From the present of the discipline, we look back on a history of forgetting. Only very few social scientists, having outgrown their historical context, are canonized or even marginally remembered for their life, work and impact as classics, i.e., as producers of relevant and still current knowledge. Those who are remembered with their works, in turn, have a great influence on the present of the discipline, on theoretical foundations, questions, definitions and developments of terms, methodological orientations and, in particular, on the socialization of social scientists in specialized training as well as the self-image of the discipline. Who may be preserved in the history of sociology, that is in the historical memory as well as in the present discourse of the discipline, in which ways and for which reasons? All these are crucial questions. For this reason, theoretical and empirical questions, such as those concerning the selection decisions about or the selection processes of works and persons, especially with regard to the criteria for the productive processes of remembering and forgetting, as well as their consequences, are of great importance. To what extent do social structures of power and domination determine these processes, shape and limit the knowledge of a science? How do social scientists justify their selection criteria for knowledge stocks to be preserved? And are these criteria theoretically founded? Could there be 'neutral' criteria at all and how would one arrive at them? Can the 'neutral scientific discourse' possibly itself be part of repressive mechanisms and promote discrimination or marginalization? Our aim is to approach these questions from an intersectional perspective, using the example of women in the history of sociology.
If the criteria of distinction according to which decisions about remembering (and continuing to use) and forgetting (and henceforth ignoring) are made in scholarly practice were such that no social (or otherwise, e.g., gender-correlated, categorized) groups had been systematically disadvantaged in the scholarly system compared to others, one might confidently think: 'Forgetting, it is part of it and it is productive'. However, the 'choices' in this process of inclusion and exclusion in the history of sociology are mostly not conscious. While they are usually based on rarely reflected micro-practices which affect both the disciplinary present and the future of the discipline (and thus, can also be studied in the discipline's past). These micro-practices, moreover, seem in their sum and consequence to lead to the disadvantage of very specific individuals and groups (or bodies of knowledge associated with them) whose contribution to the social sciences, however, may be relevant.
The aim of this section conference is to deal with the above-mentioned problems using the example of women in the social sciences, their individual as well as collective scientific biographies from the (forgotten) history of the social sciences. Our aim is to (re)bring to light the achievements and merits of women scholars, as well as to pose the theoretical and empirical question about their relevance and topicality. We want to ask whether there are works, approaches and perspectives that - for whatever reason - have been forgotten, but whose re-reading is essential for today's discipline, and to discuss them in terms of content, i.e., to consciously dedicate ourselves to these forgotten contents once again in a critical reflection from the current perspective. This includes the analytical question of the practices, institutions, thought patterns, fields of knowledge and power that have caused and legitimized the (previous) forgetting, as well as the methodological question of research strategies to be able to 're-find' and 'salvage' forgotten knowledge stocks in history.
Beyond the exegesis of works and thus classical sociology, we are interested in examining invisible power structures within the social science field (or within certain parts of the intellectual field) from a sociological perspective on the processes of development. On a collective level, we are also interested, for example, in gender structure and how it changed in the process of institutionalization and specialization of the social science field. How were women incorporated into the discipline or fields of social science? Which topics and subject areas do they dominate and in which were or are they underrepresented? To what extent were and are there self-selection mechanisms? We are interested in the social as well as the knowledge trajectories associated with institutionalization: Who receives(s) whom and for what, who cooperates(s) and works(s) with whom? To what extent are these relationships shaped by power structures or power imbalances, etc.?
With this conference we want to contribute to the inclusion and explicit integration of neglected and forgotten women social scientists in the history of sociology. Connected with this is the intention to give persons and groups previously disadvantaged on the basis of social features the professional recognition they deserve by integrating them into contemporary sociological discourses, so that they can face history again under changed conditions that also need to be discussed, and so that we can (re)discuss their relevance for sociology today.
... explore the question of how knowledge has been processed in the history of sociology in a long-term perspective, i.e., according to which selection criteria remembering and forgetting has been or is controlled in the social sciences, and which criteria these processes follow.
... deal with one-dimensional and multidimensional processes of discrimination and marginalization in the history of sociology using the example of women and analyze the underlying mechanisms. In doing so, an analytical approach to the question why certain groups of people were subjected to these processes, what function this had and for whose benefit this happened, should become visible.
... constructively address the question of what (framework) conditions and behaviours would have to be in place to prevent such discrimination and marginalization, and to what extent discrimination-free mechanisms for shaping remembering and forgetting can exist at all, or what they might look like.
And, last but not least, we want to offer historical women from sociology and from neighbouring disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, or within the intellectual field, a sociological-historical space that provides them with an opportunity to engage in a sociological debate once again under the changed competitive conditions of contemporary discourse.