Public Sociology - Public Sociology Today

Public Sociology Today

While there is no one definition of "public sociology", the term has come to be widely associated with Burawoy's particular perspective of sociology. Burawoy's personal statement for the ASA elections provides a succinct summary of his position: "As mirror and conscience of society, sociology must define, promote and inform public debate about deepening class and racial inequalities, new gender regimes, environmental degradation, market fundamentalism, state and non-state violence. I believe that the world needs public sociology - a sociology that transcends the academy - more than ever. Our potential publics are multiple, ranging from media audiences to policy makers, from silenced minorities to social movements. They are local, global, and national. As public sociology stimulates debate in all these contexts, it inspires and revitalizes our discipline. In return, theory and research give legitimacy, direction, and substance to public sociology. Teaching is equally central to public sociology: students are our first public for they carry sociology into all walks of life. Finally, the critical imagination, exposing the gap between what is and what could be, infuses values into public sociology to remind us that the world could be different."

Elsewhere, Burawoy has articulated a vision of public sociology that is consonant with the pursuit of democratic socialism. In Critical Sociology, Burawoy writes: "We might say that critical engagement with real utopias is today an integral part of the project of sociological socialism. It is a vision of socialism that places human society, or social humanity at its organizing center, a vision that was central to Marx but that was too often lost before it was again picked up by Gramsci and Polanyi (Burawoy, 2003b). If public sociology is to have a progressive impact it will have to hold itself continuously accountable to some such vision of democratic socialism."

In a slightly different vein, Burawoy and Jonathan VanAntwerpen of the University of California, Berkeley write that their departmental focus on public sociology aims to "turn, as C. Wright Mills would say, private concerns into public issues" . The public sociology produced at Berkeley is an attempt to intervene in ongoing public debates over issues such as class and gender disparities and global inequality. Some of this work consists of attempts to refute high profile public scholarship in other fields and reclaim from non-sociologists the debate and explanation of sociological problems.

Likewise, the sociology department at the University of Minnesota also advocates claiming a larger role in public life: "Although good sociological research is often difficult to reduce to a sound-bite, sociologists have an important part to play in providing useful, accurate, and scientifically rigorous information to policy makers and community leaders."

Indeed, sociologists have not been alone in debating the "public role" of social science. Similar debates have occurred recently in the disciplines of economics, political science, anthropology, geography and history, and various subdisciplines including political ecology. In an effort to move these various disciplines "toward a more public social science," Craig Calhoun, the President of the Social Science Research Council, has encouraged sociologists and other social scientists to "ask better social science questions about what encourages scientific innovation, what makes knowledge useful, and how to pursue both these agendas, with attention to both immediate needs and longterm capacities . Calhoun has also entered the debate about public sociology, critically evaluating the project of public sociology while acknowledging its specific "promise," and arguing that "how sociology matters in the public sphere is vital to the future of the field".

In the 2004 American Sociological Association Presidential Address for public sociology Burawoy stipulates that the original passions such as, social justice, economic equality, human rights, political freedom or simply a better world to live in; that drives so many of us toward the discipline of sociology, is actually channelled into the pursuit of academic credentials. Also in this work, Burawoy maps out why he feels the appeal of public sociology is so important at this time. He feels that over the last half of the century the political stance of Sociology has drifted inone critical direction whilst the world it studies has moved in the opposite direction. Burawoy proposes that the radicalism of the 1960s diffused itself through the profession and consequently in however dilute form resulted in the increased presence and participation of racial minorities and women. This marked a significant drift in the 1960s that is felt to be echoed in the content of sociology at that time. Thus through this Burawoy marks some examples of this shift in the nature of the way sociology was being approached.

There are many examples of this shift for Burawoy, the study of the sociology of work had turned from processes of adaptation to the study of domination and labour movements. Also in a more general sense the concepts of stratification theory had shifted from the study of mobility within a hierarchy of occupational prestige to the examination of changing structures of social and economic inequality-class, race and gender. Race theory moved from theories of assimilation to the political economy to the study of racial formations. Social theory had allowed, and introduced more radical interpretations of main figurehead writers such as Weber and Durkheim, and also the incorporation of Marx's theory had become a feature; from this standpoint it was also felt that feminism had a both substantial and dramatic impact in certain fields of the subject.

This interpretation of the changes in ideology where sociology is concerned is said to be pulling in the opposite direction in terms of the world changing according to Burawoy. Whilst sociologists reiterate their jargon concerning the ever deepening crisis of inequality and domination; we as the public are flooded with the influx of rhetoric promoting equality and freedom. Burawoy highlights the concerns of a significant drift between the agenda of sociology and the progression of society itself when he acknowledges that over the last 25 years there may well have been gains in economic security and civil rights. However these gains have been heavily counter-acted and reversed by huge market expansion. From this perspective it is felt that the combination of market and state has served to be wielded as a mechanism working against humanity in the shape of what we should term neoliberalism.

There is the criticism that sociologists have become much more sensitive in their approach and focused negatively sometimes, although however, much of the evidence collected does suggest a certain amount of regression in several arenas. Much of these ideas are to be held together by the fabric and fundamental ethos that is hostile towards the idea of 'society'. This idea has antisociological implications in itself. A picture of public sociology versus privatisation begins to emerge through this discourse. Is the market the only solution? Burawoy's fundamental drive is fuelled by his desire to see the concept of public reignited in some way, and not allowed to be another casualty in the storm that has become progression. So for Burawoy the political era of the 1960s saw a shift in direction for the subject of sociology that was to conflict that of the changing nature of the world. Globalization and Privatisation seemed to play a key role in sociology losing its public voice. Burawoy wanted young academics taking on sociology as an interest, or in the shape of academia to use it in their everyday lives; thus fulfilling a certain criteria of pushing sociology's boundaries into the public realm. Burawoy has resonance of talking about public sociology that could be used a revolutionary force for understanding social change.

References. Burawoy, M. 2004 American Sociological Association Presidential address: For public sociology. 2005 Volume 56, Issue 2.