Prix Pierre Bouvier pour la Socioanthropologie

Afin de rendre hommage au fondateur de la revue Socio-Anthropologie et de promouvoir cette approche interdisciplinaire, l’association Socio-anthropologie en perspective et la revue ont créé un prix annuel destiné à récompenser une thèse de doctorat qui intègre et apporte une contribution à cette approche en sciences sociales.

Pour le concours 2024, les candidat·es devront avoir soutenu au cours de l’année civile 2023 une thèse de doctorat écrite en français qui s’inscrit dans le prolongement des travaux et théories socioanthropologiques de Pierre Bouvier.

Le montant du prix est fixé à 1 500€. Cette somme, destinée à aider à la publication de la thèse, sera versée à l’auteur·rice (avec la possibilité de publier dans la collection « Socio-Anthropologie » chez L’Harmattan et/ou la publication d’un article dans la revue Socio-Anthropologie). Toute publication doit mentionner le Prix.

Pour candidater, les docteur·es doivent fournir, dans un seul fichier en format pdf :

• une lettre de candidature ;

• un résumé de la thèse ;

• la thèse ;

• le rapport de soutenance ;

• un CV.

Pour le concours de l’année 2024 (pour les thèses soutenues en 2023), les dossiers doivent être adressés à prixpierrebouvier@gmail.com avant le 30 mars 2024.

Call for Input on GA 2023 Report by UN SR Violence Against Women & Girls, Nationality Laws, & Statelessness

Call for Input: Thematic Report for the 78th Session of the UN General Assembly, October 2023

Nexus Between Violence against Women and Girls, Nationality Laws, and Statelessness

ISSUED BY - Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls

WEBSITE OF UN SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR VAW - Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls | OHCHR

DEADLINE - 15 May 2023

Purpose: To inform the Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls’ report on the nexus between violence against women and girls, discrimination in nationality laws, and statelessness. The thematic report will be presented at the 78th session of the UN General Assembly in October 2023.

Background

Exclusion of ethnic, racial, religious, or linguistic minority groups often lies at the heart of the condition of statelessness and discrimination in acquiring nationality and associated rights, as evidenced in more than 80 countries.[1] Entire populations can also find themselves in a situation of statelessness, often intergenerationally and due to varying reasons, such as historical migration, state succession, state dissolution or fragmentation as well as occupation of a territory, with emerging entities or de facto authorities lacking the capacity or willingness to recognize individuals residing in these territories as nationals and as persons before the law.

Sex- and gender-based discrimination in nationality laws is another major cause of statelessness, along with gaps in nationality laws and administrative obstacles to civil registration, including birth registration. Many States discriminate in the way their laws allow for the acquisition, conferral, change and retention of nationality, including on grounds of sex and gender. Even where the law is not exclusionary, women and girls from minority groups experience discrimination when seeking to access nationality rights in practice, as a result of their identity. For instance, women may be required to change their nationality upon marriage or at its dissolution, restricted or denied in their ability to pass on their nationality to children, prevented to register the birth of their children or to independently access civil documents, including birth and marriage certificates that are required to claim nationality rights. In 24 countries, women cannot confer nationality to their children on an equal basis with men,[2] and in over 45 countries, women cannot confer nationality to a non-citizen spouse on an equal basis with men.[3] According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), these discriminatory nationality laws can lead to statelessness “where children cannot acquire nationality from their fathers [which] can occur (i) where the father is stateless; (ii) where the laws of the father’s country do not permit conferral of nationality in certain circumstances, such as when the child is born abroad; (iii) where a father is unknown or not married to the mother at the time of birth; (iv) where a father has been unable to fulfil administrative steps to confer his nationality or acquire proof of nationality for his children […]; or (v) where a father has been unwilling [to fulfil such administrative steps].”[4]

Women and girls’ statelessness can lead to further discrimination avd exclusion, both in law and in practice. Discriminatory nationality laws or limited access to equal nationality rights may subject those affected to wide-ranging human rights violations. Due to the lack of legal status or the difficulties in accessing legal documents, stateless persons and those impacted by discriminatory nationality laws and practices may also be unable to access basis human rights and essential services, such as social protection, healthcare, education, formal employment, financial services, inheritance, and property rights. These disadvantages can expose them to exploitation and abuse, including domestic violence, child marriage,[5] trafficking, detention, family separation, restrictions to freedom of movement, and arbitrary detention – amongst others,[6] as have been addressed in previous work of the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council.[7]

The precarious conditions persist, despite the continued efforts and the positive obligations of States to ensure that the rights of stateless persons within their jurisdiction are not violated. There is also a high degree of psychological violence experienced by women whose children are denied nationality and may be rendered stateless, which is still not sufficiently explored. Additionally, deep-rooted prejudicial attitudes towards women and girls, such as those of healthcare providers or registry officials, may perpetuate exclusionary frameworks that undermine women’s status in the family and in the society, which contribute to the root causes of violence against women and girls.

Childhood statelessness frequently results from gaps in legislation, including the failure to include critical safeguards in nationality laws that ensure universal birth registration and the provisions for children born stateless to acquire nationality, as required by the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness (1961 Convention). Even where States may have safeguards against statelessness at birth in their nationality laws, for example, for children born to a citizen mother in cases where the father’s identity or whereabouts is unknown, these safeguards are often poorly implemented in practice.

Women and girls affected by gender-discriminatory nationality laws and those advocating for nationality rights have actively called for a change in these laws at a great risk. The advocates, together with organizations, have suffered reprisals, intimidation, threats, and imprisonment for demanding their rights. At the same time, women human rights activists have also been threatened with and experienced being stripped of their citizenship as a result of their activism. Stateless women and girls have faced compounded difficulties in gaining equal representation and participation. Women and girls can also find it challenging to access the required legal aid and support due to their ethnicity, migratory status, race, socioeconomic status as well as sexual orientation and/or gender identity.

Challenges remain with respect to collecting data on the scope of persons affected by discriminatory nationality laws and statelessness, including disaggregated data on women and girls, which negatively affects the ability to advocate and litigate effectively on these issues.

Key Questions and Types of Inputs Sought

The thematic report seeks to explore the nexus between violence against women and girls, nationality laws and statelessness, with a view to gather contextual information on the way in which statelessness, discriminatory nationality laws and the inability to enjoy national rights without discrimination in practice function as a form of violence against women and girls, including stateless women and girls, at individual or collective levels.

The Special Rapporteur invites States, National Human Rights Institutions, civil society actors, international organizations, academics, and other stakeholders to provide updated information on:

How do existing legislation and policies related to nationality and civil registration adopted by State and de facto authorities, or their implementation in practice, perpetuate a gender bias and gender-based discrimination in the acquisition, retention, and loss of nationality and in relevant legislations? What grounds, including social and religious norms, do they rely on?

How do women and girls experience situations of collective statelessness in a gendered manner? How do the consequences of a collective situation of statelessness affect women and girls differently, including in emergency and armed conflict settings, post-conflict, and other migration flows?

How do States and de facto authorities engage with women and girls affected by discriminatory nationality laws and practices as well as situations of statelessness, including in evaluating the impact of these policies at individual, family and societal levels, as well as in promoting meaningful participation in processes for designing and reforming relevant policies?

How do policies and/or decisions to strip women and girls of nationality act as a form of punishment, including for terrorism-related charges, and how do these measures differ from similar actions concerning men and boys? How do women and girls experience these policies and decisions differently?

What are some examples of good practices of legislative reform processes, policies, initiatives, and court rulings that demonstrate approaches by State and de facto authorities to address gender-discriminatory nationality laws and practices, reduce and end statelessness, as well as to mitigate the gendered impacts on stateless women and girls?

What kind of measures can be taken to establish and strengthen comprehensive civil registration systems and/or to identify and remove procedural, administrative, financial, physical, and other barriers that impede access to the provision of legal identity, including ensuring independent access to civil documents without discrimination on the basis of gender or marital status? How could these measures help prevent and reduce statelessness, as well as discrimination against women and girls?

What recommendations would there be for stakeholders to address discriminatory nationality laws and practices, including based on sex and gender, as well as the harmful consequences of statelessness for women and girls?

Whenever possible and available, inputs should provide up-to-date, quantitative, and disaggregated data on the issues presented.

[1] United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Background Note on Discrimination in Nationality Laws and Statelessness, 20 October 2021.

[2] UNHCR, Background Note on Gender Equality, Nationality Laws and Statelessness 2023, 7 March 2023.

[3] Equality Now, The State We’re In: Ending Sexism In Nationality Laws – 2022 Edition – Update For A Disrupted World, 7 July 2022.

[4] UNHCR, Background Note on Gender Equality, Nationality Laws and Statelessness 2023, 7 March 2023, pp. 2-3.

[5] Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights, Ending Gender-Based Violence Requires Equal Citizenship: The Impact of Gender Discrimination in Nationality Laws on Gender-Based Violence, 20 July 2020.

[6] UNHCR, “This is Our Home”: Stateless Minorities and Their Search for Citizenship, 3 November 2017, p. 2.

[7] See, for example, A/HRC/23/50, A/HRC/38/52 and A/HRC/50/31.

Next Steps

Submission: Inputs should be submitted by e-mail by 15 May 2023.

E-mail address: hrc-sr-vaw@un.org

E-mail subject line: Input to the SR VAWG Report on nationality laws and statelessness

Word limit: 2,000 words

File formats: Word, PDF

Accepted languages: English, French, Spanish, Arabic

Submissions may be published on the mandate’s page on the OHCHR website at the time of the report’s publication, unless indicated as confidential.

New RC14 publication!

Media Narratives: Productions and Representations of Contemporary Mythologies

Series: Studies in Critical Social Sciences, Volume : 228

Volume Editor: Christiana Contantopoulou

Media constitute a privileged field of analysis as it interferes dynamically with the current popular ideas and myths (myths which narrate, explain and often justify social realities – such as games of power, economic and financial inequalities, drug dealing, disasters, diseases or pandemic threats). In this frame, the archetypal dimensions of the imaginary, of gossiping and of storytelling also seem to play an important role even in the frame of the (so called) “rational discourse”. Media Narratives is an effort to analyze ongoing narratives (either political or fictional) in Argentina, Brazil, Greece, Mexico or United States, expressing interpretations of contemporary events (such as crimes, scandals, diseases or political activism), but also presenting common beliefs and desires revealed by the popular artistic creations. These narratives compose the mythical background of the contemporary globalized world, the “spirit of the time” as Edgar Morin had named it, a spirit which is expressed in current ideas and mentalities. This effort can be characterized as a representative survey of popular beliefs of the 21st Century represented in storytelling. The articles collected in this book will reveal some important facets of the contemporary mythologies.

