The Sociological Technoimagination

Abstract

The article introduces the concept of “sociological technoimagination” and delineates the field of visualizations used in the social sciences: the various forms of graphs, schemes, and diagrams. It surveys the uses and functions of visualizations in sciences generally and places their development in the wider context of the modernization of vision of the 19th century; examining the pioneering uses of visualization methods by Etienne-Jules Marey, Francis Galton, or Otto Neurath. Gabriel Tarde’s account of statistics (from his Laws of Imitation, 1890) is reinterpreted in regard to both the nature and social roles of the sociological technoimagination.