[ecrea] Call for papers - UK Economic and Social Research Council Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC) Annual Conference 'The Social Life of Methods', Oxford, 31 Aug - 3 Sep 2010

> Call for Papers
>
> The Social Life of Methods
>
> During the past century and longer, social 
> scientific methods have come to be extensively 
> deployed in government, administration and 
> business, as well as in academic research. Maps, 
> enumerations, surveys, interviews, indicators, 
> software and visualizations proliferate. The aim 
> of this conference is to consider how we can 
> best understand the role of social science 
> methods in both shaping, and themselves being 
> affected, by economic, social and cultural 
> change, both historically and in the current 
> context when digitalization poses challenges to 
> established social science methods.
>
> Mindful of the ideas developed within Science 
> and Technology Studies, which show how objects 
> in the natural and medical sciences can be 
> social agents, we seek to broaden this agenda to 
> focus more particularly on methods within the 
> social sciences and humanities. Papers are 
> invited from interdisciplinary audiences addressing the following issues:
>
> ·        Is it useful to explore how agency can 
> be located in certain kinds of social scientific methodological repertoires?
> ·        What kinds of methods succeed and which 
> fail? What are the respective powers of 
> different sorts of qualitative and quantitative 
> forms of analysis? How can we explain why 
> certain sorts of methods become hegemonic in particular domains?
> ·        What is the role of the visual in 
> social science methods? How is this changing?
> ·        With the proliferation of digital data, 
> are we currently seeing a crisis of standard 
> social science methods based around the sample 
> survey and the interview, and what does this 
> portend for our understanding of socio-cultural 
> change? Does the idea of a descriptive turn 
> offer a useful way of grasping the role of these new methods?
> ·        What is the transformative and critical 
> potential of social science research methods, both historically and today?
>
> We are interested in reflecting theoretically 
> about how actor network theory, genealogy, 
> complexity theory, feminist theory, 
> anthropological studies of expertise, ecological 
> studies of knowledge, political economy and 
> field analysis can be used to understand and 
> illuminate these issues. There will be four 
> themes which will structure the sessions of the conference:
>
> 1: The device: what kinds of devices have come 
> to play an important historical role, and which 
> have failed? How can we better understand the 
> histories of nations, social groups, individuals 
> and organizations through a focus on devices?
> 2: The challenge of digital data: what is the 
> implication of the proliferation of digital 
> information for the ordering of economic, 
> social, political and cultural knowledge?
> 3: Envisaging the visual: how have visual 
> methods historically competed with textual and 
> numerical methods, and how is their role changing in the current context?
> 4: Transformative practice: history, discipline 
> and movements: how can methods be mobilized to 
> critique and challenge dominant methodological 
> repertoires, focusing especially on the role of 
> historical analysis, ethnographic, feminist, and subaltern methods?
>
> Plenary speakers include: Andrew Abbott 
> (Chicago), Nicholas Dirks (Columbia), Engin Isin 
> (Open University), Katie King (Maryland), Patti 
> Lather (Ohio State), John Law (Lancaster), Celia 
> Lury (Goldsmiths), Donald Mackenzie 
> (Edinburgh),  Mark Peel (Monash), Susan Leigh Star (Pittsburgh)
>
> Please submit either (a) proposal for individual 
> papers, or (b) panel proposal including 3 papers 
> by the end of February 2010. Guidelines and 
> Proposal Forms are available on the CRESC 
> website 
> <http://www.cresc.ac.uk/events/conference2010/index.html>http://www.cresc.ac.uk/events/conference2010/index.html
>
> CRESC Conference Administration, 178 Waterloo 
> Place, Oxford Road, University of Manchester, 
> Manchester M13 9PL, Tel: +44(0)161 275 8985 / Fax: +44(0)161 275 8985
>
> <(CRESC.AnnualConference /at/ manchester.ac.htm)>(CRESC.AnnualConference /at/ manchester.ac.uk) 
> <mailto:(CRESC.AnnualConference /at/ manchester.ac.uk)> 
>  / <http://www.cresc.ac.uk>http://www.cresc.ac.uk

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Nico Carpentier (Phd)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Vrije Universiteit Brussel - Free University of Brussels
Centre for Studies on Media and Culture (CeMeSO)
Pleinlaan 2 - B-1050 Brussels - Belgium
T: ++ 32 (0)2-629.18.56
F: ++ 32 (0)2-629.36.84
Office: 5B.401a
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
European Communication Research and Education Association
Web: http://www.ecrea.eu
----------------------------
E-mail: (Nico.Carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
Web: http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~ncarpent/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------