Call for Papers

[Eva Tolasch]

On behalf of Professor Andrea D. Buehrmann I would like to inform you of a
jointly organised conference with the University of Hamburg on "Control or
Care of the Self - Sociology of the Subject in the 21st Century" taking
place from 3-5 July 2008 in Hamburg. A ‘call for papers’ is now officially
requested and we would like to ask kindly for your support by further
distributing this information as you see fit. 

Thank you in advanced for your participation

Best regards,

Eva Tolasch 

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
Institut für Soziologie
Lehrbereich Bührmann
Konradstrasse 6
80801 München



Control or Care of the Self
Sociology of the Subject in the 21st Century

Organised by:
Vertr.-Prof.  Dr. Andrea D. Bührmann / Prof. Dr. Stefanie Ernst
Date: 3-5 July, 2008, Location: University of Hamburg


The beginning of the twenty-first century is characterized by fundamental
social changes: in addition to demographic changes and to the globalization
of economic flows the transformation of an industrial-Fordist society to a
non-industrial service society is worth mentioning. For more than twenty
years, these major trends and their inherent chances and risks have been of
the topic of vivid discussions in all the social sciences. Keywords have
been ‘risk-society’ and ‘post-industrial society’, but also
‘knowl-edge-society’ and ‘information-society’. 
 
We want to concentrate in particular on the following trends:
• The erosion of so-called standardized employment and the move towards a
growing variety of precarious work forms like secondary work, temporary
work, casual labour, low paid work etc.
• The increasing subjectivation of work and the blurring of the borderlines
between working life and home life, especially considering the zone of
inclusion and the opportunities to participate in the civil society.
• The erosion of the traditional nuclear family, its transformation towards
so-called patchwork-families and the interdependent effects on modelling
patterns of emotion regulation.
• The changes pertaining to the hierarchical division of labour and the
balance of power be-tween the sexes, especially with respect to the blurring
of the boundaries between working life and private life.

Implications of these developments are also reflected in the challenge of
the traditional, hegemonic and rational understanding of subjectivity.
Against the background of these great social changes, sev-eral factors also
indicate that the forms of self-regulation or self-governance are being
transformed too. A one-sided concentration of the homo economicus and its
varieties tends for example to under-estimate certain non-rational forms of
self-perception and self-reflection as well as non-rational prac-tices of
self-management and subjectivation. This debate suggests that social
sciences cannot do without a clear definition of human beings nature and
their essential traits. Moreover, facing the bioge-netic challenges in the
twenty-first century the basic fundament of what is making up humankind has
at least been highlighted. 
The question what these transformations mean to individuals has not yet been
clarified. In-deed there is a discussion about whether individuals will be
forced to create their own biography and to work on their identity. Others
point out that completely new forms of subjectivity are developing. But
these considerations have not yet led to empirically or theoretically
saturated and deeply reflected conceptions. Therefore it seems to be the
great task of the twenty-first century to define the role of the individual
in a fundamentally changing society.
The aim of the planned conference therefore is to discuss the question, of
how far the rela-tionship to oneself and relationships towards others in
(post-)modern societies are being transformed. The perspectives offered by
Norbert Elias’s figurational sociology as well as by Michel Foucault’s
post-structural theory seem to be promising because they appear to have been
the first researchers consis-tently and convincingly analysing the nature of
individuals by reflecting upon their long term historical processes of
transformation. The two have different visions but similar concerns. Both
bodies of work deal with structures of control that exist within society and
within the individual.

As the two most prominent sociologists concerned, at an early stage of
research Norbert Elias and Michel Foucault offered concepts for the debate
on the position of individuals in society, with the aim of clarifying the
interwoven socio- and psychogenetic development of modern societies. Within
indi-viduals is mirrored the social interdependency of complex formations of
power. 
In describing the mechanisms of self-controls (Selbstkontrollapparatur) or
the techniques of normalisa-tion (Foucault), both dealt with the hidden
structures of social rationalization, but without specifying or using an
explicit definition of the subject. 
We think that these brief thoughts prove that there is enough reason for
bringing these different but similar sociologists, Elias and Foucault,
together. In view of recent social changes we consider it worthwhile to
discuss their theoretical and empirical potential. Questions whether a new
kind of life-style or a ‘self-regulating form of subjectivity’ (Ernst 2006,
2007) come to exist with a new social char-acter should be discussed. On the
other hand, we want to discuss whether a completely new form of
subjectivation (Buehrmann 2005) occurs, or whether the tendency towards
self-care creates a new relationship to oneself. Has the old search for
identity and self-realisation become obsolete and a dangerous pitfall? What
could be an adequate term for the subject accurately describing the
proc-esses of social transformation? The planned conference will conclude
with keynote speeches (already fixed) about the nature of the subject,
techniques of self-regulation and self-care, and a fixed closing discussion
forum. The parallel sessions of discussion are oriented towards theoretical
and empirical research results of the following fields:

1. Work:  What are the chances and risks of the increasing subjectivation?
Individualization and in-creasing constraints of self-regulation are the
keywords of this session.
2. Body:   Here we want to focus on the body as a representation of the
social, as a symbol and in-dicator of status and subjectivation. 
3. Desire: What are the alternatives against the normalising of identity
politics, especially focusing on the sexual identity politics?  
4. Time and space of action: What varieties of subjectivation and
differentiation could be observed in its material, spatial and temporal
figurational dimension? 

Papers are invited in any of the above fields. More concretely, anticipated
themes for papers in-clude:
• Elias and Foucault and current theories of the body, 
• Elias and Foucault and the study of organizations, 
• Elias and Foucault and sexuality/identity, 
• Elias and Foucault, time and space. 



Proposals for papers are invited on these or any other related topics until
January 31, 2008. The conference organisers are keen to promote
cross-disciplinary and cross-paradigmatic dialogue and debate.

Abstracts (no longer than 300 words) should be submitted to: 
Vertr.-Prof. Dr. Andrea D. Bührmann  Prof. Dr. Stefanie Ernst 
Institut für Soziologie   Department Wirtschaft und Politik 
LMU München     Universität Hamburg 
Konradstr. 6     Von-Melle-Park 9 
D-80801 München    D-20146 Hamburg
Andrea.Buehrmann at soziologie.uni-muenchen.de   
Stefanie.Ernst at wiso.uni-hamburg.de

Please include with the abstract: institutional affiliation, e-mail address,
telephone number, and postal contact details.
Any enquiries can be addressed to the conference organisers: 

Andrea D. Bührmann: Andrea.Buehrmann at soziologie.uni-muenchen.de
Stefanie Ernst: Stefanie.Ernst at wiso.uni-hamburg.de