The 20th International Sociological Association World Congress will be a hybrid event held in Melbourne, Australia from June 25 – July 1, 2023. This is the ISA’s largest and most important event, held every four years. The call for abstracts is now open. You may submit a 300 word abstract via the on-line system by September 30, 2022 24:00 GMT, and you may submit up to two abstracts. You may find additional rules here. The Economy and Society Research Committee (ISA RC02) is organizing 23 open calls for abstracts which are reproduced below. Please submit your abstract here.

If your initial impression is that your research is not a strong fit for one of the below sessions, please take a careful look at the first and last call for abstracts (‘brokering novel concepts’ and the roundtables). These two sessions are organized to be as inclusive as the field of Economy & Society and to enable as many scholars as we can accommodate to ‘find a place’ at the Congress.

If you have a question regarding a particular session, please contact the session organizer. If you have a question about RC02’s activities within the Congress, please reach out to Aaron Pitluck, the RC02 Program Coordinator.

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

Brokering Novel Concepts into Economic Sociology

Session Organizer:
Aaron PITLUCK, Illinois State University & Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, USA & the Netherlands

This is an open call for short papers (4000 words) to participate in a panel and potentially an edited book or special issue. Each presenter will present one concept that they argue is obscured, missing, or underappreciated in the field of Economy and Society, and then they will broker in (from another sub-field or discipline) a concept that they argue would advance the field, and provide an empirical example of how it does so.

There will be two sessions, one hosted by RC02 and one by RC35 (Conceptual and Terminological Analysis). The session itself will be non-traditional: 1) authors whose abstracts are accepted will be expected to submit a short paper prior to the conference of about 4000 words; 2) each presentation will be limited to one PowerPoint slide and ten minutes, so that each 110 minute session can include eight presentations and leave 30 minutes for collective discussion of the concepts from the audience.

Papers that fit well with the book project will be invited to be revised for consideration in an (affordably priced) academic monograph. Our intention is that the session(s) and monograph will act as a catalyst for infusing new creativity and novel analysis into the global study of economy and society.

International Political Economy of Digital Platforms

Session Organizers:
Jun WANG, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Julia TOMASSETTI, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

We aim to assemble interrogations of the variegated and actual experimentations of digital authoritarianism through the international political economy of digital platforms.

First, we are interested in papers that explore how platform companies transcend territorial boundaries to gain, exercise and justify their power. We will examine the tension between the state’s territorial sovereignty and ‘functional sovereignty’ that platforms advocate and claim based on infrastructural power. Through opaque decision-making on matters such as algorithms, gatekeepers shape the realities of billions by governing information flows. If code is law, platforms are powerful sovereigns in their respective fields. As digital firms move to displace more government roles over time, the logic of territorial sovereignty is eroded by functional sovereignty.

Second, we are interested in the organisation, experience, meaning and mobility of platform labour. Platforms become the intermediary agents that give rise to a revised, flexible employment regime, linking different types of precarious workers, such as content producers without formal jobs and idle labour in the supply chain. New business practices, combined with “labour-saving technologies” in logistic platforms such as delivery platforms, have triggered the flexibilisation of transportation and distribution workers. This perspective also highlights the role of the state in the process of internationalising capitals as local labour systems are mutually constructed through the infrastructural project of platforms.

Together, this session will illuminate how the platform economy is materially and ideologically reshaping essential Fordist distinctions between hierarchies and networks, markets, state and the society, formal and informal work, and value creation and extraction.

