Disclosed and Willing: Towards A Queer Public Sociology ANA CRISTINA SANTOS Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal ABSTRACT This article contributes to recent debates on ‘public sociology’, expanding the notion and interrogating its utility for those who simultaneously carry out activism and scholarship. The idea of public sociology has underpinned the conviction that knowledge can contribute to inclusion or exclusion, depending on how it is used. This article argues that commitment to public sociology implies abiding by the guiding principles of accountability, intersectionality, reciprocity and reflexivity, and further represents commitment to activism, embracing politics as an intended effect of knowledge production. Building on personal experience as researcher and activist in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender movement in Portugal, I also explore the epistemological and ethical impacts of taking on the role of scholar-activist. This offers a ‘double agency’ through which one may build and disseminate empirically grounded knowledge whilst maintaining a sense of social responsibility and political engagement. Bringing these ideas together, this article advances the notion of a ‘queer public sociology’: a critical framework that accounts for sexual diversity, and that acknowledges its politically situated character at the same time that it contributes to the dismantling of sexual prejudice and exclusion. KEY WORDS: Public sociology, knowledge production, scholar-activist, queer 1. Introduction Despite being highly contested, the legacy of positivism in sociological thought is still pervasive today. This legacy is mirrored by the ways in which sociology frequently operates according to dominant ways of thinking and doing, rather than being proactively engaged in tackling inequality. The notion of public sociology, initially advanced by Herbet J. Gans (2002), was crucial in moving away from positivist approaches within mainstream sociology. Drawing on the notion of public sociology, and inspired by feminist and queer perspectives on knowledge production and the research process, this article considers the importance of disclosing the inevitable political engagement of sociological work to render it more plausible, accountable and, ultimately, useful. In the first part of the article, I expand on the notion of public sociology (Gans, 2002; Burawoy, 2004a, 2004b, 2004c, 2005). Underpinning the idea of public sociology is the conviction that knowledge can contribute to processes of inclusion or exclusion, depending on how it is used. As feminist methodologies also suggest, the ultimate purpose 1474-2837 Print/1474-2829 Online/12/020241-14 q 2012 Taylor & Francis http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2012.664904 Correspondence Address: Ana Cristina Santos, Centre for Social Studies, Colegio de S. Jeronimo, 3001-401 Coimbra, Portugal. Email: c.santos@bbk.ac.uk Social Movement Studies, Vol. 11, No. 2, 241–254, April 2012 Downloaded by [b-on: Biblioteca do conhecimento online UC] at 05:50 10 April 2012