March 2004 Number 3
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VOLUME 32 MARCH 2004 NUMBER 3 2004 Annual Meeting . Public Sociologies Former President of Brazil, Fernando Henrique Cardoso: A Most Public Sociologist The second article in a series highlighting prominent public intellectuals presenting at ASA’s 2004 Annual Meeting in San Francisco by Gay Seidman presentations academic freedom and intellectual economic stabilization plan that ended at the ASA influence, Cardoso was turning to a decades of chronic hyper-inflation in In 1982, during a stint as a visiting meetings different audience. In 1983, he returned Brazil. professor at Berkeley, Fernando next August to Brazil to run for the federal Senate; he Henrique Cardoso paused, mid-lecture, in San served as a senator for the next nine First Presidential Re-election to reflect on the repression faced by Francisco. years, helping construct a center-left In 1995, Cardoso was elected to his Latin American intellectuals under Together with coalition against military rule. By the first term as president of Brazil, and then military regimes. In the United States, he Princeton end of the decade, he had become one of in 1999, he was elected to a second mused, academics are allowed to speak University his country’s most prominent politicians, term—the first president ever democrati- so much more freely than in Brazil; but economist serving as minister for Foreign Affairs in cally re-elected in Brazil. After eight perhaps it is because no one off-campus and New York Fernando Henrique Cardoso 1992-93, and as Minister of Finance from years in office, the constitutional limit, ever bothers to listen to them. Times 1993-94, when he implemented an Twenty years later, that comment has columnist See Cardoso, page 6 a somewhat ironic ring. Then, Cardoso Paul Krugman, he will discuss “The was a noted sociologist who had been Future of Neoliberalism”; and, reflecting exiled by Brazil’s military regime from his unique perspective, he will give a 1964 to 1968. In 1969, when he returned, talk titled “The Sociologist as President.” the regime canceled Cardoso’s political When he visited at Berkeley 20 years The 2004 World Social Forum and civil rights and denied him permis- ago, Cardoso was already one of Latin This is the first of three articles on the January 2004 World Social Forum meeting in Mumbai, sion to lecture, so he moved to an America’s best-known sociologists, India. These articles echo the “Public Sociologies” theme of the 2004 ASA Annual Meeting in independent think tank off-campus. having taught at leading intellectual San Francisco. centers in Latin America and Europe as Walda Katz-Fishman, Howard University, and Jerome Scott, Project South, participated Being Heard well as in the United States. His research, in the World Social Forum (WSF) as part of the U.S. Grassroots Global Justice (GGJ) But today when Cardoso speaks, including both his early work on delegation representing Project South: Institute for the Elimination of Poverty & Geno- people across the world listen. After two Brazilian racial inequality and later cide. The latter is a community-based popular education organization bringing scholar, research on the political economy of terms as Brazil’s president, Cardoso is student, labor, and low-income activists together on the basis of equality to build a Latin America, opened new lines of surely the most public sociologist in the bottom-up movement in the United States as part of today’s global movement for justice inquiry for scholars around the world. In world, a global figure who is currently and equality. The second article, “Mumbai and the Future,” is by Boaventura de Sousa 1982, he was elected president of the advising the United Nations on how to Santos of the Department of Sociology at the University of Coimbra, and the University International Sociological Association, incorporate global civil society into of Wisconsin-Madison Law School. The final article, “Among Women at Mumbai,” is by international deliberations. marking his stature in the academic world. Patricia Ticineto Clough, Director of the Center for the Study of Women and Society at Cardoso, now professor-at-large at the City University of New York Graduate Center. Brown University’s Watson Institute for But at about the same time he was musing about the balance between International Studies, will give two A Movement Rising by Walda Katz-Fishman, Howard University and Project South, Teaching Sociology in High School: A Pilot and Jerome Scott, Project South Project Begins in Chicago The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to by Caroline Hodges Persell, New York understanding principles, helps develop change it. — Karl Marx University, and Carla B. Howery, ASA quantitative reasoning