Hide-and-Seek

I wrote my Sociological Theory symposium article, Postmodern Social Theory: Representational Practices (Richardson 1991, pp. 173-79), for an audience of professional sociological theorists, especially those who were suspicious of postmodernism and dismissive of feminist postmodernism. My focus was on the constitutive power of language. Challenging sociology's warrant to write theory, I proposed that we name the writing of one's own life as social theory; that we teach people how to construct [their own] social/personal theory (1991, p. 177). Also, challenging prose writing as the only or even the best way to represent social theory, I proposed alternative forms of representation. Poetry, I argued, commends itself to open and multiple readings . . . draws lay readers to social theorizing, and sociologists to critical confrontation with their value-constituting practices (p. 177). At least that is what I thought I had said. That is what I had hoped would be subjected to critical response.