El alma de la sociología Chilena en las subjetividades profesionales

The article draws on Weber's notion of social closure of professions and of deprofessionalization factors in order to describe the way of doing sociology in Chile, in the context of vague boundaries among disciplines that converge in the field of direct social intervention. This is a context in which sociologists working on the implementation of social programs in the country have to face the fact that their disciplinary jurisdictions are being crossed by other professions in the area. In order to discuss the hypothesis regarding the existence of a style of thinking and doing sociology in our America, different from that developed in other parts of the world, a qualitative research project was carried out through in situ interviews with male and female sociologists working on the implementation of social programs throughout the country. The results obtained after the analysis of contents are framed within the evolution of sociology in Chile, its professional boundaries as a relative construction, and the specificity of sociology. On the basis of the characteristics of the emergence of Chilean sociology and of the professional subjectivities reflected in the gathered discourses, the article concludes that although there are deprofessionalization factors, sociology in the country is not experiencing that phenomenon. Rather, what can be observed is a particular manner of thinking and doing sociology in Latin America, derived from its two-pronged origin as a discipline and as a profession, with a soul that includes both strictly intellectual concerns and desires of social transformation. The dialectic relation between these two components makes Chilean sociology a discipline and a profession that generates a spiral of socially useful knowledges, and explains its peculiar features as a sociology committed to values related to social transformation, which translates into an active intervention in society.