Analysis of Burawoy's (1998) Critical Sociology: A Dialogue Between Two Sciences

The discipline of sociology has, on one hand, a set of texts that have exercised guiding impact on the history of its development and, on the other hand, a number of practices that evolve in the process of their application, which constitutes the point of Stinchcombe's (1959) essay on Weber that Burawoy (1998) relates to contemporary state of sociology. Stinchcombe's distinction of mode of operation of ideal-typical bureaucracy into, on one side, properly bureaucratic work with detailed rules, division of labor, and set procedures, and, on another side, craft-like work with only cognitive map of theory to steer the interaction between researcher and informants equally applies to sociology (Burawoy 1998: 12). Bureaucratic sociology belongs to positive models of science with separation, distance, and detachment as its hallmarks, while craft sociology relies on reflexive models of science with connection, proximity and dialogue as its major features. As each theoretical practice responds to specific sets of characteristics of social reality, the distinction of sociology as a discipline lies, however, in avoiding predominance of any single approach in favor of "mutually enriching, reciprocal engagement of positive and reflexive science" (Burawoy 1998: 12).

The practice of science carries such implications for each model of scientific inquiry that context poses most challenge for the principles of positive science while power for reflexive science as these limits to scientific inquiry simultaneously demarcate the boundaries of the world each mode of science can make transparent. Beginning with Comte who opposed positivism with its search for empirical social laws to metaphysical thinking the transformation of sociology into science has been accompanied with qualification of its claims as the discipline underwent professionalization where representation of the world and scholarly practice are held to be separate. Positive science follows four basic regulatory principles (Katz 1983) that include avoidance of reactivity where researcher should refrain from inducing bias into studied reality, insurance of reliability whereby researcher systematically selects from available data, assurance of replicability where idiosyncrasies of observer are minimized, and demonstration of representativity where derivation or testing of theory must be valid for entire population of data. However, survey research as most representative of bureaucratic mode of science demonstrates its limitations of its guiding principles as stimulus-response expectation becomes affected by survey structure, location and subject, as standardization expectation meets with diversity of respondent understanding and reaction, as stabilization expectation gets subverted by external field effects on the interview, and as sampling expectation comes undone in situations of interaction that construct their subjects and situations rather than represent (Burawoy 1998: 13).

As the survey research progressively refines its methodology to control for context effects of interview by ethnographic sensibility, of respondent by focus groups, of field and situation by factoring in larger social forces the limitations of positive science and advantages of reflexive become more apparent (Burawoy 1998: 13). While objections to objectivist effects of social science frequently proclaim the "inviolability of local knowledge" (Burawoy 1998: 13), by Geertz (1983), Bauman (1992) and Latour (1993) among others, the interpretive turn towards research context from subjective standpoint should maintain communication with positivist social science to prevent another one-sided perspective from prevailing. Reflexive sociology, as proposed by Mills (1959), Gouldner (1970), and Bourdieu ad Wacquant (1992), invites methodological specification should transition towards "reflexive model of science" (Burawoy 1998: 14) be accomplished. Corresondingly, reflexive science presupposes intersubjectivity its subjects develop over course of research, embeddedness of its objects into context-specific social processes, structuration within assymetric relations between local contexts and extralocal processes, and reconstruction of theories by strategic choice of case studies to elaborate or revise conceptual frameworks (Burawoy 1998: 14).

Reflexive science allows for transition from procedural objectivity where empirical data either corroborate or falsify theories towards embedded objectivity where gradual improvement of theory overcomes epistemological dualisms of rigidly positivist orientation to find its foundation in intersubjective participation, process dependence, complex structuration, and theoretical reconstruction. Following Lakatos (1978) reconstructions should be consistent with existing knowledge, account for anomalous cases with parsimony, offer new theoretical perspective, lead to original predictive statements, and lend themselves to corroborations. The mutual dynamics found between anomalous empirical phenomena and theories or research programs that engenders theory reconstruction should supply the starting point for the production of new knowledge through discovery of anomalies and theoretical programs. This perspective opens an interdisciplinary space where each research program plies a reflexive, political and situational course in "hierarchically organized field of competing, overlapping, clashing, and mutually constituting theories" (Burawoy 1998: 14).

As a result of the theoretical historicization and de-exoticization of the anthropological encounter, rather than reconstruct fixed norms and isolated communities reflexive anthropology started to take account of strategic action by research subjects, of problematization by anthropologists of their research, and of direct observation of events by means of extended case method (Gluckman 1958, 1961; Mitchell 1956; van Velsen 1967). As ethnography becomes methodological tool increasingly widely used in sociology it incorporates theoretical concerns of extended case method into studies that cover street society (Bourgois 1995; Susser 1982), workplace (Lee 1997; Thomas 1985), migration (Hondagneu-Sotelo 1994; Stack 1996), family (Devault 1991; Stacey 1990), schooling (Lareau 1989; Willis 1977), social movements (Fantasia 1988; Ray 1998), underdevelopment (Enriquez 1991; Beneria and Roldan 1987), organizational dynamics (Blum 1991; Smith 1990), the state (Espeland 1998; Haney 1996), and science (Epstein 1996; Fujimura 1996). As applications of ethnography continue to develop along the dimensions of intersubjective experience, comparative tracing of processes across contexts, historical interpretation of translocal structures, and cumulative theory reconstruction such methodology has to grapple with subversive effects of "multiple dimensions of power" (Burawoy 1998: 15).

