See Sharing Society Project for complete details

 

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

“Sharing Society. The Impact of Collaborative Collective Actions in the Transformation of Contemporary Societies”

Bizkaia Aretoa, University of the Basque Country, Bilbao (Spain)

May 23-24, 2019

Call for Papers and Poster Presentations

1. Context and Rationale

Although the concept of collective action has been widely used in the field of social sciences, giving rise to the area of ​​social movements studies, little research has focused on the collaborative aspect of this action. In recent years, the emerging field of studies on the “sharing economy” has shed some long-overdue light on this aspect. However, some of the cases that have been described as part of this phenomenon, such as Uber or AirBnB, lack key collaborative traits in both their setup and praxis. So much so that scholars have called for the use of the term “true sharing economy” to distinguish the latter from more nuanced and complex experiences.

The concept of “sharing society” is inspired by the definition of collaborative collective action (Tejerina, 2016): “the group of practices and formal and informal interactions that take place among individuals, collectives or associations that share a sense of belonging or common interests, that collaborate and are in conflict with others, and that have the intent of producing or precluding social change through the mobilization of certain social sectors.”

This conference stems from the research project “Sharing Society. The Impact of Collaborative Collective Action. Analysis of the Effects of Practices, Bonds, Structures and Mobilizations in the Transformation of Contemporary Societies,” funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO CSO2016-78107-R), and hosted by the Collective Identity Research Center, University of the Basque Country (Spain).

2. Scope and Objectives

This international conference sets out to analyze the characteristics, trajectory and impact of collaborative collective actions in a context of erosion of the welfare state. It also seeks to present and discuss the most recent innovations, trends, and concerns, as well as practical challenges encountered and solutions adopted in the fields of collaborative collective actions. The conference will address the following questions:

  • How, when and where does collaborative collective action occur?
  • Which are the characteristics of contemporary collaborative collective action?
  • What are the practical, symbolic, and legal effects of collaborative collective actions for the forging and recovery of social bonds?
  • What forms of interaction emerge from these types of actions?

We invite theoretical and empirical proposals that explore collaborative collective actions in different areas: work, production, consumption, culture, art, science, knowledge and education, solidarity with precarious groups, civic participation and politics. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • Food and agricultural production: food sovereignty, agroecology, zero kilometer movement, food and sustainable soil experiences, urban agriculture and community gardens;
  • Arts: art and the commons, collaborative art and new forms of creative commons, distributed design;
  • Science and knowledge: collaborative forms of scientific production, citizen science;
  • Care and co-housing: solidarity networks for personal care, health care, age care, childcare, personal quantification movement, co-housing;
  • Culture: collaborative culture, open culture movement;
  • Economy, work and consumption: collaborative economy, circular economy, new forms of collaborative work and co-working, collaborative consumption, time banks, platforms for sharing resources and experiences;
  • Technology: Maker and DIY movement, open source technology initiatives, network manufacturing, medialab experiences, hacktivism;
  • Politics: collaborative forms of political and institutional governance, networks of cities, institutions and citizenship, participatory democracy, participatory budgeting, open government, collective intelligence for democracy.

We encourage the submission of papers drawing on theoretical and methodological approaches from diverse fields of study, such as the social sciences, humanities, architecture, urban planning and design. We also invite contributions from actors working with citizen participation in the sciences, arts, media and/or politics (e.g. in cultural institutions, cultural policy, social media platforms, cooperatives, and NGOs).


See Sharing Society Project for complete details

Photo by Express Monorail

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