Contributors are: Lucia Acuña-Pedro, Graziela Ares, Eduardo Barbabela, Mercedes Calzado, Omar Cerrillo Garnica, Christiana Constantopoulou, Mariana Fernández, Humberto Fernandes, Jaqueline García Cordero, Enrique García Romero, Leda Maria Caira Gitahy, Yamila Gómez, Vanesa Lio, Melina Meimaridis, José A. Ruiz San Román, Pedro Paulo Martins Serra, Hara Stratoudaki, Leandro R. Tessler, and Gabriela Villen.

New publication!

The RC14 conference on National Identities, which was held in Paris on December 10th 2021, is published on line (ISSN: 2945-0306) :

https://ejournals.epublishing.ekt.gr/index.php/noema/issue/view/1839

New book: Post-Society by Carlo Bordoni

A new book that may be interesting for RC14 members has just been publiched!

Post-Society By Carlo Bordoni

Translated by Wendy Doherty

About the Book: Our societies are in transition, spurred on by a pandemic that disrupted many aspects of the social world we once took for granted. We’ve left behind the “solid modernity” of the twentieth century and even the “liquid modernity” so brilliantly analyzed by Zygmunt Bauman, but what kind of society is now taking shape around us? In this highly original reflection on the current state of our world, Carlo Bordoni argues that we are on the threshold of “post-society,” a condition in which social distancing becomes the norm, real social relations are diminishing in favor of those mediated by technology, existential loneliness is becoming widespread, and we find ourselves voluntarily submitting to new forms of surveillance and control in the hope of increasing our security. Emotions are increasingly assuming a central role in social life, not only because of the growing prevalence of social media, which provide platforms for the public expression of emotion, but also because emotions have been freed from the “repression of emotionality” that had characterized modern society. While many of these developments are rooted in broader social transformations, they were all deepened and accelerated by the pandemic, which propelled us headlong into a brave new world where social relations are sustained without physical contact but with intense communication. This is the new post-social condition: more humanity, less sociality.

ISA session at the Commission on the Status of Women

The ISA organizes a session at the UN Commission on the Status of Women meeting in New York City. The theme of the session will be in accordance with the priority theme of the CSW meeting for this year: Innovation and technological change, and education in the digital age for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls.

RC14 members who would like to make a presentation in this session are invited to send an abstract to the Representatives of the International Sociological Association at the United Nations Dr. Rosemary Barberet (rbarberet@jjay.cuny.edu) and Dr. Jan Fritz (jan.fritz@uc.edu)

The session will be either virtual or hybrid.

More information about the CSW meeting can be found by clicking here

Publication of the special issue "Global Dialogues on Communication, Knowledge and Culture"

The special issue entitled Global Dialogues on Communication, Knowledge and Culture has just been published at the Open Journal for Sociological Studies!

This issue is coordinated by Christiana Constantopoulou (President of the RC14) and Dimitra Laurence Larochelle (Newsletter Editor of the RC14) and is inspired by the series of webinars organized by RC14 during the academic year 2021/2022.

For more information click here!

DEADLINE EXTENDED - Globalization and the Emergence of a New World Order: Theoretical Formulations and Empirical Reality

The abstract submission deadline for the international conference "Globalization and the Emergence of a New World Order: Theoretical Formulations and Empirical Reality" (November 20-24, 2022) has been extended! Abstracts are expected until October 31st, 2022.

This conference is part of the activities of the Global Research and Educational Foundation India in collaboration with ISA Working Group 01 Sociology on Local-Global Relations, ISA RC 14 Sociology of Communication, Knowledge and Culture, Centre for Studies in Science Policy, JNU, New Delhi, ISS RC 14 Globalization and Culture, ISS RC 08 Inequalities, Stratification and Exclusion Studies.

Conference in Hybrid (online/offline) mode

Jawaharlal Nehru University Complex, New Delhi, India

For more information please click on the following links:

Call for papers

Registration details

Information about the XX ISA World Congress

The XX ISA World Congress of Sociology in Melbourne, Australia, June 25-July 1, 2023 will be in hybrid format.

Please observe the following deadlines:

May 10, 2022 24:00 GMT

Submission of proposals to the ISA Secretariat isa@isa-sociology.org for:

Integrative Sessions which involve at least 3 Research Committees, 3 National Associations or a combination of the two
Regular sessions by National, Regional, Linguistic and Thematic Associations
Author Meets Critics sessions
Ad Hoc Sessions

May 31, 2022: Announcing the Program Committee decision on accepted proposals

May 2 - May 31, 2022 24:00 GMT

Call for Sessions

RC/WG/TG session proposer must submit session’s description on-line via Confex platform.
Invited Session organizer (RC/WG/TG, Presidential, Plenary, LOC sessions, etc.) must submit session’s description on-line via Confex platform.

RC14 WEBINARS - SESSION 5

The fifth session of the RC 14 webinars entitled « Global Dialogues on Communication, Knowledge and Culture » will take place on April 29th, 2022 (18h00 CET).

For this session we welcome Dr. Sadia Jamil who will give a lecture entitled “Stepping towards technological innovation in journalism: Constraints for the use of Artificial Intelligence and automation in Pakistan’s mainstream news media”.

Using diffusion of innovation theory, this study aims to address issues in the adoption of AI technology and automation by Pakistan’s mainstream news media. To achieve this aim, this study employs the qualitative method of in-depth interviews. Findings suggest that the adoption of AI technology and automation is not without potential challenges at various stages of the diffusion of technological innovation. The Pakistani journalists from Urdu language’s newspapers, regardless of their gender, are substantially resistant to accept technological innovations as compared to their colleagues from television news channels and English-language’s newspapers. This study highlights that the Pakistani journalists’ lack of awareness and their interest into AI-driven transformations underpin their resistance and fear to adopt technological innovations in routine practice. Almost all interviewed journalists, regardless of their gender, express their concern that the use automated journalistic tools can result in job redundancy in local news media ecology. This study further highlights other obstacles too for the adoption of AI-driven journalistic practice in Pakistan’s mainstream news media including: a lack of economic and technological resources, journalists’ training and practical government’s strategies and policies to deploy AI technology in news media industry like other sectors in Pakistan, as well as the country’s existing digital divide.

Dr. Sadia Jamil earned a PhD in Journalism (University of Queensland, Australia), a Master of Science in Media Management (University of Stirling, Scotland), and a M.A. in Mass Communication (University of Karachi). She has taught courses at the Khalifa University of Science and Technology, Abu Dhabi and in the past, at the University of Queensland, Australia. She is currently doing research on Artificial Intelligence in News Media Industry, Sustainability Education and Sustainable Development. Dr. Jamil is the Country Representative UAE of Asian Media Information & Communication Centre (AMIC), and she is the Chair of the Journalism Research and Education Section of the International Association of Media & Communication Research (IAMCR). Dr. Jamil is also one of the Ambassadors of Digital Poverty Alliance (DPA, UK). She sits in the editorial board of six international journals in the areas of journalism, digital media, political communication, and media practices in the Middle East. She is also serving as honorary advisor of Media Action Nepal.

If you are interested in following this lecture, we invite you to subscribe by sending an e-mail no later than Thursday April 28th to the following address: larochelle.laurence[at]gmail[dot]com

The participation at the webinars is out of cost. However, registration is mandatory due to technical reasons.

CFP International Conference on Globalization and the Emergence of a New World Order: Theoritical Formulations and Empirical Reality

The International Conference on Globalization and the Emergence of a New World Order: Theoretical Formulations and Empirical Reality (20-24 November, 2022) is part of the activities of the Global Research and Educational Foundation India in collaboration with the ISA Working Group 01 (Sociology on Local-Global Relations), the ISA RC 14 (Sociology of Communication, Knowledge and Culture), the Centre for Studies in Science Policy (Jawaharlal Nehru University), the ISS RC 14 (Globalization and Culture) and the ISS RC 08 (Inequalities, Stratification and Exclusion Studies).

Mode of the Conference: Hybrid (online/offline)

Abstract submission deadline: July 31, 2022

Conference venue: Jawaharlal Nehru University Complex, New Delhi, India

For more information and to read the full CFP click here!

RC14 WEBINARS - SESSION 4

The fourth session of the RC 14 Webinars entitled « Global Dialogues on Communication, Knowledge and Culture » will take place on March 18th, 2022 (18h00 CEST).

For this session we welcome Mélanie Lallet, Assistant Professor in Media and Communication Studies at UCO (Université Catholique de l’Ouest) who will give a lecture entitled “Transnational appropriations of the neurodiversity paradigm and queer theory by online autism communities”.

This presentation focuses on an exploratory fieldwork dealing with the transnational appropriation of the neurodiversity paradigm and queer theory by online autism communities. Through a feminist standpoint epistemology (Harding, 2003; Hartsock, 1998) and recent developments of (Queer) Feminist Disability Studies such as the neuroqueer approach (Egner, 2018; Richter, 2017; Yergeau, 2018), this research proposes a critical literature review of the construction of knowledge on autism and gender. Interviews with people who identify themselves as queer and autistic and participant observation on several discussion groups online help us to better understand the imbrication of autism and gender. In particular, it is interesting to focus on how queer-autistic people make sense of their identity regarding gender norms. As the notion of neurodiversity (Singer in Chamak, 2015) encourages autistic people to define themselves in a non-pathological sense, queer theory and feminism are particularly useful to autistic people belonging to sexual and gender minorities.

Mélanie Lallet is Assistant Professor in Media and Communication Studies at UCO (Université Catholique de l’Ouest). She is the author of several books on gender representations in French animated television series (Il était une fois… le genre. Le féminin dans les dessins animés français, 2014 ; Libérées, délivrées. Rapports de pouvoir animés, 2020). From several years, she has also been studying the link between online communities and the development of intersectional feminism.

If you are interested in following this lecture, we invite you to subscribe by sending an e-mail no later than Thursday March 17th to the following address: larochelle.laurence[at]gmail[dot]com

The participation at the webinars is out of cost. However, registration is mandatory due to technical reasons.

CFP: International Conference on (Cyber)bullying
Critical and interdisciplinary approaches of online violence phenomena

The International Conference on (Cyber)bullying will take place on December 5 to 7, 2022 at the University of Lorraine (Nancy, France). This conference is organized by several French laboratories (Crem, LERASS-Céric, CHUS, Irméccen, Arènes) and by the Department of Education Sciences of the University of Poznan (Poland). For this conference, unpublished, innovative papers focusing on – but not limited to – the following topics are welcome:

1. Theoretical approaches to online violence and cyberbullying

2. The role of emotions and feelings

3. Intersectional approaches

4. Prevention of cyberbullying and online violence

Proposal submission deadline: April 15th, 2022

For the full CFP please click here!