Ethnographic research tends to come into contact with networks of domination that restrictively affect the possibilities for communication and discovery the attempts at intervening into which contribute to dynamics of domination already found in the research field where contestatory intention of research needs to address relations of power in their fullness. The analysis of social process cannot be rid of the objectifying effects whereby sociological reduction commits silencing by reconstructing relations of power, production of differences, and reproduction of complex field centered around actors privileged by ethnographer's account. The differences in historical, social, and theoretical scale that enter into ethnographic research of connection between micro processes and large-scale social forces lead to their contingent objectification in order to highlight their social reality as is done in institutional ethnography (Smith 1987, 1990). Ethnography sensitive to anomalous subjects of its discourse in the process of extending the reach of reconstructed theories should refrain from normalizing social reality through naturalization of existing relations, homogenization of differences, domestication of resistances, and stigmatization of traditions.

While researcher's authority in both positive and reflexive science is exercised through dimensions of "domination, silencing, objectification, and normalization" (Burawoy 1998: 16), the medium of application of authority is the control over research design in positive science and the power over context of research in reflexive science. The contradictions that science harbors in its principles and operation demand its reshaping and reappropriation with critique contributing to continuous self-monitoring of scientific practice, which, as opposed to postmodernist renunciation, does not lead to standing "helpless before the ravages of modernity" (Burawoy 1998: 16). As both positive and reflexive science discover their respective limitations the use of techniques, methods, and models becomes differentiated according to the model of science they serve. In case of interview, it can be employed either as objectifying tool of survey research of positive science or as part of reflexive method where it is "self-consciously intersubjective, highlights process through space and time, and locates the individual in historical and social milieus" (Burawoy 1998: 16). Correspondingly, participant observation can be used reflexively as part of application of extended case method or be put to positive use of grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss 1967) with outside observation, coding apparatuses, context bracketing, and theory induction.

The difference between application of ethnography in positive as opposed to reflexive science lies in whether inductive derivation of conclusions (Hochschild 1989) or critical engagement of discursive practices (Devault 1991) is sought. In historical sociology the distinction between positive and reflexive principles takes form of, on one hand, outer-historical standpoint, formal standardization, simultaneous comparison of historical contexts, and theoretical induction of explanatory factors (Skocpol 1979), and of, on the other hand, participatory reconstruction of history, orientation to singular processes over homogeneous events, changing context of interactions, and theory reconstruction vis-a-vis single case (Trotsky [1906] 1969, [1930] 1977). Being among the methods that has explored the methodological space between positive and reflexive science, feminist ethnography has not developed into systematic research, has refused to develop totalizing theories of class, race, and ethnicity, has not yet related everyday life to translocal forces, and has not translated deconstructions of theory or ideology into research programs (Burawoy 1998: 17).

Among the contributions to the reflexive science of sociology that allows to locate the discipline in the changing conditions of its existence is Castells' (1996, 1997, 1998) sociology of the post-industrial order where disparities and concentration of power, transnationalization of corporations, and development of global networks reach unprecedented scale. Proliferation of possibilities, spatial flows, and risks puts sociology together with other practices of knowledge production at the center of increasingly self-referential social order. Giddens (1992) and Beck (1992) highlight the need for reflexive science to respond to paradoxical consequences of unfolding of advanced modernization that call science to internal self-regulation, social accountability, context sensitivity, and consequences and fallibility awareness. The disciplinary reflexivity deficit of sociology has to be met with recognition of interdependence of positive and reflexive methods that can be arrived at "by holding them in tension, by interweaving them, by playing them off each other" (Burawoy 1998: 18).

How effective research methods prove to be also depends on methodological scale of phenomena studied so that translocal social forces receive reflection in survey and demographic data that is unavailable through ethnography. When different research methods are combined, their criteria of evaluation should not be merged or confused. Implication of methodologies in either positive or reflexive science also governs the choice and formulation of problems which makes interdisciplinary combination of methods conditional on corresponding change in methodological orientations. Similar to how rise of mass society brought prominence to survey research (Coleman 1986), reflexive sociology belongs to the present historical moment when apparatuses of global control proliferate in developing countries, local rebellions against the global, and postcolonial challenging of marginalization. Changes afoot in outside world also constitute the theoretical practice of sociology as symbolic analysis (Reich 1991) fits better into horizontal than hierarchical networks, action research (Touraine 1988) reinforces the dynamics of new social movements, and extended case method becomes "increasingly tied to the polarized world we study" (Burawoy 1998: 19).

Integration of structural functionalism of Parsons (1949, 1960) into present practice of largely reflexive sociology will provide it with ability to methodologically mediate between more positive economics and political science and more interpretive anthropology, history, and geography, to deal with ethnography, silencing, globalization, modernity, and theory non-dualistically, and to provide reflexive social critique sensitive to both context and power relations. However, in order to avoid imbalance between reflexive and positivist methodologies within sociology it has to articulate counterhegemonic theoretical frameworks, to force research methodologies to confront their limitations, to reconnect sociology to interdisciplinary developments, and to "respond creatively and critically to the troubles and (dis)illusions of the epoch" (Burawoy 1988: 19).