[Air-L] Rethinking the digital virtual - Call for papers (study day and special issue)

[Francesca Musiani]

On behalf of Céline Borelle. Please, contact Céline directly at <
celine.borelle at orange.com>.


Dear colleagues,



As part of the "Digital detox" project funded by DREES, we are pleased to
organize a Study Day on the theme of "*Rethinking the digital virtual as a
regime of action, experience and relationship*", to be held on January 28,
2025 at the EHESS.



It will be inaugurated by a lecture by Lisa Messeri, Professor of
Anthropology at Yale University, on her book published in March 2024 by
Duke Press, In the land of the unreal. Virtual and other realities in Los
Angeles <https://www.lisamesseri.com/in-the-land-of-the-unreal>.



A thematic issue of the journal RESET will also be published as part of the
conference, the call for papers for which can be found here
<https://journals.openedition.org/reset/5411>.



Proposals for papers for the study day should be sent before *October 18,
2024*.

Please feel free to submit identical proposals for both calls (study day
and special issue).



Please find attached the complete call for papers and submission details.



We look forward to hearing from you!



Céline Borelle for the Scientific and Organizing Committee



Argument (summary)

While the "material turn" in the social sciences has shed light on digital
infrastructures, this call for proposals asserts that digital technologies
have also opened up the possibility of engaging in dematerialized
situations. The salutary reconsideration of the idea that the digital would
proceed from a suspension of physical and social constraints has led to the
dismissal of the notion of the virtual in most social science work. It is
our hypothesis that this abandonment has been too radical, and that this
notion can usefully characterize registers of action, orders of experience
and relational dynamics specific to the digital context.

This call therefore proposes a sociological reinvestigation of the digital
virtual as a regime of action, experience and relationship. It calls for
empirically grounded study of the dematerialized situations produced by the
use of digital technologies. The aim is to investigate how these virtual
situations put people and contexts to work, opening up possibilities in
terms of simulation, anonymity and distance. The aim is to take a fresh
look at the relationship between the real and the virtual, as well as other
pairs of notions that are often embedded in the analysis of their
articulation: real/false, simulated/authentic, fictitious/effective.

The call for papers aims to bring together contributions studying design,
engagement in virtual situations and their regulation. It is structured
around three axes, which are organized around different modalities of
articulation between the real and the virtual:

1.         Virtual training

2.         Experimenting the virtual

3.         Framing the virtual