Abstract
Through analyzing four versions of Yasuda Saburô's Handbook for Social Research, this article discusses the historical transformation in our consciousness concerning sociological method. The changes seen in these four editions of a standard reference book for use in school reveal a steady devaluing of sensitivity toward written texts. Yet “society, ” the site of sociological surveys, is itself a textual space, interwoven with descriptions and prescriptions. Yasuda's original vision clearly included researching on researches. I read the following three characteristics as unrealized potential of the handbooks. First, the handbooks reveal Yasuda's hope that the reader would share his own experience of finding surprise in little discoveries of practical knowledge. Second, the first handbook set up a multilayered process of social research that incorporated feedback rather than a simple assembly line-type of workflow for data processing. Third, at least at the initial stage, Yasuda clearly recognized the importance of other research techniques not encompassed by the handbook, such as the reading and analysis of family registers. In this sense the handbook was not intended to be viewed as complete and comprehensive. The practice itself of compiling handbooks conceived as common texts to be shared among researchers, more than the specific information that they contain, demonstrates Yasuda's “method” for collecting and handling social data within the textual space of society.
