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    Burawoy Sobre o Gulbenkain Report PDF

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    Portuguese Journal of Social Science Volume 6 Number 3. © Tatallect Ltd 2007, Article, Elish language. dot 10.1386/ps¢.6.3.137/1 Open the social sciences: To whom and for what?* Michael Burawoy University of California Abstract ‘he Gulbenkian Camamision Report (1996) on he restructuring ofthe socal sc- fences dsavowel anachronistic discplnary dvlslons, Western universalism and mathodolgcal postion, and insted proposed the wnation ofall slntfe nowiede we what called ‘pluralist nversasn. It exposedits oom schlas- ‘i, however fal tae for whom anor wats scntc knowledge produce With hese two questions spins fdpartae dis arle deeopsa ds- cxpnary division of labour and thereby dsirgushes among profesional, plc, pi and erica! nowy. amin te form ant relations among these fur types ofoleigallows net reais the rel bass of iverences rong sce lines ond within siping across nation and history. A lal perspective onthe social slences toy examines the spect responses to market fandametalsm Sra dierent seiphines an erent places tn che worl system. tis exactly ten years since the Gulbenkian Commission published its report on the restructuring of the social sclences. Chaired by Immanuel Wallerstein, the Commission consisted of ten distinguished scholars from the natural scionces, humanities and the social sciences. Their report, Open the Social Sciences, was widely publicised throughout the world as Innovative, polnting tosvards a fature that would dissolve outdated dlscipll- nary divisions within the social sciences, while making their unification the locus ofan ambitious reconciliation ofthe humanities and natural so! ences. The Commission attributed the backwardness ofthe social sclences 10 a lingecing attachment to ideas, methodologies and divisions that ‘marked thelr bicth in the 19th century. These antiquated notions, the Commission noted, began to break down after 1945 laying the founda- tions for an anticipated integration of al scientific knowledge. Driving this ‘rapture with the past would be the rational development of social science, ‘unhindered by false epistemologies and vested interests. ‘The Commission Nattred scentic knowledge with ts own autonomous ‘history For such antonomy is ilusory ~ a distorted expression of the privi- legod existence that prevails only atthe pinnacle of Western academe, and of litle relevance to most socal sclentists, embedded in contexts increas- Ingly driven by what I call thiri-wave marketisation. The Gulbenkian. Commission was the project of an elite cut off not only from the actual 74886 (3) 137-145 © tlle a 2007 a7 Keywords socal sence Guenian ‘Commision publ ocony Poly sey ntl sotlgy reistoal lol + This tea rend ‘hank Jot ere ‘Almeida. io Sana Toe Ver Pease Matures Pca, ‘Boueanara de Sou Ssotsand Ani ‘practice of the social sciences. but also from the reel world problems ‘those sciences are designed to investigate: not to mention ftom the people alfected by those problems. Rather then opening the social sclences, the Gulbenkian Commission was effectively closing them off, not only &0 the global south but also to most ofthe global north, Head stack in the sand, the Commission was disarming the soctal sciences ast faces search- {ng challenges to its viability Sottling accounts with the Gulbenkian Commission is long overdue. ‘We need to rethink the social sciences, net Irom the top down bat from the round up, rooting them tn the multiple eqntexts of their production. We ‘need to dispense with imaginary utopias divorced irom everyday practices ‘and explore the concrete division of labour within and between the social sciences, We cannot quarantine the social sclences, refusing their dissec- tion for fear of disturbing @ hornet's nest. We cannot exempt ourselves ‘rom the investigative eye we so gleefully turn upon others. It soctology, ln particular, can disclose to others the public issues that underle thei Private troubles, why can it not do the same for isell, turning, private ‘antagonism into public debate. To transcend the divisions that divide us, of at least turn those divisions in a constructive direction, we have to {race them to diffrent locations and trajectories within and through the scientific eld. Spelling out the parameters and dimensions, the patterns of domination and interdependence within and among scientific elds should foster a more effective presence in the wotkd beyond, We begin, therefore, by endorsing the Gulbenkian Conumission'sKdenti- cation of three problems that best the socal sclences, and the Commission's ‘dentication of three corresponding empirical trends. We then reinterpret ‘hose trends uot from the raters ofthe ivory tower but from the grounded laboratories of social science production — laboratories understood as fields of force operating in a world historical context, ‘Three problems, three trends and a totalising utopia ‘The Gulbeakten Connmission identied three significant issues that mast be at the beact of any rethinking of the social scences: (1) the false ani- versalism of Western thought that had underpinned the social sdences, (2) the anachronistic vision of the socal sciences divided by thelr objects of knowledge: and (3) a misguided posfivist methodology that still dom. nated the practice ofthe socal sciences. ‘Those three problems were corroborated and accentuated by three cor ‘responding historical tendencies identified by the Gulbenkian Commalssion First, feminism, anté-racism and antt-colonal thinking atiackod the socal Sclences as universalising the experiences of particular societics, namely Burope and the United States, and even more narrowly of hegemonte ‘roups within these societies. Second, the advance of inter- disciplinary programmes and journals as well as area studies signaled the anachro- hist of divisions withla the social scionces, divisions only maintained by retrograde disciplinary organisations. Thicd, narrow postivist methodology, 138 Michael ao based on an imagination of Newtonian physics, with its predictable fature ‘and reversible time, no longer pertained in the natural sciences, which ‘exhibited striking convergetces with cultural studies in a common hostil- tty to simple explanatory frameworks. Together, natural sclences and cul- tural studies pointed to a new soctal scientific epistemology. ‘The Gulbenkian Commission's crowning proposal was to unify disciph- nary knowledge within which the social sciences, now combined into & single historical sclence, would be the Reld of reconciliation of the natural sciences and the humanities. With all feuitless