The Challenge to Global Social Inquiry: inclusion, exclusion, and participation
Date: 18th November 2005
Venue: European Research Institute, University of Birmingham
The increasing globalisation of social research is creating new problems of research that require innovative solutions. This occurs at a time of fundamental re-ordering in disciplinary social science, when a generic and interdisciplinary social science (with common methods applied to social problems) is challenging pre-existing disciplinary formations. The increasingly cross-cultural nature of social inquiry is also opening up areas of commonality in approach with the studies of culture and community developed within the humanities. The 'democratisation' of the research process and calls for research subjects to have a voice within the research process have challenged traditional epistemologies of social science and their associated methodologies.
This conference will address the frequently polarised arguments concerning the relationship between social theory and social inquiry. It does so in the context of public concerns about the role of science and the operation of expertise within democratic and increasingly globalised societies. National social science must also be global social science and national problems set in an international and comparative context. To this end, the conference focuses on four panels:
1) disciplines: a limit to global social inquiry?
2) subjects or objects: power, participation and social inquiry
3) secularism: a necessary condition for social inquiry?
4) national social science: a limit to global social inquiry?
Speakers
| Peter Taylor | University of Loughborough |
| Ian Diamond | Economic and Social Research Council |
| Ratna Kapur | Centre for Feminist Legal Research |
| Adam Seligman | Boston University |
| Greg McLennan | Boston University |
| Max Steuer | London School of Economics |
| Steve Fuller | University of Warwick |
| Jeffrey Alexander | Yale University |
Course Outline (Programme)
Friday 18th November
| 9:30 - 11:00am | National social science: a limit to global social inquiry?
Peter Taylor, Professor of Geography (University of Loughborough) Chair: Jennifer Platt |
| 11:00 - 11:30am | Coffee break |
| 11:30 - 1:00pm | Subjects or objects: power, participation and social inquiry Ratna Kapur, Professor of Law and Director of the Centre for Feminist Legal Research, New Delhi Chair: Sue Scott |
| 1:00 - 2:00 | Lunch |
| 2:00 - 3:30pm | Secularism: a necessary condition for social inquiry?
Adam Seligman, Professor of Religion (Boston University) Chair: Gurminder K. Bhambra |
| 3:30 - 4:00pm | Coffee break |
| 4:00 - 5:45pm | Disciplines: a limit to global social inquiry? Max Steuer, Reader Emeritus in Economics (London School of Economics) Chair: John Holmwood Summing Up Jeffrey Alexander, Professor of Sociology (Yale University) - to be confirmed |
| 5:45pm | Drinks reception Hosted by sociologypress to mark its relaunch as part of Cavendish Publishing |
Location
The seminar will be held at:
University of Birmingham
Conference Room, European Research Institute
Pritchatts Road
Duration
Friday 09:30am – 5 :45pm
Contact
Email: John Holmwood j.holmwood@sussex.ac.uk or Gurminder K. Bhambra g.k.bhambra@sussex.ac.uk
Attendance is limited to eighty participants.