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The Limits of Empathy
Sociologists are taught to maintain critical distance and write as if we're explaining what we found to a generalist reader or a specialist in a field. What I wanted to do was engage in a kind of sociology that doesn't try to jump in your skin to understand your experience. This is what I call the limits of the empathetic imagination. It's like a good friend who sits with you when someone close to you has died. We've all likely experienced it this way. The people who are closest to me are the people who sometimes just come and sit because sometimes I just need somebody to sit with me, let's be together.