Sociology as a vocation: Moral commitment and scientific imagination

Michael Burawoy

University of California, Berkeley, USA

Michael Burawoy, Department of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA. Email: burawoy@berkeley.edu

Abstract

Public sociology and the sacrifices it entails, richly described in the case studies in this monograph, are driven by moral commitment. This is one element of sociology as a vocation. The other element is sociology as a science. The case studies are built on an embryonic sociology of commodification, understood in its historical dimensions and its global consequences. This sociology of commodification examines the disasters created by third-wave marketization and the bleak future for human existence, thereby, fueling the original moral commitment of public sociology.