(Conflicting) Political Ontologies and Implications for Transformative Action
Friday, 27 May 2016
09:00
Registration
09:30–09:50
Welcome by Mònica Clua-Losada, Chair of CPERN and Miha Andric, Director of the Institute of Labour Studies
CPERN in collaboration with the Institute of Labour Studies, Ljubljana: (Conflicting) Political Ontologies and Implications for Transformative Action
27-28th of May 2016, Department of Sociology, University of Ljubljana
Ontology is often overlooked in discussions about political thought and action. Several emerging debates reflect different and conflicting positions that are often either assumed, invisible or intentionally opaque. Breaking down the apparent barriers between philosophy and theory and theory and action, we welcome discussions on ontologies of power and transformative action. Critical realists have long demanded that ontology be taken seriously and have encouraged discussions on how ‘reality’ conditions action. New materialist and anti- and post-capitalist debates tease out the assumptions across Marxism and poststructuralism, and demand new ways of thinking about specific thought formations, ethical and moral frameworks. The current crisis has forced us to think, explore, and practice multiple ways of organising, resisting and building prefigurative practices. Understanding ontology not only as a philosophical standpoint but also as a myriad of calls for action will allow us to understand how people organise and what motivates us to do so/prevents us from doing so, and to initiate new ways of communicating and reflecting on our own ontological praxis.
We are keen to receive paper proposals which focus on exploring political and social ontologies for transformative action. Some of the topics we would like to invite in particular are:
Critical Political Economy Research Network (RN06) @ the 12th Conference of European Sociological Association, Prague, 25-28 August 2015.
The programme for the CPERN sessions at the ESA conference in Prague is available. We’re delighted that the network has attracted such an exciting range of papers, and triggered such interesting discussions throughout the conference.
The CPERN business meeting also took place in Prague on Wednesday 26 August.
**New Deadline: 15th February**
The Critical Political Economy research network is inviting paper and panel submissions for our sessions on ‘Re-Imagining Class – Materialities of Resistance, State Power and the Commons’ at the 2015 ESA conference in Prague, 25-28 August.
Please find the CfP below. Deadline for submissions is 15 February 2015.
We hope that you will find this Call interesting – please also share with colleagues and students who might not be part of the CPERN community yet! We welcome the submission of individual papers, but also panel suggestions.
Feel free to contact us if you have any questions regarding this Call, or the conference in general.
Many thanks and all best wishes,
The CPERN board: Angela Wigger, Mònica Clua Losada, Jamie Jordan, Andrew Morton and Laura Horn
Crisis, Resistance and Rights: Critical Political Economy Perspectives
Thursday 11 September
Drinks from around 19.00 onwards at Cafe Kollektiv Gagarin (Garnisongasse 24, 1090 Vienna)
Friday 12 September
8.30
Welcome by local hosts and CPERN
Welcome by Ulrich Brand and Johannes Jäger on behalf of the local organizing team
Laura Horn on behalf of CPERN
9.00-10.30
Crisis, Resistance and Rights: Critical Political Economy Perspectives
12-13 September 2014, University of Vienna
The current crisis reveals one of capitalism’s key contradictions: the relationship between rights, the state and society. Giving primacy to austerity politics, governments appear unable to guarantee basic rights vis-à-vis market forces. These developments constitute fundamental challenges to social reproduction. Governments have for example been pro-active in protecting banks’ rights in foreclosures and housing evictions at the expense of people’s right to housing, or imposed labour reforms marking a retreat of labour rights and rights to decent work. Similar trends can be observed with respect to welfare rights, the right to education, the right to water or democratic rights that go beyond ballot boxes, such as the right to protest and claim public spaces. Of particular importance here is also the political ecology dimension, with a focus on the financialisation of nature, enclosure of commons, and the green economy as a new hegemonic project. Resistance movements and civil society organisations/groups increasingly challenge private property rights and demand collective socio-economic and human rights. Academic discussions of rights have long been a prerequisite of liberal political philosophy and received little attention from critical scholars. What can scholars in law, political economy, political science and sociology contribute to a critical understanding of rights? How does an emancipatory conception of rights look like? What are common rights, and/or rights to commons? How could such conceptions add to a critical understanding of crisis and resistance?
Dear all,
The programme for the forthcoming European Sociological Association
conference can now be found on the conference website. See here –
http://www.esa11thconference.eu/home – for more details.
When clicking on the programme link, the drop-down menu on the right of the
screen gives you numerous options. Here you can select the CPERN sessions
(or those for any other network, should you wish) – we are RN06 Critical
Political Economy. I hope that you agree that we have been able to put
together an exciting and diverse series of sessions organised around the
themes touched upon in our call ‘Whose critique, whose crisis and whose
change?’
You will also see that two of our panels have been organised with two other
ESA networks – RN08 Disaster, Conflict and Social Crisis, and RN18
Sociology of Communications and Media Research. This cooperation extended
to the two high-profile semi-plenary sessions organised with these networks
– please click on the SPS link at the top of the drop-down menu for more
details (the sessions are 02SPS and 08SPS).
Best wishes,
Ian
