Final text

The authors of the communications presented at the XI Portuguese Congress of Sociology, “Heated identities: differences, belongings and populism in an effervescent world” that took place from 29 to 31 March 2021, can now submit the text for publication.

Please read the submission instructions carefully.

Due to the evolution of the present situation of the pandemic the organising Committee has come to the conclusion that the necessary conditions have not been gathered for the XI Congress to take place in the previously set dates of June 29th to 1st of July.

The Congress will now take place between the 29th and 31st of March.

The already submitted proposals and the evaluation results will stand as is.

The submission of new abstracts will be now possible until October 20th.

Considering the postponement to next year may be reflected, in some cases, if an author needs to update their data or information, it is now possible to have a replacement of an already accepted abstract. If an already accepted abstract id replaced it will be subject to evaluation.

The APS board thanks you for your understanding.

Despite all the setbacks, we hope to carry through the dynamics and success of previous editions to this one, and for that, we are counting on your collaboration.

Presentation

General Call of the Conference:

Call for Papers (PDF)

Equality and difference are dilemmatic dimensions of contemporary times.

The increase of inequalities and their multidimensional and cumulative nature have instigated struggles for redistribution, with varying orientations, tones, and contours, but whose main purpose is the search for (greater) equality. The domination and deprivation associated with inequalities have also constituted an inexhaustible source for sociological knowledge, from its early foundation days as a social science to the latest indictments of critical sociology.

Simultaneously, we also observe contrasting social dynamics that are anchored in the defence of respect for differences, materializing in struggles for cultural and/or identity recognition. Here, an accumulated sociological legacy has also contributed to the knowledge and understanding of the complex logics underlying the social production of itself and its modes of belonging.

Today, the issues surrounding identities are an effervescent topic, for reasons which don’t always coincide. On one hand, increasing legitimacy is given to experiences and paths that were once silenced and made invisible, and which now seek to gain and exercise the right to speak of themselves, on their own terms, in the public sphere. On the other hand, we witness a resurgence of incommunicating differences and exclusion, evidencing that history is not teleological or a one-way route, as crossroads and bifurcations appear in it, prompting regressions that present themselves as increasingly popular and miraculous solutions.

The fine analysis of the social anchoring of the production of identities allows us to reveal how ways of acting, thinking, and feeling are forged, through the different social interactions, in accordance with the weights and counterweights of class, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, age... It also motivates the need to overcome a current of thought that is lacking and averse to complexity, transits, and intermittences, usually expressed through artificial binary pairs, demanding mediation between the intricate and plural social folds.

It is important to determine the extent to which, in practice, a communicating multivocality – that is, a universal culture of recognition and translation of differences, of coexistence among equals – and its representatives and protagonists exist, since only difference creates relations, only it allows, by a shared singularity, to find bridges and build communities. To this end, it is crucial to incorporate the practical awareness of intersectionality and the modalities and metamorphoses through which, as Nancy Frazer proposes, economic, cultural, and political injustices intersect, combining the need for policies of redistribution, recognition of difference, and representation.

In parallel, we witness the reactivation of realist identities, based on ideologies of purity and firmly rooted in beliefs of social closure. Some of these movements openly proselytize exclusion and hatred, often resorting to violence, and have gained increasing support, to the point of colonizing state institutions, political parties, and respected international bodies, nourished by the social vulnerability of growing social fringes.

Both tendencies – emancipatory and of domination – today shape the processes of globalization and invite the study and debate of their differences, as well as their overlapping areas.

To discover the configurations of contemporary identity processes, in their confrontations and complexity, is the goal of the XI Portuguese Congress of Sociology, titled Heated identities: differences, belonging, and populisms in an effervescent world, which will online, March 29 through March 31, 2021, under the local organization of ESPP/ISCTE-IUL and ICS-ULisboa.