CFP: 1st WIP virtual workshop 2022

The Thematic Group 10 (Digital Sociology) of the ISA organizes its 1st WIP (Work in Progress) virtual workshop (7-8 July 2022). The workshop is focused on attracting Early-Career Researchers (PhD Students, Postdoctoral Researchers) in the field of Digital Sociology willing to discuss their Work in Progress in an academic environment to improve their work for publication.

For the CFP please click here!

CFP: Un/Learning: Norms and Routines in Cultural Practice

Cultural practices rely on routines, whether consciously habituated through effortful practice or ingrained as habitual actions. These practices are shaped, perceived, and received by norms – pertaining to the bodies involved, aesthetic paradigms, locations, historical contexts, societal and economic valuation. Norms and routines thereby tend to perpetuate hegemonic structures and power relations, classifying groups and individuals within confined identities. Through the lens of “un/learning”, isaScience 2022 invites you to critically examine these dynamics and the impetus for change.

Conference date: 31 August - 4 September 2022

Conference venue: Hotel Marienhof, Reichenau/Rax, Austria & online

Academic Board: Andrea Glauser, Marko Kölbl, Stephanie Probst

Organisers: Therese Kaufmann, Karoline Feyertag

Keynote speakers: t.b.a.

Abstract submission deadline: March 21st, 2022

For the CFP please click here!

Extension de la date limite d'inscription pour le XXVème colloque franco-roumain

Le comité de coordination du XXVème colloque franco-roumain intitulé "Mondialisation de la communication: la diversité des cultures en questions" a décidé de prolonger cette date limite au 30 janvier 2022, avec une décision d'acceptation de ces propositions reportée au 20 février.

Calendrier prévisionnel et publications

30 janvier 2022 : date limite d’envoi des propositions aux coordonnateurs d’axes

20 février 2022 : résultats des évaluations du comité scientifique

26-28 mai 2022 : présentation orale des communications

15 septembre 2022 : date limite d’envoi du texte intégral des propositions

15 novembre 2022 : retours du comité scientifique sur les textes des propositions

Printemps 2023 : publication des ouvrages issus du colloque

Les textes issus de ce colloque-anniversaire, d’un format de 30 000 signes maximum, seront publiés en France (L’Harmattan, Paris) et en Roumanie à la Maison d'Édition de l’Université “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” Iași, suite à une expertise en double aveugle par le comité scientifique du colloque.

Veuillez lire l'AAC en cliquant ici!

RC14 WEBINARS - SESSION 3

The third session of the RC 14 Webinars entitled « Global Dialogues on Communication, Knowledge and Culture » will take place on January 21st, 2022 (18h00 CEST).

For this session we welcome Professor Mihaela-Alexandra TUDOR. During this lecture Mihaela-Alexandra Tudor will question the societal transformations in relation to the evolution of the media in the field of new human-machine interactions, culture, institutions and organizations and their authority and mode of governance, as many efficient social worlds in the light of mediatization approaches. On the basis of the field research, analyzes of several phenomena such as the liquidity of organizational structures, the uberization of authority and leadership will be approached through the prism of mediatization as a global phenomenon characteristic of our contemporary societies conquered by digital media. The lecture will be based on the book LA MÉDIATISATION. Nouveaux défis pour les sciences et la société (Harmattan, 2021) and the author's other works on mediatization.

If you are interested in following this lecture, we invite you to subscribe by sending an e-mail no later than Thursday January 20th to the following address: larochelle.laurence[at]gmail[dot]com

The participation at the webinars is out of cost. However, registration is mandatory due to technical reasons.

CFP Alternative Cultural Globalization : from East Asia to Europe

This colloquium aims to shed light on the phenomenon of the diffusion of Asian culture in the European context, in particular on four axes of interrogation: the production of cultural goods; the political competition in the global arena for cultural hegemony; glocalization, i.e., the adaptation of production to local contexts; and reception by consumers.

Calendar

March 1, 2022: submission of the proposals

May 2, 2022: selection of the proposals and feedback to the attendees

December 14-16, 2022: conference in Paris

For more information click here

New book published by RC14 member David Lyon

Pandemic Surveillance by David Lyon

In this timely book, David Lyon tracks the development of these methods, examining different forms of pandemic surveillance, in health-related and other areas, from countries around the world. He explores their benefits and disadvantages, their legal status, and how they relate to privacy protection, an ethics of care, and data justice. Questioning whether this new culture of surveillance will become a permanent feature of post-pandemic societies and the long-term negative effects this might have on social inequalities and human freedoms, Pandemic Surveillance highlights the magnitude of COVID-19-related surveillance expansion. The book also underscores the urgent need for new policies relating to surveillance and data justice in the twenty-first century.

For further information, please click here!

Mise à jour - Programme J.E. Identités contemporaines et narrations médiatiques : qu’est-ce que l’identité nationale aujourd’hui ?

Les Universités Panteion d’Athènes (EURCECOM), Paris Descartes (Philépol), Haute-Alsace, Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris III, les Comités de Recherche Sociologie de la Communication, de la Culture et de la Connaissance de l’AIS et Socio-anthropologie Politique de l’AISLF et l’AMOPA-Grèce, organisent une Journée d’Études sur le thème Identités contemporaines et narrations médiatiques : qu’est-ce que l’identité nationale aujourd’hui ? le 10 décembre 2021 à la Maison de la Grèce (9, rue Mesnil 75116 Paris).

Veuillez trouver le programme de la J.E. en cliquant ici

RC 14 WEBINARS - SESSION 2

The second session of the RC 14 Webinars entitled «Global Dialogues on Communication, Knowledge and Culture» will take place on November 19th, 2021 (18h00 CEST). This session is stemmed from Vincenzo Cicchelli and Sylvie Octobre’s latest book : The Sociology of Hallyu Pop Culture: Surfing the Korean Wave (London: Palgrave, 2021).

Combining global, media, and cultural studies, this book analyzes the success of Hallyu, or the "Korean Wave” in the West, both at a macro and micro level, as an alternative pop culture globalization. This research investigates the capitalist ecosystem (formed by producers, institutions and the state), the soft power of Hallyu, and the reception among young people, using France as a case study, and placing it within the broader framework of the 'consumption of difference.' Seen by French fans as a challenge to Western pop culture, Hallyu constitutes a material of choice for understanding the cosmopolitan apprenticeships linked to the consumption of cultural goods, and the use of these resources to build youth’s biographical trajectories.

The book will be relevant to researchers, as well as undergraduate and postgraduate students in sociology, cultural studies, global studies, consumption and youth studies.

If you are interested in following this lecture, we invite you to subscribe by sending an e-mail no later than Thursday November 18th to the following address: larochelle.laurence[at]gmail[dot]com.

The participation at the webinars is out of cost. However, registration is mandatory due to technical reasons.

RC 14 WEBINARS - SESSION 1

RC14 organizes this year a series of webinars entitled «Global Dialogues on Communication, Knowledge and Culture». The aim of these webinars is to enhance dialogue between scholars situated in different regions of the world on topics related to communication, knowledge and culture.

You can see the program of the webinars by clicking here!

For our first session which will take place on October 29th, we welcome Professor Sandra Ristovska who will give a lecture entitled Seeing Human Rights: Video Activism as a Proxy Profession.

You can find the abstract of Sandra Ristovska’s recent book exploring the theme on which her speech is based by clicking here!

If you are interested in following this lecture, we invite you to subscribe by sending an e-mail no later than Thursday October 28th to the following adress: larochelle.laurence[at]gmail[dot]com.

Table ronde: Vie professionnelle VS vie personnelle - nouveaux défis au temps de la COVID - 19

RC14 - ISA particile à la table ronde (en ligne) "Vie professionnelle VS vie personnelle - nouveaux défis au temps de la COVID - 19"

Pour accéder au programme de la table ronde cliquez ici

Identités nationales et médias : conscience nationale dans les sociétés contemporaines (à l’occasion des 200 ans d’existence de la

Grèce moderne)

Le RC14 organise une journée d'études à Paris intitulée: "Identités nationales et médias: conscience nationale dans les sociétés contemporaines".

Pour plus d'informations cliquez ici

Call for contributions for the thematic issue on: Media Narratives on National Identities

A special thematic issue on contemporary identities wil published in SCAD (Social Cohesion and Developpement e journal).

To see the full CFP click here

URGENT ANNOUNCEMENT

Thanks to the generosity of some colleagues, the ISA has collected a “solidarity fund” that will allow to fund late registrations for colleagues from the Global South.

If there is this kind of necessity, our RC could apply for a free registration for a colleague from the global south; we should send an e-mail as RC, with her/his name and the e-mail address to Geoffrey Pleyers before January 5th. We should be able to fund one registration for most of the participating RC/WG/TG. If it was not the case, the RCC will select the candidates based on the economic situation of the candidate country and the size of your RC/WG/TG.

Please contact on this purpose RC14 Program Coordinator (prof. Christiana Constantopoulou christiana.constantopoulou@panteion.gr)

New Publications!!!

RC 14 organized a midterm activity in Athens on the theme of Filmic and Media Narratives of the Crisis, in November 2019. The works of this conference are about to be published, in 2020: 1) as a thematic volume of the series “Studies in Critical Social Sciences” at Brill Publisher (Leiden, Boston) under the title: Crisis’ Representations: Frontiers and Identities in the Contemporary Media Narratives and 2) as a book of the series “Logiques Sociales” (in French) at L’Harmattan Publisher (Paris) under the title: Représentations Sociales et Discours Médiatiques, la crise comme narration contemporaine.

Crisis’ Representations: Frontiers and Identities in the

Contemporary Media Narratives

Editor: Constantopoulou Christiana

Publisher: BRILL

Series: Studies in Critical Social Sciences, Volume: 173

Publication Date: 23 Dec 2020

For more information: https://brill.com/view/title/58933?rskey=fkEVKx&result=4

Représentations Sociales et Discours Médiatiques, la crise

comme narration contemporaine

Editor: Constantopoulou Christiana

Publisher: L’Harmattan

Series: Logiques Sociales

Publication Date: To be announced

For more information: https://www.editions-harmattan.fr/index.asp

RC14 SESSIONS FOR THE PORTO ALEGRE FORUM!

RC 14 proposes 17 sessions for the next ISA forum that will be held in Porto Alegre!!!

Bellow, you can find the call for each session.

Attention! The deadline for submitting an abstract is the 30th of September!

