Discovering Solidarity: Research on Solidarity as a Case of a That-What Discovery

Abstract

We rarely talk about scientific discoveries in sociology, and usually only in research fields that pursue a positivist ideal of science. This does not mean, however, that it does not make sense to talk about sociological discoveries in fields that do not apply research methods to generate large quantities of new data. In this paper, I analyse the case of research conducted by Polish sociologists on the Solidarity social movement in the 1980s in Poland. Solidarity was a social phenomenon which did not fit within the contemporary model for conducting scholarly research and, as a result, led to a significant theoretical change. I argue that this change is accurately described by the term “that-what discovery” taken from Kuhn’s article “The Historical Structure of Scientific Discovery” (1962). The purpose of analysing this historical case is to adapt Kuhn’s concept to the social sciences framework.