Swiss Sociological Association (SSA) 2024 Congress, September 9 to 11, 2024 o

Call for Papers – Vulnerable Societies: Risks and Responses
Congress of the Swiss Sociological Association 2024
University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland, Basel (Muttenz), September 9-11, 2024
To say that we live in times of uncertainty seems like a sociological truism. However, in recent times, societies around the world have been shaken by an extraordinary accumulation of acute and persistent crises and catastrophes with global repercussions, including the COVID-19 pandemic; the war in the Ukraine; the accelerating effects of climate change manifest in heat waves, droughts, and floods; disruptions of supply chains and energy shortages; and the massive resurgence of hunger and food insecurity, to name but a few. Each of these crises presents major social, political, economic, and ecological challenges in themselves. Taken together, they generate a heightened sense of overall vulnerability. Against this backdrop, “vulnerability” has become a popular term in professional, public and political discourses. It is associated with a wide range of physical, social, economic, and cultural conditions and not only applied to human actors but to technical, ecological, economic, political, and societal systems alike. Beyond its descriptive function the term is most often also used prescriptively. Diagnosing vulnerability is inevitably linked to moral and political calls to action to prevent and redress harm and social injustices. To identify a social group as vulnerable implies a special need for protection and support; fragility in systems necessitates stabilizing and preventive measures in the long run. Debates on vulnerability thus comprise its opposites like resilience, adaptation, robustness, preparedness, security, risk management etc.

CfP_Vulnerable Societies_E
CfP_Sociétés vulnérables_F
CFP_Vulnerable Gesellschaften_D