Civic Engagement, Political Consumerism and Participatory Communication: New Challenges of Social Media at 21st Century

Many claims have been made about the emergence of a digital turn that has radically transformed the possibilities for politics through traditional, modernist and postmodernist binaries of subject/object, state/society, politics/economics, public/private, consumption/production, time/space, mind/body, labour/leisure, culture/nature, and human/post human. This turn has run through several phases, beginning from cybernetics, databases, artificial intelligence, personal computers, at 20th century, up to social media, targeted digital advertising, self-quantification, big data, and cloud computing, at 21st century. This session will develop interdisciplinary assessments of the digital’s impact on society. It will interrogate the claims of both positive features and critical rethinking of social media activities. “Digital optimists” assert that Internet and social media create new forms of community and solidarity, creative innovation, participatory communication, social activism, and distributed democracy. “Digital critics” argue that digital technologies have not brought only positive change, but have rather engendered controversial phenomena as political consumerism, purchasing practices, and at the same time extended domination through new forms of control as well as networked authoritarianism, digital divide and new digital alienation 2.0, or the rise of the surveillance society.

Presenters will engage with the possibilities, potentials, pitfalls, limits, and ideologies of digital activism through social media practices. And participants are welcomed to explore main challenges of Internet participatory culture, futures, places and possibilities of critique in the age of digital subjects and digital objects.

Session Organizer: Oksana Lychkovska, oksanalychkovska@gmail.com

Contesting Digital Formations: Power, Values, and Visions

ISA Research Committees Futures Research (RC07), Sociology of Communication, Knowledge and Culture (RC14), Sociology of Science and Technology (RC23) are planning one or more Joint Sessions.

Digital formations, including the Internet, social media, big data, artificial intelligence, and robotics are reshaping the world. They bring joy and productivity gains, but they also unleash new inequalities and unprecedented risks of surveillance, turbulence, and disruption.

The new digital technologies have global reach but are not globally uniform. Diverse social actors cooperate, compete, or are in conflict over the social shaping of digital formations. Outcomes vary according to differential access to resources, capacities, political-legal frameworks, and changing constellations of forces.

This session aims to compare digital formations in different sites, regimes, and regions. Papers are welcome that address questions such as: Who contests the power of Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft? How are election campaigns and their outcomes being shaped by access to big data? How do algorithms reinforce inequalities, and who controls them? What ethics can shape and control artificial intelligence? Who captures the benefits of productivity gains, who loses out, and on what factors does this depend on? How does China maintain its cyberwall and implement its social credit system? How can smaller countries and subaltern groups maintain distinct digital pathways? What are the dominant trends, probable and possible scenarios? What social actors contest current trajectories? What values are in play? What are the alternative visions for the short and long-terms? And what are the major tasks for sociological research?

Session Organizer: Markus Schulz, markus@markus-s-schulz.net

Cultural Consumption Studies in the Global South

Cultural Consumption studies in the Global South face epistemological challenges related to diverse social and cultural contexts, distant from the Western and Northern traditional perspectives on cultural studies. They also deal with methodological difficulties, due mainly to the multiple social and cultural realities of these countries, as well as the lack of resources of the cultural sector.

Post-colonial and decolonial studies aim to focus on the different realities within the Global South, which don´t accept the traditional and colonial perspectives from the North. The reality of the Global South is marked by the diversity and coexistence between different ways of thinking, educating and dealing with society: the new, fruit of development and economic independence, and the old, heritage of poverty and domination. This articulation between traditions and modernities generates a heterogeneous reality, which embraces contemporary forms of intercultural mixtures.

Given these aspects, studies of Cultural Consumption in the Global South require specific reflections and adaptations in relation to epistemological and methodological models used in the North. We welcome papers that address these issues and challenge us to think deeply about cultural consumption in the Global South.

Session Organizer: Viviane Riegel, vivianeriegel@gmail.com

Desafíos De Las Plataformas Digitales a Las Políticas y Gestión Cultural

El desafío de las políticas culturales se plantea cada vez más en el ámbito audiovisual digital. Las denominadas plataformas OTT “Over The Top” audiovisuales -Netflix, Amazon, Disney así como en el ámbito de la música Youtube- vienen creciendo aceleradamente tanto en Estados Unidos, América Latina como en Europa con consecuencias relevantes para todas las fases de la producción audiovisual y con particular incidencia sobre los mecanismos de circulación, distribución, acceso y forma de consumo cultural de la población.

Esta problemática permite analizar por una parte las nociones de política cultural asociada a la soberanía cultural e identidad cultural y, por otra, la transformación de las prácticas, usos sociales y gustos culturales vinculada a la transformación del consumo cultural mundializado que constituyen nuevos modelos de valoración social de los productos audiovisuales.

En este contexto surgen varias preguntas. ¿Qué estrategias resultan más adecuadas para impulsar la apreciación o valor social de las producciones locales/nacionales ancladas cada vez más en el ámbito digital? ¿En qué medida plataformas y redes digitales constituyen oportunidades de ampliar el acceso social a la música y al cine regional? ¿Cuáles son las posibilidades de esta nueva generación de servicios audiovisuales de promover un espacio más diverso? ¿Qué riesgos de dominio cultural plantean las plataformas de origen norteamericano como agentes hegemónicos de acceso audiovisual global?¿Qué papel tienen los organismos internacionales, regionales y nacionales públicos para regular los espacios audiovisuales?

Session Organizer: Rosario Radakovich, rosario_radakovich@yahoo.com

Digital Authoritarianism in the Age of Globalization

Digital media has a liberating potential for those who have a critical position to the authoritarian rulers in many countries. The use of the internet has enabled people to have access to unfiltered and uncontrolled information in authoritarian countries and in some degree, it has led to new challenges to the authoritarian regimes such as in Tunisia or Egypt in 2011 during the Arab spring. In this sense, the digital media facilitates opportunities for journalists, subordinated people and activists to undermine authoritarian information control and develop alternative virtual communications and communities. However the authoritarian governments around the world are tightening control over interactivity of their citizens and restricting their access to the information. The control of the information flow and online communication have become requisite for “networked authoritarians” to maintain their repressive systems. For this purpose, these regimes use well-sophisticated multiple methods, policies and technologies to surveillance their populations to identify critical voices and pre-empt the potential challenges.

This proposed panel aims to explore the methods that authoritarian regimes employ to build their digital authoritarian system in order to establish hegemony over the society.

Researchers are kindly invited to contribute to the conference through submissions of their research abstracts.

Topics of interest for submission include, but are not limited to:

The Internet and state control in authoritarian regimes

Social movements, the Internet and state.

Digital authoritarianism, democracy and freedom of speech

Self-censorship and digital silence

Session organizer: Janroj Yilmaz KELES, J.Keles@mdx.ac.uk

European Elections, Social Networks and New Political Communication Style

Elections to the European Parliament have long been considered "second class" elections (Reif & Schmitt, 1980). Two main factors have been put forward to justify this assessment: the persistent low level of participation in this vote in most European Union countries and the weakness of the European Parliament in relation to the competences and powers of the different national parliaments

In the context of thin ideologies (Cas Mudde 2004, 2017), arrival in power of Emmanuel Macron (‘hors-parti’ representative) and adoption of a new populist communication style (Aalberg 2018) by traditional and populist parties as well, we propose to analyze the disruptive character or on the contrary, more classical character of this political communication at the European level. The main research question will focus on the character of political communication within the countries of the Union :either the classic political communication or, on the contrary, with the increased growth of social networks the innovation and creativity based on hybridization of voices, contents and styles.

It will be significant to analyze how we move from the public discourse “of” an organization (the communication generated by the entity itself, which speaks about itself and disseminates the information that it considers relevant) to the public discourse “about” an organization (all the information available that is circulating in the communicative system but also the information that other parties, other groups and other people have spread about the party/leader/group).

Session organizer: Daniela Frumusani, danifrumusani@yahoo.com

Media, Democracy and Development: Historical and Present Connections

In 1949, Daniel Lerner proposed a relationship between new media and the modern mentality in the Third World. Although much criticized, his insights survive and influenced optimistic views of the impact of television and the internet around the globe. Here, we ask a different question: what is the impact on the imposition of restrictions on the press and on book culture in general, in countries that had been witnessing reasonable economic development? Do restrictions on the functioning of the media in the formative period of a nation have long-term impacts on economic development? Conversely, can a limited labor market, with few formal vacancies in competitive firms, discourage investment in education? What is the impact of low literacy and education rates on political culture and on the nature of the public sphere in a modern society? In this session, we would like to examine the multiple relationships between economic development, adoption of new media, and written culture and education.

We are interested in studies on so-called developing countries, and in particular those where there have been restrictions on the printing press, such as colonial Brazil and the Ottoman Empire, or which somehow differ from the Northern European and North American model of media development. We welcome papers using a variety of methods, particularly those bridging interdisciplinary gaps. Our goal is to discuss the problems of development, education, and the media pointing to new paths in the understanding of the apparently intractable obstacles to achieving a free and just society.

Session organizer: Heloisa Pait, heloisa.pait@gmail.com

Presente y futuro de la sociología como ciencia y profesión en un mundo en cambio. Un diálogo global de experiencias entre ALAS e ISA

Los Grupos de Investigación RC07 Investigación sobre el Futuro, RC14 Sociología de la comunicación, del conocimiento y de la cultura; RC16 Teoría Sociológica; RC18 Sociología Política, buscan motivar desde nuestras diversas experiencias el diálogo sobre el nuevo papel de la sociología y rol del sociólogo/a en este mundo diverso. Destacar las experiencias y nuevos desafíos de inserción laboral y profesional como su aporte teórico político en las políticas públicas, en la opinión pública y en la vida cotidiana de diversos grupos sociales subalternos, que implica más y nuevos desafíos en las prácticas de la producción del saber sociológico y de su oficio, en los compromisos sociales y públicos, entre otros estrechamente unidos a las otras ciencia al servicio de la vida social en un diálogo entre la Asociación Latinoamericana de Sociología (ALAS) y la Asociación Internacional de Sociología (ISA). El objetivo de la sesión es presentar distintos aportes, perspectivas e iniciativas que se están elaborando tanto desde la ALAS e ISA para atender los retos futuros del desarrollo de la sociología en nuestros países con una visión global prospectiva en permanente cambio.

Session organizer: Miguel Serna, miguel.serna@cienciassociales.edu.uy

Reproducing Medical Knowledge That Obscures the Environment's Impact on Health

Over the last five decades environmental health researchers have produced extensive knowledge about the impact of toxicant exposure on human health. However, as Phil Brown et al. (2001) and others have shown for print media, such information rarely makes its way into mainstream depictions of disease, which tend to depict disease in biologically reductionist terms that obscures the role of environmental pollution. This glaring discrepancy has important social implications. On the one hand, obscuring the health-damaging effects of pollution shields pollution producers and the politicians who support them. On the other, concealing the information prevents workers and those living near pollution production to protect themselves, thereby condemning them to higher rates of disease and shorter lives. These problems underscore the significant connection between knowledge and power.