oppositions thereby resolved, the social sclences would march forward under the banner of an ‘unspecified ‘pluralistic universalism’, Paradoxically this was not @ move beyond, but a programmatic return to the ambitions of 19th century positivism ~ the unification ofall scientific Inowledge. We hear nothing ‘about how and where this new knowledge will be produced. Nor do we: hhoar for whom this knowledge will be produced, nor for what ends. Instead we have an abstract and totalsing utopia that reflects the con- cerns of Western academics, perched high wp in the vory tower, seemingly ‘unaware that the fortress beneath them ~ supporting them ~ was under sioge. We neod to transport the Gulbenian Commission out of its ivory tower, and bring the Commissioners down from heaven to earth. We need to start with the actual relations of the material production of knowledge, recognising how they vary by time and place, To advance the social si- fences, [shall argue, we must not dlssolve them, but create alliances botit ‘among them and between them and the public, around shared projects ~ alliances stitched together from below rather than imposed programmatt- cally from above, Knowledge for whom? Knowledge for what? ‘The Gulbenkian Commission suppressed two questions that provide a nec- essary foundation for re-envisioning the practice and project of the social sclences in the light of the tasks they face today. The two questions are: mowledge for whom; and knowledge for what? In the context ofsclentiic production wo ask, fst, whether knowledge is for an academic audience or an extra-academic audience: that is, whether as social scientists we talc to-one another orto others. We ask, socond, whether the knowledge con- cezns the determination of the appropriate means to pursue a given, taken-forgranted end, or whether it involves a discussion of those very ends themselves: that is whether the knowledge is instrumental or ‘whether it is rflexve. ‘This elves rise to four types of knowledge that define a scientific field. Policy iowledge is knowledge tn the service of problems defined by cients. ‘This i, first and foremost, an Instrumental relation in which expertise is rendered in exchange for material or symbolic rewards. It depends upon. preexisting scientific knowledge. This professional knowledge tavolves the ‘expansion of research programmes that are based on certain assumptions, questions, methodologies and theories that advance through solving ‘Open te soca scl; To whom and far wat? 239 external anomalies or resolving internal contradietions. tis instrameatal knowledge because puztle-solving takes for granted the defining parame- ters of the research programme. Crtieal knowledge is precisely the exam!- nation of the assumptions, often the value assumptions, of research programmes, opening them up for discussion and debate within the com- ‘munity of scholars. Tis Is reflexive knowledge, in that it involves dialogue about the value relevance of the scientific projects we pursue, Finally, Public knowledge is also reflexive ~ dialogue botwoen the sclentst or scholae ‘and the public beyond the academy, dialogue around questions of societal Boals but also, as a subsidiary moment, the means for achieving those soals. The results the following matrix, Division of disciplinary knowledge “Rewiemie wudieace — Betacaeedemie audience Instrumental nowledge Profesional Poly Reflexive knowledge etal Pablic ‘This matrix forms a division of disciplinary knowledge in which the four types of knowledge are fundamentally different practices, with different criteria of truth, modes of legitimation, notions of politics, regimes of ‘accountability and pathological tendencies. This division defines a sclea- {ie fel as a pattern of domination and inter dependence among the four diferent types of kmowledge. In this view, what distinguishes the natural sclences from the humanities is the former's emphasis on instrumental knowledge that is @ concern with the development of scientife research ‘and its applications and the latter's focus on reflexive knowledge: that i, a concern with dialogue about meaning, the fandamental values of society ‘The soctal sciences are not the reconcliation of natural sclences and ‘bumanites, as the Gulbeattien Commission hoped: rather they Ue at the crossroads of these two opposed bodies of knowledge, That is, the social sciences contain within them the contradictions and chellenges of coa- bining instrumental and reflexive kaowledge. From this perspective, the ‘commitment to methodological positivism represents the professional self- misunderstanding of the nature of social science that sees it as value ‘neutral and context-free, which rednces the four-fold division of dscip- nary knowledge to a single quadrant. ‘We can now turn to the second Ill that was emphasised by Gulbenkian ‘Commission ~ the changing relation among the socal sclences. In terms of ‘our scheme, the separate socal sciences are marked by different configu rations and balance among the dillerent types of knowledge. In the United ‘States, the paradigmatic socal science of economies Is marked by the dom- ‘mation of instrumental knowledge while, say, cultural anthropology ‘weights reflexivity more heavily. Political selence is closer to economics, while sociology ts closer to anthropology. More fundamentally, however, because of the importance of relexvity, the social sciences should be a Michel Bury distinguished by their configuration of value stances, oF what we might call thef standpoint. Economics takes as its standpoint the market and its ‘expansion, political scence takes as its standpoint the state and political forder, while soclology takes the standpoint of civil society and the reatlleace ofthe social. Cultural anthropology and human geography are potential alles in the defence of civil soctety It would, of course, be a ‘mistake to homogenise disiplines as each is a field of power with subal- tera groupings that challenge the dominant standpoint of the discipline. Sill, It would be no less an error to overlook the diferent interests that divide the disciplines. ‘Atthe same time, we must not forget the importance of inter-dscilinary cof trans-disciplinary programmes that, at least in the United States, were ‘born out ofthe eruptions of soclery in the 1960s, and continue to matntain close relations with ther distinctive publics.'They are not harbingers ofsome new unity of the soctal scences or of the socal sciences with the hamanitics, bot, more usually thelr appearance and then thelr persisting marginality reflect the overweening power of the disciplines. Indeed, the dissolution of

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