WSF Conference 2017

Deadline for abstract submission is September 30, 2016

Download here: Call for papers

How can development occur in the face of mounting global inequalities and the rapid depletion of the world’s resource base? Innovative approaches are needed to better understand recent trends in the distribution of wealth, income and opportunities in the capitalist world economy, and more fully comprehend the availability, use, and governance of resources. Original ideas are equally needed to gain insights into the transformative politics that might help to address the tensions and possible trade-offs between inequality reduction and sustainability. Co-organized by IBEI, the World Society Foundation (WSF), and the Sociology of Development Section of the American Sociological Association (ASA), this conference invites scholars, practitioners and policy-makers to explore new directions for analyzing these pressing challenges and identify the kinds of institutions, policies, and collective action that are (or would be) necessary for achieving the reduction of global inequalities in a sustainable manner. Throughout the conference, there will be keynote plenary panels that engage and move forward debates on the following topics:

• Sustainable Development and Global Inequalities: Inequality of what, between whom, and why? What is sustained, for whom, and why?
  
• Finance, Sustainable Development, and Inequality: What are the implications of the “financial turn”? What inequalities does it reduce, reinforce or create?
  
• Natural Resources, Sustainability, and Inequality: What (could) make large- scale resource extraction and land acquisition sustainable?
  
• Beyond Institutions? Rethinking the Politics of Development: What kinds of politics “work” to reduce inequality and ensure sustainability?

In addition to the plenary sessions, the conference will consist of parallel paper sessions on a wide range of topics. There will also be ample opportunities for informal conversations at conference receptions and scheduled meals. There is no fee for registration. The WSF provides funding for 30 hospitality grants, which will cover conference travel and accommodation (three nights) and will be awarded to the most outstanding abstracts/draft papers, though with a strong affirmative action policy for paper submissions by graduate students as well as scholars from institutions located in the Global South or the periphery of Europe. We welcome original work from all scholars, including academics, organizers and policy-makers on any topic related to development. The following themes will guide the selection of abstracts, although we are open to all unpublished work on international development:

• Population Dynamics, Inequality, and Sustainability
• Global Hierarchies of Wealth
• Gender and Development
• Climate Change and Inequality
• The Political Economy of Land Grabs
• The Geopolitics of Energy
• Development, Conflict, and War
• Food Sovereignty, Inequality, and Sustainability
• Ethnic Politics and Development
• Global Commodity Chains and their Governance
• New Directions in Industrial Policy and Environmental Change
• The Developmental Consequences of Recent Political Revolutions
• New Social Movements and the Capitalist World Economy
• Democracy, Mobilization, and Inequality Reduction
• Resource Nationalism and Development

The organizing committee will develop sessions based on the pool of submissions it receives and group related papers into thematically connected panels.

August 31, 2016: Deadline for submitting abstracts. Please send a 300 word paper abstract to barcelona2017development@gmail.com

September 30, 2016: The organizing committee will give notification of acceptance for abstracts.

December 15, 2016: Deadline for scholars who wish to be considered for a hospitality grant. Please submit a draft paper (8,000-10,000 words) based on your accepted abstract to barcelona2017development@gmail.com

January 31, 2017: The organizing committee will send out the initial program and notify recipients of the 30 hospitality grants. Authors whose abstracts were accepted but whose papers was not chosen for a hospitality grant or who decided not to submit a paper draft are strongly encouraged to attend the conference based on other travel funds available to them.

Please check for updates at http://globalinequalitiesconference.weebly.com/.

• Fulya Apaydin (IBEI)
• Matthias vom Hau (IBEI)
• Samuel Cohn (Texas A&M University)
• Christian Suter (Université de Neuchâtel)
• Brian Dill (University of Illinois)

The main sponsor of the conference is the World Society Foundation (Zurich, Switzerland). In addition the conference is supported by the Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals (IBEI) and the the Sociology of Development Section of the American Sociological Association (ASA).