This session is geared towards building on Brown et al.’s (2001) ground-breaking work. Towards that end, we invite papers that consider other influential agents who produce pollution-obscuring depictions of disease (such as governments, the medical profession, non-profit patient support groups, etc.), the social processes through which they continue to produce individualizing disease discourses, the contextual, cultural and structural factors that enable them to do so, the unequal impact of the problem, and/or what is being done to address this social problem.

Session organizer: Manuel VALLEE, m.vallee@auckland.ac.nz

Revisiting the Role of Digital Media in Social Movements

The advent of digital media has been observed to create opportunities for social movements to thrive in different regions of the world. The growing popularity of mobile technologies and social networking sites, in particular, has allowed activist groups and active citizens to self-mobilize and self-organize without being confined by mainstream media and traditional organizations. However, adopting new media and information technologies in collective or connective action requires citizen activists to operate under different premises and may expose them to police surveillance and internal conflict. The question remains about whether and how digital media empower or constrain the capacity of social movements.

This session seeks to revisit the contemporary relationship between digital media and social movements. It solicits submissions to discuss and debate about the role of digital media in recent social movements. In particular, we would like to address the following research questions: What is the role of digital media in the processes of mobilization and collective action? What are the opportunities and challenges of using new media and information technologies for political development and progressive social change? How does digital media adoption promote and/or hinder the advancement of diverse social and political agendas? At the theoretical level, how should we conceptualize the ways in which digital media expand and/or alter our understanding of contemporary social movements? Contributions are welcome from various methodological approaches and geo-political contexts.

Session organizer: David DUENAS-CID, david.duenas@gmail.com

Taste and Cultural Practices in the Prism of Intersectionality

he sociology of cultural practices has long emphasized class social relations in the analysis of stratification of tastes or inequalities in the face of culture. Recent works have placed greater emphasis on gender, race or generations in the social structuring of cultural practices and tastes. However, there is still little research that crosses these different forms of social differentiation. In connection with the theme of the forum, this session aims to host papers that sociologically study taste and cultural practices from the perspective of the intersectionality of power relations. The papers will deal with the effects and, better still, the interactions of at least two differentiating factors, two power relations, whether it is gender, social class, generation or racial or territorial assignment. Empirical research-based presentations will be preferred, regardless of the methods of investigation used (archival research, ethnography, statistics, discourse analysis, image analysis, etc.).

Session organizer: Wenceslas LIZE wenceslas.lize@gmail.com

Television: Productions, Representations and Receptions

Even if Internet has concurred an important part of audiences worldwide, television is still today a dominant media that plays a crucial role in every day dramaturgy not only through its productions but also through the representations projected by it.

Social representations are fundamental in the understanding of everyday life and in social stratification. Democracy, inequality, gendered roles, knowledge and culture are determined and valorized by the representations that are dominant in every society. Television, is a media that is in constant dialogue with society and as a result, television products adapt their discourse to these representations. Thus, the study of such representations as well as their reception by the public is of a great importance for social scientists.

In this session, we invite abstracts for papers that address any aspect of this kind television related researches. Presentations may address various topics related to production processes, representation analysis and/or the reception of television contents.

Session organizer: Laurence Larochelle, larochelle.laurence@gmail.com

The Conflict of Values in the Socio-Cultural Space

In the modern world, there is a gap in the social and cultural development of peoples and countries, a lot of threats to the establishment and strengthening of democracy appear, the achievement of people's well-being, inequality, a divergence of value ideas about the structure of social and political life are growing. Value contradictions are observed at the global, regional and local levels. The conflict of values, not only interests, creates geopolitical tension, but more often it manifests itself recently in the local space, especially in places where the number of migrants is increasing. This often provokes intolerance, physical and psychological violence, various types of xenophobia. Sociology is designed to delve into the nature of these phenomena, to seek answers to contemporary challenges, ways to harmonize interests, sociocultural integration, and to reveal the boundaries of pluralism of cultural values. Reports may include not only questions about the role of the social sciences, but also the media, the social network in developing a culture of communication, adapting the styles and lifestyles of different groups and individuals to the new environment.

Session organizer: Musa Yusupov, musa_y17@hotmail.com

Globalization, Communication and Cultural Change : Conceptual Issues and Empirical Reality

Globalization refers to widening, deepening and speeding up of worldwide interconnectedness in all aspects of contemporary social life. New communication technologies facilitate the process of globalization in such a way that the fields of interactions are cutting across the boundaries of communities and nation-states. In cultural field, in order to analyze this process, three conceptual frameworks have been developed, namely, differentialism- focusing much more on barriers that prevent flows that prevent flows that would serve to make cultures (and much else) more alike; convergence- process I which barriers are much weaker and the global flows are stronger, with the result that cultures are subject to many of the same flows and tend to grow more alike; and hybridization- in which external flows interact with internal flows in order to produce a unique cultural hybrid that combines elements of the two. Thus, globalization of culture can be analyzed in terms of the movement of objects, signs and people across region and intercontinental space. It can be mapped in terms of the geographical extensity of these movements and intensity or volume of such movements relative to the national and local as well as in terms of the speed-the velocity or rapidity at which images or ideas can be communicated from one place to another. The globalization of culture is facilitated with new communication technologies leading to diverse types of encounters such as homogenization, contestation, hybridization and indifference at the global, regional, national and local levels.

Session organizer: Virendra Singh, etdrvps@gmail.com

Environmental Aesthetics and Socio-Territorial Conflicts throughout Media

The world and Weltanschauung are changing as a result of scientific and technological advances. Therefore, by analyzing the configurations of human social life throughout the evolutionary history of humanity, we find that “technology transfer” has always been an interaction between nature and culture for all possible realizations of human civilization, as stated by Wolfgang Welsch (2012) concerning Darwin’s evolutionary aesthetics. In these ways, more complex environmental crises and climate change can be understood through aesthetics and communication, with the coexistence of humans and nonhumans under the digital process as the most appropriate relationship. In theory, an agreement to combat climate change according to the industrial and financial aspects of the world through technologies of communication and artistic practices can integrate art with a social critique on the Internet as collective intelligence due to the influence of images. However, this agreement could present images of a nostalgic return to nature artificially, valuing biodiversity through broadcasted visual arts, and so contesting the fact. Also, to this end, we confirm art—the subject of the study of aesthetics—in terms of creation, seeking innovative solutions, especially in the understanding of our development with concepts of equality, freedom, and democracy. In this respect, two aspects of cultural transformation are important—technique, in which the term “art” is included, and knowledge to separate facts based on perception when considering the attraction of images, which was always emphasized in the communication process and language development.

Session organizer: Christiane Wagner, christiane.wagner@malix.univ-paris1.fr

Postmodern Mythologies: The Contemporary Society (reflected) in Media Narratives

The sociological analysis places the social representations and beliefs in the center of “sociality” (often indicating their relation with archetypes). This aspect conduces to take into consideration the mythic dimension of any social existence and intends to reveal the dominant myths of an era (of a culture, a generation or a class). The contemporary imaginary (the symbols expressing the contemporary life) exists everywhere: in politics and official ceremonies but also in everyday “commonplace” practices and behaviors (in familiar objects, encounters, popular entertainment and narrations).

In this frame, we consider as an ideal field of analysis of the contemporary symbolisms and of the supporting/ corroborative theories and ideas of the contemporary social organization, the different “media narratives”. Referring to the “narratives” (in R. Barthes’ sense), we include not only the political, economic or social analysis in the information journals and magazines (printed or audiovisual), but also the narratives related to the “explanation” and/or “symbolization” of the contemporary habits and attitudes (such as games, life-style and reality shows and even popular artistic products) in mass or “social” media (taking into consideration that the “image” plays a primordial role in nowadays symbolisms).

This session invites media analyses which “reveal” how essential issues of the contemporary beliefs on existence (such as the meaning of “superpower”, the fantasies on the identities and “otherness” or of “social control”, the issues related to “duration”, the “dangerous impulses” etc.) are understood and expressed in the contemporary media narratives (in any media, anywhere).

Session organizer: Christiana Constantopoulou, christiana.constantopoulou@panteion.gr

The program of the XIX ISA Congress of Sociology is now available online!

The program of the XIX ISA Congress of Sociology is now available online! RC14 counts 22 sessions in three languages (English, French and Spanish) while participants come from 27 countries from all over the world!!! Thank you all for your implication! Can’t wait to meet you in Toronto!

Call for Papers : 4th Conference of the International Alfred Schutz Circle for Phenomenology and Interpretive Sociology

The 4th Conference of the International Alfred Schutz Circle for Phenomenology and Interpretive Sociology will be held at the University of Konstanz (May 3-5, 2018)

Read the call for papers by clicking here

Submission Deadline: November 1, 2017

13th Conference of the ESA

The 13th Conference of the European Sociological Association took place in Athens (29/8 - 1/9) at Panteion University. This is the program of the special sessions organized by the RC14:

11.00-14.00: Theatricalization of Politics in Contemporary Media and Arts

11.00-12.20: Part I, Politics in Contemporary Media Representations

Introduction: The symbolic importance of political theatricalization in contemporary communication, Christiana Constantopoulou, Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, Athens, Greece.

Alone voice onstage at Russian media: subjectivation through bodily symbolism as avant-garde political discourse (Pavlensky's case), Vyacheslav Kombarov, University of Novosibirsk; Institute of Economics and Industrial Engineering (Siberian Branch of Rusian Academy of Science), Russian Federation.

Gamification in Russian Bloggers’ Communication as a form of Theatricalization, Elena Chankova, Russian

State Social University, Russian Federation.

Ukrainian and Russian digital Media Narratives about the “Crimea Issue”: Theatricalization of Politics and hybrid War, Oksana Lychkovska, Odessa I.I. Mechnikov National University, Ukraine.

12.20-12.30 Break

12.30- 14.10: Part II, Politics in Fiction and Arts Representations

Artivism: Politics and Art, Case Studies from an International Project, Eva Aladro, Dimitrina Semova, Paula Requeijo, Complutense University, Madrid, Spain.

Immigrant Woman: that despicable Whore, images of women immigrants in two Greek TV serials of the immigrants in two Greek TV serials of the 2000’s, Regina Zervou, Institute for Education Policy, Athens, Greece.

The Theatricalization of patriarchate’s power through Turkish television series: the legitimation of rape, Dimitra Laurence Larochelle, University Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris 3, France

Zombifying: violence, death and destruction of bodies in The Walking Dead, Jorge Henrique Fugimoto Federal University of São Paulo, Brazil.

