped. These are unfortunately the last places where I will learn new things or challenge my assumptions. I am involved in my groups and, as a result, I am fairly active in volunteer and elected service positions in both organizations.

About every three years, I start feeling overly narrow, out of date with advances in other areas, and bored/disagreeable. As a solution, I make sure to get out of my bubble. Six years ago, I solved this problem by diving in to a massive new data collection with a bunch of people I’d never worked with before and who do work really different than my own. Three years ago, I solved this problem by going to Oxford for a semester. This year I’m solving it by attending PAA and LSA. At LSA and PAA, I’m there to learn, attend panels, challenge what I think I know, and go as far afield as possible. In none of these spaces do I expect to run the show, get elected to something, or drive the conversation but I always learn and you’ll usually see it in my work a few years later. All this to say, there are benefits of getting out of your space, with some humility.

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