Auntie Does Not Know What Sociologists Do. Do Not Blame Her: A History of Professionalisation of Sociology in Argentina (1960- 2010)

The main goal of this paper is to describe the professionalization process of sociology in Argentina during the last five decades. First, it examines both the role of sociologists in Argentina during different historical stages and the situation of the teaching of sociology, trying to identify different traditions and tendencies. Second, the paper additionally describes diverse organisational frameworks in which local sociologists have tried to set their professional and academic issues. Third, it presents some data from a research that focusses on the working conditions of sociology graduates in Argentina from three different cohorts. One, a group graduated from 1961 to 1974. It had an early and successful professional insertion, linked with teaching and state planning. Two, another group which received their degrees from 1984 to 1992 had more problems in searching for jobs, but new opportunities in public opinion polls and consultancy were expanding. Third, a young cohort of graduates since 2002 who found an institutional scenario of new social demands and requests for sociological knowledge at academia, state and private sector.  The paper looks for an answer on what were their jobs and how they started and followed a professional career in sociology, trying to identify the socialization process of their actions and the political and social networks to which they were affiliated. Methodology combines the use of previous data, the job situation of sociologists in Argentina at different historical stages with a survey, trajectories reconstruction and in-depth interviews. Finally, this paper reflects upon the multiple challenges that sociology in that country faces at the present: institutional expansion, funding opportunities and social recognition combines with institutional fragmentation and lack of consensus on sociologists as workers and professionals.