Ambassadors for Sociology: An Interview with Seth Abrutyn and Amin Ghaziani

To round out our yearlong series of chats with all of the former editors of Contexts, senior managing editor Letta Page spoke with co-editors Seth Abrutyn and Amin Ghaziani (2023-2025) about stewarding the magazine through its last years as a print publication and setting it up for success as it goes online-only for its 25th volume. Noting that their vision took “a little time and a lot of care” to execute, they focused on how diversifying the public face of the discipline, communicating scholarly findings in accessible ways, and working to reach the public urged them, like the best of our contributors, to become ardent ambassadors of sociology. Indeed, their shared enthusiasm and commitment shone throughout their interview—and Abrutyn and Ghaziani’s tenure as editors.

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Amin Ghaziani, Letta Page, and Seth Abrutyn

Courtesy Letta Page

LP: What were some of the surprises you experienced in the transition from applying to be the editors and actually taking the helm? Can you describe the process of finding your footing as new journal editors and maybe what’s changed over the three volumes you’ve now produced?

AG: Every editorial team has its own vision for how they would like to make their mark on the magazine. Seth and I are the first team in the history of the publication to be based outside of the United States. While we appreciate that Contexts has become more international over the years, we wanted to expand even further the global connectedness of the journal. To do this, we imagined using our multinational networks and our location in Vancouver to raise its visibility among scholars who work outside the American context and to solicit manuscripts that express more heterogeneous national viewpoints. For us, this strategy promised a distinct type of public engagement, one that arises from an awareness of how sociology informs what’s happening in many more parts of the world.

I think we definitely accomplished our goal of articulating a global sociological imagination. The biggest surprise, for me, came from navigating the space between our vision for the magazine and the submissions we received. We can’t tell people what to write, nor can we only publish pieces that embrace international perspectives. How then could we realize our editorial vision? That process of finding our footing, of communicating sociological research in accessible ways while remaining steadfast in our desire to diversify the public face of the discipline beyond the United States, took a little time and a lot of care. We needed to get the word out about what we were trying to do, and we needed to be patient for people to hear the message. Ultimately, I think we benefited from some combination of preparation, since something as abstract as a vision doesn’t just manifest by itself, and opportunity, since we can’t control everything, no matter how well-prepared we are.

LP: What role do you believe sociological journals can play in shaping public discussions about policy and social change?

SA: Unfortunately, sociology journals play only a limited role in policy. Like many academic fields, jargon and a lack of transparent, publicly engaged writing hamstrings our best intentions. But that is why Contexts matters so much. It sits in a sort of liminal space that demands a high level of rigor and empiricism while caring about how this is translated to the audience. In an ideal world, some of these sensibilities would rub off on the more professional-facing journals.

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AG: Sociology is the science of society, and our basic premise is a pretty powerful intuition about what life is like for us human beings: We are not islands unto ourselves. We are social creatures, or “group animals,” as the saying goes. As practitioners of that science of society, we routinely encounter all kinds of competing demands. On the one hand, we need to examine society from a robust point of scholarly view. This goal directs us to a type of communication that is not always accessible by public audiences, but that’s okay, I think, because other researchers are the primary audience. That said, if the public can’t understand our findings, then it becomes a missed opportunity to shape public discussions and policies. That’s the flip side of the coin: We also need to communicate about society with society. This goal lends itself more easily to influencing public policies, but it is not always recognized or valued by other researchers or academic institutions in the same way as pure science.

“I believe that sociology for the public is, and should be, a key part of our professional ethos.”

AMIN GHAZIANI

Contexts is the only public-facing periodical that is published by our professional association. This makes the mission of the magazine harder to realize. Personally, I believe that sociology for the public is, and should be, a key part of our professional ethos—but not at the expense of basic research. A diversity of communication channels is a good thing. We should celebrate all expressions of our discipline, and ways of communicating our findings, equally for what each does, rather than rank-ordering them in a hierarchical value system, as if either science or society is singularly more important than the other.

LP: How have you aimed to spotlight timely social issues, emerging trends, and untold stories—maybe ones underexplored by mainstream media—within a quarterly journal? In other words, how do you navigate the tension between providing timely commentary on pressing events and the slower pace of peer-reviewed publication?

AG: The amount of time it takes to produce each issue of the magazine is generally too long to accommodate the timeliest of social issues. It took us a little while to recognize this, but having learned the lesson, we tried something new this year.

Once we curated all the moving parts for a respective issue, we invited a small number of distinguished researchers to meet the moment by tackling something in the news that had captivated national and international interest. For our first issue, that meant reflecting on the U.S. presidential election. Trump’s out-of-the-gate attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI efforts, inspired the special section of our second issue, where writers examined the business case for DEI, its implications for health care, and how DEI shapes science. For the third issue, we took seriously our location in Canada and created a special section on the increasingly strained relationship between us and the United States. Three Canadian sociologists, including the president of the Canadian Sociological Association, reflected on what it means for us here in the True North to put our “elbows up.” The timely special section in the final issue of our editorial term anticipates the transition of Contexts to an online-only format by asking sociologists, both within the academy and those who work outside of it, like book and developmental editors, to think about the future of academic publishing.

