Michael Burawoy For Public Sociology

This is one of a series of videos of a 2009 lecture (all videos can be accessed here). In this video he lucidly explains the internal divisions of "sociological labour", and argues that public and critical sociology are as necessary as the professional and policy sides of doing sociology. Amazing lecture and intertaining show. (MB is professor of sociology at Berkely). Here his writings on the issue.

 I was thinking that intersecting this four-item scheme with the dychotomy deconstruction-positivism suggested by Herzfeld as basis of his "militant middle ground" would be an interesting excercise. Actually, there would be unbalance relaitons, as policy, professional and public sociology would fall into the "positivist" side of Herzfeld's dychotomy, while only critial sociology would be considered as deconstructivist. This adds complexity to Herzfeld's simplistic argument, in my view, and expand the need for critical sociology to continue resisting an unbalanced relation with the other three fields.