Dear colleagues,

the following call for papers for an international worshop on solidarity
at the University of Hamburg in January 2019 might be of interest for you.

We are looking forward to your abstract submissions!

Kind regards,
  Stefan

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Call for Papers
Understanding Solidarity – New Challenges, New Approaches
International Workshop, 25-27 January 2019, University of Hamburg
Keynote lectures by Andrea Sangiovanni (King’s College London/European
University Institute) and Donatella Della Porta (SNS Florence)

Despite its prominence in the social and political vocabulary of our
time, solidarity has arguably been one of the lesser-studied concepts
within philosophy and the social sciences. However, things have changed
considerably over the last decade, and there is now a veritable plethora
of studies engaging with solidarity from a variety of different
perspectives. A look at the recent literature on solidarity suggests
that the recent crises, and the challenges they pose for democratic
societies, have fostered the discussion on solidarity. Accordingly,
solidarity is being discussedin the European refugee crisis
(Agustín/Jørgensen 2018; Lahusen/Grasso 2018; Della Porta 2018), the
Euro crisis (Gerhards et al. 2018; Hatje et al. 2015)), and, more
generally, the political project of the European Union and the prospects
of further (social) integration in view of the rise of populism and
increasing nationalistic tendencies (Grimmel/Giang 2017; Knodt/Tews
2014; Malcom 2010; Sangiovanni 2013; de Witte 2015).
In contrast to this multitude of different (mostly empirical)
perspectives on various forms and instances of solidarity, however, more
strictly theoretical attempts at providing a systematic account of the
nature or conceptual meaning of solidarity are far and few between
(notable exceptions are Derpmann 2013 and Kolers 2016 as well as some of
the contributions in Banting/Kymlicka 2017 and Laitinen/Pessi 2015).
Unlike other central social and political concepts such as justice,
democracy or freedom, solidarity has not yet become the subject of any
identifiable theoretical or conceptual debate, to which different
positions might be said to be contributing to. Finally, current
theoretical and conceptual work on solidarity hardly ever seems to draw
on empirical studies on solidarity, while the latter seldom engage with
theoretical accounts in greater detail. As a result, it is difficult to
tell whether the increased interest in solidarity of the recent past has
resulted in a more comprehensive and differentiated understanding of
solidarity overall or rather in a multitude of different perspectives on
different types of solidarity in different contexts.
In view of this current state of research on solidarity, the workshop
first and foremost aims at evaluating the prospects of bringing the
existing research on solidarity into dialogue, thus initiating an
ongoing interdisciplinary debate about the nature, meaning and role of
solidarity in contemporary societies and politics. Accordingly, we
welcome papers from different research areas and perspectives. Given the
workshop format, we are happy to include presentations of work in
progress as well as research reports. Also, as research on solidarity is
still an emerging field, we strongly encourage contributions from PhD
students and early career researchers.

Themes that might prove particularly productive for the intended
discussion include:

Types and concept(ion)s of solidarity: What do different studies take to
be at the centre of solidarity (feelings, dispositions, specific actions
etc.)? To what extent are there different types of solidarity on
different ‘levels’ (local, national, supra-national, global etc.), and
how do they relate to each other?  How is solidarity conceptualised, and
which concept(ualisation)s are different ways of operationalising
solidarity based on?

(Normative) theories of solidarity and empirical research: How can
normative theories and empirical research on solidarity fruitfully
inform each other? To what extent do empirical studies on solidarity
rely on normative conceptions other than solidarity (e.g. democracy,
(social) justice, community etc.)? Are there (normative) conceptions of
solidarity that particularly lend themselves to empirical research – and
conceptions that do not, respectively?

Recent challenges: Is there a relation between recent challenges like
the ones mentioned above and (a lack of) solidarity? Do these challenges
call for reviving or strengthening existing forms of solidarity, or do
they call for entirely new forms of solidarity? In light of the recent
political and social developments (crises in the EU, Brexit, Trump
election), do we see an end of solidarity or are there new emerging
solidarity actions?

 ‘Blind spots’: Are there forms of solidarity, or actual appeals to
solidarity (e.g. within particular social and political movements),
which are not discussed in the recent literature? If so, how may these
‘blind spots’ be explained? Are they a result of dominant research
interests or the hegemony of specific theories or approaches? To what
extent do conceptual or methodological limitations affect which
instances of solidarity make it onto research agendas?


Please send your abstracts (up to 500 words) to Andreas Busen
([log in to unmask]) and Stefan Wallaschek
([log in to unmask]) by 10 December 2018. Subject to
available funding, travel and accommodation costs of presenters will be
subsidised.


-- 
Stefan Wallaschek
[log in to unmask]
PhD Fellow
Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences (BIGSSS)/
University of Bremen
Mary-Somerville-Straße 9
P.O. Box 33 04 40
28359 Bremen (Germany)
https://www.bigsss-bremen.de/people/phd-fellows/stefan-wallaschek
Twitter: https://twitter.com/s_wallaschek

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