Michael Burawoy has been a participant observer of industrial workplaces in four countries: Zambia, United States, Hungary and Russia. His projects attempted to illuminate, in turn, the contradictions of postcolonialism; the organization of consent to advanced capitalism; the peculiar forms of class consciousness and work organization under state socialism; and, finally, the dilemmas of the Soviet transition to capitalism.
Over five decades of research and teaching, he has developed The Extended Case Method that allows broad conclusions to be drawn from ethnographic research The same methodology is advanced in Global Ethnography, coauthored with 9 graduate students, showing how globalization can be studied "from below" through participating in the lives of those who experience it. No longer able to work in factories, he turned to the study of his own workplace—the university—to consider the way sociology itself is produced and then disseminated to diverse publics. His advocacy of public sociology has generated much heat in many a cool place. Of late, together with five graduate students, he has been developing a labor theory of pedagogy.
From the beginning, he sought to advance Marxism by pursuing its reconstruction in the light of his research and, more broadly, in the light of the historical challenges of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. He has brought Marxism into conversation with the sociology of Karl Polanyi and Pierre Bourdieu. Most recently, he has been studying the life and work of W.E.B. Du Bois with a view to his significance both for sociology and for Marxism.
He has been president of the American Sociological Association (2003-04); president of the International Sociological Association (2010-14); founding editor of the magazine Global Dialogue (2010-17); and co-chair and secretary of the Berkeley Faculty Association (2015-21). After 47 years, he left Berkeley for the world.
For an amusing account of his research see Jeff Byles' article in the Village Voice, "Tales of the Kefir Furnaceman."
