Where is the social movements field going?

“1968-2018, fifty years after: Where is the social movements field going?”

 organized and funded by

 COSMOS/SNS, ECPR/SG P&M, ESA/RN25

at

Scuola Normale Superiore, Florence, Italy 23-25 of May 2018

2018 will mark the anniversary of the 1968 burst of social movement mobilizations: from French May, over Anti-Vietnam War protests or the Tlatelolco massacre, to Prague Spring. The 1968 protest cycle considerably shaped social movements, political parties, universities, states, and societies as well as the social movement scholarship. Taking the 1968 anniversary as a stimulating moment for reflection, this conference seeks to provide space for looking at the implications of that period on social movement research as well as addressing a number of key questions in current social movement research. For instance: How have the theoretical and methodological approaches in the social movement field evolved in the aftermath of 1968? How did issues of protest change: which have emerged, disappeared or taken new forms? What is the impact of protest? When do movements bring social change? How do social movements select their strategies? How do they interact with other actors like parties, interest groups or NGO’s? Where do protestors end up in the aftermath of mobilization? What is the role of memory in social movements mobilization? What is the impact of individualisation on contentious politics? What is the role of media coverage and new communication technologies?

We invite submissions from a variety of theoretical and disciplinary perspectives and using a variety of methodologies. The midterm conference aims to bring together distinguished scholars and younger researchers not only from sociology and political science, but also from related disciplines, including economics, geography, anthropology, psychology, history, international relations, and area studies.

To submit an abstract, please email an abstract of no more than 250 words to  fiftyyearsafter68@gmail.com.

The deadline for all abstract submissions is the 8th of January 2018.

Applicants will be informed of the outcome by email no later than the 29th of January, 2018. Those offered places must confirm their participation within 10 days, after which places maybe offered to applicants on the reserve list. Participants to the Conference are required to write and submit a max. 7000-8000-word paper no later than 1st of May 2018, papers should be sent to fiftyyearsafter68@gmail.com. Oral presentations should not last more than 10 minutes. Discussants are given 5 minutes per paper.

The conference will open with a mentoring session for young scholars. Participating young scholars (doctoral and postdoctoral level) will be invited to submit research proposals of up to five pages upon which they would wish to receive feedback. To apply for the mentoring session, send an abstract (250 words including “mentoring session” in the title) to  fiftyyearsafter68@gmail.com no later than 8th January 2018. Research proposals should then be sent to fiftyyearsafter68@gmail.com, no later than 1st of May 2018. They will be coupled with two senior scholars who are specialized in the proposal’s subject, and who will read the proposal. The young scholar will get 30 minutes with each senior scholar to receive feedback and to get to know their more senior colleagues.

The conference will feature keynote speeches from:

• Professor Donatella Della Porta, COSMOS, Scuola Normale Superiore
• Professor Mario Diani, University of Trento
• Professor Olivier Fiellieule, University of Lausanne
• Professor Marco Giugni, University of Geneva
• Professor Béla Greskovits, Central European University
• Professor James Jasper, City University of New York
• Professor Hanspeter Kriesi, European University Institute
• Professor Michele Micheletti, Stockholm University
• Professor Eva Anduiza, Autonomous University of Barcelona

A roundtable will be organized discussing the second edition (2017) of the Handbook of Social Movements Across Disciplines by Conny Roggeband and Bert Klandermans.

The Conference has no fees and will provide a dinner. With best regards,

Lorenzo Bosi (SNS, COSMOS), Joost de Moor (Keele University) and Kateřina Vráblíková (OSU)

Full call on pdf