SOUTH AFRICAN SOCIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION ANNUAL CONGRESS 2019

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

WORK, LIFE & SOCIETY: MEANINGS, MANIFESTATIONS AND TRAJECTORIES OF THE FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IN AFRICA

 UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA, SUNNYSIDE CAMPUS, PRETORIA 15 – 17 JULY 2019

This 26th South African Sociological Association (SASA) Congress seeks to interrogate the meanings, manifestations and trajectories of the 4th Industrial Revolution within the African context and the global South at large. We invite papers that discuss, engage and challenge this revolution. The SASA Congress seeks to provide the space to interrogate its meaning for the continent struggling with continued structural challenges in terms of inequalities, food shortages, gendered power relations, environmental challenges, institutional degradation and systematic governance. These are among the developmental questions still facing the continent and the global South at large. The 4th Industrial Revolution is said to be automation of the highest level that will force the global economies and its workers to rethink their daily routines and general meaning of the work society. However, Sociologists have argued as early as in the1970s about the nature and influence of automation to society, life and work in general. Whether this 4th Indusial Revolution symbolises a ‘radical’ shift from the past or a continuation of the capitalist economic shifts which are simply part of the different forms of production remains to be seen.

THEMES FOR THE CONGRESS INCLUDE

Technological Histories in Africa; Land, Labour and Women; Information Technologies, Social Media, and Citizen Journalism; The Future of Work in Society; Skills and Human Development of the Future; Global Inequalities and the Digital Divide; Children, Family and Genetics; Youth, Politics and Entrepreneurship; Food, Social policy and Governance; Education, Science and Industrial Development; Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Technological Futures; Social Movements and Digital Technologies;Digital Storytelling and Creative Methodologies.

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Prof Clapperton Chakanetsa Mavhunga (MIT)

The author of Transient Workspaces: Technologies of Everyday Innovation in Zimbabwe (MIT Press, 2014), which received honourable mentions in the Turku Prize (European Society for Environmental History) and the Herskovits Prize (African Studies Association) in 2015. His second book is an edited volume entitled What Do Science, Technology, and Innovation Mean from Africa? It explores STI in Africa from an archaeological, historical, philosophical, anthropological, STS, engineering, development, and policy-making perspectives.

 ABSTRACT SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

All abstracts should be submitted online. See SASA website for more details (http://www.sasaonline.org.za/sasa-2019-conference.html) Online abstract submissions open on 1 February 2019. Abstracts should be no more than 250 words, including full contact details and affiliation of all presenters.

CLINICAL SOCIOLOGY WORKING GROUP CONVENORS

 Prof Tina Uys tuys@uj.ac.za

 Dr Mariam Seedat Khan Seedatm@ukzn.ac.za