Digitialized Economic Interactions in the Global South: In Search of a New Research Agenda

Session Organizer:
Michelle Fei-yu HSIEH, Academia Sinica, Taiwan

The term “new economies” refers to the ongoing technological changes that are reshaping the world and work organization, such as smart manufacturing, big data, artificial intelligence, the sharing economy, and digital currency. New economies can generate new forms of inequalities, control, exploitation, and increasing surveillance despite the acclaimed advancement in societies. This session explores social consequences of new economies and calls for concrete cases analysis globally with special interests to non-western countries by responding to the following questions, among others:

What constitutes the new economies in your region/country and their dynamics? How do the current transformations affect the various sociological concepts we use to study economic life and activities? Can current concepts explain the transformations? Or what new concepts could better explain the changes associated with the new economies?
The social consequences of the transformation. Some possible examples are: What are the new forms of inequality, exploitation and control resulting from the contradiction between decentralized ICT technology and increased centralized surveillance by authorities? How has the current digital transformation (digital currency) transformed financial relationship in societies, especially in the global south?
Challenges for the new economies on development in the global south: The innovation in the ICT sector and digitalization and the emphasis on sectoral transformation from an industrial to a service or knowledge economy have led to changes in work organization but also to possible premature deindustrialization in the global south. What are the implications of these changes in relation to development?

Racial Capitalisms: Race, Caste, Ethnicity, and Indigeneity in Economic Life

Session Organizer:
Dana KORNBERG, UC-Santa Barbara, USA

Interest in racial capitalism, a term initially coined by Cedric Robinson, has galvanized scholars and activists alike in recent years. Studies in racial capitalism requires seeing "the economy" as a set of institutions rooted in historicized systems of racial formation and inequity. From this perspective, economic processes not only have racially uneven effects; instead, the institutions of economic life are thoroughly structured by racialized differences in the first place. In this session, we take up these themes, expanding them to include differences based on caste, ethnicity, and Indigeneity (hence the plural capitalisms). Papers will address questions such as: Why are economic positions (i.e. jobs, access to capital, etc.) so closely interlinked with relations of race, caste, ethnicity, and Indigeneity? Through what practices and processes are these differences upheld, confronted, or undermined? How have thinkers from various places and communities conceptualized these processes and their often-pernicious effects? What histories do such differences depend on, and how do they shape contemporary economic life? How do various historical and geographic forms of racial capitalism (and its analogues) compare? This session will offer an opportunity to think comparatively about racial capitalisms across contexts in order to generate more robust comparative frameworks.

Racial Capitalisms, Spatial Productions

Session Organizer:
Nicole Trujillo-Pagan, Wayne State University, USA

Space is both a physical and social product. Political, cultural and economic processes produce space and, in turn, shape human action. Taken together, these processes create different spaces for capitalist accumulation and map the relational production of extraction and value. In other words, spatializing practices are coterminous with the production of racial and ethnic difference.

Spatial productions are not limited to the extraction of value. They differ according to the scale (global, local, regional, etc.) of action. For example, at the local level, a variety of informal and illegal practices seek to wrest control over housing from local authorities. Groups form and reshape their memberships, but their practices are nonetheless grounded in localized, situated experiences of spatial struggle. Their struggles are informed by and simultaneously seek to shape extra-local entanglements that compete for control over spatial production.

In this panel, scholars endeavor to explain how dominant, subordinate, legal and illegal practices produce space as an object of value and exchange. Panelists elucidate how spatial production simultaneously generates value and/or disadvantage. Topics include, but not limited to, policies that target already marginalized and vulnerable groups and enforcement practices that seem colorblind, but nonetheless produce racial/ethnic disadvantage. Other forms of producing space promote control over some groups while facilitating the mobility of others. Spatial productions also generate new forms of value through, for instance, changing tax structures, ticketing practices and municipal finance strategies.

Economic Sociology of Craftsmanship

Session Organizer:
Andrey SGORLA, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, Italy

Craftsmanship has received attention from academic production in several dimensions (the materials used, manual work, skills, material culture) and also in the notion of authenticity as a valued quality in contemporary culture, and enchantment with the process of making. The revaluation of the artisan, of the relationship between thinking and doing, of the condition of artist-author, is inscribed in a new sociocultural current, in which values such as autonomy, improvisation, creativity, competence, expressiveness, playfulness, and a sense of pride in their work are highlighted.