As I reflect on it now, I think the experiment was a great success. These special sections are exhilarating to read as our writers offer real-time analysis and commentary on some of the most pressing and timely social issues of the day. They demonstrate the capacity of sociologists to be at once analytically rigorous and publicly relevant.

LP: What advice would you give sociologists hoping to contribute fresh perspectives to the discipline and to the public—and how does Contexts support that aim?

AG: Our team revised the submission guidelines on the magazine’s website, contexts.org, as will the incoming team. So, my first piece of advice for aspiring authors is to read those instructions before you send us anything, since Contexts has a unique way of handling manuscripts, and we have many more sections than a traditional journal.

With so much excellent social science being produced across so many journals, we have to work hard to reach the public by translating our findings in accessible and narrative-driven ways. Assuming we’re all on board with the public-facing mission of the magazine, how do you do it in a fresh way? On this matter, I’m happy to share something that the three of us—you, Seth, and I— worked together to come up with, and that’s a memorable rhetorical device to guide our authors. As you write, always keep in mind the “4 Rs.” Be rigorous with how you do your research. Ensure that it’s relevant for public audiences. Write it up in a way that’s readable. And finally, never forget that your authorial voice makes your work rad! Contexts grants you a creative power seldom seen in traditional academic journals. Own it!

SA: My old PhD advisor was fond of asking “Why pour new wine into old bottles when wine is supposed to age?” While this may seem counterintuitive given the question, what he meant was sociology used to communicate ideas more simply and colloquially. So, my advice, would be three-fold. First, de-jargon everything. What you lose in fanciness you gain in precision and clarity. Second, after you write a sentence and a paragraph, try writing it more simply. A lot of academics are scared that a less sophisticated-looking essay will make them look less sophisticated. On the contrary, their ideas will travel faster, further, and with greater impact. Third, write for Contexts! It may feel out of your comfort zone, and you may feel lost (initially), but the practice of tersely writing short essays that must be legible to a broad audience is immensely helpful in accomplishing my first two pieces of advice. Once you’ve written for Contexts, it becomes easier to transport those skills to other sorts of academic writing.

LP: You’re undergoing an editorial transition right now. When you impart your wisdom and share your tips and tricks with incoming editor David Grazian and managing editor Elena van Stee, what do you think needs to be top-of-mind?

AG: In response to one of your earlier questions, I talked about the special sections we have been curating this year. We’ve done one other new thing that comes to mind now as I reflect on your invitation to impart wisdom for the incoming team.

If you review all the issues in the current calendar year, you’ll see that we used the Q&A section to spotlight all of the former editors of Contexts. We asked each team about their hopes and dreams for the magazine, their sense of where and why they may have fallen short, and their advice for future editors.

These conversations are an extraordinary resource. They contain a treasure trove of ideas, tips, and tricks for what it means to do public sociology and how to do it with style. From my point of view, what’s top-of-mind is so much bigger than only what Seth and I think, although our experiences are important to bear in mind. But in this moment, I want to emphasize our perspectives as part of a throughline that connects insights that have emerged across all prior editors of this incredible magazine that we have curated and loved over the past 25 years.

SA: I don’t think I realized, initially at least, just how much the position afforded the editorial team an opportunity to be ambassadors for sociology—not just afforded, but sort of demanded that we act in that capacity. …And while the journal is moving to an online format, the responsibility remains as salient as ever. The discipline is taking its lumps right now, both from political critics on the right and from a group within the field. Contexts provides one key path to promoting the science and craft behind sociology, as well as its unique capacity to teach us (humans) about our historical, cultural, political, and economic environments. Take risks. Dare to go big, but never lose sight of the details that make Contexts so compelling. Most of all, make sure the content embodies the passion the editors and authors have toward sociology.

“ Contexts provides one key path to promoting the science and craft behind sociology, as well as its unique capacity to teach us (humans) about our historical, cultural, political, and economic environments.” seth abrutyn

AG: I will lament the loss of the print copy of Contexts. The materiality of the magazine, making the idea of public sociology concrete on the printed page, is both powerful and beautiful. That said, I recognize that how people consume information is changing rapidly because the ecosystem of knowledge is itself changing.

To be vital, we need to be intentional—and intentional about many things, from how to reinvest the economic resources we redirect away from print to how to better market the magazine to increase its visibility in places beyond universities, how to identify the strategic advantages of an exclusively digital platform, and then how to actually exploit those specific advantages relative to the thing we actually create.

In this regard, I think the magazine would benefit by having at least one full-time member of the editorial team who is not a professional academic. The transition requires a diversity of inputs. If everyone who works on the magazine is an academic affiliated with a university, then we are doomed to live and work in a silo or in an echo chamber of what public sociology means, how to do public sociology, and how to improve the scope, scale, and reach of our public efforts.

Letta Page is the outgoing managing editor of Contexts. Her work as an independent sociology editor and writing coach can be found at pagesmithing.com.

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