GD 7.4 - December 2017
Global Dialogue is available in multiple languages!
Select the language to download the issue.
Editors:
Michael Burawoy.
Associate Editor:
Gay Seidman.
Managing Editors:
Lola Busuttil, August Bagà.
Media Consultant:
Gustavo Taniguti.
Consulting Editors:
Margaret Abraham, Markus Schulz, Sari Hanafi , Vineeta Sinha, Benjamín Tejerina, Rosemary Barbaret, Izabela Barlinska, Dilek Cindoğlu, Filomin Gutierrez, John Holmwood, Guillermina Jasso, Kalpana Kannabiran, Marina Kurkchiyan, Simon Mapadimeng, Abdul-mumin Sa’ad, Ayse Saktanber, Celi Scalon, Sawako Shirahase, Grazyna Skapska, Evangelia Tastsoglou, Chin-Chun Yi, Elena Zdravomyslova.
REGIONAL EDITORS
Arab World: Sari Hanafi , Mounir Saidani.
Argentina: Juan Ignacio Piovani, Pilar Pi Puig, Martín Urtasun.
Bangladesh: Habibul Haque Khondker, Hasan Mahmud, Juwel Rana, US Rokeya Akhter, Toufi ca Sultana, Asif Bin Ali, Khairun Nahar, Kazi Fadia Esha, Helal Uddin, Muhaimin Chowdhury.
Brazil: Gustavo Taniguti, Andreza Galli, Ângelo Martins Júnior, Lucas Amaral, Benno Alves, Julio Davies.
India: Rashmi Jain, Jyoti Sidana, Pragya Sharma, Nidhi Bansal, Pankaj Bhatnagar.
Indonesia: Kamanto Sunarto, Hari Nugroho, Lucia Ratih Kusumadewi, Fina Itriyati, Indera Ratna Irawati Pattinasarany, Benedictus Hari Juliawan, Mohamad Shohibuddin, Dominggus Elcid Li, Antonius Ario Seto Hardjana.
Iran: Reyhaneh Javadi, Sina Bastani, Mina Azizi, Hamid Gheissari, Vahid Lenjanzadeh.
Japan: Satomi Yamamoto, Masataka Eguchi, Kota Nakano, Aya Sato, Kaori Saeki, Riho Tanaka, Marie Yamamoto.
Kazakhstan: Aigul Zabirova, Bayan Smagambet, Adil Rodionov, Almash Tlespayeva, Kuanysh Tel.
Poland: Jakub Barszczewski, Katarzyna Dębska, Paulina Domagalska, Adrianna Drozdrowska, Łukasz Dulniak, Jan Frydrych, Krzysztof Gubański, Sara Herczyńska, Kinga Jakieła, Justyna Kościńska, Karolina Mikołajewska- Zając, Adam Müller, Zofi a Penza-Gabler, Anna Wandzel, Jacek Zych, Łukasz Żołądek.
Romania: Cosima Rughiniș, Raisa-Gabriela Zamfi rescu, Maria-Loredana Arsene, Timea Barabaș, Diana Alexandra Dumitrescu, Radu Dumitrescu, Iulian Gabor, Dan Gîtman, Alina Hoară, Alecsandra Irimie Ana, Alexandra Isbășoiu, Rodica Liseanu, Cristiana Lotrea, Mădălina Manea, Anda-Olivia Marin, Bianca Mihăilă, Andreea Elena Moldoveanu, Rareș-Mihai Mușat, Oana-Elena Negrea, Mioara Paraschiv, Codruţ Pînzaru, Ion Daniel Popa, Anda Rodideal, Adriana Sohodoleanu.
Russia: Elena Zdravomyslova, Elena Nikiforova, Anastasia Daur.
Taiwan: Jing-Mao Ho.
Turkey: Gül Çorbacıoğlu, Irmak Evren.
GD 7.4 - December 2017
Editorial
A Short History of Global Dialogue
Global Dialogue began in 2010 as an eight-page newsletter. It began in four languages – English, French, Spanish and Chinese – and was produced with a simple Microsoft program, involving the work of four people. Seven years later it has become a full-fledged magazine with four issues a year, each some 40 pages long, published in seventeen languages. Each issue involves the collaboration of over 100 people across the globe. The 31 issues published so far contain some 550 articles written by authors from 69 countries. From the beginning we have tried to make articles accessible to all, both for ease of translation and as a principle of dissemination. Sociology, after all, has important messages – indeed ever-more important messages – for a world careening toward multiple disasters.
