Collective Behavior and Social Movements Section of the American Sociological Association

Call for Papers
Humanity & Society Special
Issue: “Foodways and Inequality: Toward a Sociology of Food Culture and Movements”
Guest Editors: Kaitland M. Byrd (Virginia Tech) and W. Carson Byrd (University of Louisville)

Foodways exist as key sources of cultural capital, and the rising quest for distinction within foodways has led to the proliferation of restaurants and chefs claiming authenticity (Johnson and Baumann 2010). Although the cultural dimension of foodways dominates the literature there is also extensive research on the prevalence of hunger and obesity throughout the United States (Poppendieck 1999, 2011). While a definition of foodways can vary between scholars and academic disciplines, we define foodways as the choices and meanings behind what people eat. Using this conceptualization we can gain a better understanding of how sociological perspectives can elucidate connections between people and food such as the formation of varying food movements, differing forms of inequality, the politics that infiltrate foodways and craft the connection between what people eat, and how people identify themselves through the consumption of specific foodways and food products (e.g., southern barbeque). The sociological study of foodways provides insight into broader processes such as how inequality functions around social movements, the connection between identity, memory, and consumption, and the politics behind the production and consumption of cultural products fundamental for survival. While a multitude of studies have examined the role of foodways in creating cultural distinctions and exploring the increasing problem of hunger, there is a lack of research focusing on the sociological implications of foodways and food movements. The extant focus on food insecurity and elite consumption is too narrow of a lens of social inequality – leaving a large portion of society unexamined. This special issue seeks to remedy this scenario.

The underlying goal of this proposed issue is to highlight research on foodways and inequality grounded in sociological theories emphasizing the breadth of food as an important facet of everyday life across multiple research areas. The scholarship we will include examine various relationships among foodways, food movements, and social inequality. These areas will include, but are not limited to the following areas of research:

• Social inequality in/and food movements
• The effects of food movements on local/global foodways
• Comparisons of the prevalence of food movements across place, gender, and race
• Comparative research on how alternative foodways (e.g. Indigenous) negotiate external pressures from food movements and initiatives
• Farming efforts to preserve non-GMO seeds and farming practices
• Theoretical contributions to understanding foodways and food movements sociologically
• Comparative research on food movements as social movements both locally and globally
• Farmer’s markets as sites of alternative food movements and perpetuating sites of inequality
• Identity politics and food

Please submit abstracts (preferably as Microsoft Word documents), no longer than 500 words, to Kaitland M. Byrd (kmp009@vt.edu) or W. Carson Byrd (wcarson.byrd@louisville.edu) by August 1, 2016. Contributors should note that this call is open and competitive. Additionally, submitted papers must be based on original material not under consideration by any other journal or publication outlet. Authors will be notified of the editors’ decisions no later than September 1, 2016. Papers accepted for further consideration for inclusion in this special issue will go through the same review process as normal journal submissions. The invited papers will be due to the editors by November 1, 2016.

Call for Abstracts: Rethinking Working Class Self-Organization Beyond Unions, Parties, NGOs, and the State

IMMANUEL NESS, Brooklyn College CUNY, USA, manny.ness@gmail.com
ROBERT OVETZ, SAN JOSE STATE UNIVERSITY, USA, rfovetz@riseup.net

The Journal of Labor & Society, in it’s 21st year, is issuing a call for
the special issue “Workers Beyond Unions, Parties, NGOs, and the State?”
to rethink how workers organize and struggle. Co-edited by Robert Ovetz,
Ph.D., a political science lecturer San Jose State University, and
Gifford Hartman, an independent San Francisco, USA based scholar, the
issue seeks submissions from scholars, organizers, and activists
critically reexamining the multiplicity of forms of class struggle
outside of and inside unions, parties, NGOs, and the state happening
around the world.

The rapidly declining power and influence of unions are source of great
concern. Their coninuous decline have presented both a threat and an
opportunity. As the number of contingent workers explodes and union
density worldwide remains stagnant or declines, the effort of workers to
self-organize continues to grow. The absence or weakness of unions does
not mean the absence of class struggle. Freed of the contract, workers
are engaging in short, sharp disruptive direct action and strikes to
shift the balance of power on the shopfloor and in the community. But
these actions are often ad hoc, locally focused and unsustainable.
Despite these limitations, workers are finding new ways to self-organize
on the shopfloor and circulate their efforts throughout the social
factory. The composition of capital’s power over the past 40 years has
been a continual effort to respond to the dynamic recomposition of
working class struggle.

