Gerring lists seven "criteria of conceptualization" that can be applied to the concepts we use (Table 5.1, page 117):
- Resonance. How faithful is the concept to extant definitions and established usage?
- Domain. How clear and logical is (1) the language community(ies) and (b) the empirical terrain that a concept embraces?
- Consistency. Is the meaning of a concept consistent throughout a work?
- Fecundity. How many attributes do referents of a concept share? (coherence, depth, richness, etc.)
- Differentiation. How differentiated is a concept from neighboring concepts? What is the contrast-space against which a concept defines itself?
- Causal utility. What utility does a concept have within a causal theory and research design?
- Operationalization. How do we know it (the concept) when we see it? Can a concept be measured easily and unproblematically?
After discussing each of these, he goes on to list several "strategies of concepualization" (Table 5.2, page 131):
- Survey of plausible concepts
- Classification of attributes
“Even with the most complex concepts, carefully crafted definitions in the minimal, maximal, or cumulative mold should provide a common scaffolding upon which the work of social science can rest in a reasonable stable and consistent manner.” (Gerring 2012:140).
Gerring uses the concept of "democracy" in political science as an example of how these criteria and strategies work. For archaeology, we have many concepts that could use a good meta-analysis of this sort. Consider "identity."
The concept of identity has become a real fad in some archaeological circles, with fanatic devotion to the concept. By a fad with fanatic devotion I refer to concepts or terms which get tossed around all the time, typically without definition, often in settings where the concept really has nothing to contribute (think about practice theory or "agency and structure," another fad with fanatical devotion in archaeology). Given that there are many types of identity (race, ethnicity, place, gender, etc.) and radically different theoretical approaches (primordialist vs. instrumentalist, and others), it is not professionally responsible to be tossing the term around without definition and without contextualization. I have read quite a few shockingly bad decontextualized treatments of "identity" in the past (and I often avoid reading anything with the term "identity" if I can help it, so I have only sampled a small portion of the literature). I find the sloppy usage itself less distressing than the fact that journals and book editors allow this stuff to pass.
These authors identify five distinct meanings of the term "identity" in the social science literature (Brubaker and Cooper 2000: 6-8)
- “often opposed to “interest” in an effort to highlight and conceptualize non-instrumental modes of social and political action” (p.6)
- As a collective phenomenon, to denote a fundamental sameness among members of a group or category.
- As a core aspect of (individual or collective) selfhood. Something allegedly deep, basic, abiding, or foundational.
- As processual, interactive development of solidarity or “groupness” that can make collective action possible.
- “Understood as the evanescent product of multiple and competing discourses, ‘identity’ is invoked to highlight the unstable, multiple, fluctuating, and fragmented nature of the contemporary ‘self.’ This usage is found especially in the literature influenced by Foucault, post-structuralism, and post-modernism. In somewhat different form, without the post-structuralist trappings, it is also found in certain strands of the literature on ethnicity—notably in ‘situationalist’ or ‘contextualist’ accounts of ethnicity.” (p.8).
- Identification and categorization.
- Self-understanding and social location.
- Commonality, connectedness, groupness.
Brubaker, Rogers and Frederick Cooper
2000 Beyond "Identity". Theory and Society 29:1-47.
2012 Social Science Methodology: A Unified Framework. 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press, New York.
1998 Durable Inequality. University of California Press, Berkeley.
2004 Social Boundary Mechanisms. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 34:211-236.
2005 Identities, Boundaries, and Social Ties. Paradigm Publishers, Boulder, CO.