Dear all,

Please see below for details on a Call for Papers for the BSA Annual 
Conference to be held at LSE in April 2011.

Please send all replies to: [log in to unmask]

With best wishes,
Patricia

--
Dr. Patricia Hynes
Senior Research Officer
NSPCC
Tel: 020 7825 2732
Email: [log in to unmask]

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*British Sociological Association Annual Conference 2011*
6 – 8 April 2011
Venue: London School of Economics

'Law, Crime and Rights' Stream
CALL FOR PAPERS

The ‘Law, Crime and Rights’ Stream is a new conference stream which 
provides space for exploring sociological perspectives on law, crime and 
rights from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. In addition to 
special sessions, the stream will also run open panels on subjects 
related to Law, Crime and Rights.

The Sociology of Rights/Human Rights section of the ‘Law Crime and 
Rights Stream’ at the BSA Annual Conference will be running special 
sessions on the following three sub-themes.

Abstracts Submissions for consideration in the Stream should be made via 
the BSA website on http://www.britsoc.co.uk/events/conference/abs.htm. 
The Deadline for submissions is 15th October 2010.

Special Session 1
The Sociology of Rights and Human Rights

Convened by Dr. Michele Lamb/the BSA Sociology of Rights Study Group

Rights is one of the most challenging ideas confronting sociology, with 
Human Rights having become the most pervasive universalist discourse 
circulating globally. For the first time the BSA Conference 2011 at LSE 
is focussing on Rights within a new ‘Law, Crime and Rights’ stream. 
This call for papers from convenors of the BSA Sociology of Rights Study 
Group - Michele Lamb (Roehampton University), Patricia Hynes (NSPCC), 
Damien Short (Institute for Commonwealth Studies) and Matthew Waites 
(University of Glasgow) - seeks sociological contributions that address 
rights, including human rights and citizenship rights.  We are 
particularly seeking contributions which take up the challenge of 
developing critical analyses of rights discourses and practices in 
international perspective.

We call especially for papers which:

•	address the gulf between the human rights asserted in international 
conventions and the denials and violences existing in individual or 
group experiences.
•	emphasise the importance of analysing human rights practices in 
specific local settings.
•	offer sustained analysis of the distinctive contribution that 
sociology can make to the study of rights and human rights,
•	engage with classical and contemporary social theory relevant to 
rights and human rights,  including that concerning the relationship 
between normative and sociological discourses
•	address methodologies for research on human rights.
•	address the relationship of human rights practitioners and activists 
to research in sociology.
•	Focus on rights in domestic, regional and international perspective.
•	address a broad range of themes including (but not limited to) 
asylum-seeking and refugees, genocide, conflict, post-conflict societal 
reconstructions, sociology and human rights education in an 
interdisciplinary teaching environment

We will be co-hosting a sub-plenary panel ’60 Years of Human Rights’, in 
collaboration with the LSE’s Centre for the Study of Human Rights, with 
speakers including Professors Lydia Morris (Essex) and Chetan Bhatt 
(LSE).  We are further calling for contributions to specific panels 
within the sub-stream on several themes, details of which are available 
separately.  The Convenors of the BSA Sociology of Rights Study Group 
have recently been chosen to edit the 2012 Special Issue of the BSA’s 
journal Sociology, and contributors to the stream will be encouraged to 
submit papers to be considered for publication (without preference).

If you would like your abstract to be included in this sub-stream, it is 
*essential* to write ‘sociology of rights/human rights’ clearly at the 
top of your abstract; conference organisers have requested this to 
enable abstracts to be organised into a sub-stream.

For further information contact Michele Lamb [log in to unmask]

Special Session 2
Analysing Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

Struggles worldwide over sexual orientation and gender identity are 
increasingly framed in relation to human rights, and have become central 
to wider disputes over the legitimacy and extension of human rights more 
generally. This session will seek to press forward sociological analysis 
of these developments, previously explored by various authors in 
collections such as The Global Politics of LGBT Human Rights (special 
issue of Contemporary Politics, Vol.15, no.1, March 2009, edited by 
Kelly Kollman and Matthew Waites).  Of particular interest are papers 
which engage with the problematisations of sexual orientation and gender 
identity in sociological and queer theorisations of sexuality and 
gender; and papers which engage with theorisations of 
racialisation/raciality, post-colonial theories and/or the sociology of 
religion, and intersectionality/multiple inequality  theories.  Papers 
are also particularly welcome which comment on the relationship of human 
rights to Jasbir Puar’s concept homonationalism (cf. J. Puar 2007 
Terrorist Assemblages: homonationalism in queer times, Durham: Duke 
University Press), and/or to recent debates over cosmopolitanism. 
However any innovative work on non-heteronormative experiences, 
practices and/or discourses in relation to sexuality, gender and human 
rights is welcome.    Multiple panels will be organised if sufficient 
papers are submitted, and a special issue of a journal might be edited 
if there is interest from participants.

For information or to discuss, contact: Matthew Waites on 
[log in to unmask]

Special Session 3
60 Years of the 1951 Refugee Convention: Sociological Perspectives on 
Rights and International Solidarity Obligations

Refugees are human rights violations made visible.  The 1951 United 
Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 
Bellagio Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees provide the 
international legal definition of a refugee across the globe.  The 
protection of refugees over the past 60 years has taken place in 
parallel to increased attention to human rights and developments within 
sociology as a discipline.  This session seeks sociological analysis of 
these developments.

In particular, papers are welcome on persecution and exclusion; 
violations of rights; international obligations and global ethical 
perspectives; how climate change is remapping global social inequalities 
and the impact on rights and entitlements for those forced to migrate; 
the gulf between the promise of rights for refugees/people seeking 
asylum and their meaning and enforcement; ethical contradictions 
inherent in border controls; methods of deterrence; detention, 
deportation and enforced destitution of refugees and people seeking 
asylum; the use and consequences of lesser forms of legal status other 
than ‘refugee’; and, the risks and benefits of documenting human rights 
violations against refugees.  Papers on the rights and forced migration 
of children and young people are also of interest.

This session will examine the ongoing contribution of the discipline of 
sociology in understandings of international solidarity obligations 
towards refugees.  Multiple panels will be organised if sufficient 
papers are submitted, grouped around the above themes.

--
For further information or to discuss contact Patricia Hynes on 
[log in to unmask]

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