CIS - Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas

Laudatio by

Emilio Lamo de Espinosa
Full Member of the Royal Academy of Moral and Political Sciences
National Prize for Sociology and Political Science 2016

Majesty,
It's a great honor for the sociological community to be able to count on your presence and encouragement for another year. This year, moreover, in the magnificent new setting of the Royal Collections, which reflect a splendid journey through our history, represented by the Crown. But let's leave history to the historians and move on to society, which is our focus.

In 1958, in one of the first analyses of the development of Spanish sociology, Enrique Gómez Arboleya put forward an idea that all of his numerous disciples have reiterated time and again: the vicissitudes of Spanish sociology, Arboleya said, are the vicissitudes of modern society. 1 He implied that sociology is yet another product of modernity. To put it the other way around, this time with Amando de Miguel: it was the absence of a powerful, secularized bourgeoisie that prevented the penetration of sociology into Spain at the beginning of the last century. Without modernity, there can be no sociology.

And that's certainly true. But not entirely.

It is surprising that some of the first chairs of sociology were created not in modern, advanced countries, but in St. Petersburg, Rome, Buenos Aires, or even in Madrid, at the Central University, in 1899, even before Paris, where it was created in 1910. Sociology is performative and normative, and as much as it reflects modernity, it seeks to produce it.

This was especially true in late Franco-era Spain, where sociology was incorporated as an instrument of social change. To add a third quote from another modern classic, this one from Vidal Beneyto: "Sociology emerged in postwar Spain as a movement...from the bottom up and against almost general resistance; there was distrust, almost fear, regarding sociology's capacity for discovery." Fear, then, of what another sociologist of those years called "the demagoguery of facts." Social transparency as a preliminary step to its transformation.

A fitting observation as a preface to the eulogy for Luisa Carlota Solé Puig, which I have the honor of delivering for the second time, having already done so when she joined the Royal Academy of Moral and Political Sciences. For if anyone has paid deserved attention to modernity, it has undoubtedly been Professor Solé.

It has been said that women's discourse in sociology is more applied, more pragmatic, more committed to social change, and more normative. Patricia M. Langermann and Gillian Niebrugge point this out in their excellent monograph on "The Founders of Sociology and Social Theory," published in an excellent edition by the CIS. Carlota Solé perfectly embodies this observation.

Well, she represents an entire generation of sociologists born in the 1940s, who began publishing in the 1970s, earned professorships in the 1980s, and are now retiring. I'm talking about the desire and enthusiasm to contribute with their studies and research to a "modern" Spain, and the word again. A Spain that had to move from authoritarianism to democracy; from a closed economy to an open one; from an intolerant society to an inclusive one; a Spain that had to emerge from the "silent times" of Franco's regime to begin to talk about itself, which is what sociology does: teach society to talk about itself.

(A bit like what His Majesty does in many of his speeches, if I may be so bold: hold up a mirror to us to see ourselves as we are.)

And if Arboleya was the proto-father of this enlightened project, the fathers were the national sociology prizewinners Murillo Ferrol, Linz, Del Campo Urbano, Jiménez Blanco, Giner, Maravall, Moya… And we grandchildren are the one speaking to you now, or Carlota Solé herself. Already trained at a university that refused to renew the elites of Franco's regime and, on the contrary, carried out within its midst the first and pioneering transition to democracy, the first meeting between the children of the victors and the children of the vanquished, back in 1956.

A generation that combined the desire for an open Spain with a profound faith in the transformative power of science and knowledge, and it's no coincidence that in those years the most rebellious were also the most studious. We believed in the university as the matrix of knowledge and of the new society, which would lead us to go abroad to educate ourselves as an inevitable step, not only in the academic cursus honorum, but in a true bildung, a development of personality and character.

That's why I can't help but pay tribute here to the work the March Foundation undertook in the 1970s with a scholarship program to train sociologists, which was a breeding ground for the future. The jury once again included our colleagues Juan Díez Nicolas (also a National Prize winner) and Luis González Seara.

Well, in 1973—half a century ago now—the March Foundation awarded thirteen scholarships, one to Carlota herself, another to the speaker, and others to future professors: Julio Iglesias de Ussel, Jesús de Miguel, Manuel Martín Serrano, Carlos Alba, Julio Rodriguez Aramberri, Eduardo Sevilla, Benjamín Oltra, María Cátedra, Enrique Luque, Manuel Ramírez Jiménez, and Juan José Ruiz Rico. Scholarships were awarded to study at Yale University, the University of California, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Cambridge, the University of Reading, the London School of Economics, the University of Santa Bárbara, the Sorbonne, and the École Practique des Hautes Études. It's clear that with that scholarship program, the definitive updating of Spanish sociology began.

