Research Committee on Sociology of Communication,
Knowledge and Culture RC14
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!
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!
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
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
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"
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
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:
Information about the XX ISA World Congress
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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 ?
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
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
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
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.