Who Is Sociology For? Relocalising Academia Through Care and Territorial Engagement

• In Event: Methodological Challenges in Community-Engaged Research (Co-sponsored by the Sociology Advisory Network (SAN) and the Community on Community-Engaged Scholarship & Teaching (CEST))

Abstract

At a time when universities are encouraged to demonstrate public “impact” while operating under audit-driven and competitive regimes, sociologists face a structural tension between institutional performance and sustained community engagement. This paper proposes the concept of relocalising academia as an ethical, epistemic, and institutional reorientation of sociological practice. Building on debates around Public Sociology, we argue that meaningful public engagement requires more than dissemination; it calls for territorially embedded, long-term co-production of knowledge.

Drawing on two comparative case studies – Nutrire Trento (Italy) and CUESSS–UNAM (Mexico) – we examine how academics mobilize transdisciplinary action research and “living lab” approaches to co-create alternative food networks with local actors. We analyse both the transformative potential and the structural constraints of such initiatives, highlighting recurring dilemmas around power, reciprocity, and institutional recognition.

Integrating Joan Tronto’s ethics of care, we propose care as a framework for redefining sociological professionalism, emphasizing attentiveness, responsibility, responsiveness, and solidarity. Relocalising academia, we argue, offers a pathway for rethinking sociological practice as territorially grounded, relationally accountable, and institutionally transformative in times of socio-ecological crisis.

Authors

• Carla Galan-Guevara, National School of Higher Education of the National Autonomous University of Mexico

• Francesca Forno, University of Trento