Technology and Science as Fiction Narratives and its social politics issues, Christiane Wagner, UNICAMP, Brazil.

14.15-15.00: Conclusions, RC14 BM on publication and forthcoming activities (Toronto, July 2018).

RC 14 SESSIONS PROPOSITIONS FOR THE ISA TORONTO CONGRESS

BILINGUAL SESSIONS IN ENGLISH AND / OR IN FRENCH:

Identities and Borders: The Communication of the Refugee Problem in the Contemporary Society. Joint with AISLF-RC38

We believe that the refugee problem is central for the contemporary communication and culture, not only because of the importance of this issue but also because of its definition of the contemporary identities (of extreme importance for any communicational system). The world “frame news” (which are diffused by some major press agencies of the world), seem to characterize the contemporary society. Among them, figure the geopolitical problems and war (in other words the “others” elsewhere: western audience is asked to recognize them, be aware of the “problem” and be happy as far as “those people” stay “where they belong”: in the war area or in a refugee camp at the “borders” of the “civilized world”…); postmodern identities are thus shaped between “us” leaving our life according to the civil standards and the “others”. During the Cold War, the World was divided in two blocs (where everybody was supposed to be part of this division). Nowadays, there’s a new geographical distribution: the world is divided into “citadels” well barricaded and impossible to touch, conceived to be “security zones” (such as European North, United States or Canada). Around these citadels, we can find vague territories as “no man’s land” which are interpreted as potential threats to the citadels’ peace and tranquility (these threats are immigration or economic crisis). This session, invites analyses of the media narratives on the refugee problem all over the world.

Session Organizer: Christiana CONSTANTOPOULOU, Email:christiana.constantopoulou@panteion.gr

***

Minorities and Identity Facing the Dominant Culture. Joint with AISLF-RC38

There are several minorities in the world who suffer from violence and injustice. The objective of this session is to study different kinds of minorities and to analyze the reflections and responses they have to counter the rejection they face. "Minorities" have first to be defined because they have different meanings depending on the country, the social, political or cultural context in which they are used. It depends also on the kind of minorities: ethnic, cultural, linguistic, religious, gendered ... many research angles that require to handle carefully this concept. Minorities are also generally attached to specific values that have a dimension of identity, individual and collective. How could this identity be defined? This session invites contributions dealing with topics of minorities and identity to explain and analyze how they deal with the dominant culture.

Session Organizer: Catherine GHOSN, Email: catherine.ghosn@gmail.com

***

Analyser le pouvoir et la violence dans les médias et les organisations / Analyzing power and violence in media and organizations

La question du pouvoir, de la violence et de la domination demeure cruciale pour l’analyse des différents médias autant que des différents types d’organisation. Cette question oblige le chercheur à replacer les phénomènes dans leur contexte historique, politique et économique. Ce qui est le propre de toute perspective sociologique de la communication, et notamment de toute perspective critique qui vise – ultimement – à poser un regard critique sur l’ordre établi. Nous entendons ici par « perspective critique » la posture qui vise à mettre en lumière, à dévoiler (au sens de Bourdieu), les mécanismes cachés qui sont en l’œuvre dans l’émergence d’un phénomène (campagne de communication sociale et publique, discours énoncé par une organisation, nouvelle véhiculée par un média, conception d’un système d’information, etc.). Nous voudrions ici entendre des étudiants et chercheurs qui, dans leurs travaux sur la question du pouvoir, de la violence ou des différentes formes de domination, mobilisent une approche socio-historique des médias et/ou des organisations. Autrement dit, quelle est la place du pouvoir, de la violence et/ou de la domination dans vos travaux ? Comment abordez-vous sur le plan théorique (dans la revue de littérature, par exemple) ces différents concepts et pourquoi ? Quelle place accordez-vous à la dimension « macro » des phénomènes que vous analysez ? Quelles en sont les conséquences sur le plan méthodologique?

Session Organizer : Luc BONNEVILLE, Email : luc.bonneville@uottawa.ca

***

Social Media Activism: Among Personal Values Creating Versus Networking Isolation and Digital Violence. Joint with AISLF-RC38

The ambiguous role of social media in today’s social context is well known and determined by their binaries as creators of a new communicative environment, new sociality that contributes to the finding of personal and national authenticity as against a field of information wars, political games and exploitation for the economic interests of the big Internet corporations. Social media are deinstitutionalized so that users have multi-dimensional features to create and modify personal values and identities by transforming networking content and sharing it with other users. The audience of social media can be divided into extremely active users or "insiders", then those who are in process of training and searching for personal behavior in networks - "newbies", and also those who are “lurkers" of social media – the readers of blogs or the visitors of social networks without active participation and creation of own content. Nevertheless, so long the Internet users are included in different network resources; they become both influential founders of production and object of the hidden or open commercial or political interests of big Internet corporations and political actors.

Digital activists assert that social media have radically transformed the world promising new forms of community, alternative ways of knowing and sensing, participatory culture, networked activism, and distributed democracy. Digital pessimists argue that digital culture has not brought about positive change, but has rather deepened and extended domination through new forms of control as well as networked authoritarianism, digital dehumanization, alienation 2.0, networked exploitation and violence.

Session Organizer: Oksana LYCHKOVSKA, Email: lychkovska@mail.ru

***

Réseaux Sociaux, Connectivité Et Genre. Joint with AISLF-RC38

Deux grandes mutations paradigmatiques caractérisent le début du troisième millénaire : la révolution digitale (Castells, Beck,Proulx) et la révolution du genre (Fraser,Macé).

Facebook, le premier réseau de socialisation du monde avec plus d’un milliard d’utilisateurs actifs au niveau international, connaît chaque année un accroissement spectaculaire qui contribue de manière significative à la libération de l’expression, a la démocratisation de la démocratie, à la redéfinition de la citoyenneté en termes de mobilisation et participation.

À l’origine un simple outil d’expression privé, il est devenu un instrument important qui sert également à l’expression publique des organisations, des institutions, des partis politiques etc. Pour ce qui est de la communication politique, Facebook devient un instrument gratuit et performant pour déployer des stratégies novatrices de marketing politique: expressivisme, connectivité et mobilisation (Cardon 2012).

Il serait important d’analyser la présence, les rôles, les responsabilités, ainsi que la représentation des personnalités politiques féminines, leur visibilité (textuelle et iconique)sur les réseaux sociaux, ainsi que la dynamique du clivage « genré » dans la mise en discours et la mise en visibilité.

Session Organizers: Daniela ROVENTA-FRUMUSANI Email: danifrumusani@yahoo.com, Adriana STEFANEL Email: adriana.stefanel@fjsc.ro

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Cultural Practices as Inclusion: The Role of Cultural Urban Initiatives for the Migrant Challenge. Joint with AISLF-RC38

The present seems to have forgotten the ideals that founded our modern states and citizen’s life : freedom, justice, solidarity, rights, equality are more and more cancelled or misinterpreted in all kind of society, occidental, oriental, northern or southern, secularized or well-structured religiously. Every day, we are overwhelmed by terrorist attack and violent events, but also injustice, indifference, xenophobia, as well as tensions caused by nationalisms; and the economic crisis has strong impacted on these aspects. Furthermore, the mobility is symbolic represented by the flows of migrants, often refugees, who have become the stigma of this general intolerance. How can the culture, especially the cultural practices, contrast the anti-democratic wave that involves power, violence and injustice? In opposition to a widespread representation of migration and mobility, which stresses ethnic conflict, and perspectives that overemphasize the role of integration politics, the city can be works as an inclusion machine on the ground in everyday activities that can improve the dynamics of belonging and peaceful coexistence between newcomers and the established by the way of cultural practices of inclusion, promoted by self-organized migrant association as well as by independent civil society initiatives. In this perspective, sportive events, artistic manifestation, ceremony, festivity and all other kind of symbolic ritualization can improve migrants’, but more widely «others»’, inclusion and can be a response against inequality, xenophobia, injustice. We accept contributions that carry out the issues of relationship between cultural practices, migration and inclusion in the context of everyday and urban life.

Session Organizers: Fiorenza GAMBA Email: fiorenza.gamba@gmail.com, Sandro CATTACIN Email: Sandro.Cattacin@unige.ch

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Media Representations and Cultural Studies: Approaching Current Ideas on Power, Violence and Justice

Social representations play a crucial role in the understanding of everyday life and in social stratification. The notions of inclusion and exclusion, of violence and peace, of justice and injustice, of knowledge and culture are determined and valorized by the representations that are dominant in every society; consequently, media and cultural industries, adapt their discourse to social norms.

The discipline of Cultural Studies aims to enlighten the process of reception and of interpretation of media and cultural contents by the public. Stuart Hall, the founder of Cultural Studies, pointed out that the different kinds of public, decode media messages in a different way (according to their ideologies and standards). David Morley (and others) added more factors influencing the decoding (such as gender, age, social level, cultural background etc.). In this sense, we consider that media representations analysis (media messages and media messages-decoding by the different kinds of public worldwide), are an ideal field of analysis to the understanding of current ideas on power, violence and justice. For this session we invite papers on media representations and/or on cultural studies dealing with themes of power, violence and justice (including fictional and/or journalistic material).

Session Organizer: Laurence LAROCHELLE, Email: larochelle.laurence@gmail.com

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Médiation Numérique De La Culture Dans Les Contextes Nationaux Plurilingues Ou Multilingues: Pratiques, Théories Et Mesures

Cette session portera sur la façon dont la médiation numérique peut générer de nouvelles pratiques culturelles et être source de créativité artistique dans les contextes nationaux plurilingues ou multilingues. Dans cette perspective, une attention particulière pourra être accordée à la situation des minorités linguistiques. Le fait que la médiation numérique bouscule les processus traditionnels de création, de diffusion et de réception des arts et de la culture est maintenant assez documenté en sociologie. Par contre, en abordant la diversité des pratiques linguistiques, culturelles et identitaires dans des contextes de coexistence et de concurrence de langues sur un territoire national, la question portant sur ces processus soulève d’autres enjeux. Ces enjeux renvoient au développement de communautés de goûts et de pratiques en fonction de préférences linguistiques et culturelles, à la circulation des œuvres et des produits culturels dans un espace public re-territorialisé sur le Web ou encore à la régulation de l’environnement numérique par les politiques publiques et la promotion d’une culture nationale. Pour discuter de ces enjeux, les communications pourront porter sur des aspects théoriques de la médiation numérique de la culture. Elles pourront présenter des recherches empiriques (études de cas par exemple sur des pratiques de médiation numérique liées à la critique sociale, politique et culturelle ou contribuant à la valorisation du patrimoine matériel et immatériel de communautés linguistiques spécifiques). Les communications pourront aussi porter sur des défis méthodologiques et les initiatives concernant la mesure des produits et des contenus culturels en fonction de la langue.

