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Geneva
Anchoring International Organizations in the Study of Organizational Sociology
This paper session aims to bring together scholars who adopt a sociological perspective to the study of international organizations (IOs). IOs have historically been studied by jurists and later by political scientists through the prism of theories in international relations (IR). In the past two decade, growing scholarship in IR has shifted the focus to analyzing IOs as actors in IR in their own right. To this end, scholars have not only developed new methodologies, traditionally used by anthropologists and organizational sociologists, but have also embraced sociology as a discipline and more precisely the field of organizational sociology. In this way, IOs have been studied as bureaucracies, as organizations within which various actors compete, which comply and produce norms and values. Nowadays, organizational sociology provides a fascinating basis to study IOs not only from within, but also with respect to their environment in a dynamic perspective.
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Geneva
Social justice in times of uncertainty
The 2021 Congress of the Swiss Sociological Association (SSA)
Social Justice in Times of Uncertainty takes as a starting point the health pandemic that erupted in 2020, which led societies across the world to cope with disruptions in the provisioning of goods and services, means of livelihood, and fundamental freedom – not least, that of movement. The crisis also revealed global and local inequalities, translated into who has the right to live or not, and raised new questions around (in)justice in the contemporary world. In light of the turmoil experienced, as a globalized society and within our communities, this congress emphasizes the relevance of social and environmental justice in the making of a fair society, asking the question: in times of uncertainty, what does it mean to live a good life in a just society?
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Zurich
Mediating conflicts between groups with different worldviews
Approaches and methods
In recent decades, more and more violent conflicts have a religious or cultural dimension and take place between groups adhering to different religious or secular visions of the state and society. When groups with different worldviews are required to share the same (social, political, virtual, economic, or military) space, this can lead to tensions and give rise to violence—ranging from offensive language to physical attacks and open warfare.
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Lausanne
Call for papers - Science studies
Multiple Matters: From neglected things to arts of noticing fragility
5th STS-CH International conference
STS-CH, the Swiss Science and Technology Studies (STS) association, lauches the call for contributions to its 5th International Conference. Taking place at the University of Lausanne, by the Lake Geneva, from 7 to 9 September 2020, this 3-day event aims at bringing together scholars interested in STS across all disciplines, at all career levels. The overarching topic, “Multiple Matters: From neglected things to arts of noticing fragility” highlights the salience of research which addresses the fragility not only of the Earth and its ecosystems, but also of large technical systems, forms of life, human bodies and scientific knowledge.
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Zurich
Conference, symposium - Political studies
The Writ of Dynasties and Nation-States in the Middle East and South Asia
Max Weber famously argued that states lay claim to the monopoly of the legitimate use of violence over certain circumscribed territories. However, historical and anthropological research has challenged his ideal-typical vision by showing how the idea of the unitary state is a fiction that can only be produced through the action of interrelated but partly autonomous agents. States, and the various institutions that constitute them, face the strategic task of identifying and domesticating the social networks that are necessary for them to secure control over particular territories and their populations. Local strongmen and notables can in turn use their own local influence in order to gain recognition from higher-level, more powerful, state institutions. In this international conference, scholars from a variety of disciplines will explore the ways in which dynastic power and/or the rule of the state is asserted, negotiated and contested across both the Middle East and South Asia.
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Geneva
Conference, symposium - Europe
Gendering Humanitarian Knowledge
Global Histories of Compassion from the Mid-Nineteenth Century to the Present
The conference invites scholars to think about the notion of "humanitarian knowledge" in a multidisciplinary way, by combining perspectives such as gender history, the histories ofemotions and the body, literary and visual culture studies, global health history, as well as the history of institutions and their agents. All of them are useful to explore the transnational networks through which humanitarian practices and ideas have been promoted, disseminated and standardised.The conference brings together scholars interested in working on the history of humanitarian knowledge from a gender perspective. The interventions deal with stories of flesh and blood, which put women’s and men’s humanitarian experiences at their centre, in order to inscribe their local practices within a global history of compassion from the mid-nineteenth century to the present.
