ESS 2022 CALL FOR PAPERS! March 10-13, 2022 Boston, MA

DEADLINES FOR SUBMISSION: NOVEMBER 1, 2021 

Strategic Sites and Ways for Sociology to Fight Inequality and Injustice

Robert Smith, Baruch College and the Graduate Center, CUNY, ESS President

The theme for the 2022 Eastern Sociological Society Meetings is “Strategic Sites and Ways for Sociology to Fight Inequality and Injustice”.  The emphasis on strategic sites, first, invokes Robert Merton’s prescription that sociological research should seek out strategic sites and contexts that show social processes, such as inequality or injustice, with particular clarity. Second, this emphasis invites sociologists to identify and engage with strategic sites in the world -- in their institutions and beyond -- where their research can help fight the increasing inequality and injustice we confront today. Third, the 2022 ESS Meetings seek to promote public sociology and effective strategic intervention by sociologists and their organizational or practitioner partners.

We live in times of increasing inequality and injustice, where our institutions and political system seem incapable of taking necessary steps to fight universal problems, like climate change, political polarization, or inequality, or to defend or expand the rights of targeted groups, including immigrants, the LGBTQ+ community, labor organizations, racial or ethnic groups or others, or to address the demands of social movements such as MeToo or BLM.  Sociological analysis can help understand and fight such problems.  A key goal for ESS 2022 is to highlight and promote such public sociological work.

Formats for the 2022 Eastern Sociological Society Meetings

There will be several formats to participate in the 2022 ESS. 

             The first format is traditional paper sessions, either proposed as a full panel, or organized after submission into panels by the ESS Program Committee. 

            Second, are Mini-Conferences, where ESS members convene several panels of experts in specific fields in a multi-session (or multi-day) event. 

             Third, Linked Sessions, where ESS members can propose two sessions on the same topic.

 Mini-Conferences and Linked Sessions are particularly useful for scholars working on emerging research or common projects like an edited volume.

             Fourth, Workshops, including Public Sociology How-To sessions, especially those presenting examples of such public sociological work, or that otherwise promote stronger engagement of our research in publicly facing contexts where it can have an impact.  Examples could be How-To work with community organizations or movements, How-To do expert witness testimony, or How-To develop strategies and tactics to get your work to policymakers and practitioners in a form that has impact.

             Fifth, Talking Shop sessions.  Talking Shop sessions seek to promote networking. Networking is a key benefit from conferences like ESS, but they sometimes reinforce existing networks, rather than build new ones. Talking Shop sessions will convene ESS members working on specific topics to informally discuss their research and promote collaboration. We thank ESS President-Elect Fred Wherry for proposing the first such session:

             Talking Shop: Debt, Inequality, and Questions of Justice: A gathering of scholars and practitioners to discuss households that are over-indebted, the drivers of over-indebtedness, its agents (e.g., debt collectors, the court system) and questions of racial and social justice. How does the sociological imagination help us to see the processes in which interventions are being made for better and for worse? The goal of the session is to begin creating collaborations that might not have happened otherwise in the service of debt justice.

             Sixth, “Conversations With and About,” whereby a session is organized to bring two experts (sociologists or others) to talk over a key issue with a moderator.   

             Seventh, Presidential sessions or speakers.

**************************Undergraduate Poster Submissions Welcome**************************

Thank you for your support of, and membership in, ESS. We look forward to seeing you!

March 10-13, 2022, Boston Park Plaza Hotel

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