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"Public Sociology and Participatory Action Research"

a Plenary Dialogue with MICHAEL BURAWOY
and JOHN GAVENTA

The theme of the 2008 RSS meeting is Rural Sociology as Public Sociology. Join us as we discuss key issues in working with various publics. The "plenary dialogue" will feature advocates of two different approaches to public engagement. How can they help inform our work as rural sociologists?

Stan L. Albrecht
Michael Burawoy has studied industrial workplaces in different parts of the world--Chicago, Hungary, Russia, and Zambia--through participant observation. His research illuminates the nature of postcolonialism, the organization of consent to capitalism, the peculiar forms of working class consciousness and organization in state socialism, and the dilemmas of transition from socialism to capitalism. He is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. During his recent term as president of the American Sociological Association and now as vice-president of the International Sociological Association, he provokes lively debate on "public sociology," examining how we produce and disseminate knowledge to diverse publics.

 

Carol Whiteside
John Gaventa is a political sociologist with deep experience in participation and development, both North and South. He specializes in participatory methods of research and action; power and empowerment; participation and governance; rural poverty and its alleviation; participatory monitoring and evaluation; and South-North linkages. He writes widely on issues of power, civil society, and social change. Throughout his career, he has constructed his research in close consultation with social groups that lack conventional political resources. Formerly director of the Highlander Center (an NGO working on poverty and social justice in poor regions of the U. S.), he is Professor and Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, U.K.