Third ISA Forum of Sociology (July 10-14, 2016)

324

Nature, Culture and Development. Part I

RC26 Sociotechnics, Sociological Practice (host committee)

Language: English

As Boaventura de Souza Santos (2012) points out, there is a “huge discrepancy between what the theory anticipates and the transformative practices going on in the world”. For him, the most progressive struggles featured since the 1980s by social groups such as indigenous, peasant, women, afro-descendants, unemployed, had organised themselves in ways other than according to the party or unions, as foreseen by the theory: social movements, grassroots communities, pickets, self-government, popular economic organisations.
Such movements dwell mostly in urban suburbs, and in the wilderness spaces. They bring about approaches that emerge with a set of terms such as dignity, respect, territory, self-government, good life, Mother Earth, etc. which are not totally equivalent to the hegemonic vocabulary of human rights, democracy and development. To address this missing link Boaventura advocates for a more diverse palette of epistemologies. 
This session aims to bring together researchers’ fieldwork in order to discuss contemporary issues from the local ambit and/or their global articulations and reflections. Among the topics welcome will be climate change, sustainability, biodiversity, water and communities’ local knowledge sharing, among others, that can be inspired both by Souza Santos’ view and/or the theme of the congress “Global sociology and the struggles for a better world”. Posters: