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In this paper, I seek to caution the increasing number of contemporary sociologists who are engaging with continental phenomenological sociology without looking at the Anglo-American tradition. I look at a particular debate that took place during the formative period in the Anglo-American tradition. My focus is on the way participants sought to negotiate the disciplinary division between philosophy and sociology. I outline various ways that these disciplinary exigencies, especially the institutional struggles with the sociological establishment, shaped how participants defined phenomenological sociology. I argue that despite the supposed theoretical, methodological, and substantial differences between these waves of phenomenological sociology, the contemporary wave could benefit from some of the lessons that were learned by their predecessors.

DOI: 10.1007/s10746-009-9131-3

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