[Air-l] Alienation Conference-China-July

[Lauren Langman]

Call for papers:  RC 36-Alienation Theory and Research

Dear Colleague, our research committee of the International Sociological Association had planned to have its biannual meeting last summer, July 7-11 in Beijing, sharing some space with the International Institute of Sociology. There may yet be some room for a few more papers if anyone else would like to join us. As of now, it looks like we will have 4 sessions. If you would like to join with us, please send an abstract to the appropriate organizer of the session, (CC me).  It is looking like an exciting meeting so I do hope you can join us. 

Lauren Langman
President RC 36-Alienation Theory and Research 


Session 66 Alienation Theory and Research: New Directions


Alienation, while central to Hegel's theory of history, and in turn Marx's critique of capital, has been used for almost 200 years. However, in face of the changes in capital, from a system of mercantile trade, to industrial production, to the current globalized system based on information, we must continue to rethink and research the concept for the present age. Thus alienation has been used to understand the emotional labor of service work, religious/political or life style extremism etc. This session will explore some of the ways alienation is being theorized and researched. 



Organizer: Devorah Kalekin, dkalekin at construct.haifa.ac.il


Session 67  Globalization, Alienation and Resistance
Alienation, for Marx, a consequence of   wage labor, dehumanized, rendered powerless and fragmented the social was an essential moment of domination by capital. But for a number reasons, the concept has become more widely used and today, in a globalized world, alienation suggests a broader range of phenomena. But at the same time, throughout the world, there have emerged a number of local and global struggles and strategies of resistance to overcome contemporary forms of alienation. This has taken such radically different forms from progressive political mobilizations, to struggles of indigenous peoples against forces of alienation.   This has been not only greater opposition to the adverse moments of globalization, but academic interests have reflected this concern, as is evident in our need for two sessions to cover this moment. 
Organizer, Llang944 at aol.com

Session 68  Alienated popular culture: the non-reflection of reality in culture

Popular culture, systematically produced by global conglomerates, provides a variety of pre packaged desires, goals and images to publics who increasingly construct their identities on the basis of popular culture. This is especially true as adolescence, a socially constructed stage in the life cycle marking the transition between childhood and adulthood, has generally been a time of sturm und drang, a stressful period characterized by alienation from the dominant culture. But what has become interesting is the extent to which various alienated groups such as adolescent and youth cultures have become the targets of a number of mass mediated cultural  styles, hip hop, grunge, fandom based communities, 'reality' TV, video games, movies and lifestyles of consumption. This session will examine some of the ways popular culture reflects and perhaps indeed fosters alienation.



Organizer: James O'Connor, james.connor at anu.edu.au



Session 69: Democratization in the Global Word: Divergent Perspectives and Strategies