[Commlist] Call for Abstracts - The Network Society Today: (Revisiting) the Information Age Trilogy

/Call for abstracts - Workshop/

*The Network Society Today: (Revisiting) the Information Age Trilogy 
*(Barcelona, 10-11/June/2020)

http://in3.blogs.uoc.edu/2019/05/14/call-for-abstracts-network-society-today/ 


/[Apologies for cross-posting. Feel free to share]/

Manuel Castells The Information Age 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Information_Age:_Economy,_Society_and_Culture> Trilogy has been 
one of the most influential works to understand the societal change in 
the awake of the digital revolution of the last decades.  It is, as 
Frank Webster (2002: 97) points out, one of “the most illuminating, 
imaginative and intellectually rigorous account of the major features 
and dynamics of the world today”. The theory of the network society 
developed in these books “open[ed] up new perspectives on a word 
reconstituting itself around a series of networks strung around the 
globe on the basis of advanced communication technologies” (Stalder, 
2006: 1). Indeed, the work of Manuel Castells has influenced a 
generation of scholars, shaped a research agenda and has got important 
repercussions beyond academia (Bell, 2007).

Yet, more than two decades after the launch of his theory, the network 
society and the information age have been developing at a faster pace 
that anyone suspected in terms of: socio-technological and economic 
transformation (e.g. platform capitalism, sharing economy, robotization, 
algorithmic driven society, artificial intelligence and IoT, etc.), 
power geometries, new identities and socio-political contestation (e.g. 
populism, /indignados/, /gilet jaunes/, alt-right, technopolitics, /buen 
vivir/, #meetoo, LGBTIQ, black-lives-matters, youth for climate change, 
etc.) and new geopolitics and geographies of inequality and power (the 
rise of China as global power, multipolarity, the emergence of the 
Global South, the uneven impact of environmental crises, etc.).

At the same time, during the last decades a number of theoretical and 
epistemological trends have developed or consolidated in the social 
sciences that can be read as either influenced by or challenging the 
Trilogy position. Among others, the rise of network theories, mobilities 
paradigm, communication and power theory, technopolitics, 
post-colonialism or the relation between digital societies and nature.

In this regard, as 2021 will mark the 25th anniversary of the 
publication of the first volume of Manuel Castells’, it is time to 
revisit the trilogy and explore the relevance of Castells’ pioneering 
work in the light of the current state of the network society and of the 
ways to research about it. Thus, our aim is to gather together scholars 
from a wide range of disciplines – Including Castells himself – to 
engage with the Trilogy and debate on its contributions, legacies but as 
well shortcomings and new developments not envisioned at the time of its 
launch to try to develop a critical perspective on future trajectories 
of the network society and the information age.

We welcome contributions that sympathetically and/or critically engage 
with the Trilogy in any theoretical, methodological or empirical topic 
around the contemporary developments of the network society. Examples of 
areas and themes that we would like to discuss (but are not limited to) are:

  * Information, data, datafication and the (new) sources of economic value
  * Networks, space-times, economy and society
  * Contesting the network society power configurations: politics,
    social movements and new identities.
  * The network society in the world: uneven geographies and geopolitics
    of the information age.
  * The Trilogy of the Network Society in front of the new turns in
    social sciences.
  * The influence on the epistemic communities either geographically
    (e.g. Latin America, Europe, Asia…) or disciplinary (Sociology,
    media, geography, STS…)

*Important dates*

  * 23/06/2019 →Abstract submission. 500 words + up to 5 keywords
    Submit your proposals to (netsociety /at/ uoc.edu) <mailto:(netsociety /at/ uoc.edu)>
  * 23/07/2019 →Communication of abstract acceptance
  * 20/3/2020 →Full paper submission: 5.000 – 8.000 words (mandatory).
    Papers will be the basis for the comments and discussion during the
    workshop. They will be submitted to a special issue / edited book

*Practical Information*

Confirmed keynote speakers:

  * Prof. Manuel Castells (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, University
    of Southern California)
  * Prof. Fernando Calderón (FLACSO, Facultad Latinoamericana de
    Ciencias Sociales, Universidad Nacional San Martín Argentina)
  * Prof. Ida Susser (The City University of New York)
  * Prof. John Thompson (University of Cambridge)

The workshop is free of charge. Food will be provided at the conference 
for presenters. Accommodation and transportation are not included.

The workshop presentations should be the basis for a special issue in an 
international peer-review journal by 2021 to discuss the work of Manuel 
Castells in the 25th anniversary of the launch of the first volume.

*Organization Committee* (IN3 - Open Unversity of Catalonia)

  * Mireia Fernández-Ardèvol
  * Ramon Ribera-Fumaz
  * David Megías

*Organization*

This workshop is organized by the IN3 – Internet Interdisciplinary 
Institute, Open University of Catalonia. The workshop constitutes a 
central part of the IN3’s 20th anniversary.

Further info and queries: (netsociety /at/ uoc.edu) <mailto:(netsociety /at/ uoc.edu)>

  **************************

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