The sociologist and the social position

Not everyone can be a social scientist or a sociologist. As not everyone can be a soccer player. The only people being really able to do social science or sociology are the socially uprooted as many cases demonstrate all along the history of the social sciences; i.e., those who are not well integrated in its membership groups, and which do not have reference groups: these are characterized by having a habitus which, by socialization (some would call it “by nature”), is cognitively heterodox and socially critical. But why are these the best prepared for social science? As rightly said by Bachelard, the only science that deserves to be called as such is the science of what the eye cannot catch at a glance, and the socially uprooted is the only one that after a traumatic process, which usually involves the collapse of the world taken for granted and the subsequent epistemological reconversion as a fundamental part of this process —and from which he provides itself the relevant knowledge to reinterpret itself and the social world (which means that he has the opportunity of getting this knowledge)—, is ready to think on the counter (this process is called epistemological break). That is, he is ready to reveal the unseen to the naked eye and, as Bachelard says, to avoid the many pitfalls both of the common and of the cultivated thought. It is clear that the better prepared to do that is that one equipped with a habitus which by socialization is cognitively heterodox and socially critical and also —this point is very important— that who had the opportunity to acquire the knowledge allowing him to relocate itself and reinterpret the world, revealing those power relations that are invisible to the eyes of the others. The socially uprooted which, becoming unbelieving, because he has the means allowing him to not believe the official truths to which he opposes the scientifically constructed truths of science, is therefore the most well equipped to do so. And so he becomes a real sociologist.