The "artisanal" manufacturing companies that have emerged recently all over the world, and in different sectors, are small businesses and have several attributes. They respect artisanal products and all the subtle variations they contain. They promote a strong sense of locality in terms of where they source their ingredients, the regions where they sell their products, and/or how they use place as the basis of their brand identity. Perhaps most importantly, they create and promote a sense of authenticity, or the idea of a product full of integrity, truth, and realism as markers of its quality. And a product can be authentic because it is handmade and comes from a unique place. In this session we intend to explore how the notion of authenticity is related to the social construction of quality, belonging to the place of production, cooperation between craft enterprises, sustainability, responsible consumption, the construction of new craft professionals, craft entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation as key elements in the development of craft markets.

Fossil Capitalism, Climate Breakdown, and Green-Left Strategies

Session Organizer:
William CARROLL, University of Victoria, Canada

As carbon emissions push the earth system toward (and possibly already through) climate tipping points, the contradictions of fossil capitalism present an existential crisis, to which collective agencies must respond. Responses range from old-style denialism (in retreat but not without influence) and new denialism (i.e., accepting climate science but rejecting its real policy implications), through technology-focused initiatives (such as ‘clean growth’ and ‘net zero’ via carbon-capture and geoengineering) and reformist projects (such as green new deals), to transformative alternatives such as energy democracy and eco-socialism.

This session welcomes papers focused on the political-economic, political-ecological and/or cultural/ideological dimensions of the current conjuncture and the contending political projects animating it, whether viewed from the standpoint of fossil capital’s regime of obstruction or from the positions of climate justice movements. We also welcome papers that offer a critical analysis of green-left visions, scenarios and movement building strategies necessary to fight back against the climate crisis.

Rising Corporate Concentration and the Monopolistic Milieu

Session Organizer:
Siddharamesh HIREMATH, Bangalore Central University, India

The economic hardships experienced during the COVID pandemic such as inflation, price instability, disruption of supply chains, and goods shortages appear to have revealed the negative implications of rising corporate concentration and monopolies. The Herfindahl–Hirschman index (HHI) indicates a sharp rise of concentration in more than 75% of US industries, with similarly high concentrations observable in other free economies worldwide. This may be traced to the unique combination of neoliberal policies, sloppy enforcement of antitrust laws, and corporate control over innovations blocking entry to new players. This has left many markets in the grip of monopolistic corporate entities, unmindful of its negative consequences for the public good. The session invites papers, empirical and conceptual, focusing on the association between corporate consolidation in different sectors of economy and its implications for a host of stakeholders across societies.

Tax Policies and Tax Optimization Practices

Session Organizers:
Mailys GANTOIS, Université Paris 1 - Panthéon Sorbonne, France
Antoine VION, University of Nantes, France

The session aims at bringing together scholars who investigate tax policies and tax optimization practices. A challenge is to question the social making of optimization policies and practices from historical and sociological enquiries. Contributors are welcome to highlight the evolution of tax practices by self-employed persons and industrial, commercial and financial business leaders for decades at local, national and international levels. The works could point how tax deductions have been negotiated and legalized (about certain assets, through tax loopholes and tax heavens, from rule evolution...). One could focus on how tax authorities control or contribute to leave in the shadow transnational optimization practices (through transfer pricing, optimization plans within holdings, tax avoidance schemes). Others could analyze qualification mechanisms and fights against company tax optimization before and after 2008.

Another challenge is to analyze the social construction of knowledge and practices on tax optimization in a variety of professional areas. How do professionals (audit firms, legal advisors, asset managers, business lawyers...) shape and transmit knowledge, practices and tricks of the job to play on (non) legal rules? How do professionals fight on this market by establishing hierarchies and a kind of expertise? Contributions on these professions from quantitative or qualitative approach are welcome.

The panel will bring together a variety of studies to understand similarities and differences according to firm sizes, areas, countries and locations. Avoiding a priori judgments or homogeneity of employer interests, this will allow to reinvestigate political domination forms. Strong proposals should justify their theoretical and methodological approach.

