Sociology Under Attack: Challenges, Debates and Possibilities

Sociology Under Attack:
Challenges, Debates and Possibilities

Sociology Special Issue

Special Issue Editors: Spyros Themelis (University of East Anglia), Gargi Bhattacharyya (University of East London), Iulius Rostas (National School of Political Studies and Administration, Bucharest, Romania)

Deadline for submission of full papers: 21 February 2024

Overview:

**This call for papers has been opened for a second invitation to submit in order to foster a diverse and comprehensive collection of papers. We particularly invite submissions from sociologists in and out of academia who work with and research social movements in the global North and South.

Early career and experienced sociologists are equally encouraged to submit a paper.**

Nationally and internationally Sociology and sociologists are increasingly under threat. In a host of countries, the attack on Sociology and the broader social sciences takes place alongside attempts to limit access to higher education and to reduce academic study to training for work. In some contexts, this attack combines with repression of dissent and democratic cultures, leading to the incarceration of sociologists and other critical voices, the removal of Sociology from school and university curricula and the ideological persecution of sociologists as anti-authoritarian or anti-capitalist thinkers.

On one hand, the questions raised by Sociology remain central to the interests of old and new students entering higher education. On the other hand, sociologists increasingly suffer job losses, precarity, real income reduction and decreasing pension returns. The space of the university is, once again, under contestation. While students and scholars collaborate to sustain critical spaces to reflect on histories and presents of social violence, university administrations struggle to remake themselves, seemingly uncertain of their relation to the state, to the police and to the market.

This Special Issue explores the nature and extent of the attacks on Sociology and the broader social sciences and contemporary battles to reinvent and redeploy sociological practices and approaches for the common good. We invite authors to address any combination of the following issues and welcome contributions seeking to illuminate struggles for and around sociology and the social sciences beyond North America and Northern Europe:

• What are the political and socio-economic factors shaping the attack on the social sciences in any given context?
• How are sociologists responding to these challenges and what should we hope for the future of our discipline?
• What are the potentialities for the revival of Sociology and for sociological renewal?
• What is the role of sociologists in defending academic freedom and civil society?
• What forms of sociological practice should be undertaken to remake and open the space of the university?
• Can Sociology have a future beyond the university?

We welcome pieces reflecting on original and secondary research and reflective or theoretical writing on sociological practice in a time of institutional crisis.

All submissions should be tailored towards an international audience and should include explication of local political, historical and institutional contexts. With this SI we would like to appeal to sociologists working inside and outside academia, activists, trade unionists, theoretically engaged, internationally- minded scholars who have theorised, researched, experienced and documented the threats to Sociology and sociologists.

For further information and queries, please contact the guest editors: Spyros Themelis (s.themelis@uea.ac.uk), Gargi Bhattacharyya (g.bhattacharyya@uel.ac.uk) or Iulius Rostas (iuliusrostas@gmail.com .

Deadline for submission of full papers: 21 February 2024

Submission guidelines are available on the journal website: https://journals.sagepub.com/author-instructions/SOC

For queries about submission please contact the journal: sociology.journal@britsoc.org.uk

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