Sessions – Categories, Transformations and Exchanges

The abstract proposal might be submitted to one of the 14 thematic sessions or to the general conference track. You can browse the session summaries below.

Valuation in the economy and beyond

Convenors: Frank Meier, Thorsten Peetz, Désirée Waibel [expand more_text=”Show more” less_text=”Show less” height=”0″ hide_less=”no” text_color=”#333333″ link_color=”#0088FF” link_style=”default” link_align=”left” more_icon=”icon: arrow-circle-o-right” less_icon=”icon: arrow-circle-o-left”]Practices of categorization are central in valuation in the economy and beyond. This session invites conceptual and empirical papers that apply (in the broadest sense) a valuation studies perspective to discuss and relate economic and non-economic forms and practices of valuation (i.e. attributing value to or establishing the worth of a specific object or a category of objects). The papers may compare economic with non-economic forms and practices, they may investigate links between economic and non-economic valuations, they may scrutinize conflicts and contention between economic and non-economic forms and practices, or they may explore drivers and consequences of broader transformations with regard to economic and non-economic valuation.[/expand]

Critique of neoliberalism in the public debate: A comparison between Eastern and Western Europe

Convenor: Magdalena Nowicka-Franczak[expand more_text=”Show more” less_text=”Show less” height=”0″ hide_less=”no” text_color=”#333333″ link_color=”#0088FF” link_style=”default” link_align=”left” more_icon=”icon: arrow-circle-o-right” less_icon=”icon: arrow-circle-o-left”]The critique has accompanied neoliberal intellectual discourse and non-discursive practices since their genesis. Some aspects of the critique were adopted and strategically absorbed into the ideologic and practical dimensions of neoliberalism. Due to recurring crises of post-Washington-Consensus-order, and to the process of democratization of economic expert knowledge, the problematization of neoliberal capitalism became “a hot topic” in many liberal democracies. In Western Europe, the spectre of debate includes the issues of global and neo-colonial exploitation, economization of social relations and individual biographies, and financialization. In recent years, also in Eastern Europe, the narrative on the historical necessity of neoliberal modernization has been publicly challenged both by leftist public intellectuals, politicians, and journalists and by a few former liberal leaders of the transformation who respond to appeals for self-criticism. The session aims to discuss the main and marginal streams of the debate on neoliberalism and indicate its imitative and alternative dimensions in Eastern Europe in comparison to Western critical discourse. Paper referring to the genealogy of the debate on neoliberalism, (in)formal and argumentative strategies of communicating the critique to socially differentiated audiences, and the impact of the debate on the practical and material performance of the neoliberal economy are welcomed.[/expand]

The contested moralities of markets in an era of social transformation: Activism, alternative organizing and beyond

Convenors: Philip Balsiger, Simone Schiller-Merkens

Over the past years, a growing number of studies, often bringing together social movement studies with economic sociology, have revealed the moral embeddedness of markets. Studies have highlighted the contested nature of market expansion and the moral dimensions of such struggles, as well as processes of market moralization whereby an increasing range of moral issues are integrated into markets, also through forms of alternative organizing. To date, most empirical work has focused either on certain contested commodities or on industries that have been under particular scrutiny by social movements such as food or fashion.

This session seeks to expand the scope of studies on morality and markets by inviting research that directs attention to the contested moralities of markets that relate to the current plea for a fundamental social transformation of our economies, instigated by a variety of social movements. Interesting topics include but are not limited to:

Fridays for Future movement – moral struggles around targeting the economy, activists’ stance towards capitalism, markets and alternative forms of organizing
Critique of capitalism and moral struggles around alternative models for and in the economy (e.g., degrowth, postcapitalism, economy for the common good)
The dark side of contested moralities – unintended consequences of moral markets and of market-directed activism
Activism for social transformation – collaboration versus contestation, strategies against cooptation

Social transformation in the digital era – contested moralities in the digital economy, broader social outcomes of digital markets (inequality/equality, inclusion/exclusion of societal groups, democracy), alternative forms of organizing through digitalization and its social impact, platform cooperativism[/expand]

