Section Sessions are planned by the ASA Sections. Section sessions are open to all paper/extended abstract submissions that meet the submission criteria. You do not need to be a member of a section to submit to a section session.
Community and Urban Sociology Section
Interdisciplinarity and Urban Sociology
This panel addresses how urban sociology engages with scholarship in related fields such as urban planning, geography, urban economics, urban anthropology, and architecture. We invite papers that explore what makes urban sociology unique or how urban sociological approaches can enhance these related fields. We also invite papers that discuss what urban sociology can learn from these related fields to improve its own scholarship.
(Session Organizer) Xuefei Ren, Michigan State University; (Session Organizer) Claire W. Herbert, University of Oregon
Racial Capitalism and the Financialization of the City
This panel examines how developers, speculators, community boosters, the state, and related actors shape urban life through their valuation and financialization of the city. We especially invite submissions that investigate how such processes are racialized and that engage with recent developments in racial capitalist approaches to urban sociology. Possible topics include but are not limited to how racial capitalism and the financialization of the city influence residential segregation, gentrification, housing, schooling, public health, environmental justice, or community and economic development.
(Session Organizer) Luana Pinto Coelho, University of Coimbra
Suburbs, Small Towns, and Midsize Cities
This panel speaks to the proliferation of suburbs, small towns, and midsize cities around the world. In established economies like the United States, these places have become important centers for demographic, economic, cultural, and political change, especially since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. We invite submissions that theorize the role that suburbs, small towns, and midsize cities play in the contemporary urban landscape, and how the differences between large and small cities are shaping trends in globalization, labor, migration, politics, and public policy.
(Session Organizer) Kiara Wyndham-Douds, Washington University-St. Louis
Urban Inequalities Across Canada
While most of the world undergoes rapid forms of urbanization, Canada is experiencing an alarming rate of change. Population growth in cities is increasing the need for infrastructure and services of all kinds. Urban sprawl raises environmental concerns surrounding car dependent cultures and encroachment on farmlands, wetlands and wildlife. Although culturally and ethnically diverse, the country continues to grapple with questions around colonization, racialization, and indigeneity. To this extent, Canadian cities raise important questions about the theoretical portability of mainstream (often American) urban sociology and its methodological opportunities and limitations. This session centers the urban question within Canada to highlight the particular influence of space, place and community across the urban form.
(Session Organizer) Prentiss A. Dantzler, University of Toronto
Community and Urban Sociology Section Refereed Roundtables
(Session Organizer) Thalia Tom, University of Southern California
Family Section
Changing Families in Aging Societies
For this session, we are interested in papers that consider how the changing age structure of the US and other countries shape family structure and relations.
(Session Organizer) Hongwei Xu, CUNY-Queens College
Queer Dating, Relationships, and Families in the US and Globally
For this session, we welcome papers that center queer (LGBTQ+) experiences in dating, relationship formation and dissolution, and family life throughout the life course, both in the US and globally. We are also interested in the ways that institutions and policies shape queer relationships and family life today.
(Session Organizer) Haoming Song, Case Western Reserve University
Race, Families, and Institutions (Co-sponsored by Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities)
This session is jointly sponsored by the Family Section and the Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities. We are interested in papers that explore how minoritized families are impacted by institutions and the ways that institutional structures differentially shape family life by race/ethnicity. Papers may consider, for example, the impact of health and health care systems, the legal system, the labor market, schools, or immigration enforcement on family outcomes among minoritized groups.
(Session Organizer) Vanessa Delgado, Stony Brook University; (Session Organizer) Deadric T. Williams, University of Tennessee-Knoxville
Family Section Roundtables
(Session Organizer) Rachel E. Goldberg, University of California-Irvine; (Session Organizer) Hyeyoung Woo, Portland State University
Co-sponsored session with Section on Sociology of Population, see session details under Section on Sociology of Population section.
Section on Aging and the Life Course
LGBTQ+ Aging
For this session, we welcome submissions from a variety of methodological and theoretical perspectives that examine LGBTQ+ identities and/or communities in aging and life course processes.
(Session Organizer) Tara A. McKay, Vanderbilt University
Risk and Resilience Across the Life Course
For this session, we welcome submissions from a variety of methodological and theoretical perspectives that examine established and emerging conceptualizations of risk and/or resilience across one or more phases of the life course.
(Session Organizer) Cleothia Frazier, Pennsylvania State University
Section on Aging and the Life Course Roundtables and Research Working Groups
(Session Organizer) Catherine Garcia, Syracuse University; (Session Organizer) Christine A. Mair, University of Maryland-Baltimore County
Section on Altruism, Morality, and Social Solidarity
Solidarity and Justice in a Global World
This panel aims to explore the nuances of forging solidarity and advancing social justice across borders. We invite submissions that adopt a global and/or transnational perspective with a focus on non-US cases. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, strategies to organize and expand outreach for transnational social justice movements, the interplay of politics in sending and destination countries on transnational activism, the shaping of diasporic consciousness and identity, the challenges and opportunities in building multiracial and multinational solidarity, and the role of morality and altruism in global social justice initiatives, among others. We especially welcome submissions from scholars working on the Global South.
(Presider) Bin Xu, Emory University; (Session Organizer) Weirong Guo, University of Pennsylvania
Section on Animals and Society
The Importance of Non-Human Animals in Sociology: A Presentation (Paper Session)
This is an open paper session. We ask that people consider how animals are intertwined with the investigation of various topics across sociology such as in the study of race, gender, sexuality, communities, education, urban environments, family, aging and the life course, social solidarity, youth, stratification, social movements, information and technology, history, crime, disability, economics, environmental concern, global perspectives, inequality, migration, labor, Marxism, medicine and health, methodology, organizations, war, politics, rationality, social psychology, public sociology, embodiment, consumption, culture, education, emotions, human rights, Indigenous studies, mental health, population, religion, and teaching among other topics. We specifically seek papers that draw from multiple sub-disciplines within sociology to expand or create a discussion about the importance of addressing non-human animals across sub-disciplines. Proposed papers for this session should be complete.
(Session Organizer) Cameron Thomas Whitley, Western Washington University; (Discussant) Seven Mattes, Michigan State University; (Presider) Erin N. Kidder, Eckerd College
The Importance of Non-Human Animals in Sociology: A Discussion (Roundtables Session)
This is an open round table session. Similar to the paper session, we ask that people consider how animals are intertwined with the investigation of various topics across sociology such as in the study of race, gender, sexuality, communities, education, urban environments, family, aging and the life course, social solidarity, youth, stratification, social movements, information and technology, history, crime, disability, economics, environmental concern, global perspectives, inequality, migration, labor, Marxism, medicine and health, methodology, organizations, war, politics, rationality, social psychology, public sociology, embodiment, consumption, culture, education, emotions, human rights, Indigenous studies, mental health, population, religion, and teaching among other topics. We specifically seek papers that draw from multiple sub-disciplines within sociology to expand or create a discussion about the importance of addressing non-human animals across sub-disciplines. Proposed papers for this session should be in progress. This is an opportunity to share ideas and receive feedback from members within the section and from other subsections.
(Session Organizer) Cameron Thomas Whitley, Western Washington University
Section on Asia and Asian America
Asia and Asian America Section Paper Sessions
We invite all papers relevant for Section on Asia and Asian America; papers on Asia, papers on Asian America, and papers on connections between Asia and Asian America. This centralized pool of submissions will result in (3) 90-minute paper sessions.
(Session Organizer) Sojung Lim, Utah State University; (Session Organizer) SunAh Marie Laybourn, University of Memphis; (Session Organizer) Phoebe Ho, University of North Texas
Asia and Asian America Section Roundtables
Roundtable presentations and discussion
(Session Organizer) Yingyi Ma, Syracuse University
Section on Biosociology and Evolutionary Sociology
Sociogenomics
The intersection of genetics and the environment is a critical nexus for understanding the meaning of larger sociological phenomena. Sociogenomicists are already well underway in using genetics as a tool for developing more nuanced interpretations of larger social institutions, policies, and forces. These tools and methods include genome-wide association studies, genetic correlations, polygenic scores/indices, mendelian randomization designs, multivariate genomic methods, etc. This session seeks to highlight the current and best sociogenomics work in the field across a broad range of outcomes and research topics.
(Session Organizer) Robbee Wedow, Purdue University
Sociocultural Evolution: Steps to the Future in Theory, Principles, and Applications
This session is devoted to social and cultural evolution, and the shadowy emergent forces that promote societal complexity, stagnation, or decline at any level of human organization in social formations and inter-societal world systems from hunter-gatherers to post-industrial societies. All perspectives (e.g., ecological, biological, sociological) are welcome, especially ones that fire our imaginations and are rich with speculation.
(Session Organizer) Alexandra Maryanski, University of California-Riverside
Section on Children and Youth
Children’s Play and Leisure: Agency, Creativity, Learning and Constraint
Children’s play and leisure is an important part of childhood: on the playground, at home, at school, with friends, with pets, and alone, children use agency to enact their imaginations within and outside of their peer and family cultures. We welcome papers that explore children’s leisure broadly, including social media and video games, as well as more traditional aspects of fantasy, creative, game, indoor, and outdoor play.
(Session Organizer) Ingrid E. Castro, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts
Intersectional Approaches to Power, Contexts, Institutions and Transitions in Childhood and Youth
This session attends to the role of intersections in the lives of children and youth as they traverse daily contexts, institutions and transitions. Intersections may be approached from different perspectives addressing inequalities in structural factors, power relations, and intersecting identities, to develop how these considerations illuminate the perspectives, life chances, statuses, challenges, hopes, and aspirations of young people.
(Session Organizer) Holly Foster, Texas A&M University-College Station
Section on Children and Youth Roundtables
(Session Organizer) Jessica Taft, University of California-Santa Cruz
Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements
Advances in Data and Methods for Collective Behavior and Social Movements Research
Collective behavior and social movements (CBSM) was among the first social science subfields to embrace the revolution in untraditional (and/or “big”) data and computational methods. Since then, the sources and types of data and methods have expanded enormously as scholars have made creative use of data from social media and other digitized sources. It has been a few years since CBSM scholars have taken stock of advances in data and methods at the annual ASA meeting, so this session seeks to highlight innovative and productive uses of data and cutting-edge methods. Examples include, but are not limited to, newly digitized archives, content from social media and increasingly politicized so-called alt-tech platforms, fine-grained spatial observations and satellite imagery, multimodal digital data, and AI-generated content. The session will emphasize computational and quantitative methods, but aims to include a range of methods, including advances in qualitative and mixed-methods approaches, such as digital ethnography.
(Session Organizer) Thomas Davidson, Rutgers University-New Brunswick; (Session Organizer) Daniel Karell, Yale University; (Session Organizer) Laura K. Nelson, University of British Columbia; (Session Organizer) Eunkyung Song, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; (Session Organizer) Yongjun Zhang, Stony Brook University
Faith in Activism: Exploring the Intersections of Social Movements and Religion
Social movements are frequently bound up with religious beliefs, institutions, and resources. This panel will explore how social movements on both the political left and right are shaped by religious ideologies, conflicts, organizations, and frames. It is open to treatments of both historic movements and current movements across the globe.
