PUBLIC SOCIOLOGY AND THE SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION: REVISITING BURAWOY’S SOCIOLOGY TYPES

Reflecting on Michael Burawoy’s classification of sociology into professional, critical, policy, and public types, and the adoption of the latter as the theme of the ASA’s 99th Annual Meeting, in this paper I argue that the drive toward public sociologies of new global realities may prove hazardous in the absence of a parallel emphasis on the development of reflexive private sociologies. This requires critical reconsideration of our basic definitions of society and sociology in order to develop theoretical frameworks that meet the challenges of understanding and practicing the dialectics of public and private social processes devoid of rigid pre-determinist frameworks. Proposing an alternative reconsideration of Burawoy’s sociology types away from a formal logical framework and in favor of the part-whole dialectic, I argue that even though per-sonal troubles can best be understood in relation to broader public issues, the latter themselves can most effectively be recognized, understood, and practically addressed through the actions of specific agencies who champion the need for broader socio-historical knowledge and change as deeply personal exercises in self-knowledge and self-transformation. As C. Wright Mills emphasized, what sparks the sociological imagination is the intersection of history and biography. PERSONAL REFLEXIVE STATEMENT I find it refreshing to write a “personal reflexive ” statement instead of a traditional bio for a publication submission in sociology, for it goes to the very substantive heart of what I am submitting. Requesting a “personal reflexive” statement for publication consideration acknowledges the intricate link between the human and the societal aspects of what humanist sociology is and should be, encouraging us to see both the trees and the forest of human experience. It may therefore strike one as paradoxical and counter-intuitive to discover that the most effective public sociologies may prove to be ones that also simultaneously engage the most personal and private recesses and troubles of our human lives