On Hannah Arendt's Relevance for Sociology: A Test Case

Hannah Arendt has hardly ever been recognized as a source for sociological research. She herself has criticized the discipline for its alleged complicity with totalitarianism. Her analysis of society in The Human Condition, however, has found much acclaim in other disciplines. Following Seyla Benhabibs characterization of Arendts thought as a phenomenological essentialism, the author suggests that Arendts conceptual framework can still inspire sociological thinking if applied cautiously. Using excerpts from an extended field study of a German multi-level marketing financial planning company, the author demonstrates that Arendts distinction of practical human activities into "labor," "work," and "action" can still guide interpretative sociological research. The category of "labor" fits the way clients feature as statistically determinable beings within the representations produced by financial planners. The sales process as a whole, in turn, appears as "work" to the financial planners. Following Italian philosopher Paolo Virno, the author argues that this specific type of communicative work in a post-Fordist company is marked by an instability and precariousness that Arendt did not predict. With reference to the distinction between "fear" and "anxiety," the author explores ways in which this "industry of means of communication" (Virno) structurally undermines the stability of this social relation. A series of structural features, as well as the importance of story-telling and the "cultivation of the self" (Foucault) lead the author to conclude that forms of "action" have infiltrated the way this particular practice is organized. Through this exercise the author hopes to convince the reader that the topography of Arendts phenomenological essentialism can be turned into a more sociologically fruitful topology when we are ready to relate her concepts in a new fashion.