(Session Organizer) Glenn E. Bracey, Villanova University; (Session Organizer) Ruth Braunstein, University of Connecticut; (Session Organizer) Kelsy Kretschmer, Oregon State University
Music and Social Movements
As social movement scholars, we know that music plays a variety of important roles in social movements from recruitment to education to becoming a component of social movement culture. Much of this work has been done on movements that highlighted music as a central factor such as the civil rights movement, labor movement, white power movements and others. This panel would explore different ways music functions in movements. Of particular interest for the panel are social movements not often examined for their use of music.
(Session Organizer) Jo Reger, Oakland University
Overcoming the Challenges of Field Research on Social Movements
Social movement scholars usually take on considerable risks by conducting field research in democracies and non-democracies alike. A wide range of governments regularly apply repression on dissidents and observers alike, including media reporters and scholars, even though they may allow protests to be carried out in rhetoric. In the recent past, the list of countries that pose increasing challenges for researchers have grown, ranging from China, Russia, to Turkey, Myanmar, Syria, and so forth. Aside from the traditional violent tactics, autocracies are also using the law as a weapon against dissenters. These challenges have meant a growing list of countries are “out of reach” for academic researchers, with substantial implications for advancing our understanding of social movements in some important parts of the world. This panel aims to bring together a panel of scholars with specialization in different countries to share their common experience. The objective is to learn from each other strategies of overcoming challenges in the field.
(Session Organizer) Yao Li, Florida State University; (Session Organizer) Lynette H. Ong, University of Toronto
Understanding Variation in Right-Wing Mobilization
In recent years, right-wing movements have become one of the greatest threats to democracy and national security throughout the world. American social scientists have responded to this wave of extremism with theories that heavily emphasize the role of white and male status threat. While valuable, these frameworks do not explain the growing number of racial, gender-based, and sexual minorities participating in right-wing social movements. Additionally, even though these theories are based on data from the U.S., they are often uncritically applied to activism taking place in radically different national, cultural, and political contexts. In order to address these limitations, this session features empirical studies exploring variations in the ideology, demographic composition, and adversaries of right-wing collective action.
(Session Organizer) Marcos Emilio Perez, Washington and Lee University; (Session Organizer) Adam Burston, University of California, Santa Barbara
Collective Behavior and Social Movements Roundtables
(Session Organizer) Tom Einhorn, The University of British Columbia
Co-sponsored session with Section on Sociology of Body and Embodiment, see session details under Section on Sociology of Body and Embodiment section.
Section on Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology
Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology Open Panel
This session is open to paper submissions for any work related to the themes of the Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology (CITAMS) section. This is an opportunity to highlight cutting edge empirical work, to revisit classic themes, or to investigate new methodologies. Thanks to a special relationship between the Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology (CITAMS) section and the journal Information, Communication & Society (ICS), all papers with a theme of information, communication, or media that are presented at the 2023 meetings of the ASA are eligible for submission to a special issue of ICS edited by the CITAMS chair each fall. CITAMS is committed to full accessibility of participation for all members and will work with contributors to ensure this.
(Session Organizer) Timothy Recuber, Smith College; (Session Organizer) Celeste Campos-Castillo, Michigan State University
Media, Technology, and Emotion
The ways that we relate to the media and technologies that we use every day are highly emotional. We form deep attachments to the characters we see on television, the people whose posts we read or whose Tik Toks we view, even the robots and technologies we use to help us live, learn, and love. We also get sad when we watch the news, get frustrated at apps that don’t work correctly, and angry at the people on Twitter with whom we disagree. Yet research on the sociology of media and technology often overlooks the emotional or affective aspects of the social relationships we form through or with communication and information technologies. This panel seeks papers that directly explore the emotional elements of media, communication and information technologies. Thanks to a special relationship between the Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology (CITAMS) section and the journal Information, Communications & Society (ICS), all papers with a theme of information, communication, or media that are presented at the 2023 meetings of the ASA are eligible for submission to a special issue of ICS edited by the CITAMS chair each fall. CITAMS is committed to full accessibility of participation for all members and will work with contributors to ensure this.
(Session Organizer) Timothy Recuber, Smith College
The Sociology of Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence is in the news quite a bit these days. We’re told that it will change the future, that it will revolutionize fields as different from one another as computer science, music, economics, and art. This could be hype or there could be something to it, but how can we know? After all, sociologists typically study actual people, not artificial ones. So what does it look like to study artificial intelligence from a sociological vantage point anyway? This panel explores the emerging sociology of artificial intelligence in both substantive and methodological terms. It seeks papers that raise methodological questions about how to do the work of studying AI and papers that provide examples of what such work entails. This could involve examining representations of or discourse about AI, or it could involve conducting interviews with AI creators, innovators, or early adopters. These papers could even attempt to conduct interviews with AIs themselves, or put them to use in some other creative ways as a kind of methodological experiment. In any case, the panel aims to explore the latest advances in this new and burgeoning subject area. Thanks to a special relationship between the Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology (CITAMS) section and the journal Information, Communications & Society (ICS), all papers with a theme of information, communication, or media that are presented at the 2023 meetings of the ASA are eligible for submission to a special issue of ICS edited by the CITAMS chair each fall. CITAMS is committed to full accessibility of participation for all members and will work with contributors to ensure this.
(Session Organizer) Timothy Recuber, Smith College; (Session Organizer) Taylor M. Cruz, California State University-Fullerton
Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology Open-Refereed Roundtables
This session is open to paper submissions for any work related to the themes of the Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology (CITAMS) section. This is an opportunity to highlight cutting edge empirical work, to revisit classic themes, or to investigate new methodologies. Papers will be grouped into themes once submissions are received. Thanks to a special relationship between the Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology (CITAMS) section and the journal Information, Communications & Society (ICS), all papers with a theme of information, communication, or media that are presented at the 2023 meetings of the ASA are eligible for submission to a special issue of ICS edited by the CITAMS chair each fall. CITAMS is committed to full accessibility of participation for all members and will work with contributors to ensure this.
(Session Organizer) Timothy Recuber, Smith College; (Session Organizer) Dustin Kidd, Temple University
Section on Comparative-Historical Sociology
Colonial Legacies and Contemporary Politics
Historical sociologists have increasingly turned attention to tracing various ways colonial and imperial state practices and rule have shaped social, political, and economic life in successor independent states and post-imperial metropoles. This panel welcomes papers across a wide range of regions and cases that address questions of colonial continuity or change related to contemporary political outcomes. These include, but are not limited to, liberal / authoritarian systems, identity politics and movements, political contention, ethnic and racial classifications, citizenship, and legal systems.
(Session Organizer) Yael H Berda, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; (Session Organizer) Jonathan Wyrtzen, Yale University
Comparative and/or Historical Sociology: Open Session
We welcome submissions on topics of comparative and/or historical sociology, broadly defined.
(Session Organizer) Vasfiye Betul Toprak, University of Virginia; (Session Organizer) Simeon J. Newman; (Session Organizer) Jonathan Wyrtzen, Yale University
Field Theory, History, and Sociological Analysis: New Directions
Field theory has increasingly been deployed as a vigorous framework for historical sociological analysis. Applied to history, Bourdieu’s field theory underscores the importance of examining processes of contestation among social actors as a means to highlight both the objective features of their social world and their subjective perception of it. This session invites papers that theoretically and empirically engage and advance field theory and its insights into a wide range of historical cases.
(Session Organizer) Sourabh Singh, Florida State University; (Discussant) George Steinmetz, University of Michigan–Ann Arbor; (Session Organizer) Jonathan Wyrtzen, Yale University
Section on Comparative-Historical Sociology Roundtables
We welcome submissions on topics of comparative and/or historical sociology, broadly defined.
(Session Organizer) Vasfiye Betul Toprak, University of Virginia; (Session Organizer) Simeon J. Newman; (Session Organizer) Jonathan Wyrtzen, Yale University
Section on Crime, Law, and Deviance
Advancing Theory and Policy Using Innovative Data and Methods in the Study of Crime, Law, and Deviance
This panel will highlight recent empirical research that uses innovative data sources (ranging from big data to small data and anything in between) and methodological approaches (from quantitative to qualitative and anything in between) to ask new questions or to revisit classic questions. Attention will be given in particular to studies that have implications for advancing theory, measurement, and policy in the study of crime, law, and deviance.
(Session Organizer) Corina Graif, Pennsylvania State University
International, Comparative, and Cross-National Studies of the Causes and Consequences of Violence
This panel focuses on international, comparative, and cross-national studies of the causes and consequences of violence. These studies employ different levels of analysis, but all utilize violence as the primary independent or dependent variable.
(Session Organizer) William Alex Pridemore, University of Georgia
Crime, Law, and Deviance Roundtables
Papers related to Crime, Law, and Deviance.
(Session Organizer) Melanie Escue, University of North Carolina at Pembroke; (Session Organizer) Elias Nader, Kent State University; (Session Organizer) Sarah K.S. Shannon, University of Georgia
Section on Decision-Making, Social Networks, and Society
Computational and Mathematical Approaches to Social Problems and Inequalities (Co-sponsored by Mathematical Sociology)
This session invites paper submissions that leverage mathematical and computational models and methods (including, but not limited to, network analysis, agent-based models, text analysis, machine learning, and mathematical modeling) to the study of social problems and inequalities, broadly conceived (e.g., segregation, persistent poverty, racial and gender inequality, environmental disasters and their consequences, health care, discrimination, political polarization, crime, the impact of new technologies, imperialism, etc.). Paper submissions that develop new computational or mathematical methods (or that introduce new models or extensions) to the study of social problems and inequalities are also welcomed.
(Session Organizer) Diego F. Leal, University of Arizona
Section on Disability in Society
Disability and Education Across the Life Course (Co-sponsored by Section on Sociology of Education)
Despite comprising a sizable and growing marginalized social group in society generally and in educational settings, disability is centered far less often than class, race, gender as an axis of inequality. As a collaboration between the Sociology of Education and Disability in Society sections, this session highlights the social causes, social consequences, and interactions of disability and education. We encourage submissions focused on disability in educational settings across the life course, as well as how education and educational status impacts the experience of disability.
(Session Organizer) Kerry Michael Dobransky, James Madison University
Disability in Society Roundtable Session
(Session Organizer) Kerry Michael Dobransky, James Madison University
Co-sponsored session with Section on Sociology of Education, see session details under Section on Sociology of Education section.
Section on Drugs and Society
Substance Use in Society
This session seeks papers on substance use etiology, regulation, prevention, and intervention. Preference will be given to papers that align with the conference theme of intersectional solidarities. Quantitative and qualitative papers are welcome.
(Session Organizer) Tanya Nieri, University of CA, Riverside
Drugs and Society Roundtables
(Session Organizer) Tanya Nieri, University of CA, Riverside
Section on Economic Sociology
Economic Sociology Open Session
This open session invites empirical and/or theoretical papers representing the entire breadth of economic sociology research today. While the theme is open-ended, the program committee also wishes to encourage submissions offering new insight into political economy, financial markets, race and racial hierarchies, natural language processing, culture, morality, and knowledge.
