14/06/2026
International Sociological Association (ISA) RC09 invites proposals for sessions organised around the main axes that animate our community, each of which constitutes a direct entry point into the Congress theme. We thus invite you to propose sessions articulated around the following axes:
* Development transformations. How are the current reconfigurations of global capitalism – financialisation, digitalisation, platformisation – reshaping development trajectories across the world? What new forms of dependency are emerging, and what institutional, community-based or movement-driven alternatives are taking shape in response?
* Intersectional inequalities and social justice: How are inequalities articulated across different dimensions such as gender, race, class, sexuality, disability and geography? How do these intersections combine structural analysis with lived experience? What forms of resistance and solidarity arise in response?
* Digitalisation, AI and sociotechnical implications: How artificial intelligence, algorithmic systems and datafication are reconfiguring the conditions of work, governance, surveillance and knowledge production? How are these transformations embedded in existing power relations while also, in certain contexts, opening spaces for emancipation?
* Migration, mobilities and reconfigurations of belonging: In what ways contemporary human mobilities challenge classical categories of integration, citizenship and development? How do the structural dimensions of migration articulate alongside the lived dimensions, particularly in the contexts of climate, economic, and political crises?
* Democratic crises, polarisation and emerging forms of governance: The rise of authoritarianism, organised disinformation, political polarisation, and the erosion of the rule of law constitute both analytical and political challenges for sociology. RC09 encourages contributions that examine these dynamics in their institutional and historical diversity, and that interrogate the new forms of legality, solidarity and governance emerging in response.
* Climate Justice, sustainability and socio-environmental transformations: How is the ecological crisis produced by the social structures in which we live? How are its effects distributed in unequal ways? What are the links between social inequalities, development trajectories and environmental vulnerabilities?
RC09 is committed to building sessions that are analytically rigorous, ethically grounded and socially engaged. Organised session proposals (minimum of three papers) that articulate comparative and/or multi-sited perspectives will be given priority consideration.
Early-career researchers and contributions from the Global South are particularly encouraged to submit.
Submissions should be made through the official ISA Congress platform (🔗 https://isaconf.confex.com/isaconf/wc2027/cfs.cgi). The deadline for session submissions is 25 June 2026.
For any enquiries regarding RC09 sessions, please contact the program coordinators, Dorina ROSCA and Rukmini SEN.
