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An Expert Interview About Public Sociology with Prof EXPERTENINTERVIEW An expert interview about Public Sociology with Prof. Dr. Michael Burawoy SOZIOLOGIEMAGAZIN: You once wrote ments – the idea of the critique of capita- that most sociologists were driven by their lism was in the air. It was something that passion for social justice when they decided was part of common sense, at least among 22 to study sociology. Can you tell us what large sections of the student population. your motivation was to study sociology? Sociology took off in that period as a cri- tique of modernity. I was very influenced BURAWOY: I went to the university to by that, went to Africa after graduating in study mathematics but was not really search of student revolts and stayed there good at it – and you have to be really good for four years. But it was my earlier trips if you want to be a professional mathema- to different places in the long Cambridge tician in the future. It was a very exciting vacations, to Africa, to India, and before period in history (1965 to 1968) and at that to the United States, that were really this time (1965) I visited the United Sta- the things that shaped my interest in so- tes for six months. For somebody who ciology. comes from this little island, England, And yes, I think this question of soci- (from Manchester) and goes to New York al justice was propelling so many of the it was a dramatic revelation to me that a movements during the 1960s and even world like that could exist. This journey if you were not necessarily active in one, was very transformative for me. It was a the ideas were contagious. In Africa it time of the beginning of the anti-war mo- was a honeymoon period soon after many vement, the civil rights movement – very countries had achieved their indepen- exciting! dence. Societies had only recently been I went back to university and did mathe- decolonized and there were fascinating matics but I was always interested in what and lively debates about openings and was going on in the world and at that time possibilities of what could be – debates – because this was an era of student move- that would subsequently be closed down. Soziologie, Reflexion, Gesellschaft – was soll Soziologie? SOZIOLOGIEMAGAZIN EXPERTENINTERVIEW Prof. Dr. Michael Burawoy is Professor at the University of California, Berkeley with re- search interests in labor, methodology and ca- pitalism. He has done participant observation on industrial workplaces in Zambia, the United States, Hungary and Russia. Professor Bura- woy was president of the American Sociologi- cal Association in 2004 and of the Internatio- Foto: Ana Villarreal Ana Foto: nal Sociological Association from 2010 – 2014. SOZIOLOGIEMAGAZIN: And you studied SOZIOLOGIEMAGAZIN: Has there been a sociology in… time while you studied sociology where you experienced something like a disillusion- BURAWOY: …Zambia. I was a young ma- ment of sociology or of the academics? 23 thematician who went to South Africa in 1968, became a journalist for six months BURAWOY: Yes. You might say so. In and then I moved to Zambia. I think I was hindsight my studies of the Zambian cop- already determined to be a sociologist, per industry were a great story. The cop- but England had no serious sociology, per industry, these multinational corpora- particularly not in places like Cambridge tions, provided 95 percent of the export where I was. It was a time when sociology revenue of Zambia at that time. I studied was being discovered in England in the how they were reproducing what is called so-called red brick universities and, es- the colour-bar, according to which blacks pecially, in the newly created universities. do not give any order to whites. It is ‘white Oxford and Cambridge remained as stuffy over black’. They managed to promote as ever. At the University of Zambia, there black Zambians, but at the same time re- was a lively and emerging social anthro- tained the colour-bar by promoting whites pology department. This is where I did into positions or taking a department that my M.A. in sociology studying student was dominated by whites, pushing it aside movements, but I also conducted a side and making it entirely black. There were project, which became my most impor- all sorts of organizational manipulations tant work of those years: the study of the that retained the colour-bar. That was my copper industry, then owned and run by study and it was a complicated thing to get two multi-national corporations. I wan- it published. I was basically a spy there; I ted to study how they were responding to did not tell anybody what I was doing. But Zambia’s independence in 1964. in the end my research became public and SOZIOLOGIEMAGAZIN Soziologie, Reflexion, Gesellschaft – was soll Soziologie? EXPERTENINTERVIEW that was my initiation to public sociology. famous), and then I worked most close- ly with a very inspiring political scien- I think there was a good public discussion tist, Adam Przeworski who also went on of my report. People took the problem to global recognition. At that time I was very seriously – but the mining compa- lucky they both had time for a young, nies decided to use this Marxist mono- rebellious graduate student. But that was graph to discipline their managers. So I the scene of sociology in Chicago in 1972. realized, well, you have no control over At times I was ready to quit this expensi- the knowledge you produce and it is so ve venture. In Zambia it had been very often power that determines the way re- different; I was deeply embedded in soci- search findings will be deployed and that ety in Zambia and at seminars with peo- was a disillusioning moment. ple all doing field research, talking to one By that time I had already migrated to another about their different researches, Chicago and there I became, indeed, very contributing to each other’s projects be- 24 disillusioned. I went there because I was cause we were all studying Zambia. It had looking for the source of the development been very productive and exciting. I had sociology that was disseminated around no idea how special it was until I went to the world in the name of modernization Chicago. theory. It was a conservative view of the transformation in Africa and I wanted to SOZIOLOGIEMAGAZIN: You wrote in discover its source. I thought it needed to 2004 that sociology was in its ‘best shape’. be deeply criticized, which meant I nee- It would be interesting to take a look back. ded to know it. So I went to the US. But Has it changed? Is it still in its ‘best shape’? when I arrived in Chicago, sociologists were no longer interested in Africa – there BURAWOY: What I was trying to say was one person who had studied ‘Ethio- there was that sociology was growing. pia’ in his past. But basically the study of The American Sociological Associati- new nations was over. I was too late and on had its biggest meeting ever (in San the department was conservative and nar- Francisco). It was a very vital meeting. I row-minded, deeply professional. had money from the Ford Foundation to Going to graduate school in the United bring in scholars from all over the world States was a real shock because there I was to talk about sociology in different places. treated like a child and that too was very As President of the ASA I had two pro- disillusioning. I was just very lucky that I jects: one was public sociology and the had a ‘protector’ in the department, Wil- other was to ‘provincialize’ the US, to de- liam Julius Wilson (an African-American monstrate how US sociology was not the sociologist who has since become very universal project it claimed to be, but a Soziologie, Reflexion, Gesellschaft – was soll Soziologie? SOZIOLOGIEMAGAZIN EXPERTENINTERVIEW „I wanted to discover its source. I thought it needed to be deeply criticized, which meant I needed to know it.“ product of US history, its place in the been moving towards a rational choice world, its university system, etc. For the modelling for some time, trying to imitate first, I brought in world renowned figu- economics. Sociology (with anthropology res such as Fernando Henrique Cardoso, and human geography) is on its own (in a Mary Robinson, Arundhati Roy, and Paul sense) but it can play a vital critical role. Krugman to stimulate discussion about sociology’s wider role in society. The au- SOZIOLOGIEMAGAZIN: You said that the dience of over 5,000 people was very re- university is a public good and it is impor- ceptive to these critical ideas as this was tant for sociology to defend that idea by en- 25 2004 – just after the US government had gaging with publics, becoming accountable invaded Iraq. Sociologists were moving to to publics. What did you mean by that? the left, producing a more vital sociology (or so I thought) – but the world around BURAWOY: Public universities have be- was not in such a good shape. We were in come ever more privatized as state fun- a bubble in San Francisco. That is what I ding has diminished and universities have was saying. responded by seeking new sources of re- Since then, sociology has remained very venue. Now universities look ever more strong in the United States – for reasons like corporations and the role of sociology that are not altogether clear; but one re- is to recognize what is happening, to be ason is how the higher education is or- reflective about what is happening.
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