Session Organizer : Anne ROBINEAU

Email: anne.robineau@umoncton.ca

***

SESSIONS IN ENGLISH

Media, Women, Identities: New Categorizations Old Myths in the Refugee Problem Narration RC14 Sociology of Communication, Knowledge and Culture (host committee) Joint Session with RC32 Women in Society

The refugee problem seems to be crucial for the reality and for the understanding of our world: it is in the middle of a series of reclassifications concerning identities, security, borders, welfare and human rights. This huge humanitarian issue (implying a very cruel facet of our world counting deaths, indignities, life in the camps, division of families, exclusion) is the center of the media narratives “reporting” our world and relating major social issues. Among these issues are reported: world security but also life style (the stars continue to be deified by mass audience and they often come to play the role that social policy should play); police terrorism (leaving a clear message: do not protest, you cannot find your “rights” and your life is in danger); electronic crime (there again the message of everybody’s duty to “keep secure” is primordial; finally the geopolitical problems and the different facets of war (the “others” “elsewhere”: western audience is asked to recognize them, be aware of the “problem” they cause and be happy as far as “those people” stay “where they belong”: in the war area or in a refugee camp -at the “borders” of the “civilized world”). Obviously sociology has to approach these issues: but as far as it concerns the question of “women” in the refugee problem we wonder if the new categorizations do not just follow “old myths” about gendered identity. This session invites media analyses focusing on the relation women/ refugee media narrations.

Session Organizer: Laurence LAROCHELLE

Email: larochelle.laurence@gmail.com

(RC 32 is represented by Prof. Akosua ADOMAKO AMPOFO, e- mail: adomako@gmail.com)

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Encountering Differences, Constructing Heritages and Marking Identities RC54 The Body in the Social Sciences (host committee) Joint Session with RC14 Sociology of Communication, Knowledge and Culture

Aware of the increasing interest in the movement of policies between places, sites and settings, this JS aims to show how people learn to live with “difference”, one of the most challenging issues of the contemporary society. How people of different heritages being in a common space (coexistence due to migration, refugee problem and globalization) could forge some kind of shared sensibility? How could it be possible to realize some kind of common life together, without retreating into “war tribes” one against the other, but being able to understand and live together (peacefully).

We suggest to focus on contemporary cities, the contact zones of globalizing, urbanizing, super diverse world. One good example could be some field research on the “border zones” of Europe (Spain, Italy and Greece) where the refugee problem reveals some of the most urgent problems nowadays: who is the emblematic “other” for the contemporary (Western?) culture? Because the “identity” problem is central for communication and characterizes the communicational system of a society, these issues become central for the analysis of communication, knowledge and culture. In these zones is “played” the game between identities (describing “otherness” and the ways to deal with it): expressing merged identities is a capital problem apparently in these zones (unfortunately creating social violence and conflict) but we argue that it is an ideal topic to investigate the contemporary postmodern culture: we invite papers on analyses of facts and or propositions on eventually constructing new social Heritages (and Identities).

Session Organizer: Oksana LYCHKOVSKA Email: lychkovska@mail.ru

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Neighborhood Social Boundaries – New Challenges for Studies on Communication, Knowledge and Culture

In contemporary global condition unprecedented expectations are directed toward neighborhoods. Already the Chicago school portrayed neighborhoods in ambivalent terms. On the one hand, neighborhoods were cohesive social units that existed without formal organization; on the other hand, they were considered unstable arenas of tensions and interest conflicts, and realms of segregated racial, cultural and vocational groups. This session addresses the questions concerning neighborhood knowledge and social group formation. We are interested in finding out how social group and neighborhood boundaries are drawn, how conflicts and processes of balkanization (aggressive segregation) emerge or are solved, how people constitute knowledge on who “they” are and who “we” are, how do they draw boundaries between “us” and “them”, and what are the forces influencing upon the boundary work.

Recently digital communications surpass territorial boundaries and make available cultures and knowledge linking local and remote parts of the globe. These developments pose challenges to efforts to build social cohesion, and sometimes modern societies have seen to be undergoing a shift towards polarization as a result of diversifying localities, uncontrolled media landscapes, and consequent socio-political developments. Notions like second modernity or trans-modernity and super-diversity acknowledge anyhow a possibility for the increased reflexivity and aim to enable a revitalization of both modernity and traditions. New insights also stress the importance of neighborhood life and communities, which are transnationally connected and socio-economically differentiated. We open the question of trans-modern neighborhoods and the new fabrics of social groups under global condition and intensified media sphere.

Session Organizer: Ilkka ARMINEN, e.-mail: ilkka.arminen@helsinki.fi

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Leisure and Mobility in Media NarrativesRC14 Sociology of Communication, Knowledge and Culture (host committee), Joint Session with RC13 Sociology of Leisure

Among the huge communicational changes occurring in contemporary society (compared to the 20th century) is the use of terms which are no more able to signify reality. For example politics are mostly “mediated” and “virtual” (power coming “into scenes” as argued G. Balandier); “leisure culture” remains dominant at the same time that economic crisis augments almost everywhere. Many populations ought to affront war and dislocation. These reversals coexist with the “refugee problem” and therefore we believe that this problem (appearing as “European” given that people wishing to avoid war, search asylum in the neighboring European countries) is certainly “global” (it may be associated to the migration problem in the U.S.) and characterizes many contemporary general ideas (as for instance the meaning of “borders”, the definitions of identities and otherness, the notions of security and of “zones of danger”). Our world seems mostly “divided” between “security zones” and “dangerous zones”. The analysis of the (world) media narratives on this problem would reveal social representations of the meaning of borders, as well as of the meaning of “tourism” and “travel mobility” -associated to refugee mobility. New challenges, new realities: it is time to redefine some existing social (and sociological) categorizations (important for media and knowledge) associated nowadays to the life-style culture.

This session, invites papers on media analysis dealing with this kind of emerging issues with the goal to describe, analyze and understand the social understanding of identities and borders which in fact “shape” our world (and our ways to understand it).

Session Organizer: Daniela FRUMUSANI, Email: danifrumuani@yahoo.com (RC13 is represented by Prof. Karl SPRACKLEN Email: K.Spracklen@leedsbeckett.ac.uk)

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Globalization, New Media and the Culture of Real Virtuality: Emerging Patterns

Globalization is closely linked with mass media communication which itself is transforming with the integration of various modes of communication into an interactive network. The formation of a hypertext and meta-language integrate into the same system the written, oral, and audio-visual modalities of human communication. The potential integration of text, images, and sounds in the same system, interacting from multiple points, in chosen time (real or delayed) along a global network, in conditions of open and affordable access, does fundamentally change the character of communication. Thus the emergence of a new electronic communication system characterized by its global reach, its integration of all communication media and its potential interactivity is changing and will change forever our culture. One of the major components of new communication system, the mass media communication, structured around television which resulted into globalization and decentralization of mass media communications interplaying with culture and social behavior. It has transformed the media and helped in evolution of multi-media system in the 1990s. With advent of internet, different systems of communication organized around computer networking and the surprising, spontaneous development of new kinds of virtual communities. The merger of these two communication systems has far reaching consequences for the structure and culture of contemporary societies and the culture of real “virtuality” is now emerging whose contents, dynamics and significance have to be understood in context of developed and developing societies. In what ways this transformation is taking place will be the major thrust of the proposed session.

Session Organizers: Virendra Pal SINGH, Email: etdrvps@gmail.com; Parvez Ahmad ABBASI

Email: parvezabbasi@yahoo.co.in

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The Use of Information and Communication Technology, Modernity and Social Structure: Emerging Trends in Developing Countries

The use of Information and Communication Technology has transformed the nature, type and behavioral patterns in the contemporary developing societies particularly in Asian, African and Latin American countries. Its impact varied on different castes, ethnic-groups, religious-groups classes and nations. In this context, the first issue for discussion here is to understand the differential impact of the ICT on various groups. The second important issue for discussion here is regarding theoretical and conceptual understanding of the phenomenon itself. A critical re-examination of some concepts like kinship, caste, ethnicity, religion, nation-building, modernity, empathy and gratification in the context of the ITC seems necessary. The point here is to enhance our conceptual knowledge and thus strengthen the discipline of sociology. The third main issue for discussion here is to invite some empirical studies from the developing countries and enrich our understanding of the impact of the ICT in various regions of the world like Asia Africa and Latin America. The papers are invited along the following or related themes:(i) the use of the ICT and its differential impact on various social groups;(ii) theoretical and conceptual issues in the context of the ICT and its usage and (iii) the empirical studies on the ICT and its usage in developing countries.

Session Organizer: Arvind CHAUHAN Email: drarvindchauhan@gmail.com

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Communication for Socio-Cultural Change

A possible strategy in achieving sustainability and development places the people of the community in the center of the communication process. This technique is also known as participatory approach where interpersonal communication is exercised through community media. The role of communicator is more important today. This is so because the world has never seen a time where there was so much to know, so many people need to know quickly. In developing countries, therefore nothing is more important than the transfer of useful information from person to person. It has been observed that single source of information cannot disseminate all kind of ideas, for this, different types of source of information is required to disseminate many ideas for desired change & development. Disseminating of ideas also bring change in structure, functions and social relationship in society.

The role of communication is particularly important in relation to such socio-cultural change occurring in the modern world as socio-economic achievements, environmental change and urbanization or process of integration and exclusion associated with modernization of societies, development in active components of society like family women and young people etc.

This panel invites papers related to various dimension of changes and development taking place in society through communication. Programs for sustainable development in different spheres of society i.e impact study, role of ICT in the process of sustainable development, health communication, communication and empowerment of women, media management, media utilization, agriculture and allied field and influence of interpersonal and other communication channels in getting information.

Session Organizer: Emmanuel DAS, Email: epkdas2012@gmail.com

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Marginalized Voices Online: Social Media, Power, and (Dis) Engagement

Social media is often seen as an opportunity for marginalized voices to be heard - bypassing traditional media channels and gatekeepers, and bringing content for the people, by the people, creating a more diverse environment for ideas to flourish. But is this really the case? Or does social media replicate the same power dynamics that are seen in traditional forms of media?

In this session, participants will present papers surrounding the social media practices of marginalized groups, with reflections on power relations online. It will also be a chance to ask questions about what it means to be engaged or disengaged online, what are the barriers that stop marginalized voices from being heard, and how those barriers can be subverted.

