Situated Practices Seminar 09

Doing Politics/Acting Politically. An International Workshop on The Political Dimension of Situated Practices

Organised in collaboration with the Research Committee "Interpretative Sociologies" of the Swiss Sociological Association. Supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Swiss Sociological Association

In recent years, abstract entities such as the State, the Citizen and Power inherited from political philosophy have been reassessed empirically, notably under the influence of pragmatist considerations in social science approaches of the political order. This important development has led to a much more concrete understanding of modern democracies, now seen as a contingent process rather than the direct outcome of institutional structures. The workshop will contribute to this development through presentation and discussion of related research projects. These projects have in common an observational approach to the situated practices through which political phenomena emerge in the first place. Ethnographical and video-supported enquiries are expected to demonstrate how the practices examined exhibit an orientation to their political dimension.

Speakers: Tim Berard (Kent State University); Baudouin Dupret (CNRS-ISP, Cachan); Jean-Noël Ferrié (CNRS-PACTE, Grenoble); Philippe Gonzalez (Université de Lausanne); Christoph Maeder (Pädagogische Hochschule Thurgau); Ivan Leudar (University of Manchester); Jiri Nekvapil (Charles University, Prague); Louis Quéré (Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris); Thomas Scheffer (Freie Universität Berlin); Yasmine Siblot (Université Paris I); Cédric Terzi (Université de Lille 3).

Organizing Committee: Alain Bovet (University of Fribourg); Esther González Martínez (University of Fribourg); Philippe Sormani (University of Lausanne).

Download Program