(Session Organizer) Laura Adler, Yale University; (Session Organizer) Guillermina Altomonte, New York University; (Session Organizer) Armando Lara-Millan, University of California-Berkeley; (Session Organizer) Roi Livne, University of Michigan; (Session Organizer) Ken-Hou Lin, University of Texas at Austin
Economic Sociology Roundtables
(Session Organizer) Ken-Hou Lin, University of Texas at Austin; (Session Organizer) Yen Ji Julia Byeon, Princeton University
Section on Environmental Sociology
Intersectional Environmental Inequalities: Methodological and Theoretical Advances
The last 15-20 years has witnessed the increasing use of frameworks that illuminate the various scales at which humans experience the environment unequally given their position within matrices of domination and resistance. To further this scholarly development, this session invites papers that critically appraise and/or build on prior methodological and theoretical advances in the study of intersectional environmental inequalities within and beyond environmental sociology.
(Session Organizer) Raoul Salvador Lievanos, University of Oregon
Intersectional Solidarities for Environmental and Climate Justice
This session concludes the three-part series of environmental sociology paper sessions and connects directly to the 2024 annual meeting theme of “Intersectional Solidarities: Building Communities of Hope, Justice, and Joy.” It does so by featuring novel papers from scholars working within and beyond environmental sociology that describe and explain various forms of collective action – held together by discourses and practices of intersectional solidarities – that have contributed to or reflect the potential to advance environmental and climate justice at multiple scales of socio-environmental relations.
(Session Organizer) Raoul Salvador Lievanos, University of Oregon
Managing Unequal Risks and Uncertainties in a Changing Climate
Environmental sociologists typically understand risk as an unequally distributed threat of loss or harm to humans and the more-than-human world across space, time, and intersecting social locations. Climate change is continuously illuminating how that unequal distribution is heightened and translated into multiple and overlapping material experiences of loss and harm in the present, which bring about corresponding uncertainties about whose future livelihoods will be protected and secure. This session invites papers that offer new sociological insights on how such unequal risks and uncertainties are managed emotionally, symbolically, and/or materially by individuals, communities, organizations, institutions, and systems of knowledge production and governance.
(Session Organizer) Raoul Salvador Lievanos, University of Oregon
Section on Environmental Sociology Roundtables
This 60-minute session invites environmental sociology research papers that address topics outside the areas featured in the three section paper sessions. A presider will help facilitate constructive dialogue among participants about the accepted papers, which will cohere around common themes in each roundtable.
(Session Organizer) Raoul Salvador Lievanos, University of Oregon
Section on Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis
Research in Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis
In this session, we invite papers reporting current ethnomethodological and/or conversation analytic research.
(Session Organizer) Danielle Pillet-Shore, University of New Hampshire; (Session Organizer) Jason Turowetz, University of California-Santa Barbara
New Directions in Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis
In this session, we invite theoretical and/or empirical papers that focus on potential directions for ethnomethodology and/or conversation analysis.
(Session Organizer) Jason Turowetz, University of California-Santa Barbara; (Presider) Danielle Pillet-Shore, University of New Hampshire
Section on Global and Transnational Sociology
Indigenous Peoples in a Global Perspective
This session is a collaboration between the sections on Indigenous Peoples and Native Nations (IPNN) and Global and Transnational Sociology (GATS). Contemporary times have shown that colonial violence and occupation in various forms remains an ever present global issue. Additionally, resistance to colonialism is complex and sociological insight into place-based practices of resistance are critically needed. We are seeking papers that use sociological methods to understand the realities of colonial occupation and Indigenous liberation. We are interested in papers that center place based resistance and ways of being as expressions of indigeneity. We encourage papers that adopt global or transnational approaches from Indigenous scholars as well as papers that center areas and voices oft-neglected by U.S. sociology. Papers engaging past, present, and future implications of these topics are all welcome.
(Session Organizer) Theresa Rocha Beardall, University of Washington; (Session Organizer) Katrina Quisumbing King, Northwestern University
Transnational Ecologism in a Burning World
The summer of 2023 was a painful reminder that we are facing global ecological devastation. We witnessed forest fires, floods, deforestation, record temperatures as well as wars and occupations that contribute to environmental problems. These destroyed countless human and non-human lives and livelihoods. While the public debate often frames climate change as the main cause of environmental destruction, ecological problems and their causes extend far beyond this. Moreover, public debate usually focuses on individual responsibility rather than states and their land clearance and energy policies, corporations and their environmentally harmful practices, and the underlying systemic forces of racial and colonial capitalism. As importantly, despite the global scale of ecological problems and the underlying system that contributes to it, resistance to ecological harm and the actors behind it are often local, only occasionally scaling up to global or transnational mobilizations through international organizations. While they have built power over the past decades, such resistances have not yet shifted policymaking dramatically at the local or global level.
This panel engages the sociological imagination to discuss the major actors and mechanisms that drive ecological devastation, why and how public debate obscures these actors and mechanisms, and the role of transnational movements in shifting public debate and responses to ecological harms.
Some prompts that papers might respond to include but are not limited to:
– What are the major social actors, mechanisms or global, systemic forces behind ecological devastation?
– What are existing signs of globalizing mobilization and organization around ecological issues? How do environmental and resistance movements work to counteract some of the major actors, mechanisms and forces behind ecological devastation?
– What are movements’ potential to reframe public debate, away from individual/consumer responsibility and a few ‘bad actors’ to a more structural approach?
(Session Organizer) Cihan Ziya Tugal, University of California, Berkeley; (Session Organizer) Archana Ramanujam, Brown University
Global and Transnational Sociology Roundtables
(Session Organizer) Zachary Levenson, Florida International University
Section on History of Sociology and Social Thought
The Continued Relevance of both Marx and Weber for Contemporary Sociology
Many sociologists, past and present, have drawn upon both Karl Marx and Max Weber to pursue questions they both addressed, from capitalism to culture, power, and class. For this session we invite participants to consider their combined influence on figures such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Georg Lukács, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, C. Wright Mills, Alvin Gouldner, Pierre Bourdieu, Dorothy E. Smith, Wendy Brown, and many other contemporaries. These figures are only suggestions and should not be seen in any way as exclusionary – there are many others. Theorists who draw upon only one of these thinkers (Ernst Bloch, e.g., was influenced only by Marx, and Talcott Parsons valorized Weber, but not Marx) would not be apt subjects for this particular session. Above all, we want to consider the evolving ways in which the Marx-Weber duo has proven meaningful for 20th- and 21st-century scholars as we have explored a growing menu of topics, from inequality and identity to culture, crisis, and more. We invite submissions that creatively draw on both Marx and Weber or that discuss thinkers who have drawn on both.
(Session Organizer) Jeffrey A. Halley, University of Texas-San Antonio; (Session Organizer) David Norman Smith, University of Kansas; (Session Organizer) Roslyn Wallach Bologh, CUNY-Staten Island
History of Sociology and Social Thought Refereed Roundtables, Open Topics
Refereed Roundtables, Open Topics, 60 minutes, for The History of Sociology and Social Thought Section.
(Session Organizer) Paul Joosse, University of Hong Kong; (Session Organizer) Laura R. Ford, Faulkner University
Section on Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility
Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility Section Session: Open Topic in Comparative Studies
Open topic in comparative studies of Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility. Comparative studies are defined broadly and could include comparisons across countries, cities, regions, or other geographic units.
(Session Organizer) Zachary Parolin, Bocconi University
Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility Section Session: Open Topic in Inequality
Open topics IPM Section session, with a general focus on Inequality.
(Session Organizer) Luca Maria Pesando, New York University – AD
Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility Section Session: Open Topic in Mobility
Open topics IPM Section session, with a general focus on Mobility.
(Session Organizer) Joe LaBriola, University of Michigan
Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility Section Session: Open Topic in Poverty
Open topics IPM Section session, with a general focus on Poverty.
(Session Organizer) Sarah K. Bruch, University of Delaware
Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility Section Roundtable Session
All papers related to inequality, poverty, and mobility are welcome.
(Session Organizer) Elizabeth Korver-Glenn, Washington University-St. Louis
Section on International Migration
Changing Geographies of Migration
Patterns of immigrant settlement within receiving societies have shifted dramatically in recent decades, with significant population dispersion away from traditional gateways to new metro and non-metro destinations, and from city enclaves to more suburban communities. This session explores these changing migrant geographies in immigrant-receiving societies across the globe. This includes analyses of new immigrant destinations, regional redistribution, suburbanization, and the impact of gentrification on migrant communities, among other topics. Relatedly, this panel explores the political economy of changing geographies of migration, building on existing scholarship about the ongoing (often unequal) relationship between big cities, nearby suburbia and suburb-to-suburb dynamics related to immigrants in work, school, and other institutions. We invite papers exploring these issues in the U.S. and globally.
(Session Organizer) Erin Michaels, University of North Carolina-Wilmington; (Session Organizer) Chenoa Flippen, University of Pennsylvania
Computational and Mathematical Approaches to Migration: Leveraging New Types of Data
This session invites paper submissions that explore migration processes using mathematical and computational models and methods (including, but not limited to, network analysis, agent-based models, text analysis, machine learning, and mathematical modeling) applied to novel sources of data such as image data, administrative records, mobile phone data, historical archives, and social media data. Paper submissions that develop new computational or mathematical methods (or that introduce new models or extensions) to the study of international/internal migration are also welcomed.
(Session Organizer) Diego F. Leal, University of Arizona; (Session Organizer) Zai Liang, State University of New York at Albany
Third Elements of Migration: Brokers of International Migration and Integration
This panel raises fundamental questions concerning Simmel’s observation that social life is constantly determined in its course by the presence of the third person. In the domain of international migration, this panel examines how brokers, generally defined, affect the facilitation of migratory flow and the integration of migrants and their children. A primary goal of this panel is to understand the causes and consequences of brokers and brokerage.
(Session Organizer) Andrew N. Le, Arizona State University-Tempe
International Migration Roundtable Session
This session will feature some of the recent studies in the field of international migration in the U.S. and globally.
(Session Organizer) Yuying Tong, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Co-sponsored session with Section on Political Sociology, see session details under Section on Political Sociology section.
Section on Labor and Labor Movements
Section on Labor and Labor Movements Paper Sessions
The Section on Labor and Labor Movements invites members to submit papers for inclusion in one of three section paper sessions at the ASA annual meeting. Substantive area is open. We welcome submissions that adopt expansive conceptualizations of work and workers, the labor process, labor and worker movements, movement strategies, and their intersections with social inequalities. We also welcome submissions that address underrepresented and marginalized groups, types of workers, and worker movements, including non-Western and transnational workers and movements, and we encourage underrepresented labor scholars to submit their work.
(Session Organizer) Erin E. Hatton, University at Buffalo; (Session Organizer) L. Larry Liu, Morgan State University; (Session Organizer) Cynthia Hewitt, Morehouse College; (Session Organizer) Jeffrey J. Sallaz, University of Arizona
Section on Labor and Labor Movements Roundtables
The Section on Labor and Labor Movements invites members to submit papers for inclusion in section roundtables at the ASA annual meeting. Substantive area is open. We welcome submissions that adopt expansive conceptualizations of work and workers, the labor process, labor and worker movements, movement strategies, and their intersections with social inequalities. We also welcome submissions that address underrepresented and marginalized groups, types of workers, and worker movements, including non-Western and transnational workers and movements, and we encourage underrepresented labor scholars to submit their work.
