i attended a great discussion this week on public sociology, engaged sociology, applied sociology, embedded sociology, whatever the heck you want to call it… i guess i fancy myself one — or, really, i fancy myself becoming one once my academic reputation allows for it. or, to be more clear, i fancy myself combining extra-academic policy sociology (in the Burawoy sense) with my grounding in academic sociology.
i don’t write this post to really engage whether this is a good or bad thing. everyone has their own orientation and many people have written on this better than i could. though, if you’re in favor of public sociology in general, a good critique of it is Tittle’s The Arrogance of Public Sociology and is worth a read. Especially in my field of study, crime and punishment, big mistakes mean blood and he’s right that sociology is, to some degree, in its infancy. I also like Herbert Gans’ 2002 essay in footnotes that suggests we are all public sociologists in our undergraduate teaching. Gans also suggests that we needn’t become full-on activists (which I am not, in any sense of the word) nor must we abandon our theoretical and academically-oriented research; instead, we might just speak up when asked, talk to a journalist every so often, write a letter to the editor, or attend the neighborhood watch meeting.
i write the post to suggest that, assuming you’re on board with public sociology in the first place, it’s folly to do much prior to tenure, assuming your goal is to achieve tenure at a top research university. Beyond the general riskiness, you’re pretty limited prior to tenure because you don’t have an established reputation. In the second place, following Tittle and Gans, how arrogant would that be to profess solutions to others when your own research agenda is in its infancy?
More troubling, however, is that the logics behind public sociology and academic sociology (their forms, their products, and their labor) are inherently in conflict. We don’t get ‘credit’ for writing public research reports (as Gans suggests we do) or having institutions implement our suggestions. I’m currently proposing an applied research project — it’s tough to balance the needs of the institution to which i need access (they aren’t funding it or letting me in if they don’t get something out of it) and my need to complete projects that have the potential to also be published in top sociology journals. And, of course, I have to worry about being objective and not giving up control to the institution. Moreover, even if your department does ‘credit’ this sort of work, your university may not. And, if you’re smart, you ought to orient yourself beyond your local environment — that research report ain’t helping much at the ASAs either.
my own experiences taking my research knowledge ‘public,’ albeit in small ways, have been decidedly mixed. I participated on a board with other interested groups (e.g., the NAACP, the DA’s office, the social wefare system, etc) on an issue that guided my dissertation research. While I was never in the position of ‘professing’ solutions, I tended to play the caution role. During most meetings, my contributions amounted to, “Ummmm, we don’t actually know that.” or “Ummm, what about this other group X, that has different concerns Y?” They listened the first few times but sighs were the norm soon after. This suggests I have some work to do on my communication skills and my ability to translate sociological knowledge but it also made me wonder whether it was worth being in the room.
I left the public sociology discussion this week to find that a snarky letter to the editor i’d written to a national magazine last week will be published in the next issue. assuming sociologists are as irrelevant as we argue, it never occurred to me that they’d publish it. i get a kick out of this, but, of course, they edited it and blunted all the good stuff as well as dispensed with the caveats. in the end, it doesn’t quite make the point i wanted to and reads snarkier than the original. again, was it worth me spending the time (admittedly, 20 minutes) to write it?
i have no answers here and have continued to go against advice, writing those letters to the editor, blogging on criminal justice policy, embarking on a big idea piece with no empirical analysis whatsoever, and so forth… despite these decisions (and i’ll continue to doggedly make them in favor of public sociology), i’m increasingly worried about them.
just checking in to say – I CAN’T BELIEVE THERE AREN’T ANY COMMENTS ON THIS POST! I have a whole bunch of thoughts on the issue but haven’t had the chance to write any of them down yet. this is an iou!
hey jt, i think it may have something to do with the length of the post. it was a 3am one so you know how that goes. or perhaps we’re over the public sociology thing?
i’d love to know what you think as it’s something i’m stuggling with…
I’m in the same boat, meant to reply but didn’t. I’ve done two speaking gigs in the past two days, so my public sociology has been getting in the way of writing about public sociology. First, I agree for a lot of reasons that public sociology is best done after tenure. That is why we have tenure, in theory: to be safe to say what we think is right without political repercussions. And you also are more likely to have something useful to say after you have established your research line. Also the time issues which are of course obvious. I repeat what I said earlier, you seem to have a lot more organized habits than I have, so it isn’t clear that blogging etc is a problem. And I agree with you and some of the other people that blogs about the things you are researching is a way of getting drafts of ideas down. Etc.
Regarding the nature of our impact and whether we actually have anything useful to say, that is a whole other can of worms. In that regard, I think it is important to be humble and to work with the people in the field, contributing our knowledge and listening to theirs.
FYI I have written a forthcoming article about my public sociology experiences. I draft is posted on the protest part of my web site, if you know where to look. I’m not linking to it for non-googleability’s sake.
[...] under Uncategorized | Tags: academia, religion | This started as a comment on NSP’s thoughts on tenure and public sociology but got [...]
With due respect, an “established reputation” in our insular discipline means nothing to the publics who would make up public sociology’s (hypothetical) audience. As one becomes immersed in any scholarly discipline’s internal culture, he or she loses the desire and maybe even the ability to communicate with non-specialists.
It astonishes me how these conversations always take place within the context of first securing our own careerist needs. In that regard, we’re quite calculating and practical, much like a corrupt CEO or dishonest politician who rationalizes conforming to industry norms.
All social institutions have hierarchies with preexisting industry standards. The people the top are assumed to have “earned” the right to be lazy, while those at the bottom are pacified by the daunting structure, so they tell themselves they’ll make a difference right after they get inducted into into the VIP club.
We should know better.
on the face of it, i think your comment is right. i’d just add some thoughts.
for me, with due respect, the established reputation part denotes some legitimacy (though I think you’re right that the publics who make up the audience wouldn’t care about this). i’m more concerned about making pronouncements before my own research agenda has developed some depth, tenure is an (admittedly messy) proxy for depth.
the larger point you make about the tenure process and the internal culture is right on — my post definitely reflects this. in grad school, it all seemed pretty easy, that has certainly changed for me recently.
my hope, though, is to make them compatible. i want tenure, i want respect within the insular discipline, and i’m not ashamed of it — i’d also like to have an impact on the world around me in positive ways. my hope is that there is some way to do this without becoming a corrupt CEO…