Burawoy Extended Case

Question 1

Burawoy – Four Principles of Reflexive Science

Answer 1

1 Intervention – researcher’s presence shapes the field and must be theorised. 2 Process – trace events through time, not snapshot comparisons. 3 Structuration – link micro practices to the wider social structure. 4 Reconstruction – use anomalies to extend or reformulate existing theory (ECM, ch. 1).

Question 2

Zambia Copperbelt (1968-72) – Extending Labour Process Theory

Answer 2

Underground ethnography shows colonial mine management producing paternalistic alliances; workers’ grievances reveal racial segmentation missing in classic Marxist exploitation models. Burawoy reconstructs labour-process theory to include state–race articulations.

Question 3

Chicago Machine Shop (1974-76) – Extending Consent Theory

Answer 3

Shop-floor ‘game’ of piece-rate “making out” generates worker consent not coercion. Field data forces a shift from deterministic Marxism to a Gramscian hegemony lens, highlighting culture as a production relation.

Question 4

Hungary State-Socialist Factory/Co-op (1980s-90s) – Extending State-Socialism Theory

Answer 4

Participant observation tracks how shop-floor negotiations convert official plans into informal economies. The case exposes dual power (plan vs. practice), prompting a theory of state socialism as a negotiated order rather than monolithic command.

Question 5

Russia Market Sellers (1991-2001) – Extending Postsocialist Transition Theory

Answer 5

Fieldwork in Moscow kiosks uncovers survival networks and “economies of favours,” challenging transitology’s linear market-democracy script. Burawoy reconstructs transition theory to foreground path-dependent moral economies.

Question 6

Reflexive Principle 1 – Intervention

Answer 6

The researcher’s very presence intervenes in the field and must be theorised—not bracketed out. Participants’ reactions to the observer generate data that drive theoretical insight (ECM, ch. 1).

Question 7

Reflexive Principle 2 – Process

Answer 7

Trace social relations through time rather than freeze-frame comparisons; longitudinal engagement reveals how practices unfold and mutate, allowing explanations of change (ECM, ch. 1).

Question 8

Reflexive Principle 3 – Structuration

Answer 8

Connect micro practices to macro structures; ethnographic detail is analytically ‘scaled up’ to institutions, states, and world economy, showing how structures enable and constrain action (ECM, ch. 1).

Question 9

Reflexive Principle 4 – Reconstruction

Answer 9

Field anomalies are not errors but opportunities to reconstruct theory—extending or reformulating existing frameworks instead of merely testing hypotheses (ECM, ch. 1).