(Session Organizer) Erin E. Hatton, University at Buffalo
Section on Latina/o Sociology
Latina/o Politics, Identities, Data, and the Resignification of Citizenship
The dynamism of U.S. Latina/os is reflected in shifting notions regarding Latina/o politics, identities, categorizations in institutional data, and demographic changes occurring within the Latino population. Political ideas of the Latino vote as the “sleeping giant” circulate before primaries and elections, and yet we know that 1 out of 3 Latinas/os in the US vote Republican; thus, ethno-racial minority status does not preclude a range of views on social issues. At the same time that we see a turn in politics, the 2020 U.S. Census and other federal data documented a much larger multiracial Latina/o population than in 2010 and rapid growth among small origin/ancestry groups. Meanwhile, identity categories as an expression of belonging (for instance, Latinx) differently politicize the relationship to both the Latina/o community, citizenship, and other social categories. This panel seeks papers of all methodologies that expand the breadth and depth of Latina/o sociology regarding the dynamism of U.S. Latina/o communities in politics, identities, data collection, and population characteristics.
(Session Organizer) Eileen Díaz McConnell, Arizona State University
Latinidad: A Mosaic of Intersecting Identities
Latinas/os’ racial, religious, linguistic and migratory experiences are as heterogeneous and diverse as the many countries of our origins. Throughout the life course, Latina/o experiences vary across various axes of power and difference. This panel seeks to incorporate papers that consider the different meanings of Latinidad and how it is experienced by members and racialized others. We also seek papers that unpack the cultural identifiers of Latinidad and how those identifiers influence belonging. We welcome theoretical and empirical papers that address questions of intersecting aspects of power, and that complicate Latinas/os’ sense of identity as well as real or imagined community.
(Session Organizer) Katie Duarte, Brown University; (Session Organizer) Katie Linette Acosta, Georgia State University
Section on Latina/o Sociology Roundtables
The papers presented at the 1-hour roundtables offer an added opportunity to showcase newer scholarship that, centered in sociological frameworks or through interdisciplinarity, and based on any methodologies, moves the field forward in innovative ways. Conceptually, Latina/o sociology roundtables may push forth issues impacting Latina/o/x populations, the field of Latina/o Sociology, Latina/o Studies, an emergent Latinx Studies, or any combination, as well as work with other sociological frameworks. Roundtables allow for more engagement among the panelists which is in part why they require shorter presentation times. The roundtables foster discussions on socioeconomic, migration and immigration patterns, Latinas/os’ relationship to the State, and various aspects that need not be limited to these areas: from cultural readings of Latinidad, to media, education, religion, crimmigration, labor rights, sexuality, gender and gender identity – to name a few. The Section encourages papers that do not merely mention, but focus on, Afro-Latinxs, Central Americans, Indigeneity, and works that unpack discourses of culture that simplify our experience in the United States – but even papers contesting that premise are welcome, as the Section thrives in varied discourse on the potentiality of the field.
(Session Organizer) Karen Ivette Tejada, University of Hartford; (Session Organizer) Karina Chavarria, CSU Channel Islands; (Session Organizer) Jose Atiles, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Section on Marxist Sociology
Section on Marxist Sociology Paper Session
This session is a forum for discussion and debate on new and innovative research in Marxist Sociology. We are open to submissions on all topics and perspectives within the subfield.
(Session Organizer) Kristin Plys, University of Toronto
Section on Marxist Sociology Roundtables
This regular roundtable session showcases section members’ research in-progress.
(Session Organizer) Kristin Plys, University of Toronto
Section on Mathematical Sociology
Computational and Mathematical Approaches to Qualitative and Quantitative Data (Co-sponsored by Section on Methodology)
The increasing importance of unstructured or nontraditional data, especially text, audio and video data, maps, and networks, continues to introduce new challenges for sociological methodology, including and in particular the increasing importance of integrating computational and mathematical methods with existing qualitative and quantitative methods. This panel, co-sponsored by the Section on Mathematical Sociology and the Section on Methodology, will examine the integration of computational and mathematical methods into sociology, including, but not limited to, methods to analyze fine-grained spatial observations, multimodal data (images+text), video and audio data, large-scale networks, and AI-generated text and images. We invite applied and methodological papers that explore how computational and mathematical approaches are transforming data analysis and interpretation in sociology, particularly in ways that contribute to bridging the gap between qualitative and quantitative data. The goal of the panel is to push the boundaries of contemporary research methodologies while staying grounded in our own sociological traditions.
(Session Organizer) Laura K. Nelson, University of British Columbia
Formal Models of Duality in Culture and Society (Co-sponsored by Section on Sociology of Culture)
Marking fifty years since its publication, Ron Breiger’s 1974 paper on “The Duality of Persons and Groups” continues to serve as the foundation of a lively research agenda across various fields in sociology. During the last five decades, scholars have exploited and generalized Breiger’s duality idea “beyond persons and groups” to apply to all settings featuring a dual co-constitution of entities across different orders of organization. This session, jointly sponsored by the Mathematical Sociology and Sociology of Culture Sections, seeks papers pushing Breiger’s duality idea forward both in terms of formal methodological innovation and substantive application to core issues in cultural analysis and the measurement of culture broadly conceived. These may include duality in cultural networks, fields of cultural production and consumption, cases and variables, persons and beliefs, and symbols and practices, among others. Papers seeking to move “beyond duality” both methodologically and substantively will also be considered.
(Session Organizer) Omar A. Lizardo, University of California-Los Angeles
Open Topics in Mathematical Sociology: Flash Talks Session
Parsimony, logical rigor, and substantive importance come together in Mathematical Sociology Flash Talks. This is not a typical paper session. A flash talk paper session creates many full-audience presentation opportunities within a single session. Short flash talk style presentations will be delivered to the full audience, followed by the same number of presentation-specific small group roundtable Q&A discussions. While the session format is different, the projects are the same. We invite papers and extended abstracts that use mathematics, social network analysis, and/or computational methods to advance sociological knowledge. Projects making theoretical, empirical, and/or methodological advances are all excellent fits for this session. Extended abstracts describing promising work in progress are encouraged.
(Session Organizer) John Skvoretz, University of South Florida; (Session Organizer) Lynn Smith-Lovin, Duke University
Co-sponsored session with Section on Decision-Making, Social Networks, and Society, see session details under Section on Decision-Making, Social Networks, and Society section.
Co-sponsored session with Section on Social Psychology, see session details under Section on Social Psychology section.
Section on Medical Sociology
Big Money, Erratic Policy, Incomplete Insurance: Pitfalls and Possibilities for Achieving Universal Healthcare in the U.S.
In the context of the large variety of possible arrangements for healthcare financing and organization that have been proposed and implemented across the industrialized world, the U.S. system remains the least universalistic and most expensive. Fundamentally structured by private interests and stakeholders, its current form incorporates ever-growing elements of corporate investment alongside expansive public programs and explicit limits on government regulation that together create a patchwork of usually-temporary, ever-changing coverage for diverse groups of citizens. This session welcomes sociological studies of macro aspects of the U.S. healthcare system, including the history and impacts of the organizations and interests that shape it, and its potential regulatory futures.
(Session Organizer) Tasleem Juana Padamsee, The Ohio State University
Politics and Health
This session invites papers that engage politics, broadly defined, as they relate to the many topics studied by medical sociologists. In keeping with the theme of ASA 2024, papers that explore intersectionalities and connect to hope, justice, and joy are encouraged.
(Session Organizer) Megan M. Reynolds, University of Utah
Resisting Discipline: DIY Medicine, Rogue Doctors, and Collective Empowerment
This session brings together the diverse ways that people resist institutional medicine. This includes patients and non-patients who avoid medicalization and treatment, initiate self-medication or self-care, or engage in extra-institutional experimentation or healthcare. It also includes the ways that doctors, nurses, and other healthcare practitioners challenge institutional practices, systems, or norms. We welcome papers that explore how people navigate and challenge inequities within health and medical systems through individual or collective efforts.
(Session Organizer) Michelle Hannah Smirnova, University of Missouri-Kansas City
Structural Inequalities and Health Justice
This session invites papers that consider systems, structures, ideologies, processes, and relations that contribute to the persistence of health disparities and the potential for health justice. In support of the 2024 ASA topic, papers that explore intersectionalities and themes of hope, justice, and joy are encouraged.
(Session Organizer) Evelyn Joy Patterson, Georgetown University
After Dobbs: Changed Meanings, Politics, and Practices in Reproductive Health
In 2022, in the Dobbs case, The US Supreme Court held that “the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.” This ruling has profound implications that crosscut all areas of medical sociology, from medical education to health care practices, to access to care, to health equity, and more. This session invites papers that deepen our understanding of the changed meanings, politics, and practices in reproductive health – and the prospects for reproductive justice – after Dobbs.
(Session Organizer) LaTonya Trotter, University of Washington
Medical Sociology Roundtable Session
Papers in this roundtable session will explore a diversity of medical sociology areas, from health to health care to health disparities and beyond.
(Session Organizer) Nik M. Lampe, University of South Florida; (Session Organizer) Ethan Raker, University of British Columbia; (Session Organizer) Emily Vasquez, University of Illinois-Chicago
Section on Methodology
Developments in Field-Based Methods
This session will focus on approaches to field-based methods, including observation, interviews, and even field experiments. What are some common challenges and pitfalls? How can we best overcome them? What unique features do – or can – field based methods offer? Can field based methods align with calls for a more open science? What might collaborative research offer above and beyond traditional fieldwork, conducted alone?
(Session Organizer) Bianca Manago, Vanderbilt University
Dilemmas and Advances in Survey Research
This session will focus on developments in one of sociology’s classic approaches: survey research methods. Given the proliferation of surveys and survey tools (e.g., Survey Monkey), their use for other purposes (marketing, political polls), and declining response rates, has survey research passed its prime as an important sociological tool? How is survey research being transformed in light of these new realities? How can we enhance the method to better address pressing sociological questions of today?
(Session Organizer) Catherine E. Harnois, Wake Forest University; (Session Organizer) Anthony Paik, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
Co-sponsored session with Section on Mathematical Sociology, see session details under Section on Mathematical Sociology section.
Section on Organizations, Occupations, and Work
Organizations
We invite paper submissions under the broad topic of organizations, including studies that assess their structures, norms, policies, and practices, as well as the environments in which they operate.
(Session Organizer) Daniel Hirschman, Cornell University; (Session Organizer) James Y. Chu, Columbia University
Professional and Expert Work
Papers in this session will focus on the topic of professional and expert work.
(Session Organizer) Mariana Craciun, Tulane University
The Changing Nature of Work
Papers in this session will focus on topics relating to contemporary changes and challenges in work and labor markets, such as the rise of remote work, AI, climate change, and precarious work.
(Session Organizer) Laura Adler, Yale University; (Session Organizer) Josh Seim, Boston College
Work and Labor Processes
Papers in this session will focus on work and labor processes.
(Session Organizer) Katherine Weisshaar, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; (Session Organizer) Minjae Kim, Rice University
Workplace and Occupational Inequality
Papers in this session will focus on workplace and occupational inequality.