This issue would explore what working class recomposition looks like by
examining case studies of efforts to devise new tactics and strategies of
self-organization. Ideally, this issue will include critical analyses of
a diversity of self-organized workers struggles from several critical
regions. Among the struggles that could be potentially covered would be
the following:

Brazilian Landless Workers Movement’s efforts to seize land and build a
parallel social system
Spainish workers blocking evictions and foreclosures
Mexican workers seizure of an entire neighborhood to reorganization of
it into an autonomous community
Bolivian miners, coca growers, and street sellers in El Alto who formed
community councils that shut down the entire country in the early 2000s
and propelled the MAS into power
Latin American women struggling over the Bolsa Família social wage in
Brazil, Bolivia, and Venezuela
Industrial workers and miners in India, China, and South Africa who
bypass established unions to self-organize their own wildcat strikes
Kurdish workers self-organized local governance and militias in Rojava,
Syria during the civil war
Wildcat strikes in Egypt during the Arab Spring
Union backed service workers in the US who have been organizing to
disrupt production, protest contingency, and raise wages without seeking
to collectively bargain
Wildcat strikes by logistics workers (eg, truckers, longshore,
warehouse, etc.) and public employees
European anti-austerity movements

Why This Issue is Important

The focus of this issue of the Journal of Labor & Society will be on
worker organizing beyond unions, parties and NGOs that channel and
constrain organizing over the “contract” and into the state through
advocacy, elections and reform. These examples above are rich with
several vital lessons for worker self-organization we wish to see
explored in this issue. First, workers are contesting the organizational
dominance of unions by bypassing and challenging the traditional model
of unions limited to bargaining over wages, hours, grievances, working
conditions, and labor law. Second, these struggles are also transcending
parties, NGOs, and the state at a time of growing widespread resistance
to the imposition of neo-liberal policy by labor, social democratic and
left leaning parties backed by NGOs, unions, and ruling elites in Europe
and Latin America. Such institutions divert conflict by harnessing
workers to the state and capitalism thus diluting the power of
self-organized workers. (S. Marcos, R. Zibechi, M. Glaberman, G. Esteva,
and G. Rawick)

Drawing on the autonomous marxist, anarchist, and syndicalist critiques
of unions and the self-organization of workers (V. Burgmann, S. Lynd, H.
Cleaver, and P. Linebaugh) this issue would explore how workers are
devising new forms of organizing to confront capital at work and
throughout the social factory (S. Federici, S. James, M. Dalla Costa,
and M. Tronti) signaling a turning point in what it means to organize a
“union.”

The debate over whether unions should follow the “service” or “member
organizing” model or through parties, NGOs or the state is moot. Workers
are transforming their organizing into a global uprising that continues
to disrupt the global accumulation and circulation of capital by
transforming the struggle over work into a struggle to circulate class
power into all spheres of life. As capital seeks to colonize all aspects
of life so has working class struggle expanded to meet this threat. The
question this issue seeks to explore is what is the form of the
currently emerging recomposition of working class power?

Publication Plans
After the solicitation of abstracts we will invite full manuscripts for
publication in the June 2017 issue of the Journal of Labor & Society.
Abstracts (maximum 500 words, attached as .pdf or .docx files) due by
August 1, 2016
Invitation to submit full manuscript will be sent August 21, 2016
Manuscripts (5,000-7,500) due February 21, 2017
Special issue of the Journal of Labor & Society will be published in
June 2017

In the past 25 years, higher education has seen some major transformations. The percentage of college students who are Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islander, Black, and Native American has increased steadily while the percentage of white students declines. Unfortunately, increased enrollment and newfound visibility does not necessarily translate into a seat at the table. University administration and faculty do not reflect the demographic shifts seen in student populations. In 2013, 84 percent of full-time professors were white, and 53% white male. At the same time, tuitions continue to rise, but rarely do those funds trickle down to the classroom. More money is being funneled into administrative positions and away from tenure-line hires. Most teaching positions are now part-time and low-paid adjunct positions. According to a 2012 report from the American Association of University Professors, contingent faculty make up over 75% of all instructional staffing. In 1975 only 25% were in these positions.

The most active individuals addressing these institutional shifts, are the contingent faculty members themselves. Unfortunately, their marginalized positions limit their ability to participate in campus governance. In addition, the culture of insularity and individualism challenges any attempts at solidarity building and delegitimizes the experiences of the precariat when they take their concerns out into the public sphere. Their work, their experiences, and their contributions to scholarship and teaching are often dismissed, mislabeled, misunderstood, or entirely ignored.

The Precariat and The Professor addresses common misconceptions and will serve as a valuable resource for anyone trying to understand the effects of recent transformations in higher education. In order to address the many false premises and beliefs currently circulating about contingent faculty, we welcome submissions from all those affected by the reliance of precious labor in higher education, and especially welcome the work of students and the contingent. We anticipate that the volume will attract a wide readership. It will speak to scholars, activists, parents, students, teachers and laypeople interested in higher education, pedagogy, activism, identity politics, and advocacy.

