Michael Burawoy is a British-American sociologist known for his ethnographic studies of factory work and for his advocacy of public sociology. In Manufacturing Consent (1979), based on his own employment inside a Chicago machine shop, he examined how workers come to actively participate in and even enjoy the games and routines of the labor process on the shop floor, arguing that this participation helps manufacture consent to capitalist production relations in ways that coercion alone cannot explain. As president of the American Sociological Association, Burawoy became a leading advocate for public sociology, urging the discipline to engage directly with publics and social movements outside the academy alongside its professional, critical, and policy roles, a position that shaped an ongoing debate within the discipline about the proper relationship between sociological knowledge and public life.
Facts
Nationality / Culture Defining ContributionAdvocated public sociology, dividing the discipline into public, policy, professional and critical sociology in his 2004 ASA presidential address, and expanded the extended case method through ethnographic participant observation in industrial workplaces. 1 Notable WorkManufacturing Consent: Changes in the Labor Process Under Monopoly Capitalism (1979) 1 Connections
Associated With
Source Michael Burawoy (Wikipedia)
Practices Studied
Source Michael Burawoy (Wikipedia)
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Nationality
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Source Michael Burawoy (Wikipedia)Lead paragraph of the cited Wikipedia articletier 2Quote, Lead paragraph of the cited Wikipedia article
Michael Burawoy (; 15 June 1947 – 3 February 2025) was an American sociologist who worked within Marxist social theory, best known as the leading proponent of public sociology and the author of Manufacturing Consent: Changes in the Labor Process Under Monopoly Capitalism—a study on the sociology of industry that has been translated into a number of languages.
Sources
1. Michael Burawoy (Wikipedia)
WikipediaLife and career section, opening sentence (birth date)
Burawoy was born in England on 15 June 1947; his parents had fled Russia and Ukraine, met as students in Leipzig
Life and career section, opening sentence (birth year)
Burawoy was born in England on 15 June 1947; his parents had fled Russia and Ukraine, met as students in Leipzig
Life and career section, opening sentence (birthplace)
Burawoy was born in England on 15 June 1947; his parents had fled Russia and Ukraine, met as students in Leipzig
Life and career section, final paragraph (death date)
Burawoy was killed in a crosswalk in Oakland, on 3 February 2025, by a speeding driver who fled the scene.
Life and career section, final paragraph (death year)
Burawoy was killed in a crosswalk in Oakland, on 3 February 2025, by a speeding driver who fled the scene.
Life and career section, final paragraph (death place)
Burawoy was killed in a crosswalk in Oakland, on 3 February 2025, by a speeding driver who fled the scene.
opening paragraph, first sentence
was an American sociologist who worked within Marxist social theory
opening paragraph, first sentence (notable work)
the author of Manufacturing Consent: Changes in the Labor Process Under Monopoly Capitalism
Life and career section, public sociology paragraph
His work on public sociology is most prominently shown in his presidential address to the American Sociological Association in 2004, where he divided sociology into four separate (yet overlapping) categories
Associated With: University of Chicago, Article text
Completing a master's degree at the University of Zambia in 1972, Burawoy enrolled as a doctoral student at the University of Chicago, finishing a sociology dissertation with an ethnography of Chicago industrial workers, later to become Manufacturing Consent: Changes in the Labor Process Under Monopoly Capitalism.
Practices Studied: Capitalism, Lead section
Michael Burawoy (; 15 June 1947-3 February 2025) was an American sociologist who worked within Marxist social theory, best known as the leading proponent of public sociology and the author of Manufacturing Consent: Changes in the Labor Process Under Monopoly Capitalism-a study on the sociology of industry that has been translated into a number of languages.
View the Source Wikidata: Michael Burawoy
Wikidata Q542464, class allow-list match, case-insensitive label variant (w-bbfill-smallsix2-0926/resolve_ci.ps1)View the Source Reader Challenges (0)
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