(Session Organizer) Maria Charles, University of California-Santa Barbara; (Session Organizer) Megan Tobias Neely, Copenhagen Business School; (Session Organizer) Tiffany Y. Chow
Section on Organizations, Occupations, and Work Refereed Roundtables
(Session Organizer) Sarah Thebaud, University of California-Santa Barbara
Section on Peace, War, and Social Conflict
Open Session on Issues in Peace, War and Social Conflict
Peace, War, and Social Conflict is a vibrant and diverse area of study – bridging perspectives across multiple subfields and styles of sociological inquiry. We invite and encourage submissions dealing with any topic of interest to scholars of Peace, War, and Social Conflict for this session. New advances of substantive, theoretical, and/or methodological concerns are all encouraged.
(Session Organizer) Andrew P. Davis, North Carolina State University; (Session Organizer) Selina R. Gallo-Cruz, Syracuse University
Section on Peace, War, and Social Conflict Roundtables
(Session Organizer) Andrew P. Davis, North Carolina State University; (Session Organizer) Selina R. Gallo-Cruz, Syracuse University
Section on Political Economy of the World-System
Political Economy of the World-System Open Call for Session/Papers
This is an open call for sessions/papers to be discussed at the August 2024 meetings of the Section on Political Economy of the World-System.
(Session Organizer) Vilna Bashi, Northwestern University
Section on Political Economy of the World System Roundtables
(Session Organizer) Vilna Bashi, Northwestern University
Section on Political Sociology
Diaspora Politics (Co-sponsored by Section on International Migration)
The number of international migrants worldwide has greatly increased over the past five decades. Immigration has also become a political issue in many countries around the world – both in the West and elsewhere. At the same time, home countries realizing the economic and political importance of their diasporas have extended socioeconomic and political privileges to them to arouse loyalty and to encourage them to act as informal ambassadors in their countries of settlement. This is particularly concerning since rising religious and ethnic nationalism and authoritarianism is a recent worldwide phenomenon leading to home countries channeling ethno-nationalistic agendas through their diasporas. How do all these factors impact diaspora politics? This session will showcase the political activism of voluntary migrants, refugees, and their descendants around the world. Politics around home country issues (whether in support of or in opposition to home country governments), host country issues (e.g., around rights and recognition), around their status as a global ethnic or religious group, demands for a country of their own, or other issues are welcome.
(Session Organizer) Prema Ann Kurien, Syracuse University
New Developments in Political Sociology: Reimagining State Power
It is traditionally thought that state power consists of different dimensions — the power to coerce, to exclude and to shape consciousness. However, state power can also take different forms — the power to impose its will in its domestic territories, on foreign soils, and in the digital world — through transnational and digital repression. Instead of conducting repression directly, states can hire paid non state agents, or engage individual citizens or civil society organizations to exercise its influence. This panel intends to attract scholars to think outside the traditional construct of state power to imagine how its contours are redrawn when the state engages different types actors to exert its authority beyond the conventional boundaries.
(Session Organizer) Lynette H. Ong, University of Toronto
Politics of Artificial Intelligence (Co-sponsored by Section on Science, Knowledge, and Technology)
In October 2022, the White House released what it described as a Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights. In its opening passage, the blueprint states “Among the great challenges posed to democracy today is the use of technology, data, and automated systems in ways that threaten the rights of the American public.” Meanwhile, social scientists have started to address the role of algorithms and AI in changing power relations in the U.S. and worldwide. Much focus in these analyses is the question of government regulation or lack of regulations, and political campaigning. The goal of this panel is to initiate some conversation among sociologists about the role of AI and politics today. Some of the topics that we aim to address include Artificial intelligence (AI) governmentality, the relation and tension between the state and capital in AI, AI, democracy, and authoritarianism, the future of government and AI, AI and human political subjectivities, political ethics of AI, parties, elections and AI, domination, resistance and AI, security and violence and AI, AI and the future of political sociology and science, knowledge, and technology studies. Any theoretical and empirical works on the above themes and on analyzing AI and shaping power relations are welcomed. Submissions on global politics of AI are highly encouraged.
(Session Organizer) Atef S. Said, University of Illinois at Chicago; (Session Organizer) Paolo Parra Saiani, University of Genoa; (Presider) Laurel Smith-Doerr, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
Rise of the Far Right
This panel highlights cutting-edge research in political sociology that examines the rise of the far right in the early 21st century. We invite submissions that use a range of methodological tools to analyze various aspects of this rising tide, including—but not limited to—experimental work on the electoral gains of far-right parties; cross-national comparisons unpacking commonalities and variations in radical, right-wing social movements; ethnographies exploring the interplay between radical actors embedded in formal politics and those operating in the non-party sector; and computational text analyses revealing the discursive foundations of, or rhetorical strategies underpinning right-wing radicalism. With a particular emphasis on theoretical sophistication and empirical rigour, we aim to explore and contextualize the ascendance of the far right in the first decades of the new century and illuminate how far-right politics have affected democratic and non-democratic societies around the world.
(Session Organizer) Alessandro Giuseppe Drago, McGill University; (Session Organizer) Sakeef M. Karim, New York University; (Discussant) Martin Lukk, University of Toronto
Political Sociology Section Roundtables
(Session Organizer) Jennifer Dudley, Columbia Business School
Section on Race, Gender, and Class
Diaspora Wars: Black Ethnicities on the Rise
How do Blacks understand racial and ethnic boundaries? This panel will examine how US descendants of enslaved Africans negotiate in- and out-group members in the United States and beyond. We will also examine how immigrant Blacks, other members of the African Diaspora, and Africans on the continent make sense of different forms of Blackness as well as members of other social categories. This session will demonstrate the different ways Transnational Blacks/Africans understand their place in global White supremacy.
(Session Organizer) Chinyere Osuji, University of Maryland-College Park
Gendered Glitches: Race, Class, Gender, and Technology
This session includes research that interrogates the ways that intersecting identities and processes of domination are constructed, hampered, and bolstered by technology. Feminist theorists Ruha Benjamin, Lucy Suchman, Alondra Nelson, and Donna Haraway have centered science and technology in their work, demonstrating that technologies, broadly construed, shape both everyday life and the global political economy. In this session, presenters examine the various ways in which race, gender, and class interact with the use of technology, technological systems, and also define and structure technology itself.
(Session Organizer) Youbin Kang; (Session Organizer) Jaylexia Clark
Gendered Racial Capitalism
This session will explore how racial capitalism operates through gendered practices and ideologies.
(Session Organizer) Annie Hikido, Colby College
Intersectionality and Educational Pathways
Emerging approaches to studying students’ journeys through K-12 and higher education rely on an intersectional lens that accounts for the mutual constitution of race, gender, class, and other sociodemographic dimensions. Increasingly, this research has moved away from emphasizing “educational pipelines” to explore “educational pathways” that consider the ways available resources and opportunities come together with students’ navigational strategies and decision-making to inform unique routes to, through, and beyond educational institutions.
This session invites papers that take dynamic intersectional approaches to studying educational pathways.
(Session Organizer) Blake R. Silver, George Mason University
Race, Gender, Class, and Sexuality during Disastrous Times (Climate Crises and COVID)
This paper session will focus on race, class, gender, and sexuality during our current disastrous times, with attention to more acute events related to climate change like hurricanes, flooding, or the wildfires that we have seen in California and Hawaii but also slower moving disasters like COVID. Papers addressing the themes of environmental justice, disaster resilience, asset-based approaches, community engagement, and/or equity would be especially of interest. Papers with a U.S. or international focus are equally welcomed, and papers that clearly connect to and define disasters are especially desired.
(Session Organizer) Allen Hyde, Georgia Institute of Technology
Racial Capitalism in the Americas
The Americas is a region where white supremacy, labor exploitation, heteropatriarchy, and land dispossession have operated in conjunction and are mutually constituted. On the other hand, from The Combahee River Collective Statement to the Ley Revolucionaria de Mujeres Zapatistas, intersectional solidarities and analyses have been essential to resist and rebel against those systems of oppression. This session discusses how historical and ongoing racial capitalist violence is reproduced, legitimized, and confronted in the Caribbean, South America, Central America, and North America. We seek participants from across subfields, communities, and career stages to submit works that examine past and present cases using qualitative, quantitative, or mixed approaches.
(Session Organizer) Gerardo Rodriguez Solis, University of California Santa Barbara
Stigma and Labor: Investigating the Intersections of Race, Gender, Class
This panel invites papers that engage with how intersections of race, class, and gender interact with the value attached to various forms of labor in contemporary capitalism. While stigma has been an important theme in sociology, there has been limited understanding of the relationship between stigma and labor in capitalism. Various low-paid service jobs tend to employ racially marginalized women, who also belong to income-poor backgrounds, such as paid domestic work, janitorial work, and sex work, to name a few. How do multiple and intersecting inequalities shape the value assigned to various occupations in an economic, social, and cultural sense? How do they shape workers’ perceptions of themselves and their labor? What does the relationship between stigma and labor imply for labor organizing and approaches to solidarity? We invite papers that use ethnography, quantitative data, textual and/or literary analysis, and archival sources to illuminate this topic while focusing on varied international contexts. We especially welcome papers that engage with critical race theory, queer theory, socialist feminist, and Marxist perspectives to analyze the issue at hand.
(Session Organizer) Sonal Sharma, Johns Hopkins University
Co-sponsored session with Section on Sociology of Culture, see session details under Section on Sociology of Culture section.
Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities
Challenging Racism and Whiteness in K-12 and Higher Education: Centering Student Voices, Experiences, and Rights
Since the police officer involved killings of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and a multiracial coalition of protesters led in part by young adults seen around the world, conservative parents, state legislatures, and political operatives were reenergized by renewed political attacks on DEI efforts and the supposed “infiltration” of Critical Race Theory in K-12 and higher education. These critics posited that antiracist policies/practices or antiracist education unfairly advantage racially minoritized youth/young adults, and discriminate (or emotionally harm) their White student peers.
Local, state, and federal activities are further propelled by the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision (SFFA v. Harvard and SFFA v. UNC) to effectively prohibit consideration of race in college admissions. In the decision, Chief Justice John Roberts used colorblind logics to argue that affirmative action is akin to racial discrimination. What is missing from much of these debates and discussions are the voices, experiences, and rights of students of color.
This session aims to bring together a diverse group of scholars whose work both challenges racism and Whiteness in K-12 and higher education and centers on the voices, experiences, and rights of students of color to attain an equitable education free from the historically endemic oppressive nature of whiteness and racism that often represents a barrier to their social-emotional development/growth, quality of life, academic success, hope, and joy.
(Session Organizer) Jason L. Cummings, Loyola University Chicago; (Session Organizer) Barbara Harris Combs, Kennesaw State University
Futurities for People of Color
Often in the face of oppression, people of color both within the United States and abroad often dream about the future. Whether their dreams of the future are centered around liberation for their people, collective liberation, or simply finding joy within themselves and their communities – people of color are in a constant state of imagination and hope for the future. This panel is open to a variety of perspectives on how people of color view and attempt to shape their futures.
