A Public Sociology of Systemic Movements and the Next System

“As the world system collapses around us, can we build the next system?” This is "the system question" raised through the Next System Teach-Ins (see - nextsystem.org) and centered in a new field of action research, Next System Studies (e.g. - nextsystem.gmu.edu).

Next System Studies (NSS) addresses the relationships between system design, system crises, systemic movements, and system change through collaborative research and action by academic and community-based scholars and practitioners. The purpose of Next System Studies is to mobilize the resources of academies and communities to assist society through a period of world-system change toward a world that is democratic, sustainable, peaceful, and just.

Sociologists in various parts of the world, particularly those specializing in social movement studies, continue to help organize and deepen Next System Studies as a field of action research. Some also use the language of abolitionism, alternatives to capitalism, real utopias, transition studies, or of some other framework in their work. In the process, they have reoriented their practice of public sociology. The organizers of this session invite submissions that address "the system question" from the standpoint of public sociologists engaged with movements for system change. We invite papers dealing with research on, among other things:

• the building of elements of alternative world systems;
• activist knowledge in the pursuit of system change;
• the relationships between system crises, systemic movements, system change, and next system design;
• translocal collaborations around system change; and,
• the role of public sociology in a time of world system change.