Evolving Publics and the Practice of Public Sociology

Abstract

How do the changing roles of diverse publics affect possibilities for the practice of public sociology? Having set this question in the context of Burawoy’s 2004 launch of public sociology, this analysis goes on to look at some distinguished illustrative examples of public sociology, beginning with Du Bois. The goal is to explore how the evolution of surrounding ‘archipelagos of publics’ creates challenges and opportunities for public sociology. In addition to Du Bois, the work of Edward Webster and his colleagues in South Africa, the unorthodox career of Marshall Ganz and the ethnographic public sociology of Arlie Hochschild are considered. A synoptic sketch of the evolution of publics in Brazil since the 1964 military coup and an example of contemporary Brazilian public sociology—the ‘Emancipation Network’—follow. I conclude with a ‘neo-Polanyian pessimist’ vision of what the contemporary combination of neoliberalism and reactionary authoritarianism might mean for public sociology.