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Lausanne
Minimising Risks, Selling Promises?
Reproductive Health, Techno-Scientific Innovations and the Production of Ignorance
Over the last decades, medical techno-scientific innovations have radically transformed reproductive processes at every level by putting the reproductive body under strict biomedical surveillance and submitting it to significant technological manipulation. Most of these innovations, often promoted as miracles and even revolutions, were generalised very rapidly thanks to ever-growing national and global markets. Their side effects on health were, however, insufficiently studied, or even ignored, until scandals (diethylstilbestrol, thalidomide, primodos, Dalkon Shield) or controversies (contraceptive pill, hormonal replacement therapy) unavoidably made them public. At the crossroads of STS, sociology of risk, medical anthropology, gender studies and ignorance studies, the aim of this international conference is to analyse the dynamics of ignorance production prior to, during but also after the rapid expansion of reproductive technologies, innovations and products.
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Geneva
Divided memories, shared memories: Poland, Russia, Ukraine
History mirrored in literature and cinema
In Central and Eastern European countries, memorial questions appeared right after the demise of the communist regimes in 1989–1991, revealing long-denied processes. The phenomenon of the rise of repressed memories along with the rewriting of history, and the political uses of the past are noticeable in Poland, Russia, and Ukraine, three countries whose histories are as often shared as their memories are divided. The “memory wars” in which these three states have sometimes been engaged since the end of the 1980s have been the subject of an abundant historiography.
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Zurich
Call for papers - Ethnology, anthropology
No country for anthropologists?
Contemporary ethnographic research in the Middle East
Many parts of the contemporary Middle East are confronted with war, sectarianism, transnational interferences, uprisings, and a comeback of authoritarian regimes. This brings about various difficulties for ethnographic research as a practice of knowledge production based on the immersion of researchers in given social contexts and the subsequent writing up and publishing of texts. The international conference No country for anthropologists? Contemporary ethnographic research in the Middle East explores the obstacles to do ethnography in the Middle East and take them as the starting point for reflection upon the role of anthropology with a view to the Middle East of today.
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Basel
7th European Conference on African Studies 2017 – Panel L01
This panel adopts land as a conflictual entry point onto the peri-urban research agenda in Africa. It sheds light on the political economy of land accumulation and value capture, in a context of urban sprawl, increasing land grabs, rampant speculation, new land uses and models of planning for cities
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Basel
Urban scenographies of political power in Africa before 1900
This panel focusses on African cities before 1900, examining through an interdisciplinary approach how political power is materially embodied and symbolically staged in the urban space through a variety of architectural interventions, visual representations, discourses and cultural practices.
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Zurich
Conference, symposium - Middle Ages
The Dominicans and the Making of Florentine Cultural Identity
Influences and Interactions between Santa Maria Novella and the Commune of Florence (1293-1313)
Florence, the celebrated city-republic, dominates the historiography of medieval Italy still today. Her glory and crises define the paradigm for investigating other medieval city-states. As attention to medieval cities has increased, so too the history of the Dominican Order has constituted a major field of study, since the Dominicans were at the forefront of the cultural and religious life of Medieval cities. This conference intends to analyse the reciprocal influences and interactions between the activities and works of this constellation of Dominican intellectuals and the making of Florentine cultural identity through the social and political events that consumed the public life of the Commune between 1293 and 1313.
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St. Gallen
Conference, symposium - Modern
Transparency. Thinking through an opaque concept
What do we really ask for when we ask for more transparency? The international workshop Transparency. Thinking through an opaque concept aims at inquiring into the historical circumstances which allowed the concept of transparency to emerge in Early Modernity and how it progressively came to occupy such a central place in contemporary discourse.
