The possibility of an open-ended sociology: Zygmunt Bauman and the Social Science Method

Zygmunt Bauman is one of the most prolific and well-known of contemporary sociologists. He is also a Jew who was born in Poland at the end of the first quarter of the twentieth century, and lived an important part of world political history. He has been an important writer both for his century and for the social sciences of the twenty-first century. This thesis aims to reveal Bauman's understanding of sociology and his main theoretical and conceptual framework in historical context, most of his works have been translated into Turkish. In the first part of the study, the life story of Zygmunt Bauman will be told within the framework of three countries and three careers, in which he lived as a foreigner. This section will also include the author's works. In the second part, Bauman's work will be discussed in four periods. These periods are; the years between 1953-1968 when he wrote his first works and based on the Marxist school, the years between 1968-1987 which included the adjustment period after his asylum to England and his break from socialism, the years between 1987-2000 when he was especially thinking about the bankruptcy of the modernity project and rising of postmodernism, and the years after 2000, when he started writing on the concept of "liquid modernity". In the third part of the study, the names Bauman influenced, his understanding of sociology, the impact of his life on his sociology and his "open-ended sociology" will be examined.