Categories, transformations and exchanges under state socialism

Convenor: Mateusz Fałkowski

[expand more_text=”Show more” less_text=”Show less” height=”0″ hide_less=”no” text_color=”#333333″ link_color=”#0088FF” link_style=”default” link_align=”left” more_icon=”icon: arrow-circle-o-right” less_icon=”icon: arrow-circle-o-left”]Most research in the field of economic sociology concerns the social embeddedness of economic decisions of actors operating in the context of democracy and market economy. The proposed session concerns the transactions and adaptation processes in the different context: that of real socialism in Eastern Europe before 1989. The analysis of processes occurring in real socialism with analytical tools of economic sociology still can provide valuable insights both for understanding post-communist economies and societies, and for the development of relevant theories. It should also be noted that e.g. Polish or Hungarian sociology or anthropological research of that time offered interesting insights worth looking at in retrospect. Submitted texts may concern, for example (but not exclusively):
• Formal and informal exchanges under state socialism, role of state enterprises, and „second economy“
• Redistribution, consumption and adaptational processes under state socialism
• Revisiting old research and approaches (e.g. organizational sociology, anthropology) and drawing conclusions for today’s research and theory
• Path dependency and impact of state socialism’s institutions on economies and societies in
post-communist countries[/expand]

Technological change and new economic practices

Convenor: Maria Nawojczyk

[expand more_text=”Show more” less_text=”Show less” height=”0″ hide_less=”no” text_color=”#333333″ link_color=”#0088FF” link_style=”default” link_align=”left” more_icon=”icon: arrow-circle-o-right” less_icon=”icon: arrow-circle-o-left”]We are living in digital society or information civilization or surveillance capitalism. All these descriptions of today type of societies referring to the profound technological change we are experiencing in every sphere of our life. The speed and scope of these changes are overwhelming. The new economic sociology, in my opinion, do not stress appropriately the consequences of this technological change on economic practices. In many theoretical approaches in economic sociology including networks, institutions, performativity, organizational studies, political economy we can find very interesting analysis of changes in economic practices as consequences of technological change. May be it is time to look at these new economic practices from sociological, anthropological, economic perspectives using micro or macro analysis, local or global context making technological change a center of our discourse.[/expand]

A demand side perspective on markets

Convenors: Sebastian Nessel and Sebastian Koos

[expand more_text=”Show more” less_text=”Show less” height=”0″ hide_less=”no” text_color=”#333333″ link_color=”#0088FF” link_style=”default” link_align=”left” more_icon=”icon: arrow-circle-o-right” less_icon=”icon: arrow-circle-o-left”]Economic Sociology has been somewhat biased towards the producer side of markets. Yet, as many recent studies have shown, consumers have important influences on markets, firms and policies in several ways. On a micro level, consumers use or express exit, voice or loyalty, while on a meso level, consumers create and participate in social movements to influence market organization or production strategies. Finally, on a macro level, consumer interests are represented in consumer policy and consumer law, institutions which embed markets and market relations.
In this session, we want to explore the micro, meso and macro level of consumer engagement and representation. We invite contributions which analyze individual consumer choices, the collective organization of consumers in social movements and consumer organizations and the representation of consumers in policy-making. We are specifically interested in how producers, markets and policies are influenced and shaped by the demand side, the limits of such processes, and in turn, in the repercussions (feedback-effects) this has on consumers.[/expand]

Constructing territorial reciprocity: Categorization and quantification of burden sharing

Convenor: Walter Bartl

[expand more_text=”Show more” less_text=”Show less” height=”0″ hide_less=”no” text_color=”#333333″ link_color=”#0088FF” link_style=”default” link_align=”left” more_icon=”icon: arrow-circle-o-right” less_icon=”icon: arrow-circle-o-left”]Repeatedly, politics are confronted with questions of territorial reciprocity and exchange yet lack the cognitive devices of markets in order to deal with them. In most policy fields where the allocation of costs and benefits to political territories becomes subject to decision making there are no prices available that could be used as a cognitive device of deliberation or negotiation. If a functional equivalent to prices is available, it very likely is the outcome of highly presumptuous but no longer questioned categorizations, calculations and evaluations. Why does territorial burden sharing work in some policy fields but not in others? How do processes of categorization and calculation facilitate or inhibit the institutionalization of exchange relations between territories? How does territorial burden sharing depend on certain semantic, material and organizational infrastructures in order to be stabilized? Recently, the question of territorial burden sharing re-emerged at the EU level in the field of asylum policy. Furthermore, similar questions of territorial justice exist at the subnational and the global level. The session especially invites paper proposals addressing burden sharing in asylum policy. However, comparisons of the construction of territorial reciprocity across different policy fields are also welcome.[/expand]

Towards cashless society – A world without money or a world focused on money?