Committed to presenting a body of work that recognizes the fullest possible range of experiences, The Precariat and The Professor encourages traditional scholarly submissions (historical, demographic, and sociological), as well as more interdisciplinary, creative, and self-reflective contributions. Moreover, we want to look to the future. Can we envision positive change? Is there a way to “fix” the issue of contingency? How can faculty off the tenure-track transition to other jobs that recognize and utilize their talents? What is the role of the public intellectual, and what relationship does that have with precarious faculty? Can we envision a path towards transformation and revolutionary solidarity?

Possible topics might include, but are not limited to:

• The history of labor and unions in the academy
• Contingency and the tenure process
• Interactions between contingent faculty and graduate and undergraduate students
• Personal memoir and creative writing (short fiction, poetry, flash fiction, creative non-fiction) by and about adjunct or contingent faculty experiences
• Affect and the neoliberal university
• Landscapes of power and privilege on campus and in the classroom
• Organizing, activism, and labor unions
• Gender, race, and class (or other intersectional perspectives) while contingent
• Mythologies and ideologies of success, tenure, and advancement
• Collegiality and departmental politics

The manuscript will be divided into three roughly sketched sections:

1. The Teacher: Ways that contingency shapes, or changes, your experiences as a classroom teacher. This can broadly cover the literal experience of being inside the classroom space; the experience of working on multiple campuses; teaching online, or hybrid teaching; or the way classroom teaching as contingent faculty shapes, or changes, your day to day life.
2. The Scholar: The ways that contingency affects scholarship, i.e., being “othered” by the academy, and lacking real institutional support, both fiscally and logistically, or ways outsider status allows for views and scholarly work not traditionally held or practiced by academics.
3. The Human: Effects of contingency on one’s personal life. Includes but is not limited to finances, mental, physical, and emotional health, family life, professional relationships, and relationship with scholarly or creative work.

Submitted contributions may include full-length academic essays (about 5000 – 7000 words), shorter creative pieces, cultural commentaries, or personal narratives (about 500 – 2500 words), poetry, and photo-essays.

300-word abstract/proposals are due 7/1.

Submit proposals, inquiries, or questions to the editors:

Jillian Powers: jpowers03@gmail.com
Emily Van Duyne: emily.vanduyne@stockton.edu

We look forward to your submissions.

In Solidarity,

J&E

Original CfP: https://theprecariatandtheprofessor.wordpress.com/

Ethnographies of Security

A special issue of Qualitative Sociology

Guest Editor: Rebecca Hanson

The policies and strategies that governments, organizations and communities employ in the search for security have changed dramatically within the past few decades. Advanced technology; wars on drugs, terror, and crime; the global diffusion of policing models; and the rise of mass incarceration and mass surveillance are just a few developments that have transformed the landscape of security. These changes have profound implications for democracy. Just like threats to security, attempts to ensure security can constrict, deteriorate, and circumscribe citizenship. More concretely, security for some often puts others’ right to life at risk, particularly marginalized and stigmatized “others.”

Recent research has emphasized the need to pay closer attention to how people interpret and negotiate security strategies. We need more qualitative research to understand how actors—whether state, non-state, or illicit—resist, appropriate, repurpose, or acquiesce to security strategies, and how these actions shape outcomes. In the banlieues of Paris, Fassin has shown that the regular deployment of anti-crime police units has created “infra-citizens,” who often acquiesce to arbitrary searches that “put them in their place.” Scholars working in Africa and Latin America have shown that, depending on socioeconomic status, one’s security might be provided by a criminal organization, a community group, or a private firm. And ethnographies of urban poverty in the United States and Europe have documented the exponential growth in the state’s capacity to punish and expel, but have also documented survival strategies used by people to evade incarceration and deportation. This qualitative work is key to understanding how the boundaries of citizenship are redrawn and democracy is redefined on the ground.

This special issue will bring together work that analyzes how changes to security alter environments, creating new possibilities for and constraints on state, non-state, and criminal actors and, more broadly, on democracy, citizenship, and survival.

Contributions are welcomed on all related themes and topics. Manuscripts may be submitted anytime before November 1, 2016.

Submission Details:

The papers will undergo Qualitative Sociology’s normal double-blind peer-review process. Manuscripts should be submitted through Editorial Manager (at http://www.editorialmanager.com/quas/Default.aspx). When submitting, choose “Ethnographies of Security” as the article type. For more information, please contact Rebecca Hanson (beccara606@gmail.com).