Call | Territories: Cities an Countryside

Call for papers | Territories: Cities an Countryside

Coordinators:

Carlos Fortuna [FE-UC ]

Luís Baptista [FCSH-UNL ]

Manuel Carlos Silva [UMinho ]

Territorial transformations, resulting from emerging social, economic and political dynamics, arise and are associated with a recognized identity effervescence that is reflected on several scales. From the street to the neighborhood; from the city to the metropoles; from the village to the tourist resort, a whirlwind of changes affects the urban world and the rural world in varied proportions but always on intense way. As never before, the world is now the penetrating social life of those who live, work or visit the various places under change.

Both the present and the future of our cities and fields continue to claim an urgent and critical sociological view. The futures of contemporary Portugal are now being designed in the country´s rural and urban areas. Therefore, it is important to analyze (i) the vitality and shortcomings of their economic and social structures; (ii) the (re)compositions of social classes and other social categories; (iii) the worlds of work and organizations; (iv) sociabilities as well as family models; (v) the values, daily life and lifestyles; (vi) social representations and cultural worldviews.

Open to the internal debate, this Thematic Area opens to a huge variety of objects, such as those cross-cutting today’s urban and rural realities and their ongoing changes. So, we accept proposals for communication and posters on issues related to

• rural and urban territories, as constraints and opportunities for action and places of various material and symbolic appropriations;
• social actors: classes, social groups and individuals in rural and urban contexts, involved in practices of social change and renewal of mentalities in view of the presence and reception of several "others";
• economy, policy and governance: city formation, economic groups and the role of the State and municipalities; public space and citizenship; social movements and social participation in situ; multi-inter-culturality;
• politics and cultural action: contexts of production and cultural circulation: associations and clubs; new urban events;
• appreciation of places and intercity competition; urban tourism and rural tourism; the city of festivals; discourses and new narratives;
• heritage and urban and rural rituals: daily life, ways of life and (co)experiences; sociabilities, interactions and group identities;
• planning and management of territories: conflicts and social cohesion; urban infrastructure (housing, transport and social equipment), (sub-)urbanization, urban and inter-urban mobility;
• rural-urban: from resistance processes and/or adaptation to the revaluation and reinvention of ruralities and urbanities in view of local and regional development and social well-being.

In this way, we invite the sending of proposals abstracts of investigations located in academic and non-academic context in response to this call.

Posters and visual documents such as short films focused on projects or interventions will be accepted. Proposals, should be formulated showing their theoretical framework, objectives, methodologies used, diagnosis, results and conclusions.