the particularity of South African sociology – another case of the symbolic violence of the global division of knowledge production, backed up by the material and ideological resources of US universities and its ‘high-ranking’ journals. If SWOP’s first step had been to adapt Northern concepts to the local context, the second step was to challenge Northern hegemony with an alternative ‘Southern’ hegemony – to regard ‘critical engagement’ not as a species of public sociology, what I had called organic public sociology, but as an alternative to public sociology tout
The idea of public sociology, as introduced by Michael Burawoy, was inspired by the sociological practice in South Africa known as ‘critical engagement’. This volume explores the evolution of critical engagement before and after Burawoy’s visit to South Africa in the 1990s and offers a Southern critique of his model of public sociology.
Involving four generations of researchers from the Global South, the authors provide a multifaceted exploration of the formation of new knowledge through research practices of co-production.
Tracing the historical development of ‘critical engagement’ from a Global South perspective, the book deftly weaves a bridge between the debates on public sociology and decolonial frameworks.
practice on a global scale. Yet, in South Africa, the practice he named ‘public sociology’ had been conceptualized as ‘critically engaged sociology’, or ‘critical engagement’ for short, and had significantly different emphases from those that characterize sociology as formulated by Burawoy (2004 , 2005a , 2005b ). This volume returns to what we may call the birthplace of public sociology in order to explore the trajectory of critical engagement before and after Burawoy’s visit, comparing this to the trajectory of public sociology which was forged in the very
outcomes for the marginalized classes. However, I argue that production of such sociological knowledge can also pose serious dilemmas. Primarily, I employ Edward Webster’s ( 1991 ) concept of ‘critical engagement’ as a conceptual schema to explain the challenges and possible triumphs of socially engaged research in a complex rural landscape where ordinary villagers continue to demonstrate amazing resilience and agency in their struggle to defend their land and livelihoods against mining capital and powerful local chiefs. I reflect on the dilemmas encountered while
repression. It was in this environment that SWOP refined its strategy of ‘critical engagement’ with the trade unions it supported through research and educational programmes (see the chapters by Webster and Buhlungu, this volume), building on Webster’s work over the previous decade. During this period, SWOP’s researchers focused their intellectual work on workplace analysis and trade union resistance, with studies of health and safety in mining and metal industries, HIV/AIDS 2 and mineworkers. Significant theoretical contributions were made with the concept of ‘social
Much of the literature on the political engagements of sociologists has been framed by Michael Burawoy’s concept of ‘public sociology’. The aim of this chapter is to develop a critique of this concept, drawing from the writings and practices of a group of sociologists at the Society, Work and Politics Institute (SWOP) in Johannesburg, South Africa, and replace it with the concept of ‘critically engaged sociology’ – ‘critical engagement’ for short – which emerges through interaction between sociologists and movements in the struggle for change and captures more
Social justice and social policy in Scotland offers a critical engagement with the state of social policy in one of the devolved nations of the UK, a decade after the introduction of devolution.
Promoting greater social justice has been held up as a key vision of successive Scottish administrations since devolution began. It is argued throughout this important book that the analysis of Scottish social policy must therefore be located in wider debates around social injustice as well as about how the devolution process affects the making, implementation and impact of social policy.
Social justice and social policy in Scotland focuses on a diverse range of topics and issues, including income inequalities, work and welfare, criminal justice, housing, education, health and poverty, each reflecting the themes of social inequality and social justice.
This book will be essential reading for academics, researchers, policy makers and practitioners as well as students of social policy and of society in Scotland and other devolved nations.
This book examines the challenges in delivering a participatory planning agenda in the face of an increasingly neoliberalised planning system and charts the experience of Planning Aid England.
In an age of austerity, government spending cuts, privatisation and rising inequalities, the need to support and include the most vulnerable in society is more acute than ever. However, forms of Advocacy Planning, the progressive concept championed for this purpose since the 1960s, is under threat from neoliberalisation.
Rather than abandoning advocacy, the book asserts that only through sustained critical engagement will issues of exclusion be positively tackled and addressed. The authors propose neo-advocacy planning as the critical lens through which to effect positive change. This, they argue, will need to draw on a co-production model maintained through a well-resourced special purpose organisation set up to mobilise and resource planning intermediaries whose role it is to activate, support and educate those without the resources to secure such advocacy themselves.
The growing recognition of unpaid work in international law and the Sustainable Development Goals acknowledges that gendered labour supports the global economy. This work can have harmful impacts, leading to ‘depletion through social reproduction’ (). When corporate harms impact on workers and communities, family members are often required to provide caring labour for those directly affected. However, the consequential harms of depletion are generally invisible within the law and uncompensated. In assessing the United Nations’ business and human rights framework, we argue that the international legal regime must take account of social reproductive work and its consequent harms.
Bringing together an international team of contributors, this volume draws on international political theory and intellectual history to rethink the problem of a pluralistic world order.
Inspired by the work of international political theorist Nicholas Rengger, the book focuses on three main areas of Rengger’s contribution to the political theory of international relations: his Augustine-inspired idea of an ‘Anti-Pelagian Imagination’; his Oakeshottian argument for a pluralist ‘conversation of mankind’; and his ruminations on war as the uncivil condition in world politics. Through a critical engagement with his work, the book illuminates the promises and limitations of civility as a sceptical, non-utopian, anti-perfectionist approach to theorizing world order that transcends both realist pessimism and liberal utopianism.
