My last post was about Tracy Kidder’s fantastic book on Dr. Paul Farmer. If you didn’t follow the links or watch the 60 Minutes clip, the short version of the story is this: Farmer is a doctor and medical anthropologist (M.D. and Ph.D. from Harvard) who has been working in a severely impoverished area of Haiti for 25 years. In the process, he and his colleagues have saved thousands of lives and changed the way the international public health community thinks about and treats infectious diseases, especially TB and AIDS, in poor parts of the world.
Farmer began working in Haiti in 1983, just after graduating with a B.A. in anthropology from Duke, and a year before entering Harvard Medical School. One remarkable part of the story is that worked nearly non-stop in Haiti throughout his time in medical school — he would return for exams and important labs, but otherwise continuing working to treat Haiti’s sick. In 1985, while still a medical student, he helped found Zanmi Lastane, the one-room clinic that would eventually grow into a full-blown hospital and public health organization. Three years later, he earned his M.D., and two years after that, his Ph.D. in anthropology. But think about this: by the time he officially became a doctor, he’d been working nearly non-stop on poor, sick patients in Haiti for five years.
Compare this to the situation in sociology (and in related disciplines, I would guess), where public and applied/clinical sociology is hardly encouraged for anyone, and certainly not for junior hires in the pre-tenure phase. Farmer was doing great work in Haiti for years before he earned his M.D. — I, on the other hand, will not likely do any applied sociology until after tenure, or six years after earning my Ph.D. One guy is out, as author Tracy Kidder described it, “curing the world” — the other guy is building his vitae by publishing in academic journals that 99.99% of the populace will never read.
In 2004, the theme of the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association was Public Sociologies. The theme statement noted, in part:
More than ever the world needs public sociologies – sociologies that transcend the academy and engage wider audiences. Our potential publics are multiple, ranging from media audiences to policy makers, from think tanks to NGOs, from silenced minorities to social movements.
The theme statement also noted the challenges faced by public sociology, including:
* To harness sociology’s longstanding critical imagination, reminding us that the world could be different. As they turn private troubles into public issues, public sociologies should challenge the world as we know it, exposing the gap between what is and what could be.
* To be inclusive and democratic, building bridges open to all and without tolls, bridges that connect multiple communities within and outside sociology.
The featured sessions tried to draw connections between sociology and other intellectual and political domains, and included many prominent names from outside of the discipline, including Arundhati Roy, Fernando Henrique Cardoso (former President of Brazil and a sociologist), Mary Robinson (former President of Ireland and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights), and Paul Krugman. It was my first ASA conference, and this was heady, inspiring stuff.
On the second-last day, the main session on public sociology featured a panel that included noted scholars William Julius Wilson and Frances Fox Piven, and writer Barbara Ehrenreich. After much lofty, inspired talk about the possibilities that lay before us as sociologists, a graduate student got up during the Q&A, and asked the distinguished panel how young scholars should consider public sociology while building a career.
“Wait until you have tenure,” responded William Julius Wilson (an interesting comment coming from a scholar whose work has impacted public policy more than most scholars).
An audible groan arose, and a handful of attendees booed. From then on, the discussion turned toward the “difficult” issues of judging public sociology for a tenure case. Journal articles go through the peer-review process, the time-honored way to (allegedly) judge the quality of a research work. How could a tenure and promotion committee possibly balance an applied community research project vs. a peer-reviewed article or a book published on a quality university press? My goodness, how could we possibly judge the value and worth of these projects? So…wait ’til tenure.
Judging from the employment listings of the last couple years, some departments — mostly smaller and less prestigious ones — are beginning to look for professors who engage in public sociology. The majority of universities and colleges, as far as I can tell, have remained unchanged by the 2004 meetings and subsequent discussions of public sociology. There appears to have been absolutely no movement on the “difficult” problem of evaluating public sociology for tenure and promotion.
Five years before he earned his M.D., Paul Farmer moved to Haiti and began saving lives. Three years before he earned his M.D., he co-founded a one-room clinic with very few resources in one of the poorest parts of the globe; this clinic would eventually become a model of public health for the entire world. And we can’t figure out how to evaluate public works so that we can begin leaving our mark on society sooner rather than later? Seriously? Is it any wonder that most folks outside of sociology do not know or care about what we do?
More soon on public sociology and blogs.
{ 3 } Comments
As always, Dave, nice, thought provoking post. FYI, we are probably hiring someone in the fall and want someone who is an applied sociologist. But, and here’s the kicker, based on my experience here with tenure, they will still have to publish in research journals (or at least applied sociology journals) to get tenure, even if they were to start an amazing educational program or hospital or other initiative in a developing country. Without publications, there is no tenure, even at a small school like mine. Maybe you should write an article for an applied sociology journal talking about how to quantify public sociology so it can be considered in tenure discussions? Or does that undermine your point?
Yack! The scary/amusing fact is that after a full set of meetings, nothing has changed- kinda reminds you of CIncinnati, no? The sad parts are that a) many people have no idea what we do, b) fewer people care what we do, because we’ve insulated ourselves in the tower and barricaded the door, and c) the world needs us now more than ever.
As a fledgling scholar, I can tell you, the margins never looked so good. Perhaps the academy has to lose talented applied sociologists in order to appreciate them- or, more likely, they don’t give a darn.
This is a hard thing and I’ve been contemplating these issues a lot lately. I remember reading Burawoy’s piece on this where he lays out a division of labor for 4 types of sociology: Academic, Professional, Public, and Critical. The academic and critical being more abstract and the professional and public being more applied. I think its important to remember that the Academy will always specialize in academic sociology – the main concern is knowledge for its own sake. I think its also important to remember that the Academy is not the only place sociology is being done nor is it the only place that public sociology can come from. Honestly, I question how aptly public sociology can be done from the academy. I feel that professional expressions of sociology provide much more potential for doing public sociology and proliferating it. Dr. Farmer did his work as a doctor not as faculty in a biology department. In professional sociology, sociological expertise and methodology has import to government institutions (like HUD), consulting (for things like schools and hospitals), education policy and so on. There is a lot of professional sociology with a public tone and this seems like the more apt place for a movement to advance and proliferate public sociology than the academy as these arenas have closer ties to particular constituencies. Then, as the practice of public sociology develops, specific expertise can grow, institutions to develop it can emerge, and research about it can develop so that grad students and pre-tenured faculty can do it, specialize in it, and publish on it in a more codable way.