While the newfangled technologies at our disposal can accelerate those disasters, they also offer us new opportunities. Digital media made Global Dialogue possible but, let it be emphasized, not without the human labor of so many. Even though the ISA was only able to offer a token sum for their devotion, young sociologists, guided by senior colleagues, seized the opportunity to translate Global Dialogue into their languages, especially those marginalized in processes of globalization. Their enthusiastic collaboration has been one of the most exhilarating things to behold.
Early on our graphic designer, August Bagà (aka Arbu), proposed to give Global Dialogue an exciting visual appearance. He teamed up with Lola Busuttil, fluent in the ISA’s three languages, to become the managing editors. Lola oversees the whole operation, making sure that each issue in each language follows the highest standards. Their partnership has resulted in a beautiful and meticulous magazine, made accessible to all by Gustavo Taniguti, who designed and maintained the Global Dialogue website.
While I was Vice-President and then President of the ISA I had the privilege of getting to know sociologists from all corners of the world. Those contacts sustained the contents of the magazine. When the task of editing the articles into accessible format was proving too much I asked Gay Seidman to help me. Before becoming a distinguished sociologist she had been a journalist and editor. She generously volunteered to undertake the often very challenging task of turning “sociologese” into simple but elegant English. She was caring in her attention to the authors, efficient and effective in her execution, and an invaluable consultant throughout. Before Gay applied her fine art, a team of graduate students at Berkeley would translate non-English submissions into English.
There are so many others to thank, but top of the list must be Robert Rojek who, early on, spontaneously offered SAGE funding with no strings attached. From the beginning Izabela Barlinska, ISA’s organizational genius and devoted caretaker, has been Global Dialogue’s champion. Throughout these seven years I have received the endorsement of the ISA’s Executive Committee without which the whole enterprise would never have been possible. After I ceased to be president, Margaret Abraham and Vineeta Sinha enthusiastically supported the continuation of Global Dialogue. Now we have two fantastic new editors, Brigitte Aulenbacher and Klaus Dörre, who will carry Global Dialogue to new heights. Don’t hesitate to write to them with new ideas and suggestions as to the contents and direction of Global Dialogue.
In reading the pages of Global Dialogue one sees the ebb and flow of global history. We began in 2010 with the fallout of the 2008 global recession, and the rise of optimistic social movements – Occupy, Arab Spring, Indignados, and piqueteros alongside labor, environmental, feminist and other social justice movements. But starting in 2013, clouds began to gather on the horizon and we witnessed a reactionary, anti-democratic swing. We adopted Karl Polanyi as our prophet. We relearned what Polanyi’s The Great Transformation had taught us long ago: that the counter-movements to unleashing markets were as likely to be fascist as socialist, as likely to be authoritarian as democratic. We have still much to learn from his analysis of the contradictions between capitalism and democracy. Thus, it is especially appropriate that my last issue opens with a conversation with Kari Polanyi Levitt who relates the life and world that informed her father’s genius.
Throughout these seven years I’ve tried to create symposia on a broad swath of national sociologies but I never dwelt on the US as such. In my last issue as editor of Global Dialogue, however, I’ve called on seven friends and colleagues to reflect upon the rise of Trumpism through the lens of their individual interests. They have put the US in the context of a historic and global swing to the right. One of the features of this reactionary era is to place sociology itself on the defensive – not just against neoliberalism but increasingly against rising authoritarianism. Social scientists in Argentina, led by Juan Piovani, have mounted a national defense of sociology, conducting studies that demonstrate its professional, policy, critical and public dimensions. Here five articles represent their vision. The project is only in its beginning but other national sociologies should take note.
Nor, finally, should we ever forget our predecessors – sociologists who fought against authoritarianism, such as the famous Marxist and Islamic thinker, Ali Shariati, who died in 1977, just two years before the Iranian Revolution he prefigured. His ideas continue to haunt that revolution as to what it could have been, as to what it might be. We are badly in need of such prophets today who can inspire a sociology that balances determinism and utopia. Global Dialogue is one place where we can collectively identify and envision new possibilities as well as warn against the destruction of our little planet.
Michael Burawoy, editor of Global Dialogue
Global Dialogue can be found in multiple languages.
Submissions should be sent to globaldialogue@isa-sociology.org.