Session Organizer: Katya BOZUKOVA, Email: kbozukova@hotmail.com

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Moral Panic Studies: Current Debates and Emerging Directions

Since the 1970s, studies in moral panic have influenced sociological explanations of crime, deviance, media framing, and human rights. As the impact of moral panic studies continues to grow, it is necessary to take stock of current international debates and to think about emerging directions. This session encourages theoretical and empirical analyses on all aspects of contemporary moral panic studies. Papers could address current debates about risk-based problems, amoral panics, institutionalized rhetoric, measurement, scope, and the possibility that moral panics can be good. Papers could also address emerging directions such as the influence of social media on panic narratives, the resurgence of populism, and the continuing significance of ideology, power, and political economy.

Research Committee: RC29 Deviance and Social Control (host committee, Joint Session with RC14 Sociology of Communication, Knowledge and Culture.

Session Organizer: Sean HIER, Email: shier@uvic.ca

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Transnational Fields of Production and Consumption

According to Meulemen and Savage (2013: 232), Bourdieu’s work on cultural consumption employs a “Franco-centric” model of cultural hierarchy, and most empirical studies of cultural consumption still focus on nationally-based fields (Meulemen and Savage 2013). This emphasis on the national at the expense of the transnational has been repeated in many analyses of cultural production. For example, many previous Bourdieusian analyses of popular music focus on fields at the local and/or national level of analysis and do not focus on the diasporic and/or transnational character of fields.There is a growing literature that focuses on the transnational elements of cultural production and consumption. Examples include: Go (2008) on global fields and global arenas, Fligstein and McAdam (2012) on strategic action fields, Meuleman and Savage (2013) on transnationality and highbrow consumption in the Netherlands, Savage and Silva (2013) on field analysis in cultural sociology, Kuipers (2011) on the role of cultural intermediaries in the cultural globalization of television as a transnational cultural field, and Verboord, Kuipers, and Janssen (2015) on institutional recognition in the transnational literary field.

This session is interested in studies of cultural production and/or consumption that highlight the transnational character of fields. How can transnational analyses of production and/or consumption enrich our understandings of fields? What are the advantages and/or disadvantages in transnational studies of production and/or consumption? Of particular interest are studies that focus on popular culture broadly defined (music, food, fashion, literature, etc.), although all empirical subject areas are welcome.

Session Organizer: Athena ELAFROS Email: athenaelafros@gmail.com

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Surveillance Society: Power, Conflict and Solidarity. Thinking through the Electronic Eye

The book “The electronic eye: the rise of surveillance society” (1994), by David Lyon, is without a doubt one of the key studies in order to understand surveillance development studies on a global scale. Regardless of the centrality of other works developed further on by its author, this text, published more than twenty years ago, has been the subject of many reviews in the different languages it has been translated into, apart from being widely quoted. Therefore, it is a book that has been exploited intensively, even in critical terms as well, because it sets surveillance as one of the key pieces of society’s modern organization. Surveillance appears as a socio-technical crystallization which unfolds in different spheres of social life, promoting with it inequality and domination processes. However, surveillance is not only analyzed according to a political and economic rationality, but as a moral means of communication. It is then understood as a domination process, but also one with potential for developing solidarity. The first session has the objective of asking, in a critical way, about the current relevance of “The electronic eye”. What can it say to surveillance studies in these days, both in empirical and theoretical terms? The second session has the objective of asking about the cultural dimension of surveillance, how the cultures of surveillance can help to understand the makings of power and solidarity, citizenry and power on a global scale.

Session Organizers: Nelson ARTEAGA, Email: arbnelson@yahoo.com, Pablo RODRIGUEZ

Email: manolo1416@yahoo.com

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Surveillance, Power and Justice

Surveillance of many kinds has rapidly become a central issue within digital modernity, on a global plane. What was once thought of as a discrete problem of national security, policing, or workplace monitoring is now viewed as a crucial challenge for all citizens everywhere. The gathering and analysis of personal data is simultaneously a social, economic, political, technical and cultural phenomenon that profoundly affects life-chances and choices in all areas of life, a trend now accented by the growing use of “big data” practices in many countries. Surveillance is a crucible and conduit of power that raises urgent questions of power and rights and demands careful and communal research. This session explores some of the most important aspects of surveillance today, with the accent on data analytics, showing how they raise vital questions for power and justice, nationally and internationally.

Session Organizer: David LYON, Email: lyond@queensu.ca

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SESSIONS IN ENGLISH AND/OR SPANISH

Violence and Communication in Vulnerable Groups / Violencia y Comunicación En Colectivos Vulnerables

Nowadays, the relationship between media and the presence of violence on the different screens has generated a space for academic and scientific interdisciplinary debate. Television, movies, animation series, video games... Multiple platforms recreate a very specific type of reality that directly affects the behavior and values of people. The objective is to reflect, from an international framework, on the role played by violence in our media society, to know the ongoing research on this subject and to analyze its possible effects on the audience, especially the most vulnerable, such as children, adolescents and young people.

En nuestros días, la relación existente entre los medios de comunicación y la presencia de la violencia en las diferentes pantallas ha generado un espacio de debate académico y científico de tipo interdisciplinar. Televisión, películas, series de animación, videojuegos… Múltiples plataformas recrean un tipo de realidad muy concreta que incide directamente sobre los comportamientos y valores de las personas. El objetivo es reflexionar desde un marco internacional sobre el papel que juega la violencia en nuestra sociedad mediática, conocer las investigaciones en marcha sobre esta temática y analizar sus posibles efectos en la audiencia, especialmente la más vulnerable, como son los niños, adolescentes y jóvenes.

Session Organizers: Leticia PORTO PEDROSA Email: leticia.porto@urjc.es ; Sergio Alberto LLANO ARISTIZÁBAL Email: sergiollano@gmail.com

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Communication Against Violence. Latinoamerican Experiences / Comunicación Contra La Violencia. Experiencias En Latinoamérica

La comunicación puede reducir los comportamientos violentos. En Iberoamérica existen activas comunidades que puede aportar interesantes experiencias sobre modos de trabajar contra la violencia. En esta sesión se comparten experiencias sobre buenas prácticas comunicativas contra la violencia en paises y organizaciones latinoamericanos.
En esta sesión son bienvenidos estudios sobre sobre políticas públicas contra la violencia en Amierica Latina, sobre iniciativas de organizaciones de la sociedad civil y estudios empíricos experimentales
Communication can reduce violent behavior. In Latin America there are active communities that can provide interesting experiences on ways to work against violence. This session will share experiences on good communicative practices against violence in Latin American countries and organizations.
This session welcomes studies on public policies against violence in Latin America, initiatives by civil society organizations and experimental empirical studies
Session Organizer: Jose A. RUIZ SAN ROMAN, Email: jars@ucm.es

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Communication, Organizations and Violence / Comunicación, Organizaciones y Violencia

This session aims to be an opportunity to share research and experiences focused on violence in organizations and the role of communication research to prevent violent behavior in organizations and communities. This session welcomes research from different perspectives: research in communication, organizational studies, studies on public policies, social psychology, etc.Successful experiences on violence prevention in organizations through communication actions are particularly welcome.

This session is co-organized by the Ibero-American Association of Sociology of Organizations and Communication (AISOC), member association of ISA.

Esta sesión pretende ser una oportunidad para compartir investigaciones y experiencias focalizadas en la violencia en las organizaciones y el rol de la investigación en comunicación para prevenir el comportamiento violento en las organizaciones y en las comunidades. En esta sesión son bienvenidas investigaciones desde diversas perspectivas: investigación en comunicación, estudios organizacionales, estudios sobre políticas públicas, psicología social, etc. Experiencias exitosas sobre prevención de la violencia en organizaciones mediante acciones de comunicación son particularmente bienvenidas.

Esta sesión está co-organizada por la Asociación Iberoamericana de Sociología de las Organizaciones y Comunicación (AISOC), asociación miembro de ISA

Session Organizer: Jose A. RUIZ SAN ROMAN, Email: jars@ucm.es

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Death of Prof. Ishwar Modi

Prof. Ishwar Modi passed away this morning after about three years of fighting with cancer. It’s a great loss for all academics as well as for many of us who have collaborated with him on sociology of leisure (RC13). He was president of RC 13 of ISA on Sociology of Leisure for 10 years and has been virtually its’ mentor. His writings and publications were inspiring and will keep him alive among us.

RC14 new book!

The new book of the research committee on Communication Knowledge and Culture is now published!!!

For more information click here

Call for Papers ESTIDIA (European Society for Transcultural and Interdisciplinary Dialogue)

4th ESTIDIA Conference | Sofia, 29-30 September 2017

Theme of the conference: Dialogues without Borders: Strategies of Interpersonal and Inter-group Communication

Call for Papers

Call for Sessions

XIX ISA World Congress of Sociology

Toronto, Canada

July 15-21, 2018

Jan. 15, 2017: Proposal submissions for several types of special sessions:

- Integrative Sessions

- Association Sessions

- Author Meets Critics Sessions

- Ad Hoc Sessions

These sessions can be on any topic. More details can be found here

The Call for regular sessions of RC/WG/TGs will open in February. RC/WG/TG

can finalize until April 7 the list of sessions that will appear then as

their Call for Papers on the ISA conference platform (including session

titles, descriptions, session languages, and contact details of session

organizers).

Prix Pierre Bouvier pour la Socioanthropologie

Call for Input on GA 2023 Report by UN SR Violence Against Women & Girls, Nationality Laws, & Statelessness

New RC14 publication!

New publication!

New book: Post-Society by Carlo Bordoni

ISA session at the Commission on the Status of Women

Publication of the special issue "Global Dialogues on Communication, Knowledge and Culture"

DEADLINE EXTENDED - Globalization and the Emergence of a New World Order: Theoretical Formulations and Empirical Reality

Information about the XX ISA World Congress

RC14 WEBINARS - SESSION 5

CFP International Conference on Globalization and the Emergence of a New World Order: Theoritical Formulations and Empirical Reality

RC14 WEBINARS - SESSION 4

CFP: International Conference on (Cyber)bullyingCritical and interdisciplinary approaches of online violence phenomena

CFP: 1st WIP virtual workshop 2022

CFP: Un/Learning: Norms and Routines in Cultural Practice

Extension de la date limite d'inscription pour le XXVème colloque franco-roumain

RC14 WEBINARS - SESSION 3

CFP Alternative Cultural Globalization : from East Asia to Europe

New book published by RC14 member David Lyon

Mise à jour - Programme J.E. Identités contemporaines et narrations médiatiques : qu’est-ce que l’identité nationale aujourd’hui ?

RC 14 WEBINARS - SESSION 2

RC 14 WEBINARS - SESSION 1

CFP: International Conference on (Cyber)bullying
Critical and interdisciplinary approaches of online violence phenomena