Papers are invited for a special collection on normative turns in social research.
Civic Sociology aims to be a forum for the cultivation of normative inquiry within the discipline, and to offer a space for the many conversations that different ethical turns have spurred. In order to contribute to this vision, this call for papers invites contributions from across the social sciences and humanities that address questions related to the challenges and opportunities derived from these different normative turns. It also welcomes papers that reflect on the history of ethical reflection within social research, and on the possible futures opened by different forms of ethical engagement in the social sciences.
Some of the questions that could be addressed include, among many others:
History
How to make sense of the history of normative engagement within social research? What histories remain to be told?
Challenges and future directions
How to respond to Andrew Abbott’s call to develop a normative branch of sociology? What are the challenges for the realization of this vision and how to address them?
Pedagogy
How best to cultivate ethical literacy among social researchers and their students?
Politics and Praxis
What has been the role of ethical reflection within the social research landscape during recent struggles/movements for social justice, such as Black Lives Matter?
What is the link between ethical inquiry and political praxis?
Institutions
What institutional environments have facilitated/obstructed the cultivation of normative reasoning within different social scientific disciplines and national contexts?
Submission of papers
If you are interested in contributing to this call, please submit an abstract of around 250 words to Rubén Flores and Elisabeth Becker no later than 30 November 2021.
Articles will be peer reviewed. Accepted contributions will become part of a special collection on normative reasoning within the journal. It is expected that papers will appear in the course of 2022 and the first half of 2023.
Please note: Papers accepted for publication before mid-2022 will be exempt from article processing charges (APC) and will be open access free of charge.
Civic Sociology is an open-access journal from the University of California Press that aims to reconstruct the disciplinary knowledge of sociology by re-focusing research in three particular directions oriented to:
-Problem-solving and professional practice
-Local and regional issues
-Normative and ethical reflection
The journal’s goal is to reinvigorate sociology as a profession—one that is not exclusively academic but also works in local communities to solve problems. In so doing, it intends to highlight the complex ways in which global dynamics shape local/regional events, and vice versa.
The journal also aims to make sociological research more relevant and effective within professional, policy, and public forms of engagement, by solving rather than just explaining or describing social problems. The focus on local and regional issues grounds these challenges within the particularities of places and history, highlighting connections between the local, national and global.
online.ucpress.edu/cs
