Sociology’s interventions: Engaging the media and politics while remaining a social scientist

Abstract

Public sociology implies not simply a general orientation to social research but also a methodology that connects the sociologist to a ‘public.’ This is the case, with some provisos, for the method of sociological intervention, invented by Alain Touraine, that I have pursued in studies of racism, anti-Semitism and terrorism, as well as of anti-nuclear and labor movements. The approach has led to complicated relations with the media and with politics. In this article I give a series of examples of such engagement and the dilemmas it creates for the sociologist who wants to maintain a critical distance. Ultimately, the question and the challenge of public sociology boil down to how one can intervene in social life and, at the same time, remain a social scientist.