Dates and location:
Labor market and economic sociologists take notice of each other less often than common concerns might suggest. This ignorance is particularly troubling amid the large-scale influx of immigrants and refugees into established economies over the past few years in particular and the past decade in general. Among these changes, issues of employment and emergent economic activities, which both fields focus on, gain in significance and salience. Labor market sociologists demonstrate that unregulated labor markets are neither free nor fair, diminishing hopes for quick integration. A focus on the distribution of relevant worker characteristics over a range of social dimensions such as class, gender, and ethnicity allows labor market sociologists to develop more constructive views of labor market mechanisms. Economic sociologists scrutinize dynamics around the establishment of larger social objects such as industries and “informal economies”, some of which are dominated by immigrant ethnic groups. In more specific settings, economic sociologists have found evidence that ethnic diversity—an obvious consequence of migration—increases the resilience of common market mechanisms. The conference seeks to foster a dialogue between the two views in order to develop conceptual, analytical, and empirical strategies that help us study and understand the forces undergirding the recent developments and their consequences.
Submission:
Name, title, and abstract (250 words)Deadline: September 10, 2017
Scientific rigor prevents scholars from answering questions around events such as large-scale migration as quickly as they unfold. We therefore seek a broad range of submissions: both on questions directly addressing these issues and on those uncovering the mechanisms in related settings that help us understand them. The conference aims to foster a dialogue that accelerates the design of appropriate research strategies, and to stimulate new ideas.
Possible topics include:
* Human, social, and cultural capital
* Firms, markets, and networks
* Labor unions and industrial relations
* Governmental, educational, and community responses
* Entrepreneurship, innovation, and informal arrangements
* Mobility and transnationalism
* Refugees: Jobs, training, and qualifications
Participation:
We particularly encourage doctoral candidates, postdoctoral fellows and junior faculty to submit their work. We have a limited amount of funding for travel and accommodation. There is no conference fee; lunch and a conference dinner will be provided.
Organizers:
Philipp Brandt (
[1] Mannheim is located in close proximity to Frankfurt Airport (40 min.). The conference will begin on Friday morning; arrival on Thursday is recommended. The conference will finish on Saturday in the early afternoon, leaving enough time for return travel afterward.