Only two women on that list. Nothing surprising, of course. It took a lot of courage and determination back then for a woman, educated under Franco, to embark on the adventure of living and studying at a foreign university. Back then, let's not forget, the foreign world was very far away, and that's what it was: foreign and strange.

And she certainly trained. Carlota Solé already had a degree and a PhD in Economics from the UAB in 1975, but at that time there was no degree in sociology (one would be created in 1973), and so in 1982 she obtained a second doctorate, this time in sociology, from the University of Reading, where she worked with Hugh Thomas, Stanislaw Andreski, and Margaret Archer, and with Anthony D. Smith, drafted a thesis that dealt precisely with "theories of modernization."

He also trained at the University of Berkeley with Robert Bellah and Neil Smelser, and has taught at the Istituto Universitario di Studi Europei (Turin) and the European University of Florence.

Professor of Sociology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona since 1988, and later Emeritus, she has directed 24 theses (13 cum laude) and has six six-year research periods, the maximum allowed.

He has published 40 books and 118 articles (23 in English) in leading international journals, eventually becoming a member of their editorial boards. He also serves on the editorial boards of Ethnic and Racial Studies, the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, The European Journal of Social Quality, and the Journal of the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon. He also serves on these scientific boards.

Professor Solé has also performed a significant role in research management. She served for many years as editor of Papers, the most important Catalan sociology journal, as president of the Catalan Federation of Sociology, vice president of the Spanish Federation of Sociology, and as a member of the Institute of Catalan Studies. She has also been the founder and director of the Group for the Study of Immigration and Ethnic Minorities (GEDIME) since 1989.

Her research areas are varied, but two stand out: modernization and migration. She dedicated her first book, "Modernization: A Sociological Analysis," from 1976, to the former. From that time on, she addressed the issue of immigration, which she has explored in all its facets. In fact, I suspect she is unique in that Professor Solé is receiving this National Prize for the second time, having previously been awarded it in 1990, when Luis Rodríguez Zúñiga was director of the CIS (Central University of Catalonia), for her research on "Foreign Workers in Catalonia: Integration or Racism?" I had the honor of collaborating with her shortly after, in 1996, on a book on multiculturalism published by Alianza Editorial. These two themes (modernization and immigration) reappear in her two most cited works: "The Immigrant Woman," with 204 citations; "Modernity and Modernization," with 196 citations; and "The Labor Market and Racial Discrimination in Spain," with 189 citations.

Data that show the very notable impact her publications have had on the academic world. As is well known, in some academic fields, our publications are referenced and all cross-citations are counted in quantitative indices that are updated practically daily. Almost like an academic income statement. And although we shouldn't fetishize these citation indices—they confuse many young researchers and are leading to quite a few misdeeds—they are undoubtedly very relevant when assessing the impact a work has had on colleagues. Well, Dr. Solé has more than 4,100 citations, with an h-index of 33, meaning she has 33 works with at least 33 citations each. And an i10 index of 73, meaning she has no fewer than 73 works that received at least 10 citations. Professor Solé's data is excellent.

I could paint a more personal portrait of Carlota Solé, whom I've known for many years. A discreet, prudent, and rigorous person, always kind and optimistic, willing and open to dialogue, and even confrontation, which is the foundation of science. She never turns down a task, which she performs efficiently but with (I was going to say "gentleness," but that would sound awkward, so I'll take that back) a silk hand.

But I'll leave it here and finish.

Carlota Solé is the fourth woman to receive the award in a list of 17 winners, all of them in the last five years, a testament to the powerful feminization of this discipline, thus fulfilling Langermann and Niebrugge's suspicion. More than 20%, but only 20%. An 80/20 ratio, which brings us back to Pareto, but also to that "law" that says they must work 20% more to earn 20% less. Although at this rate, the ratio will soon be 60/40... but in their favor. Half (at least) of the talent of the human species is in their hands, and it would be foolish, as well as highly unfair, not to take advantage of it. It seems we sociologists are failing to do so. My sincere congratulations to Carlota Solé on behalf of the community of sociologists I have the honor to represent today.

And thank you very much, Your Majesty, for joining us.

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