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
European Sociological Association 11th Conference – Torino, 28-31 August 2013 – ‘Crisis, Critique and Change’
WHOSE CRISIS, WHOSE CRITIQUE AND WHOSE CHANGE?
The recent years have, in the eyes of many, been characterised by a multiplicity of crises, the growth in significance of critiques of the current state of affairs, and increasing demands for change. However, the uneven impact of crises, the concentration of voices of critique in only parts of society and the world, and the very different demands for change that have been articulated, force critical political economy scholars to ask the question ‘Whose crisis, whose critique and whose change?’
This observation has many aspects to it. For example, apart from the initial shock in late 2008, many of those towards the top of different societies have suffered very little (if any) decline in wealth and incomes over the last few years. Moreover, the critiques have come from the radical Right as much as from more progressive currents of thought such as the Occupy, Indignados and other movements. Finally, very real change may be taking place, but in Europe for example it is often in the form of brutal and authoritarian structural adjustment programmes, social and political polarisation/conflict and a more general crisis of everyday living for the majority of the population (e.g. the rise in bankruptcies, evictions and imprisonments related to debt, the reductions of salaries, social rights and entitlements).
For this reason we are interested in hosting a wide range of topics in our sessions that are linked to the above themes. For instance, this could include the sharp growth of precarious labour and insecurity, the rise of state authoritarianism, the question of resistance and dissent from all sides of the political and social spectrum, the crises of welfare states and everyday living, and so on. More broadly, this could also include the crises and continuities in ‘living dead’ neoliberalism, the evolution of Eurozone governance, the possibilities for more progressive ‘models of capitalism’ in the future, the lessons that can be learned from the ‘pink tide’ in Latin America, the Arab uprisings, etc..
We are interested in all of the above plus more. As such, we seek contributions from those with an interest in political economy research, regardless of their disciplinary affiliation and whether they are in academia or not. We also hope to attract a diverse range of participants, from a number of countries and backgrounds.
We invite submission of papers and panel proposals for our open sessions – please see the instructions below and in the general CfP in the attachment. Moreover, at the Torino conference we have two joint sessions with other ESA networks. If you are interested in participating in these joint sessions, please indicate this on your submission.
RN06 JOINT SESSION WITH RN08 DISASTER, CONFLICT AND SOCIAL CRISIS
The Eurozone Crisis as an Opportunity: Structural Changes within the Member States of the Eurozone and the European Union
(Chair: Laura Horn (RN06) and Nikos Petropoulos (RN08) )
This joint panel with RN08 invites submissions on the theme of ‘The Eurozone Crisis as an Opportunity: Structural Changes within the Member States of the Eurozone and the European Union’. The focus will be on the structural – economic, political, and social changes – within the member states themselves. Special emphasis will be on the states that have especially been affected by the debt crisis and have taken part of the ECB/IMF/EU bail-out mechanism (e.g. Ireland, Portugal, Greece) or have received loans from EU/ECB to support their bank system (e.g. Spain). Papers may also focus on structural changes, if any, within the ‘solvent’ states of the Eurozone and the European Union (Germany, Finland, Holland, Austria, the Czech Republic). Priority will be given to comparative empirical and critical analysis.
RN06 JOINT SESSION WITH RN18 SOCIOLOGY OF COMMUNICATIONS AND MEDIA RESEARCH
Critical Political Economy of the Media and Communication in Times of Capitalist Crisis and Change
(Chair: Ian Bruff (RN06) and Christian Fuchs (RN18))
This joint panel with RN18 invites submissions on the theme of ‘Critical Political Economy of the Media and Communication in Times of Capitalist Crisis and Change’. Abstract submissions could, for example, focus on the role of media and communication in critical political economy approaches to the crisis, the role of critical political economy approaches in the sociology of communications and the media, or indeed any other aspects of topics and issues linked to this theme. In other words, this joint session focuses on the intersection of Critical Political Economy and the Sociology of the Media and Communication. It is interested in contributions that focus on one or more of the following questions:
INSTRUCTIONS FOR SUBMISSIONS
Authors are invited to submit their abstract either to the general session (open) or any specific session. Please submit each abstract only to one session. After abstract evaluation, coordinators will have the chance to transfer papers between sessions where applicable.
Abstracts should not exceed 1750 characters (including spaces, approximately 250 words). Each paper session will have the duration of 1.5 hours. Normally sessions will include 4 papers.
Abstracts can only be submitted online no later than 1st of February 2013 to the conference website http://www.esa11thconference.eu. Abstracts sent by email cannot be accepted.
The information requested during abstract submission include: 1) name(s), affiliation(s) and email of all the author(s); 2) contact details of presenting author (postal address, and telephone in addition to email); 3) title of proposed presentation; 4) up to 4 keywords (optional).
Submitting authors will receive an email of acknowledgement of successful submission receipt. Abstracts will be peer-reviewed and selected for presentation by the relevant Research Network or Research Stream; the letter of notification will be sent by the conference software system in early April 2013. Each author cannot submit more than two abstracts (as first author).
Abstract submission deadline: 1 February 2013
Abstract submission platform: http://www.esa11thconference.eu
Dear all,
Last week’s CPERN conference was very successful, and we would like to thank everyone who presented and/or attended. The programme was the most diverse since CPERN’s inception, yet there was nevertheless plenty of opportunities for an ongoing conversation – particularly regarding the issue of knowledge production in times of crisis – across the two days. This was particularly evident in the plenary session, when Vicenç Navarro gave a passionate and highly engaging presentation on the current attack against social Europe in the current period.
Personally, as Chair I’d like to thank Mònica Clua-Losada and her team at Universitet Pompeu Fabra for their excellent organisation of the conference, especially given the very difficult conditions that any part of the public sector of Spain is experiencing at the moment.
At the end of the conference we discussed what the network’s Call for Papers could contain for next year’s European Sociological Association conference – http://www.europeansociology.org/conferences.html – and the Board will work over the next couple of weeks to prepare a submission to the ESA. Expect more emails on this in the coming months.
Best wishes,
Ian
