Abstract
Dear RC33 members,
At the Third ISA Forum of Sociology - The Futures We Want - Global Sociology and the Struggles for a Better World (10-14 July 2016, Vienna, http://www.isa-sociology.org/forum-2016/), RC33 is participating with 11 sessions, and despite our having another conference the same year, we had 99 submissions (for 66 presentation time slots), and I want to thank Martin Weichbold, our Vice-President for ISA Forum Programme Coordination, for organizing the conference programme for us.
We are particularly happy that we had so many good session proposals that we could actually compile a conference programme in which each session actually addresses the conference theme – something which is, as we all know, always a little hard with methodological topics. At the same time, the sessions selected cover a great variety of topics ranging from QUAN topics such as the generalization of results from experimental research, (non-)linear (multi-level) modelling, contextualizing inter- and multinational survey research, data linkage and new data types (e.g. big data), to QUAL and Mixed Methods topics such as sociological hermeneutics, ethnographic research, discourse analysis and qualitative multi-level analysis. Furthermore, we have a session on social theory and its methods, and a session addressing a substantial topic related to the conference theme (The Futures We Expect): “Time and Future Concepts as a Methodological Challenge in Qualitative and Mixed Methods Research”. True to the aim of the ISA Forum, which is to encourage discussion between RCs, five of these sessions are joint sessions. As the conference theme addresses particularly global and comparative research, we aimed and succeeded at collaborating with RCs and WGs that directly address these issues, namely RC20 (Comparative Sociology), WG02 (Historical and Comparative Sociology) and RC14 (Sociology of Communication, Knowledge and Culture).
There are also two new formats. The first is the Common Sessions for which we suggested Reiner Keller (http://kellersskad.blogspot.de/) who will talk on SKAD (Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse), and how it is related to the conference theme.
The second new format is the ISA Web Forum (http://futureswewant.net/) which is a moderated blog – and all RC33 members are invited to blog. Adriana García Andrade, the RC33 Vice President for Latin America, has started with the first blog entry (see below). We would be happy if as many of you as possible participated in the discussion, regardless of whether or not you come to the conference.
Finally, there will be a Business Meeting at the Conference, as ISA is typically making major organizational decisions at the ISA Forum which need to be discussed and decided upon immediately. However, the main RC33 Business Meeting will be – as always – conducted during the 9th International Conference on Social Science Methodology.