Precarity and Political Economy of Labor

Session Organizers:
Sandeepan TRIPATHY, National University of Singapore, Singapore

What does it mean to understand a crisis? Sociologists must take note of this question to bolster their position in analyzing contemporary vulnerabilities. The concept of ‘precarity’ is heuristic sociologists have not dealt with appropriately. Two strands, however, remain dominant in sociological literature in understanding precarity. First is labor precarity, wherein everyday insecurities emanate from casualization of employment and informalization of employment contracts. The second concerns the precariat as a social class distinct in the 21st century. This session aims to go beyond these two strands and looks at precarity more broadly. It questions the extant understanding of precarity as a debilitating force that paralyzes any form of human agency and leaves actors to structural constraints. Taking the political economy of labor as its point of departure, the session invites papers examining how precarity provides agency in reworking political economy. The focus is to tilt our lens to an agentic approach, albeit skewed, in knowing how people perceive possibilities, capacities, and potentialities despite precarity. The session invites research on social processes and actions that occur ‘despite precarity.’ Central to this thinking is understanding how labor not only organizes but disorganizes, not produces but lags, not becomes efficient but lazy. The session welcomes papers across the globe to create a robust dialogue in understanding novel possibilities through precarity and labor. Papers are invited for an oral presentation of 20mins.

Women Entrepreneurs on the African Continent

Session Organizer:

Ulrike Schuerkens, Université Rennes 2, France

The existing research on women in entrepreneurship has improved our understanding of structural inequalities in markets. However, this research focusses on women entrepreneurs in the North, including the United States and Europe (Edoho 2015; Sheriff & Muffatto 2015). There is a lack of information on challenges and obstacles of women in Africa (both North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa) to manage and start a new business (Diop Thiam 2015; Mbodji Diop 2019). Our session’s research question is: how do female entrepreneurs perceive and describe the experience of running a successful formal business in Africa and beyond? This session intends to understand how women entrepreneurs make meaning from their lived experiences. Empirical case studies from the African continent and the African diaspora are invited for this session.

Varieties of Care Work: Exploring National Differences

Session Organizers:
Nadya GUIMARAES, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil
Heidi GOTTFRIED, Wayne State University, USA

COVID-19 heightened awareness of the myriad forms of social connections in care as essential work crucial to the functioning of society. Care work has never been so visible, yet so precarious and vulnerable. Disruptions due to COVID made visible the web of social relationships of care and revealed the vulnerabilities of care recipients and caregivers. Abundant evidence disclosed the disproportionately negative consequences of COVID-19 on women, particularly women of color, migrants, and refugees, both as essential care workers and as recipients of care. The pandemic also revealed the limitations of care systems, exacerbating the care crisis worldwide with a greater impact in vulnerable territories. New research on care work reveals the centrality of the phenomenon and the international diversity of its forms. This session seeks to explore convergences and diversities observed between countries in the global North and South, to highlight the dynamic processes that influence the social organization of care and new forms of care work.

This session welcomes papers on the following topics:

(i) The impact of the pandemic on needs and modalities of care provision.

(ii) Labor conditions and rights in a post pandemic world.

(iii) Care as a strategic dimension and pillar for public policies.

(iv) Caring strategies when the state fails.

The Social Economy of Migrant Labour -- Improving Social Protections to End Exploitation