Convenor: Joanna Szalacha-Jarmużek

[expand more_text=”Show more” less_text=”Show less” height=”0″ hide_less=”no” text_color=”#333333″ link_color=”#0088FF” link_style=”default” link_align=”left” more_icon=”icon: arrow-circle-o-right” less_icon=”icon: arrow-circle-o-left”]The issue of money has been interesting for sociology for quite a long time. Starting with classical work by Simmel, up to recent publications about new forms of money or financialization of life – sociologists notice that not only money itself, but also its forms influence greatly social relations and have impact on social structure. Although the issue of cultural values, or material aspects of money have been explored, the category of “cashless society” or “cashlessness” is only getting more attention from sociologist. For example, the term „cashless” is right now almost obsolete in such prestigious international, sociological journals as the „American Journal of Sociology”, „American Sociological Review” or „Sociology”. As more and more societies are really transforming into the cashless economy (e.g. Sweden), the economic sociology should use its experience and investigate a nature of this transformation, especially how new forms of cashless exchange transform economic institutions, economic actors’ interests and consumer behaviors. We welcome papers discussing topics relating to cashless economy, like – social impact of payment cards and mobile payments, cultural and economic consequences of money withdrawal, consumer society as cashless society, etc. We invite papers that use both qualitative and quantitative methods.[/expand]

Exploring gender inequalities in times of asset-based welfare

Convenors: Ariane Hillig, Hayley James[expand more_text=”Show more” less_text=”Show less” height=”0″ hide_less=”no” text_color=”#333333″ link_color=”#0088FF” link_style=”default” link_align=”left” more_icon=”icon: arrow-circle-o-right” less_icon=”icon: arrow-circle-o-left”]In the context of increasing financialisation, financial tools, markets and institutions have become increasingly pertinent in providing welfare. The everyday person is expected to use assets in case of income shortfalls; for instance the house is assigned a welfare function by using price increases as a basis for income during retirement. These new forms of asset-based welfare require individuals to engage with various forms of financial investment and management throughout their everyday lives.
Yet, we know little about how social and cultural worlds influence everyday financial practices and despite evidence suggesting that women are disadvantaged in financial systems, surprisingly little is known about how gender affects financial practices in times of asset-based welfare. Understanding the gendered dynamics of investment is essential to resolve inequalities in the system. Therefore this session aims to explore the role of gender in asset accumulation and seeks to bring together research across countries and disciplines.[/expand]

Socio-economic development, well-being and happiness – problems, measures, findings

Convenor: Krzysztof Zagórski[expand more_text=”Show more” less_text=”Show less” height=”0″ hide_less=”no” text_color=”#333333″ link_color=”#0088FF” link_style=”default” link_align=”left” more_icon=”icon: arrow-circle-o-right” less_icon=”icon: arrow-circle-o-left”]While economists more and more widely accept subjective and objective well-being as an important social goals of economic development, especially in a framework of the relatively new branch of economics, namely “happiness economics”, national income (GDP or GNP) still remains the most commonly used indicator of development. On the other hand, sociologists still relatively seldom include purely economic processes, economic growth included, as the topics that should be incorporated in sociological investigations. Several widely known social oriented indexes of human development or progress underestimate or totally neglect economic growth and other economic processes as their components. This session will discuss interrelations between economic and social as well as objective and subjective aspects of development, with special emphasize on human well-being and happiness. Three types of papers are invited: theoretical, methodological and presenting research findings on national or comparative international level.[/expand]

Mechanism approach in economic sociology

Convenors: Sebastian Nessel, Andrea Maurer[expand more_text=”Show more” less_text=”Show less” height=”0″ hide_less=”no” text_color=”#333333″ link_color=”#0088FF” link_style=”default” link_align=”left” more_icon=”icon: arrow-circle-o-right” less_icon=”icon: arrow-circle-o-left”]The revival of economic sociology was part of the micro-macro movement from the 1970s onwards. Since then, much has been done in order to further develop economic sociology. One new stimulus comes from mechanism approach(es). New economic sociology and mechanism approaches share the idea of bringing back action models in order to provide causal explanations for social phenomena.
In this session, we want to discuss the prospects and frontiers of the mechanism approach(es) in economic sociology. We invite contributions which theoretically scrutinize mechanism approach(es) and mechanism-based explanations as well as contributions which apply mechanism approach(es) to empirically study all aspects that are relevant to economic sociology. Contributions may also engage in a critical dialogue with the mechanism approach(es) by theoretically or empirically discussing its frontiers.[/expand]

