Call for Papers
You are invited to submit abstracts relating to the suggested panels below. Proposals for new panels with a theoretical–empirical focus on contemporary issues will also be welcome.
Methodological and Theoretical Approaches
Here the focus of attention will be on theoretical, empirical and methodological approaches to the study of the dynamics, directions and structures of processes of transformation, and on how the self‐perceptions and self‐experiences of the people involved in such processes can be incorporated into sociological theories.
Work, Unemployment and Lifestyle
In the past few decades, the living and working conditions of people have undergone enormous changes in differently structured societies. Through new waves of economic globalisation, technologisation and individualisation, traditional ways of organising life and work have lost their importance. The study of the structures and directions of these processes, on the one hand, and the study of self‐experiences of people affected by these rapid transformations, on the other hand, will be the main focus of this panel.
Education, Economy and Social Inequalities
In recent decades we have also been able to observe processes of transformation in the fields of education and the economy, generally involving new patterns of equality and inequality. This panel will deal with dynamics, directions and structures of these processes, and with the self‐experience of people affected. Both dimensions should also be considered in different examples of social inequalities.
Environment and Health
A major problem facing all human societies today is environmental deterioration and climate change. Environmental problems are social problems, and therefore a topic for sociological reflection. How can sociological conceptualisation contribute to a reality‐congruent kind of understanding and explanation of the ongoing controversies on environmental issues? How do the people involved as decision makers as well as ordinary citizens estimate the dangers that could arise from these developments? What are the long‐term dynamics of these developments?
Social Conflicts, Immigration and Democratisation
In this panel, by looking at various case studies, we will demonstrate how social conflicts, tensions and wars arise and develop. The question of how people thus affected experience these developments, themselves and their perceived opponents plays an important role as well. We also want to deal with the issues of immigration and integration which have increased, especially in the course of economic globalisation and emerging new technologies.
Global, National and Local Identities
In the course of economic globalisation in recent decades, the topic ‘identity’ has attracted major attention in social sciences. In this session, we ask what kind of reality the term ‘identity’ symbolically represents and how this reality can be empirically grasped, on the basis of case studies from differently structured societies. At the level of self‐experience of the people affected, we will look at how the people in different societies experience processes of transformation in their identities: for instance, what does it mean to use concepts like ‘crisis of identity’ or ‘European identity’?
The deadline for submission was 25 March 2016.
