Cinta de Moebio: Revista de Epistemología de Ciencias Sociales

Grondona (2016) El giro narrativo y el lugar de la heterogeneidad discursiva en el análisis de teorías sociológicas. El caso de la teoría de la modernización en Gino Germani Cinta moebio 56: 147-158. doi: 10.4067/S0717-554X2016000200003

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The narrative turn and the place of discourse heterogeneity in the analysis of sociological theories. The case of Gino Germani’s modernisation theory

Ana Grondona (antrondona@hotmail.com) Instituto de Investigación Gino Germani, Universidad de Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires, Argentina) ORCID: 0000-0003-2596-049X

Abstract

The article discusses the narrative turn as a key for the analysis of sociological/social theories. To that end, we present (as a sort of “case study”) some preliminary results of an inquiry around the theories of modernization put forward by the Italian-Argentine sociologist Gino Germani. We look into the narrative of transition, its paradoxes and a counter narrative found in some of his works. From this point we draw some conclusions about the limits of the "narrative turn" as a perspective for social theory analysis and display, as an alternative, Foucault's perspective of re-problematization. We primarily look into the danger of homogenization that the “narrative turn” entails, in spite of the heterogeneity of elements which, as we shall argue, form the modernization theory found in Germani. In this sense, towards the end, the article seeks to contribute to a reflection on the work with theoretical texts and proposes an approach able to observe the historical and material singularities involved in his production.

Key words: metanarrative, narrative of transition, problematization, meaning process, sociological theory.