Public Sociology and Southern European Society: a critical view

The aim of our paper is to analyze the role that a properly reformed public sociology can play in enhancing the perspective of southern European societies. By properly reformed public sociology we mean a public sociology that is reflective and aware of some limits, which we will try to highlight. By southern European societies we mean an area of southern Europe, made up of countries like Portugal, Italy, Spain and Greece, which —for historical, economic, political and social reasons— the post-colonial debate and that on indigenous sociology consider similar to the countries of the South of the world rather than those of the North. The paper is organized in three parts. In the first part, we summarize the main aspects of Burawoy’s proposal, developed from 2004 to date, while in the second part we will focus on three dimensions (communication, ethical-political and epistemological dimensions), detecting the fundamental dualism that runs through them and which we will try to clarify. In the third part we emphasize the substantial analogy of the three forms of dualism that characterize Burawoy’s proposal —which share the risk of leaving an empty space between sociologist and public, reflective and professional sociology, local and global knowledge, or North and South epistemology— and suggest hypotheses of the solutions that have been promoted in the international debate; we will introduce our work in progress hypothesis of solution in accordance with the solution proposed for the epistemological dimension.