Call for Papers: Understanding Solidarity – New Challenges, New Approaches › view all

BIGSSS PhD fellow Stefan Wallaschek and his colleague Andreas Busen from the University of Hamburg invite papers for a three-day workshop on " Understanding Solidarity – New Challenges, New Approaches" at the University of Hamburg on January 25-27, 2019.

The workshop aims at evaluating the prospects of bringing the existing research on solidarity into dialogue, thus initiating an ongoing interdisciplinary debate about the nature, meaning and role of solidarity in contemporary societies and politics. Accordingly, the organizers welcome papers from different research areas and perspectives. Given the workshop format, researchers who would like to present work in progress as well as research reports are welcome to apply. Also, as research on solidarity is still an emerging field, the organizers strongly encourage contributions from PhD students and early career researchers.

Workshop Topics

Themes of the workshop so far include:

• Types and concept(ion)s of solidarity: What do different studies take to be at the centre of solidarity (feelings, dispositions, specific actions etc.)? To what extent are there different types of solidarity on different ‘levels’ (local, national, supra-national, global etc.), and how do they relate to each other? How is solidarity conceptualised, and which concept(ualisation)s are different ways of operationalising solidarity based on?
• (Normative) theories of solidarity and empirical research: How can normative theories and empirical research on solidarity fruitfully inform each other? To what extent do empirical studies on solidarity rely on normative conceptions other than solidarity (e.g. democracy, (social) justice, community etc.)? Are there (normative) conceptions of solidarity that particularly lend themselves to empirical research – and conceptions that do not, respectively?
• Recent challenges: Is there a relation between recent challenges like the ones mentioned above and (a lack of) solidarity? Do these challenges call for reviving or strengthening existing forms of solidarity, or do they call for entirely new forms of solidarity? In light of the recent political and social developments (crises in the EU, Brexit, Trump election), do we see an end of solidarity or are there new emerging solidarity actions?
• ‘Blind spots’: Are there forms of solidarity, or actual appeals to solidarity (e.g. within particular social and political movements), which are not discussed in the recent literature? If so, how may these ‘blind spots’ be explained? Are they a result of dominant research interests or the hegemony of specific theories or approaches? To what extent do conceptual or methodological limitations affect which instances of solidarity make it onto research agendas?

Keynote lectures by Andrea Sangiovanni (King’s College London/European University Institute) and Donatella Della Porta (SNS Florence).

Funding

Subject to available funding, travel and accommodation costs of presenters will be subsidised.

Application

Please send your abstracts (up to 500 words) to andreas.busen@uni-hamburg.de and wallaschek@bigsss-bremen.de by 10 December 2018.

More Info

For any request of information, please visit the workshop website.

Download the Call for Papers.