skills, and Academic and Professional Affairs Program provides students with tools for investi- The fourth World Social Forum (WSF), January 16-21, 2004, in Mumbai (Bombay), gating sociological questions on their India, was an amazing gathering and experience. About 130,000 delegates from 150 In 2001, the American Sociological own. countries and from most of India’s 26 states participated. We marched, rallied, danced, Association (ASA) established a national By introducing students to major sang, drummed, performed street theater, talked, dialogued, shared knowledge and Task Force comprised of high school, sociological research methods and experiences, cultural expressions, art college, and university faculty. The Task concepts, the course seeks to develop an and video, organized a peoples’ media Force was charged with developing and understanding and appreciation of center, networked, and deepened pilot testing a curriculum for an Ad- humans as social beings and considers existing relationships. Collectively we vanced Placement (AP) type course to be how social factors affect daily lives and took another critical step in building taught in high schools. As its first job, long-term outcomes. Areas of focus today’s global bottom-up movement the Task Force developed an outline and include, but are not limited to, the for social transformation to truly create a narrative for an AP-type Introduction sociological perspective, social organiza- another world. to Sociology course. Those materials tion, research methods, culture, social The first WSF, in Porto Alegre, have been on the ASA homepage for inequality, social institutions, and Brazil, in January 2001, was a popular, several months, with a request for deviance and conformity. The full course civil society gathering of the world’s feedback, at <www.asanet.org/mem- can be taught over two semesters. workers, peasants, youth, women, and bers/apsoccurr.pdf>. Currently, the Task Sections of the course could be taught in oppressed peoples and was convened The World Social Forum in Mumbai, India, included Force is developing and collecting a one semester, but a one-semester course in response to the World Economic delegations of Indian activists with strong womens notebook of teaching resource materials, would largely exclude social institutions Forum in Davos, Switzerland, a leadership pictured here entering the WSF grounds (at the including learning objectives, simula- such as the family, education, religion, gathering of the global economic and closed-down NESCO textile plant). tions, data resources, exercises for economy, polity, science, and media. students to do in and outside of class, See WSF, page 8 suggested readings, relevant films, web The Chicago (and Other) Pilot Projects resources, and lesson plans. In the 2003-04 academic year, four The curriculum incorporates data teachers in Chicago and one in resources that have recently become Princeton, New Jersey, are pilot testing Inside This Issue of Footnotes readily accessible to teachers and the curriculum and teaching materials. students, for example, the General Social These pilot courses are taught at the ASA Election Time Survey (GSS) websites at the University college level as honors courses, using See page 4 to view the professional biographies of the candidates for: of Michigan, the University of California college textbooks and materials, and are President-Elect (Glen H. Elder, Jr. and Cynthia Fuchs Epstein) and Vice at Berkeley, and CensusScope using being taught as one-year courses. During President-Elect (Dan Clawson and Lynn Smith-Lovin). The biographical Census data. The curriculum emphasizes the first year of pilot testing, research active learning by students, focuses on sketches for all candidates will be available when ballots are mailed. See High School, page 7 PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION 2 MARCH 2004 FOOTNOTES The Executive Officer’s Column In This Issue . Engineering Better Mileage for Research? How does U.S. science lead the study of complex social problems, asks John Marburger, the President’s science advisor? How do we study complex scientific problems, asks Building Bridges to the Rita Colwell, the recent director of the National Science Foundation? How do we lead the scientific effort to under- Real World stand and cure disease, ask Elias Zehouni, Director of the National Institutes of Health? And, how do we accomplish all Task Force to propose ways to this with dwindling federal research dollars? Zerhouni promote Public Sociology. believes the answer is to create a new health research roadmap that embodies interdisciplinary research at its core. Colwell initiated the NSF-wide priority area of “Human and Social Dynamics” that 3 is fundamentally interdisciplinary (see February 2004