Session Organizer:
Karen SHIRE, University Duisburg-Essen, Germany

Over the past decades, with the expansion of global production networks, partial liberalization of cross-border mobility, the rise of new sending states promoting migrant exports and the migration industry with recruitment networks at the lead, the social economy of migration has undergone tremendous changes. The panel invites submissions that address transformations of labour migration, to focus on the commodification, reproduction and control of migrant labour, including how new populations are recruited into migration, the operation of sending state-sponsored circular migration, the regulation of competition in migrant labour markets, threats to the survival and reproduction of migrant labourers, the rise of human trafficking and forced labour, and the subjection of migrant workers to modes of control inside, but also outside the labour process (e.g. through debt, or dormitory regimes). Papers are solicited which also focus on solutions to the inadequate social protections for, the trafficking and extreme exploitation of migrant labour, including the role of social movements, international conventions, trade-union and NGO cross-border advocacy, the promotion of migrant and labour rights, new forms of migrant and transnational agency, and the contributions of a gender perspective on problems and solutions. As the ILO enters its second century in 2020s research which evaluates the contributions for migrant labour of conventions, such as ILO 184 on Domestic Labour, the ILO Declaration of Fundamental Rights of Labour, and the ILO program promoting Decent Work are especially welcome, as well as evidence about efforts to fight trafficking, labour and sexual exploitation.

International Migration and Economic Informalization – a Denationalized Perspective

Session Organizers:

Zoran SLAVNIC, Linköping University, Sweden
Klara ÖBERG, Halmstad University, Sweden

Migration studies as a scientific field has long been, and still are, significantly characterized by methodological nationalism as well as general conceptual simplification of the studied phenomenon. The reason for this lies in the fact that migration studies were initially institutionalized under the strong influence of national migration policies and labour market rationale, rather than scientific criteria and priorities. Consequently, instead of focusing on the real causes and consequences of the international migration, the mainstream migration studies have been fixed for the role of a nation-state, whose task is to build and defend national sovereignty, a homogeneous national community based on solidarity, and a territorially bounded state.

Similarly, national economic policies have framed the research field of the informal economy, by focusing primarily on “migration as a threat”, international organized crime, marginalized social groups and the criminalization of individuals, while the economic strategies of international big business and governments have been considered "formal" in their nature. Consequently, mainstream informal economy research normally takes for granted the formal nature of national economies as a whole, as well as the economic activities of the state and the global economy.

This session encourages contributions aimed at filling the gap in knowledge production of how contemporary migration regimes together with economic structures as well as labour politics generate new forms of precarity, accumulation by dispossession, economic exploitation dynamics and social exclusion. We encourage contributions addressing the dynamics of informal economy and the local-global spectrum of exploitation of international migrants from a de-nationalized perspective.

Variegated Intersections of Social Policy and Finance

Session Organizer:
Asa Maron, University of Haifa, Israel

The financialization of the welfare state often refers to the growing importance of financial markets and actors in the delivery of social services and goods such as pension or housing. Recent studies suggest that financialization may transpire without direct contact with financial markets, emphasizing the cultural virtues of finance, and showing how financial instruments and rationales encroach (or are adopted by) welfare state institutions and programs; example include programs such as students' loans, children savings accounts, as well as social impact bonds (SIBs, or pay for performance schemes) seeking improved outcomes for marginal groups.

The goal of this session is to bring together critical views of contemporary intersections between finance and social policy, and appraise such intersections from the standpoint of welfare state sociology and economic sociology. We invite empirical papers that explore experimentations with financial models or instruments in various contexts and social policy domains. Various approaches, theoretical perspectives and methods are welcomed. Key themes include (but are not limited to) the influence of financialized policy projects on existing modes of social provisioning and institutional logics (e.g. professionalism, marketization); their consequences for de- and re-commodification, social rights of citizenship and inequality, with particular attention to marginal social categories; the experiences of actors and groups partaking in such projects, including policymakers, service providers and service users; and the manner in which financial logics and instruments are negotiated, challenged or opposed for various reasons, or alternatively, adopted and/or adapted to serve various policy interests.

Finance As a Verb: Local Practices of Global Finance

Session Organizer:
Aaron PITLUCK, Illinois State University & Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, USA & the Netherlands

The principal objective of this session is to build social theory by collecting together diverse ethnographic observations of local financial practices in diverse contexts. Two types of ethnography are particularly prized for their rarity. The first would be ethnographies with a strong temporal dimension. For example, in diverse contexts, what does the social life of debt look like from the moment the parties create it to the moment the relationship is dissolved? Similarly, how do the relationships created by equity and derivatives change over time? The second would be financial ethnographies that stretch spatially across numerous parties in the commodity/value chain or use field analysis. I am particularly keen on attracting scholars conducting research outside of the North Atlantic, however all abstracts that understand finance as a verb are welcome.

