Call for Papers

2024 Annual Meetings of the SSSI / European SSSI Conference

Call for Papers

Deadline: March 29th, 2024

The 2024 joint SSSI and European SSSI Annual Meeting will take place in Pisa, Italy from June 5-7, 2024. The theme of the conference is critical global issues.

We invite researchers, senior and junior scholars, and PhD candidates, to send us  proposals for papers on topics such as boundaries and social divisions related to identities including, gender, race, age, and social classes;

  • borders in human groups including mobility, migrations, social integration, or geographical borders;
  • boundaries created by welfare policies, social work, and social services; borders resulting from policy conflicts, violence, and war;
  • borders in international relations leading to poverty, vulnerability, and human suffering;
  • borders that frame access to resources that reflect populism on the right and left; borders related to politics; religions, radicalization processes, and secularization;
  • boundaries created by technology, social networks, the world wide web, and the digital divide;
  • borders in social and public institutions related to bureaucratization and power dynamics;
  • environmental borders: pollution, climate change, sustainability.

We are also interested in papers on any aspects of symbolic interactionist theory and encourage other sessions related to Symbolic Interactionism or Grounded Theory, sessions which may not fit directly into the conference theme but nonetheless promote lively thinking and reflection.

We accept both theoretical and methodological proposals and proposals should contain:

  • The title of the paper
  • Name, affiliation, and job title/position for all contributors
  • Contact information for paper presenter (name, institution, and email)
  • Abstract (500 words maximum)
  • Keywords (5 maximum)

ALL PRESENTERS MUST BE SSSI MEMBERS
(subscribe at https://www.symbolicinteraction.org/)

Proposals must be sent to both Andrea Salvini (andrea.salvini@unipi.it) & Irene Psaroudakis (irene.psaroudakis@unipi.it) – before March, 29th 2024 (see dates to remember)

IMPORTANT: TRAVEL AND ACCOMODATION ARRANGEMENT AND COSTS WILL BE BORNE BY EACH PARTICIPANT/PRESENTER

More considerations about the topics

This conference is of timely importance as in today’s societies, the demand for recognition and integration of individual and collective identities carrying different characters from established social and cultural models is generating reactions of different nature that are often worrying and disturbing. One of the reactions that appears to be more widespread is closure. From the construction of (new) walls to the closure of ports and borders, resistance to accepting of diversity is taking on new and unexpected forms, which cross a great number of phenomena. The resurgence of gender-based violence, and of stigmatization processes based on race, ethnicity, sexual, political, and religious inclinations of people are mirrors of new ways of segmentation and social and cultural division. Furthermore, we cannot forget that the effects of the economic crisis of the last 10 years that is still being felt in many countries and has increased the number of poor and of marginal groups, which are located near social borders based who experience difficulty in accessing the social resources that would guarantee a more dignified life. Moreover, the wars in Ukrainian and Gaza are changing the global order.

Simultaneously, in many geographical areas we are witnessing the spread of social and political movements from below that promote new styles of participation and social integration, based on meeting and enhancing diversity; on the sensitivity to overcoming old and new selfishnesses and social divisions, evoking the need for innovative forms of coexistence, based on the recognition of social and civil rights, on the realization of ever higher levels of social justice, on the enhancement of common goods, and local welfare and community. This also implies recognizing the importance that conflict can have in the dynamics of interaction, but also in operating forms of overcoming or, at least, sublimation of the dynamics of division and conflicting competition.

In this framework, Symbolic Interactionism constitutes one of the theoretical and empirical frameworks able to analyze these phenomena, to interpret their scope and effects in people’s lives, and also to point out its relevance both on an empirical and theoretical level. Symbolic Interactionism can respond to its dual vocation of perspective oriented to grasp social processes in the depths of their making and unfolding, starting from social and symbolic interactions, and at the same time oriented to enhance those dimensions of existence that promote the recognition of rights, the attention to the least and the vulnerable, the overcoming of social boundaries and divisions, and the reconciliation of competing perspectives in the dynamics of continuous negotiation and renegotiation of new and sustainable social equilibria.

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