Review essay: Thick Description Versus Causal Explanation of Violence? Challenging a False Dichotomy

Abstract

This article criticizes the new paradigm of the sociology of violence proposed by meta-theorists Trutz von Trotha, Birgitta Nedelmann, and Wolfgang Sofsky. What characterizes this new approach is a focus on „how” questions rather than „why” questions by conducting a „thick description” of violence. I argue that this allegedly new sociological discipline is not as progressive as it claims to be when it distances itself from the „mainstream” research on violence. The article shows that aforementioned meta-theorists’ demarcation from the so-called mainstream is mistaken. The empirical studies of the purportedly new violence research actually cannot avoid giving causal, intentional, and even functional explanations. As functional explanation has fallen into particular disrepute, the article reflects on its positive suitability for violence research. I come to the conclusion that „thick description” of violence cannot work without functional explanation and research on the causes of violence in turn cannot cut out „thick description.” Micro-analytic methodology—which the meta-theorists of the sociology of violence have so far failed to understand—cannot replace causal analysis but can complete it. Finally, I use the example of the work of Wolfgang Sofsky to demonstrate that a strict shift from „why” questions to „how” questions would take violence research out of sociology in general.