(Session Organizer) Aisha A. Upton-Azzam, Susquehanna University; (Session Organizer) Barbara Harris Combs, Kennesaw State University
(Im)Possibility of Collectivity: Solidarity, Cooperation, Collective Action, and Hierarchy
Many Black people continue to live in chronic poverty, which is deeply rooted in the racialized legacy of colonialism, enslavement, Jim Crow, and ongoing anti-Blackness. Despite decades of government interventions, racial equity nonprofits, and corporate racial justice initiatives, persistent racial inequalities remain unresolved.
Scholars have long argued that solidarity, cooperation, and collective action are key for Black people to not only survive, but to also break down enduring power hierarchies and racist structures. This session invites papers that explore how principles of Black cooperation and multiracial coalitions can present a more just and sustainable path forward. For example, collective models building on African-centered and Indigenous traditions may empower these communities to transform the foundational logics that make it possible for dominant systems to persist.
If solidarity is the answer, then what are the historical and current challenges? This session also invites papers that examine the social structural, institutional, and community challenges that may hinder Black collectivity. For example, how may capitalist competition and individualism create divisions, increase conflict, and reproduce racial hierarchy? Do neoliberal approaches that purport to be fair, merit-based, colorblind, and sometimes even anti-racist, reinforce the interlocking oppressions facing Black people from within and outside of their community? How may intersectional tensions within the Black community, such as class, immigration, generational gaps, heteropatriarchy, political difference, and religion present obstacles to collective visions?
(Session Organizer) Jamillah E. Bowman Williams, Georgetown University; (Session Organizer) Barbara Harris Combs, Kennesaw State University
Intersectionality, Racism, and Health
As intersectionality travels from its Critical Race Theory and Black Feminist roots into more mainstream circles it is often “flattened” and “softened.” This session will include empirical studies that understand intersectionality provides attention to power and acknowledges that studying interlocking structures of oppression and discrimination is central to doing intersectionality.
Health is shaped by multiple factors, including but not limited to race, class, gender, immigrant status, sexual orientation, and indigeneity. We seek papers that primarily address how racism intersects with other modes of domination to impact health and well-being.
We are interested in papers that utilize multiple methods (quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods, etc.), consider a variety of modes of domination (racism, colorism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, classism, etc.) and consider these determinants of health at multiple levels (individual/interpersonal, community, structural, etc.).
(Session Organizer) Gabe H. Miller, University of Alabama-Birmingham; (Session Organizer) Barbara Harris Combs, Kennesaw State University
Solidarity, the Color Line, and Backstage Racism in “Social Justice” Organizations
This session seeks to critically examine the inner work of cross-racial solidarity in organizations that espouse social justice values (e.g., social service organizations, government agencies, schools, workplaces, etc.).
The 2020 summer of racial reckoning facilitated renewed conversations about solidarity across the color line. Non-Black groups took steps to signal their commitment to dismantling anti-Blackness in the larger society and to a lesser extent, within themselves.
The 2022 Los Angeles City Council controversy reflects one prominent example of a delimited racial solidarity only in the frontstage, when a Latina council member was caught in the “”backstage”” disparaging members of the city’s Black and Indigenous communities to receptive Latinx colleagues.
This session seeks to interrogate and better understand the fragility of crossracial solidarity. Possible lines of inquiry include looking at the decoupling of racial solidarity politics from collective actions, the contradictions in racial discourse that persist in the backstage as new solidarity logics become institutionalized, and unequal treatment among (and between) the membership in diverse organizations.
(Session Organizer) Julio Ángel Alicea, Rutgers University-Camden; (Session Organizer) Barbara Harris Combs, Kennesaw State University
Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities Roundtables
(Session Organizer) Gunercindo Antoneo Espinoza, University of Minnesota at Twin Cities; (Session Organizer) Barbara Harris Combs, Kennesaw State University
Co-sponsored session with Family Section, see session details under Family Session section.
Section on Science, Knowledge, and Technology
Knowledge to Action in Times of Polycrisis
In the last two decades, the world has been facing several multifaceted and overlapping uncertainties and crises, such as global pandemics, environmental degradation, wars, social unrests, high inflation, and food insecurities. Recently, the term “polycrisis” has become increasingly popular to connote this situation that poses major intersecting challenges to both governance and everyday lived experiences in the present day. Under times of polycrisis in the 21st century, science and technology play crucial roles in both ameliorating crises and in perpetuating them.
Of particular interest to this Open Panel are theoretical, analytical, and/or empirical attempts to consider how the intersection of technoscience and society are transformed in the context of polycrisis. We are interested in papers that answer, but are not limited to:
* How do we come to conceptualize the polycrisis?
* What kind of technoscientific worlds are emerging out of these circumstances?
* What are the social processes underlying the translation of knowledge about our social world to meaningful action in response to it?
* What are the consequences of polycrisis on social inequalities? How do technosciences reproduce or remediate these consequences?
* How do / should we act in times of polycrisis?”
(Session Organizer) Janna Zou Huang, University of California – Berkeley; (Session Organizer) Paolo Parra Saiani, University of Genoa
Technoscience Will Not Save Us
Technoscientific solutions are increasingly deployed–exported, imported, and imposed upon Global South and marginalized communities as panaceas for all socioeconomic, health, and political problems. These projects often work through interacting discourses of development, innovation, and security, which reinforce (post)colonial relations of power and exacerbate deep-seated forms of social inequity across spatial boundaries in the North and South. This phenomenon is not new. But in our current era of advanced technocapitalism and its inexorable stampede towards elusive horizons of progress and inclusion, exploring multiple sites of resistance and creation is an urgent task.
We invite papers that engage in and advance SKAT conversations about the relationships between applications of technoscience, narratives of societal “progress,” and struggles for social justice/equity across diverse geographies of power. We are especially interested in papers that center post/de/anticolonial, Indigenous, Black, queer, feminist, environmental, and/or other critical epistemologies of thought to help illuminate, trace, and critique the discursive and material flows, dynamics, and politics of technoscience for the Global South and systemically marginalized communities of the Global North. We ask: How can pluri-geographical frameworks deepen our understanding of the normative ways that technoscientific developments and aims undermine, stall, or weaken efforts to fight global inequity and difference? Which groups, voices, and/or bodies get silenced, omitted, or bolstered through new (and old) practices of technoscience? What should we learn from the Global South’s engagements with sociotechnical landscapes that help engender new practices of resistance? Finally, if technoscience will not save us, what will (can)? How do critical methodologies of and experiments with technoscience from the perspective of marginalized populations complicate this STS axiom and help us engender new forms of resistance, community, and society that connect larger struggles?
(Session Organizer) Firuzeh Shokooh-Valle, Franklin and Marshall College; (Session Organizer) Oliver E. Rollins, University of Washington
Topics in Science, Knowledge, and Technology Studies
This session invites papers on any topic related to the sociology of science, knowledge and technology. We’re especially welcome papers that connect with the 2024 ASA Conference Theme of “Intersectional Solidarities: Building Communities of Hope, Justice, and Joy,” which emphasizes how sociologists “can use our understanding of intersectional inequalities and solidarities to help build a better world.”
(Session Organizer) Catherine Lee, Rutgers University-New Brunswick; (Session Organizer) Jill A. Fisher, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Section on Science, Knowledge, and Technology Roundtables
This session invites papers on any topic related to the sociology of science, knowledge and technology.
(Session Organizer) Natalie B. Aviles, University of Virginia; (Session Organizer) Jack Linzhou Xing, Georgia Institute of Technology
Co-sponsored session with Section on Political Sociology, see session details under Section on Political Sociology section.
Section on Social Psychology
Mathematical and Computational Methods in Social Psychology (Co-sponsored by Section on Mathematical Sociology)
We seek papers for a session sponsored jointly by the Mathematical Sociology and Social Psychology Sections. This session will build on the longstanding connections between the sections and explore new opportunities for further development. We invite papers that advance, extend, test, or build on existing computational and mathematically formalized theoretical models in social psychology (or introduce new models or extensions); employ mathematical and computational models and methods (including but not limited to network analysis, agent-based models, text analysis, machine learning, and mathematical modeling) to explore social psychological questions and/or theory in innovative ways; work employing unique sources of data/complex data and computational methods to explore social psychological questions and/or theory; and work that demonstrates how social psychological theory and insights may be utilized by the broader population of mathematical and computational sociologists across the discipline. We especially invite works in progress (e.g., extended abstracts) that would benefit from professional feedback.
(Session Organizer) David M. Melamed, Ohio State University
Open Topics in Social Psychology
We invite submissions that advance theory and/or empirical research in any area of sociological social psychology. The session is open to the full range of social psychological theories and methods, though papers that use innovative approaches are particularly welcome.
(Session Organizer) Christy LaShaun Erving, University of Texas-Austin
Joint Session: Social Psychology and Sociology of Emotion Roundtables
The Section on Social Psychology and Sociology of Emotions Roundtables uses the roundtable model in which multiple papers are presented at a single roundtable concurrent with other roundtables. Individual roundtables are organized around a common theme and papers are assigned to the appropriate table. Papers/Extended Abstracts on all topics in social psychology and sociology of emotions are welcome.
(Session Organizer) Jun Zhao, University of South Carolina-Columbia; (Session Organizer) Joseph M. Quinn, University of South Carolina-Columbia; (Session Organizer) Jessica Leveto, Kent State University
Section on Sociological Practice and Public Sociology
Research in Public and Applied Sociology
This session will highlight recent research in public and applied sociological settings. This includes but is not limited to substantive and methodological research conducted outside of academic environments, research with community organizations, government reports and research, and other non-academic applications of sociology. We encourage sociologists at all stages of their careers to submit research.
(Session Organizer) Caren Arbeit, RTI International
Sociological Practice and Public Sociology Roundtables
A place to discuss pressing issues in Sociological Practice and Public Sociology. May include non-academic research, job search skills, and/or networking.
(Session Organizer) Caren Arbeit, RTI International
Section on Sociology of Body and Embodiment
Embodied Pleasure and Joy in Activism (Co-sponsored by Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements)
What roles do embodied pleasure, joy and solidarity plan in creating, sustaining, and (perhaps) winning social change? This session invites papers that consider the role of embodiment, emotions or affect, and community building in activism and collective behavior. We invite creative, theoretically engaged and/or empirical studies that center the body in struggles for social justice.
(Session Organizer) Joan H. Robinson, CUNY-City College; (Session Organizer) Emily Allen Paine, Columbia University; (Discussant) Katherine Mason, Wheaton College; (Presider) Natalie Ingraham, Farmingdale State College (SUNY)
Section on Body and Embodiment: Theorizing the Body
How do theorists of the body and embodiment draw on, complement, critique and expand established theoretical perspectives in sociology? This panel brings together papers with the intention of building the canon of body and embodiment theory as well as exploring new and cutting edge approaches. Preference will be given to papers that are explicitly focused on theory building. Both sociological and interdisciplinary theories are welcome.
