What Do ‘We’ Know That ‘They’ Don’t? Sociologists’ versus Non-Sociologists’ Knowledge

Abstract

This paper attempts to clarify or to reposition some of the controversies generated by Burawoy’s defense of public sociology and by his vision of the mutually stimulating relationship between the different forms of sociology. Before arguing if, why, and how, sociology should or could be more ‘public’, it might be useful to reflect upon what it is we think we, as sociologists, know that ‘lay people’ do not. This paper thus explores the public sociology debate’s epistemological core, namely the issue of the relationship between sociologists’ and non-sociologists’ knowledge of the social world. Four positions regarding the status of sociologists’ knowledge versus lay people’s knowledge are explored: superiority (sociologists’ knowledge of the social world is more accurate, objective and reflexive than lay people’s knowledge, thanks to science’s methods and norms), homology (when they are made explicit, lay theories about the social world often parallel social scientists’ theories), complementarity (lay people’s and social scientists’ knowledge complement one another. The former’s local, embedded knowledge is essential to the latter’s general, disembedded knowledge), and circularity (sociologists’ knowledge continuously infuses commonsensical knowledge, and scientific knowledge about the social world is itself rooted in common sense knowledge. Each form of knowledge feeds the other). For each of these positions, implications are drawn regarding the terms, possibilities and conditions of a dialogue between sociologists and their publics, especially if we are to take the circularity thesis seriously. Conclusions point to the accountability we face towards the people we study, and to the idea that sociology is always performative, a point that has, to some extent, been obscured by Burawoy’s distinctions between professional, critical, policy and public sociologies.

The Epistemological Diversity of Canadian Socology

“…Creese, McLaren, and Pulkingham (2009: 618) argue further that Burawoy's description of public sociology offers insufficient attention to feminist perspectives, or the manner in which "the vibrant and transformative traditions aligned with feminist sociology… provide a different model of professional critical sociology that engages with diverse publics and social policies." Mesny (2009) claims that despite the nuanced nature of knowledge production in social science, a subversive element persists and the production of knowledge always has a performative quality irreducible to the stark value neutrality that some might advocate. Goldberg and van den Berg (2009) offer a sharp dissent to suggest Canadian sociology has always manifested a public component, despite misgivings about the assumption that the discipline shares a coherent, unified, leftist orientation and the implications of blurring the dividing line between science and advocacy.…”

CCTV Surveillance and the Civic Conversation: A Study in Public Sociology

“…Both traditional and organic public sociologies can make research available, but the dominant rationalities and agendas of the publics involved tend to dictate the terms of engagement. Simply put, the promotion of rational discourse involving social-scientific, or other pieces of rational academic research -or "facts and figures" -does not resonate with some publics (Mesny 2009). Compromises involved in adapting to public needs and communication logics may erode the reciprocal dynamics a civic conversation demands.…”

“…Burawoy's dual concept of publics is crucial to the question of how to "do" public sociology. Many responses to Burawoy's work address how these two types of publics can be defined and engaged (see Mesny 2009;Piven 2007;Acker 2005;Ryan 2005;Brady 2004). Although the public sociology literature has yet to develop consistent definitions of the two types of public, generally they may be understood in terms of three levels of integration: (1) internal and external recognition as a group by virtue of institutional association and/or life situation (visibility),…”

“…Noting that sociological evidence shows that public CCTV monitoring is mostly useful in preventing localized vandalism and theft of/from vehicles in parking lots (Gill and Spriggs 2005;Tilley 1993) and property crime (Armitage 2002;Armitage et al 1999;Squires 1998) also failed to impress our participants. In other words, the issue of safety is one where evidence-based sociological arguments about video surveillance are not an effective platform for communication, because, as Mesny (2009) notes, some publics feel more comfortable with different forms of knowledge, especially concerning particular issues such as harm, safety, and security.…”

Who Needs the Sociology of Health and Illness? A New Agenda for Responsive and Interdisciplinary Sociology of Health and Medicine

“…This dictates the necessity of better understanding the multi-layered nature of health inequalities in the future. Partly this complexity is likely to result from the increasingly circulatory nature of sociological research (Mesny, 2009) as it is becoming used and abused by conventional and social media. The critical sociology of health has also recently demonstrated the intersections of health by showing the complex and historically patterned interaction between social position (e.g.…”