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

641

Rethinking the “Global” in Global and Transnational Approaches in Historical Sociology

WG02 Historical and Comparative Sociology (host committee)

Language: English

Surging interests in global and transnational approaches in sociology have currently demanded our attention to rethink the “global” as a distinct object of social scientific inquiry. Existing scholarships that touch upon the “global” such as Immanuel Wallerstein’s world-systems analysis and John Meyer’s world-society theory have not gone far enough to tackle the ontological premises of the concept and some other possibilities, as they are heavily influenced by the realist strand of international relations and some strong Eurocentric presuppositions. Furthermore, globalization, the catchword of the 1990s, has muddled up the situation, as the theories emerging to grapple with the nature, causes, and consequences of the contemporary phenomena have become highly fragmented along the diverse ideological lines. 
How can the “global” be understood as a separate sphere of social scientific inquiry? What constitutes the “global”? How can we understand global-local linkages, connections and flows, as well as convergence, divergence, and hybridization? How can our understandings have some policy implications and help save the world? 
This regular paper session calls for abstracts of the complete research papers or work-in-progress projects that broadly engage with the “global” and these questions. We welcome both empirical and theoretical papers or projects. We solicit abstracts that focus on different time periods in world history (contemporary, modern, early modern, archaic, etc.) and different parts of the world (localities, countries, regions, continents, trans-regional and trans-continental spheres, etc.) in separation or in comparison. Our session accepts the maximum of five papers or projects for presentation. Posters: