XVIII ISA World Congress of Sociology (July 13-19, 2014)

July 13 - 19, 2014

446

Producing Counter-Hegemonic Knowledge

RC25 Language and Society (host committee)

Language: English

Producing Counter-Hegemonic Knowledge Session Organizer Nadezhda GEORGIEVA-STANKOVA, Trakia University, Bulgaria, nadyageorgieva@abv.bg Session in English Facing a world of rising social inequality, sociology needs to further elaborate strategies for studying the mechanisms through which hegemonic knowledge is created, sustained and resisted. Understanding the production and circulation of counter-hegemonic knowledge is increasingly important. Studies of language offer us powerful tools both for developing insight into how dominant forces manufacture consent and for understanding active resistance to relations of domination. The session aims to explore power contestation and resistance through language and discourse. More particularly, papers included in this session will analyze how people actively create and resist articulations of dominant power in their particular social settings (Hall, 1996). Also of interest are papers that examine the nature of power residing in various inter-discursive forms of ideology in producing consent (Gramsci, 1992; 1996), which help to “hegemonize” the “national popular” existing in everyday discourse, practices and interactions (Hall, 1985). Particular attention will be paid to social access to the production of discourse, speaking out particular visions of social justice, and to the control, circulation and regulation of discourses. Therefore, we are interested in some key questions: Which forms of truth are promoted or subjugated in the knowledge production process? What are the means and strategies for resisting and subverting such hegemonic discourses producing dominance and equality? Who are the social agents holding the potential for such counter-hegemonic transformation? We welcome papers that may be related to some or other of the following problems: Counter-hegemonic discourses regarding social groups on the basis of nationality, ethnicity / “race”, gender, sexuality, social class or disability; The rise of nationalism, populism and of the extreme right; The plight of minority or migrant groups, such as the Roma, in the contemporary context of rising discrimination, racism and xenophobia; The role of old and new media in maintaining or resisting dominant consensus