Sociological dilemmas in a local context

The theme of this year's meeting of the powerful 13,000 member strong American Sociological Association (ASA) was ‘public sociologies’. The term public sociology was invented in the United States to criticise and counter mounting professionalisation. In many countries of today the term public sociology is not necessary as sociology is presumed to be public. In order to illustrate this point the ASA invited representatives from different regions of the world to discuss the distinctive configurations of national public sociologies and the issues they address. Seven panels were drawn from East Asia, India, Latin America, Palestine, post-communist societies, the United States and South Africa