(Session Organizer) Asia Friedman, University of Delaware; (Session Organizer) Virginia Kuulei Berndt, Texas A&M International University; (Discussant) Madeleine Pape, University of Lausanne; (Presider) Amanda E. Fehlbaum, Youngstown State University
Section on Body and Embodiment Roundtables
(Session Organizer) Torisha Khonach, University of Nevada-Las Vegas; (Session Organizer) Lauren Clingan, Princeton University; (Session Organizer) Jinsun Yang, University of Oregon
Section on Sociology of Consumers and Consumption
Racial and Ethnic Boundaries and Consumption
Race and ethnicity shape and are shaped by consumption. This session welcomes submissions that examine how consumption intersects with race and ethnicity–for example, how consumption influences ethnoracial inequality and how consumption is used to draw racial and ethnic symbolic boundaries.
(Session Organizer) Patricia A. Banks, Mount Holyoke College; (Session Organizer) Matt Rafalow, Google; (Session Organizer) David K. Crockett, University of Illinois at Chicago; (Session Organizer) Ryan Calder, Johns Hopkins University
Section on Sociology of Consumers and Consumption Roundtables
Submissions that address theoretical and/or empirical questions related to consumers, commodities, and/or consumer markets, and engage with a larger body of research on these topics are welcome.
(Session Organizer) Patricia A. Banks, Mount Holyoke College; (Session Organizer) Matt Rafalow, Google; (Session Organizer) David K. Crockett, University of Illinois at Chicago; (Session Organizer) Ryan Calder, Johns Hopkins University
Section on Sociology of Culture
Culture and Solidarity Across Difference (Co-sponsored by Section on Race, Gender, and Class)
Audre Lorde wrote, “Our differences are polarities between which we can spark possibilities for a future we cannot even now imagine, when we acknowledge that we share a unifying vision.” The study of social difference shows us that culture shapes the politics, experiences, and outcomes of difference. However, difference can also yield new forms of culture, of bridging and interconnection through cultures of solidarity. This session draws together varied theoretical and methodological approaches and empirical cases to examine the multifold ways culture and solidarity manifest, interconnect, and act across difference.
(Session Organizer) Hajar Yazdiha, University of Southern California
Culture in Interactions
Perhaps the main legacy of Howard Becker is exposing how culture is essential to social interactions. Sociologists have developed a vast conceptual arsenal to explain how interactions among individuals unfold, including processes of labeling, role performance, schematic representation, the development of “cultural styles,” field positions, and imagined futures. Many times, however, these concepts have remained disconnected from one another. This session welcomes submissions that contribute to bridging these (and other) conceptual tools to advance current sociological debates on social interactions. Papers addressing interactions at micro-, meso- and macro-level contexts are welcome, as well as papers that make new theoretical or methodological connections between different sociological understandings of what social interactions are composed of. Papers addressing culture in interactions within global or transnational contexts are especially welcome.
(Session Organizer) Tomas Gold, University of Notre Dame
Culture in Objects
Culture is everywhere but is especially embodied in objects, from material forms to ideas and media content. The study of cultural objects has been a central agenda within cultural sociology. This panel seeks submissions that adopt various approaches to examine cultural objects, their aesthetic and physical properties, and their cultural power. Papers could explore the creation, production, and reception of cultural objects, both within a local context and on a global scale. We also welcome papers that emphasize material agency, investigating how the materiality of cultural objects shapes processes of meaning-making. Papers with an interdisciplinary approach and/or a global perspective are especially welcomed.
(Session Organizer) Jun Fang, Colby College
Culture in Organizations and Markets
How does culture shape organizations and markets, both formal and informal? Conversely, how do organizational and market contexts influence cultural practices and meaning making? For this panel, we invite empirically grounded and theoretically innovative papers that engage with these and other questions pertaining to cultural processes in markets and organizations. We welcome all studies, regardless of theoretical orientation, methodology, region, or historical period of study.
(Session Organizer) Anna Wozny, Princeton University & Tokyo College
Culture in People
Sociologists of culture have become increasingly interested in the role that the physical body—our primary interface with the social world—plays in structuring cultural experiences. At the same time, our bodies are themselves sociocultural products, continually shaped by our everyday experiences. This session welcomes submissions that contribute to sociological thinking on the role that the physical body plays in processes related to enculturation, cognition, interaction, identity, meaning making broadly construed, and perception. Papers addressing the processes through which bodies become encultured and the effects of particular life experiences on, e.g., cognition, emotions, perception, as well as those offering methodological interventions for studying the body’s role in cultural processes, are especially welcome.
(Session Organizer) Alessandra Lembo, University of Chicago
Section on Sociology of Culture Section on Sociology of Culture Roundtables
(Session Organizer) Kevin Kiley, North Carolina State University; (Session Organizer) Parker Muzzerall; (Session Organizer) Claire Sieffert
Co-sponsored session with Section on Mathematical Sociology, see session details under Section on Mathematical Sociology section.
Section on Sociology of Development
Knowing Crises: How are Ecological and Human Health Crises Understood, Framed, and Addressed?
Sociology has long been concerned with investigating the social drivers that pattern illness and injustice in human health around the world. Similarly, rapidly expanding sociological research on the human-drivers of the environment and climate change have shaped interpretations of social action in response to accelerating locally-experienced ecological threats particularly in the developing world. This panel seeks papers that empirically and/or theoretically engage with the social production of ways of knowing – understanding, framing, and intervening on – the imbricated crises of the environment and human health. We’re particularly interested in papers that explore the many tensions that such ways of knowing unveil: between local and global narratives, between ascriptions of agency between human and non-human systems, between interventions focused on the collective/political and technical, and many others.
(Session Organizer) Jonathan David Shaffer, University of Vermont; (Session Organizer) Jennifer Lai, University of Vermont
Learning from What Works in Development
Often sociology focuses on illuminating social problems in the world, which is enormously important. But sociology can also contribute to helping us find answers to those social problems by identifying the conditions under which some policies, programs, partnerships, or other social arrangements work better than others. Where are the “bright spots” in development, where despite considerable challenges, things are going relatively well? What can we learn, of both theoretical and practical importance, from such examples?
(Session Organizer) Erin Metz McDonnell, University of Notre Dame
Sociology of Development Open Topic Session
This session honors the Sociology of Development section’s commitment to intellectual inclusivity and breadth, which is written into our bylaws. This session is open to all methodological and theoretical traditions, welcoming work that is theoretical, empirical or both.
(Session Organizer) Luiz Vilaca, University of Notre Dame
Section on the Sociology of Development Roundtables
(Session Organizer) Andy Scott Chang, Singapore Management University
Section on Sociology of Education
Navigating Disability in Schools and Universities (Co-sponsored by Section on Disability in Society)
Schools and universities are typically not designed around the needs of students with disabilities. Seeking support can be challenging, and institutional responses to disability may vary by student’s background. As a collaboration between the Disability in Society and Sociology of Education sections, this session highlights the experience of disability in the educational settings of all levels. We encourage papers highlighting intersectional dimensions in the diagnosis process, interaction with educational instructors and officials, and educational outcomes.
(Session Organizer) Adrian H Huerta, University of Southern California; (Session Organizer) Kerry Michael Dobransky, James Madison University
Section on the Sociology of Education Open Paper Session
We welcome all submissions related to the Sociology of Education.
(Session Organizer) Adrian H Huerta, University of Southern California
Section on the Sociology of Education Roundtables
(Session Organizer) Adrian H Huerta, University of Southern California
Co-sponsored session with Section on Disability in Society, see session details under Section on Disability in Society section.
Section on Sociology of Emotions
Advances in the Sociology of Emotions
This session will explore cutting edge research in the sociology of emotions.
(Session Organizer) Marci D. Cottingham, Kenyon College
Co-sponsored session with Section on Social Psychology, see session details under Section on Social Psychology section.
Section on Sociology of Human Rights
Sociology of Human Rights
This open panel on human rights aims to bring together papers that address ongoing or past human rights issues of sociological concern. We welcome papers that address the social structures, relations, and practices that will most fully support the realization of human rights and social justice in the world. We welcome papers that examine these issues in domestic or global context and from any methodological approach.
(Session Organizer) Marie E. Berry, University of Denver
Section on Sociology of Human Rights Roundtables
Human rights are being challenged in many contexts across the globe. At the same time, movements for justice, rights, and democracy have flourished in recent years. This session invites papers (including works-in-progress) that address issues related to human rights and social justice in general, from any time period or geographic context. Our session will allow for roundtable presentations and supportive feedback, as well as for an opportunity connect with other sociologists working on these essential topics.
(Session Organizer) Marie E. Berry, University of Denver
Section on Sociology of Indigenous Peoples and Native Nations
(Global) Indigenous Theories, Methods, and Knowledge Production
In this session, we seek papers that examine how the origins, intentions, and continuity of Indigenous knowledge production are used to make sense of Indigenous worlds on their own terms and/or are used to navigate worlds beyond, including futures not yet realized. We are interested in papers that engage Indigenous worldviews on issues big and small, including but not limited to examples that illustrate how knowledge production is a site for theorizing, methodological interventions, and building solidarities. We welcome papers from all sociological traditions and subfields.
(Session Organizer) Theresa Rocha Beardall, University of Washington
Section on the Sociology of Indigenous Peoples and Native Nations Roundtables
(Session Organizer) Theresa Rocha Beardall, University of Washington
Section on Sociology of Law
Empirical Approaches to Critical Race Theory
For decades, Critical Race Theory–a perspective that examines how the law and legal authority writ large are shaped by race–has been a major interdisciplinary force, in sociology, legal scholarship, and beyond. In this panel, sociologists of law will explore the relationship between law and race drawing upon various types of empirical research.
(Session Organizer) Monica C. Bell, Yale University; (Session Organizer) Amy Elizabeth Jones Haug, University of Kentucky
Socio-Legal Approaches to Corruption and Other Abuses of Power
In the last thirty years, political and economic corruption has emerged as a major concern of the international community, a central claim in political campaigns of aspiring leaders around the world, and a reason why thousands of people rise in protest against their governments. Surprisingly, despite this increasing importance of corruption, as a legal and political claim and as a reflection of localized meanings of legality, it has received only cursory consideration from sociologists of law. Papers in this session fill this gap by exploring corruption-related processes in the United States and around the world through a socio-legal lens. These papers demonstrate that core socio-legal theories, ranging from theories of legal consciousness to theories of legal mobilization and disputing, are uniquely well-positioned to shed light on various abuses of power.
(Session Organizer) Marina Zaloznaya, University of Iowa
Sociology of Law Open Paper Topics Session
This session is a broad, truly open session for anyone who is using a sociological lens to write about law. Law includes numerous important social phenomena: statutes, court cases, government policies, police, other bureaucrats, concepts of legality or illegality, movements for changes in the law, and more. Sociologists often underestimate how central law is in their work, and this panel will hopefully be an opportunity to broaden the usual lens.
(Session Organizer) Monica C. Bell, Yale University
Section on Sociology of Law Roundtables
(Session Organizer) Monica C. Bell, Yale University
Section on Sociology of Mental Health
Current Research in Mental Health and Society
In this open paper session, we seek current research on mental health and society.
(Session Organizer) Teresa L. Scheid, University of North Carolina-Charlotte; (Presider) Eric R. Wright, Georgia State University
Section on Sociology of Population
Demography of Parents, Children, and Intergenerational Relationships (Co-sponsored by the Family Section)
Children’s and parents’ experiences in families have important implications for population outcomes such as birth rates, the intergenerational transmission of inequality, the formation of racial identity, the incorporation of children of immigrants, and the health of older adults. Papers in this session will take a demographic perspective on these and other processes related to parents, children, and intergenerational relationships. Submissions taking account of diversity and variation in family relationships are particularly welcome.