Global capitalist accumulation through dispossession: Discussions and comparisons / El Despojo Capitalista En La Reproducción De La Desigualdad Social

Session Organizer:
Miguel Angel VITE PEREZ, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Mexico

La nueva desigualdad social fue resultado de los cambios provocados por la separación del trabajo asalariado de las protecciones creadas por el sistema de bienestar estatal, generalizando la vulnerabilidad, cuyas manifestaciones como comportamientos colectivos son diversos, destacándose los sentimientos de enojo y frustración que han terminado por legitimar el egoísmo, y al mismo tiempo, la violencia, la cual se ha transformado en los países emergentes en parte de las estrategias de acumulación de capital para la mercantilización, en mayor o menor grado, de los recursos naturales, considerados como materias primas para la producción de bienes y servicios demandados para la reproducción de los negocios privados transnacionales. Por tal motivo, el despojo se ha convertido en el principal método para acumular de manera privada los beneficios, afectando el patrimonio de las comunidades o colectivos.

En este sentido, se busca que los participantes contribuyan a la reflexión y al debate sobre la manera en que el despojo se ha convertido en la causa de la expansión de la desigualdad social en situaciones de violencia, donde las instituciones de solidaridad se ha debilitado o desaparecido.

Thinking through and Beyond Capitalism after the Great Reset

Session Organizer:
Hiro SAITO, Singapore Management University, Singapore

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, groups from a wide spectrum of political and theoretical orientations had begun to rethink capitalism against the backdrop of growing inequalities and environmental degradation worldwide. For example, pro-capitalist groups had proposed eco-capitalism and conscientious capitalism, whereas anti-capitalist groups had mobilized eco-socialist and global-justice movements. Then, during the pandemic, these attempts to address the problems of capitalism seemed to intensify, as the World Economic Forum (WEF), together with its corporate partners, launched the "Great Reset" initiative to make the post-pandemic world "a better place." Integral to this global initiative is "stakeholder capitalism," a new form of capitalism that will create "a global economy that works for progress, people, and planet." Is such all-inclusive capitalism simply the newest ideology of the transnational capitalist class, or is it practically the best available option in responding to the climate crisis, inequalities, and other urgent global challenges in today's world? Do anti-capitalists have effective critiques of, and real-utopian alternatives to, post-pandemic capitalism? Equally important, can sociologists meaningfully intervene -- through their thought and action -- in the ever-evolving practice of capitalism through accelerationism and other latest developments in critical praxis? Embracing all perspectives ranging from pro-capitalist to anti-capitalist as well as from left-wing to right-wing, this session welcomes papers from the full spectrum of political and theoretical orientations to think through and beyond the emerging trajectories of capitalism after the Great Reset.

Elements for an Emancipatory Sociology: An Appraisal of the Work of István Mészáros

Session Organizer:
Ricardo DELLO BUONO, Manhattan College, USA

This panel, co-sponsored by the journal Critical Sociology, seeks a fresh exploration of the voluminous work of István Mészáros (1930-2017). It specifically proposes to consider the immediate relevance of his dialectical approach to the current global crisis and the political economy of transition away from capitalism. We aim to assess the extent to which his work offers strategic elements for building an emanicipatory and praxis-oriented critical sociology. Mészáros put forth numerous assertions of key importance for the understanding of economy and society. But is it true that current economic downturns reflect a continuation of an accumulation crisis already developed in the 1970s, the very same crisis which forced the global systemic turn towards neoliberalism? Has the structural crisis of capital now come up against its absolute limits as Mészáros suggests? Are new limits on capital reproduction now being expressed in an ecological and epidemiological form? Or are we on the edge of a “restructuring crisis” that will yield modest structural reconfigurations which can once again permit a restoration of the rate of profit achieved in earlier historical periods? By exploring these and related questions, this panel sets out to critically evaluate the purported emanicipatory insights of Mészáros and concretely assess their implications for the global struggle against capital.