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Zurich
Study days - Political studies
Feminism and Theory in the Arab World
Starting from the different historical experiences and political as well as intellectual trajectories of feminisms (understood as both feminist movements and ideologies) in the MENA region, the workshop focuses on how scholars who have long been observing feminist endeavors, while being themselves women's rights activits, interpret the present situation beyond ideological fault lines. What are the relevant concepts for understanding current debates and evolutions inside Arab feminisms? What is the potential of feminism(s) as both a set of critical theoretical tools as well as an ensemble of movements in the region? How does one theorize Arab feminisms from within while taking account of their historical entanglements as well as their current transnational connectivities?
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Lausanne
The Smaller European Powers and China in the Cold War, 1949-1989
This international conference aims to examine the policies of the smaller European powers towards China – and vice versa – during the Cold War. Thereby it focuses, on the European side, on both Western and Eastern Europe – regardless of whether a country was part of the NATO or the Warsaw Pact. Meanwhile, on the Chinese side, the conference proposes to include both Chinas, namely the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (RoC). While this should allow for the analysis of different relational constellations, the chronological framework – that ranges from the Communist victory in China in 1949 to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Tiananmen Square uprising in 1989 – should enable us to identify policy shifts and patterns.
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Lausanne
In working order. Disability policy, economic rationales and employability
Swiss disability insurance (DI) has recently undergone fundamental transformations. In accordance with active social policies, the 5th and 6th revisions of DI have restricted the right to disability pensions and introduced various measures aiming at sustaining the employability and the labor market integration of persons with health issues. The impacts of these reforms go far beyond the objectives of increasing the effectiveness of vocational rehabilitation and of reducing the costs of pensions. This one day conference will address several questions pertaining to the consequences of the implementation of this new social policy at various levels and for different stakeholders.
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Lausanne
The International Echoes of the Commemorations of the October Revolution (1918-1990)
Commemorations express a political will to remember, a process that relies on establishing a mythologised historical referent. The Russian Communists were aware of the importance of this instrument for the implantation of a regime whose legitimacy was contested both domestically and abroad, and proceeded therefore to construct a new collective memory through the reordering of time around the regime’s founding act: the great socialist revolution of October. From 1918 on, 7 November was a day of celebrations: speeches, military parades, orderly marches, inaugurations of public monuments commemorative plaques, political carnivals, mass spectacles, and popular parties that united the peoples and territories of the Soviet Union in celebration of October. In addition to their domestic role in fostering unity, providing legitimacy, and facilitating internal mobilisations, the practices of commemorations also supported the regime’s international eminence, especially when it presented itself as a model for world revolution.
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Zurich
Study days - Epistemology and methodology
Assessing social transformations in qualitative research
The study of “change” is a central research topic in social science. However, how can we concretely assess social change when we conduct qualitative research which is based on case studies, and has a limited scope of inquiry both in terms of time and space? The complexity of human societies makes it difficult to know which elements to consider as relevant. Very often the multiple dynamics that are observable at any one time give an incoherent picture, where no clear direction is discernible. The presentations will be supported by concrete examples showing the method employed, the scope of relevance of the assessed change, as well as the lines of causality which are drawn consequently.
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Zurich
Call for papers - Ethnology, anthropology
Assessing Social Transformations in Qualitative Research
The study of “change” is a central research topic in social science. However, how can we concretely assess social change when we conduct qualitative research which is based on case studies, and has a limited scope of inquiry both in terms of time and space? This international workshop seeks to address this key methodological issue through an interdisciplinary dialogue. On the basis of concrete empirical examples, we would like to focus on the available means that enable us to overcome obstacles encountered when studying change through qualitative research.
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Geneva
Conference, symposium - Representation
A Workshop on the historical Performativity of Emotions
The idea that the body is the site in which emotions are expressed is an old one in Western Culture. However, shall we alternatively consider emotions as historical agents that have given meaning to systems of symbolic relations which we understand here as “bodies”? This three-day workshop seeks to explore the conception of emotions as cultural practices that do things and have the power of creating emotional bodies throughout history. With this aim in mind, we will examine the production of physical, social, political, artistic and literary bodies in connection with the changing meaning of social norms, cultural codes and institutions, and especially as the result of the work of emotions.
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