The Sociology of Deviance: An Obituary

Colin Summer charts the rise and fall of a field of enquiry. He argues that the lack of recent "warfare over the terrain over the sociology of deviance is actually due to the fact that the combatants over the years, in their enthusiasm for the fight, have completely demolished the terrain...the terrain now resembles the Somme in 1918. It is barran, fruitless, full of empty trenches and craters, littered with unexploded mines and eerily silent. No one fights for hegemony over a dangerous graveyard. it is now time to drop arms and show respect for the dead". The first part of this extended obituary documents the formation of the field of sociology of deviance from its conception in the womb of Durkheim's social theory to its coming of age in late 1930s sociology. The second part examines the heyday of the field as a popular science and as a critique of social control in the 1960s. The final part analyzes its death at the hands of the post-1968 critics. Throughout, Colin Summer explores the theoretical matrix that held the sociology of deviance together and sets it in the context of culture, politics and social change.