Contested Markets of Biomedicine

Session Organizers:
Alya GUSEVA, Boston University, USA
Akos RONA-TAS, University of California-San Diego, USA

Markets have enjoyed a privileged position in both academic and policy discourses on allocating public and private goods because they are believed to encourage competition and innovation, and benefit consumers by delivering higher quality and lower prices. There are now markets for babies, markets for gametes, intimacy (whether its takes form of a sexual encounter or platonic cuddling), human organs (illegal, for the most part), human hair, breast milk, placenta-derived products etc. Simultaneously, debates are raging on the virtues of competition and economic incentives in allocating healthcare services more efficiently, and on the ways of encouraging innovation in developing treatments for life-threatening diseases while making these treatments affordable to those who need them.

What these examples of interpenetration of markets and biomedicine all have in common is that they exemplify the tensions between beliefs, values and practices that govern market exchange (consumer choice, competition, valuation, pricing, etc.), and the social and cultural values, beliefs, practices and emotions that are associated with inclusive democratic participation in society and with the sanctity of the human body and human life.

This panel calls for papers that explore these tensions around markets for contested commodities (Radin 1996) or goods and services that some argue “money shouldn’t buy” (Sandel 2012), such as human bodies, organs, gametes (Almeling 2011), tissues and fluids, clinical labor (Cooper 2014) involving surrogates and human subjects of clinical trials, as well as life-saving drugs and treatments. We are particularly interested in the global and transnational exchange involving these contested commodities.

Reconstructing the Global Economy – Production Chains, Knowledge Chains, & Value Chains

Session Organizer:
Dennis MCNAMARA, Georgetown University, USA

The convergence of the pandemic, of the military crisis in Ukraine, and China’s political tensions with the U.S. and other liberal economies, have eroded an earlier integration of global trade and investment. How has the rebalancing of local priorities with global connectivity reshaped production, knowledge, & value chains? This session welcomes both case studies and efforts at theory-building, both empirical and theoretical work on global integration or disintegration with a focus on national, regional, and global chains.

Scholars have looked mainly to supply or production chains (GPNs), global value chains (GVCs), and networks of innovation or knowledge. GVCs have drawn the widest scholarly interest and remain a central focus for tracking coupling, decoupling, and re-coupling of supply chains. The focus on innovation has evolved from knowledge transfer in earlier studies of development, to networks in “knowledge economies,” and now to a multi-dimensional analysis of policies, institutions, and actors in technological innovation. Tracking change in these three channels of connectivity sheds a powerful analytic light on emerging dimensions of a post-pandemic global economy

Global Inequalities and Pandemic Diseases: Recent and Historical Impacts of Contagious Diseases on within- and between-Country Inequalities

Session Organizers:
Christopher CHASE-DUNN, University of California-Riverside, USA
Yoshimichi SATO, Kyoto University of Advanced Science, Japan
Hiroko INOUE, University of California, Riverside, USA

Global inequalities have not shown any recent sign of improvement, revealing increasing disparities between the Haves and the Have Nots. The recent pandemic has exacerbated deep divisions, and the disparities today are widening due to the continuing pandemic impacts on the world economy. How have economic growth and development and the distributions of wealth and income been impacted by the recent and earlier pandemics and how have national and global policies changed in ways that can help mitigate growing inequalities within countries and in the larger global social system.

The session calls for papers that explore global inequalities and their links with health disparities and pandemic diseases and anthropogenic and non-anthropogenic environmental changes in recent and historical perspectives.

The session is open to studies that investigate socio-economic disparities and their relationships with pandemics impacts, environmental issues, inter-generational mobility and conflict, precarious class formations, gender, race/ethnicity, education, and migration. And we seek contributors who will address political, economic, social, and psychological aspects of these issues.

Economy and Society Roundtable Presentations and Discussions