On the Process of Becoming a Sociologist: Autobiographical Reflections

Abstract

This article is an edited and referenced version of a lecture I delivered at a conference on ‘The Sociology of Sociology in Long-term Perspective: Conference in Honour of Richard Kilminster’, on 5–6 April 2018 at the University of Leeds, organised by John Lever, Ryan Powell and Stephen Vertigans. It was a response to Stephen Mennell’s Laudatio, which also appears in this issue. I am very grateful to him and all the participants, as well as Ryan Powell, Barbara Górnicka and Russell Ó Ríagáin, the editors of this Special Issue of Human Figurations based upon a selection of the papers given at the conference. The experience of recognition has been profoundly moving and I am very grateful to all of them for making it possible.