Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.5613/rzs.47.2.3
The Calling of Sociology: Beyond Value-detached Professionalism and Partisan Activism
Davorka Matić
orcid.org/0000-0002-1586-1511
; Department of Sociology, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
Michael Burawoy’s project of public sociology provoked major debate within the sociological community about the tasks and nature of the discipline. While most participants in the debate are sympathetic to his call for a more publicly engaged sociology, many criticise him for politicising the discipline and claim that sociologists should not devote their work to promoting social justice or certain political agendas but concentrate instead on building an objective, evidence-based knowledge of society. This article argues that neither Burawoy’s public sociology nor the so-called scientific sociology constitute a proper way to address the problems of sociology’s identity crisis and its growing public irrelevance. It is suggested that Karl Mannheim provided the best answer to the questions of what it means to practice sociology and for what purposes it should be practiced. Following Mannheim’s line of thinking, the article argues that the real issue is not whether sociologists should be committed to promoting social justice or accumulating objective knowledge about society, but whether they can offer a comprehensive interpretation of the current situation and develop effective strategies to transform the existing patterns of society.
Keywords
public invisibility of sociology; Burawoy; Mannheim; public sociology; role of values; publicly engaged sociology
Hrčak ID:
187355
URI
Publication date:
31.8.2017.
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