Violence and Society In Turbulent Times: Conflict, Power and Social Response

“Global Sociology in Turbulent Times” demands that sociology confront escalating forms of violence that define our present. From war and state repression to digital harassment and everyday aggression, violence is intensifying as the climate crisis, geopolitical conflict, and social polarisation disrupt institutions. This session brings violence to the centre of sociological theory on power, inequality, and collective life. We invite empirical, theoretical, and comparative papers that analyse violence as a social relation rather than merely as individual pathology.

Papers may engage with:

Conceptualising violence: Debates on definitions, measurement, and the sociology of knowledge about what counts as "violence" in turbulent times.

Political and structural violence: War, state violence, police brutality, colonial legacies, and violence embedded in institutions.

Turbulence and new drivers: How climate change, forced migration, economic crisis, and platform capitalism generate new conflict zones and violent exclusions.

Social inequalities: Intersections of violence with class, caste, gender, ethnicity, race, and generation.

Everyday and intimate violence: Domestic violence, gender-based violence, and community-level aggression.

Digital and mediated violence: Online harassment, disinformation campaigns, algorithmic violence, and surveillance in turbulent public spheres.

Social response and resistance: Movements for peace, nonviolence, transitional justice, trauma healing, and community resilience.

East Asian/Korean perspectives: Historical and contemporary experiences of conflict, division, militarisation, and peacebuilding in the host region.

Both qualitative and quantitative studies, as well as single-case and comparative designs, are welcome. The session aims to advance global sociology by linking macro-level turbulence to embodied experiences of violence and to social efforts at repair.