Institutional and network mechanism of migrants access to labor markets

Convenor: Mikołaj Pawlak[expand more_text=”Show more” less_text=”Show less” height=”0″ hide_less=”no” text_color=”#333333″ link_color=”#0088FF” link_style=”default” link_align=”left” more_icon=”icon: arrow-circle-o-right” less_icon=”icon: arrow-circle-o-left”]In this session, we propose to discuss the forms taken by labor market entry points for migrants – the social structures that enable participation of migrants in a labor market but at the same time often sort them to its given sector. Entry points might be formal institutions set by states running their migration policies; they might be institutions set for other purposes (i.e. in higher education where migrant students often enter labor market); they might be organized by for-profit actors intermediating in employment (employment agencies); they might be social networks of personal relations providing information on jobs.
In studies of migrants’ entry points to labor markets we see the fascinating interplay of formal and informal and interactions between macro-level state policies and micro-level individual decisions mediated by institutions and social networks. We invite papers contributing to the knowledge about the mechanism of migrants’ access to the labor markets.[/expand]

Normativity, morality & projectivity: Research and emancipation of economic life

Convenor: Adriana Mica[expand more_text=”Show more” less_text=”Show less” height=”0″ hide_less=”no” text_color=”#333333″ link_color=”#0088FF” link_style=”default” link_align=”left” more_icon=”icon: arrow-circle-o-right” less_icon=”icon: arrow-circle-o-left”]New economic sociology, as analytical undertaking and theoretical effort, addresses phenomena that inevitably touch a normative nerve. Inequality, crisis, accumulation, surveillance, solidarity – to name just a few instances – are all complex realities of the dynamics of capitalism which trigger normative and moral stands. In a similar vein, new economic sociology, as research agenda, is linked with social processes that by their very nature incorporate normative and evaluative dimensions. Sharing economic forms, alternatives to capitalism, social movements, information technologies are arguably the most obvious instances of what may be termed as taken over and assumed normativity and morality of new economic sociology.
This raises questions about the role of new economic sociology as support and voice of thoughts, concerns and measurements of how economic life looks and how it should look like. Does economic sociology come with a normative luggage included? How open is the discipline about the normative and moral challenges it brings? Is there a methodology, check and balances, meant to exercise a kind of control and quality of this normative tone? Or everything is rather implicit and taken for granted?
In the 2020 edition of the workshops on new economic sociology hosted in Warsaw, we aim to render the normative component of new economic sociology more explicit, and to examine its logic. Is normativity and morality a trigger for inquiries in new economic sociology, a result of its urge to understand problems and to emancipate the economic and social life? Or merely a convenient and contingent addition, a story that this embraces due to narrative mimetism under the influence of the processes it researches.
Be it as it may be, to advance the discussion about the normative and moral stands in new economic sociology it important also with regard to the mechanisms of projectivity that this disciplines entertains. New economic sociology is not a quiet and self-sufficiently descriptive discipline. But rather an explorative undertaking that engages in contestations, moves boundaries of ignorance, asks uncomfortable questions and unbalances our imaginaries. This is all socially important, and also serves the purpose of promoting the discipline. Yet it is relevant for us to understand that there are some patterns in the manner in which economic sociology projects its research sites and the possibility of change in contemporary society. The capitalist dynamics and the antifragility of capitalism – to use Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s term – are, for instance, such normatively loaded themes of research that economic sociology puts under evaluation while concomitantly projecting and reproducing as myths.
The normativity and morality agenda of new economic sociology is about how this discipline imagines how the economic life should look like. How it mobilizes action in this direction more or less explicitly. In addition, though less evidently, the normativity and morality are also about the way new economic sociology frames the contemporary society, its challenges and economic forms.[/expand]

Effects of technological change and the Great Recession on labor markets

Convenor: Alberto Veira Ramos[expand more_text=”Show more” less_text=”Show less” height=”0″ hide_less=”no” text_color=”#333333″ link_color=”#0088FF” link_style=”default” link_align=”left” more_icon=”icon: arrow-circle-o-right” less_icon=”icon: arrow-circle-o-left”]The growth of the so-called “digital” or “information” economy foster the creation of new jobs over the past decades. In some countries, such trend compensated the contraction of the traditional manufacturing sector. One positive outcome derived from the development of this “New economy” was the creation of value added activities increasingly rewarding higher education and enhancing productivity. However, under the context of the Great Recession, the expected positive effect of this transition seems to be overshadowed by the increasing precariousness of employment conditions in many of the newest employment niches, particularly within the context of what is known as “gig economy”.
This session aims to provide a forum for discussing the impact on labor markets of the effects derived from the 2008 Great Recession and the parallel development of the “digital and information economy”. To what extent is the observed precariousness inherent to the development of the “new economy”? To what extent the Great Recession has shaped the development of the digital economy? How could the effects of the Great Recession and the development of the digital economy be disentangled? Are its effects the same over all economic sectors?[/expand]