(Session Organizer) Christine M. Percheski, Northwestern University
Diverging Political Contexts and Population Processes
Politics and policy have important impacts on population health and population processes through mechanisms such as public investments in health; restriction of abortion and contraception; access to education; structural racism and structural sexism; hostile policies towards LGBTQ populations; immigration regulations; and more. Papers in this session will explore the impact of policy and political context on a range of population outcomes. Comparative work across states or countries is welcome.
(Session Organizer) Elizabeth Ackert, University of California-Santa Barbara
Intersectional Approaches in the Sociology of Population
The theory of intersectionality elucidates how various forms of oppression interact in complex ways to produce particularized forms of social oppression and inequities. While this critical theoretical framework has been used widely in sociology and other disciplines, the utilization of intersectional approaches to understand population processes is relatively new. This session explores novel methods, data, and applications that center intersectional theoretical approaches to population by focusing on power and interlocking forms of structural inequity.
(Session Organizer) Tyson H. Brown, Duke University
Sociology of Population Section Roundtables
Submissions on all topics within the sociology of population are welcome.
(Session Organizer) Christie Sennott, Purdue University; (Session Organizer) Kiana Kristine Wilkins, Rice University
Section on Sociology of Religion
Global Religion and Nonreligion
This session welcomes all submissions on global religion and nonreligion. Submissions can be global or cross-national in approach and/or focus on specific contexts around the world.
(Session Organizer) Eman Abdelhadi, University of Chicago
Open Session in the Sociology of Religion
This session welcomes all sociology of religion submissions.
(Session Organizer) Jelani I. Ince, University of Washington
Religion and Sexualities
This session welcomes all papers at the intersection of religion and sexualities.
(Session Organizer) Jonathan Coley, Oklahoma State University
Section on Sociology of Religion Roundtables
(Session Organizer) Jacqui Frost, Purdue University; (Session Organizer) Galen Ing Watts, University of Waterloo
Section on Sociology of Sex and Gender
Open Topic Paper Session on Sex and Gender
(Session Organizer) Shantel Gabrieal Buggs, Florida State University; (Session Organizer) Erika Busse-Cárdenas, Macalester College; (Session Organizer) Jordan Conwell, University of Texas-Austin; (Session Organizer) Carla A. Pfeffer, Michigan State University; (Session Organizer) Chaitanya Lakkimsetti, Texas A&M University-College Station; (Session Organizer) Smitha Radhakrishnan, Wellesley College; (Session Organizer) Jennifer Randles, California State University-Fresno
Section on Sociology of Sex and Gender Roundtables
(Session Organizer) Shantel Gabrieal Buggs, Florida State University; (Session Organizer) Erika Busse-Cárdenas, Macalester College; (Session Organizer) Jordan Conwell, University of Texas-Austin; (Session Organizer) Carla A. Pfeffer, Michigan State University; (Session Organizer) Chaitanya Lakkimsetti, Texas A&M University-College Station; (Session Organizer) Smitha Radhakrishnan, Wellesley College; (Session Organizer) Jennifer Randles, California State University-Fresno
Section on Sociology of Sexualities
Asexual and Aromantic Perspectives in Society
This panel highlights perspectives of asexual and/or aromantic people whose relationships to sex, romance, and/or families challenge compulsory sexuality and amatonormativity. As sociology shines a brighter spotlight on sexual practices and embodied sexualities, what can we learn about sexual regimes from those whose orientations trouble common assumptions about sexual and/or romantic attraction? How does the rise in asexual and aromantic vocabularies challenge sociological methodologies and paradigms? In what ways are asexual and/or aromantic people marginalized by systems such as sexuality, family, work, medicine, and education? What tensions and cohesions characterize the relationship between asexual and/or aromantic collective identities and larger LGBTQ+ communities? We especially encourage submissions that emphasize what asexual and aromantic perspectives reveal about the intersections of social inequalities tied to sexuality, race, gender, disability, migration, and class.
(Session Organizer) Brittney Miles, University of Cincinnati; (Session Organizer) Canton Winer, Northern Illinois University
Changing Legalities and Responses to Sexualities
The law has historically structured sexuality in myriad ways, yet today we are seeing a host of new laws and policies aimed at controlling and even eliminating queer and non-heteronormative sexualities–a marked reversal from many of the legal advances made by LGBTQ+ people in recent decades. Taking this as a backdrop, this panel explores how sexual communities navigate and respond to these changing legalities. We invite submissions that interrogate how law and other systems of authority continue to structure sexuality, how sexuality structures these institutions, and how such repressive laws, policies, and institutions may engender new possibilities and solidarities for gender and sexual expression and action. How do marginalized sexual citizens encounter law and other institutional systems of authority (e.g., medical, policing, sociocultural)? How are different sociodemographic groups impacted by legal and sociopolitical sexuality restrictions? What methods, strategies, and knowledges are used within communities for resisting multi-level oppression? Papers using all methods and theoretical approaches and that cover any geographic area will be considered, though we particularly encourage submissions using intersectional and transnational frames and those that foreground the experiences of Black, Indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC) as well as transgender, non-binary, agender, intersex, neurodivergent and other gender-expansive people throughout the world.
(Session Organizer) Megan E. Brooker, The University of Alabama at Birmingham; (Session Organizer) Ryan DeCarsky, University of Washington, Seattle; (Session Organizer) Stefan Vogler, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Sex, Sexualities, and Technologies
Technological advancements have changed the possibilities of sexual lives and sexual access. In addition to sexual devices that have opened new avenues for sexual exploration and experimentation, digital platforms, virtual realities, and social apps (e.g., Tinder, Hinge, Grindr, etc.) have created the possibilities for mobilizing various sexual communities and building accessibility. Simultaneously, shifting technological outcomes have created surges of bots, AI-generated revenge porn, digital surveillance, and increasing global and local inequalities. For this panel, we seek papers that explore any of the interconnections between ethics, material and digital technologies, and sexualities. What do developing material and virtual technologies mean for sexualities and sex? What are the ethics surrounding technology and sexuality? We are particularly interested in papers that examine disability, racialization, globalization, and the interconnections of these topics with technology and sexuality. We seek papers that use intersectional and transnational frames, and we especially encourage papers foregrounding the experiences of Black, Indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC) as well as transgender, non-binary, agender, intersex, and other gender-expansive people throughout the world.
(Session Organizer) Carlo Handy Charles, University of Windsor; (Session Organizer) Kenneth Hanson, University of Wyoming; (Session Organizer) Thao Phuong Nguyen, Boston University
Sociology of Sexualities Roundtables
(Session Organizer) Yang Vincent Liu, Michigan State University; (Session Organizer) Michelle Gomez Parra, The University of California, Santa Cruz; (Session Organizer) Brandon James Moore, The Ohio State University
Section on Teaching and Learning in Sociology
Sociological Approaches to Social Justice Pedagogies
How do sociologists approach teaching about, or teaching with, social justice perspectives? What is the collective responsibility of those who teach sociology to help their students learn about or develop a mindset based on principles of justice, equity, and activism? Teacher-scholars are invited to submit papers which discuss their research, techniques, and ideas related to teaching using (or teaching about) anti-racist, anti-colonialist/decolonized, feminist, queer, intersectional and other anti-oppressive pedagogical approaches; how they facilitate equity, belonging, and accessibility for their students; or theoretical or pedagogical approaches that emphasize collaboration, reciprocity, and intersectionality.
(Session Organizer) Danielle Denardo, Soka University of America; (Session Organizer) Ann M. Beutel, University of Oklahoma; (Presider) Victoria E Rankin, University of North Carolina-Charlotte; (Presider) Amanda May Jungels, University of Chicago; (Discussant) Victoria E Rankin, University of North Carolina-Charlotte
“Sociologists May Approach with Caution”: ChatGPT and AI in the Classroom
This session seeks to address the pedagogical, ethical, and equity questions that arise when we consider the use of ChatGPT and other generative AI tools in the sociology classroom. We invite papers and extended abstracts which consider the logistics of teaching in an era of ChatGPT and AI, which consider the possibility of AI as a tool for teaching and learning sociology (e.g., innovative assignments or course policies that seek to use ChatGPT in productive ways), or that require students to consider the ethical and equitable uses of AI.
(Session Organizer) Evan Cooper, SUNY-Farmingdale; (Session Organizer) Sara F. Mason, University of North Georgia; (Presider) Benjamin Gallati, Indiana University; (Discussant) Matthew Howard McLeskey, SUNY-Oswego; (Discussant) Rick Moore, Washington University-St Louis
Theory Section
Rethinking, Extending, or Transcending the Canon in Sociological Theory
In recent years, the place of the canon in sociology has been a subject of debate within departments across the country and in disciplinary journals. This panel examines this question of whether and how the “canon” should be revised, including in the development of curricula and how we engage with canonical theory in our research. Some have advocated abandoning the canon, while others advocate reconstructing the canon by including traditionally marginalized classical theorists. Others suggest that there are important advantages to retaining the canon, with a critical and historically contextualized eye. Submissions can be full papers, abstracts, or reflections on experiences grappling with this issue in either teaching or research. All submissions should foreground the perspective that you will bring to this issue as part of the panel. We welcome contributions from marginalized traditions about whether sociology should have a theoretical canon and what it should look like.
(Session Organizer) Michael A. McCarthy, Marquette University; (Session Organizer) Margaret Frye, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
The Boundaries Between Theoretical and Empirical in Sociological Writing
This panel will engage with best practices, pitfalls, and varying approaches to incorporating data and empirical evidence into theoretical writing. Some of the most prominent theoretical texts rest on empirical foundations, but theory publication is often subject to unspoken rules and norms which lead to papers being deemed “atheoretical” or “too empirical.” Different kinds of empirical evidence can be incorporated more or less easily into theoretical writing, leading some forms of research to be commonly understood as more theoretical. We welcome submissions from writers, reviewers, and editors of theory. Submissions can take the form of papers, abstracts, or reflections on best practices.
(Session Organizer) Margaret Frye, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor; (Session Organizer) Shai M. Dromi, Harvard University
Theory and The World’s Problems: Perspectives on Using Sociology to Create Change
From the beginning of our discipline, many sociologists, including Marx, Addams, and DuBois, have worked to theorize the world in order to change it. New generations of sociologists are looking back to these examples and proposing new paths forward for bringing sociological theorizing to bear on the world’s problems. This panel will examine the theoretical foundations that these various approaches rest upon, as well the successes and failures of their efforts. To what extent are different approaches to engaging in the world based on different models of action and relevant to different kinds of problems? What blind spots remain in our theorizing, and what critical problems have been undertheorized within our discipline? What is the role of theory at the intersection of sociology and social change?
(Session Organizer) Margaret Frye, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor; (Session Organizer) Monica Prasad, Johns Hopkins University
Theory Section Roundtable Session
(Session Organizer) Peter Ore, University of Arizona; (Session Organizer) Matthew Howard McLeskey, SUNY-Oswego; (Session Organizer) Veda Hyunjin Kim, Ohio Wesleyan University
