Forms of Life

"Harry Collins is a highly respected and well-known sociologist of science and one of the leaders in the founding of that field. In a project that befits his stature in science studies and in the broader field of sociology, he has turned to a more general reflection on how he did what he has done, and to drawing lessons from his own experiences over many years--lessons about how to do the kind of thing he has so successfully done himself. In particular, he has thought intensively about methods, about the way he did the work that he is justly renowned for, and especially about the methodological issues that have stirred up so much passionate discussion in sociology. In this book he uses the materials he has produced over so many years of research to draw some basic lessons about how to go about studying collective activities, and especially about what bases our belief that we are learning something useful when we gather whatever kind of data we gather. The goal then here is to provide a comprehensive, critical, and reflexive introduction to interpretative qualitative social science methodology, based on an entire career's worth of professional experience, and told in a similarly accessible style to Collins's other books"--