NEWS
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Welcome from the Chair.
It’s my honor to serve as the chair of the Labor and Labor Movements Section of the American Sociological Association for 2017-2018. My thanks go to outgoing chair Chris Rhomberg, outgoing Council Member Jeff Sallez for their time and service to the Section. I look forward to working with our new chair-elect Belinda Lum, our secretary treasurer Jeff Rothstein, and council members Joshua Bloom, Penny Lewis, Jasmine Kerrissey our student representative, Luke Elliott-Negri and Newsletter editor, Joseph van der Naald.
The Labor and Labor Movements Section is a well-established section. Under dynamic leadership, the section has organized and sponsored two highly successful mini-conferences; one on Precarious Work, held in Seattle just before the 2016 ASA meeting, and one in NYC in 2013 entitled, “Labor and Global Solidarity: The U.S., China, and Beyond.” These mini-conferences have grown out of efforts to internationalize our section and to build bridges with China labor scholars. They were well attended, global events with scholars from around the world participating in important discussions and debates.
The 2017 ASA annual meeting in Montreal, led by ASA president Michèle Lamont of Harvard University united under the timely theme of “Culture, Inequalities, and Social Inclusion across the Globe.” The meeting and panels dealt with important and pressing social issues including the rising anti-immigration rhetoric, international refugee crises, rising racial tensions, and political polarization.” Our own section participated in these goals by continuing to build international ties, reaching out to our colleagues and sisters and brothers in Canada. The section sponsored panels on “Challenges Facing Canadian Labour” and “Global Labor Protest” as well as an open topic session and our round tables. Our reception was hosted by the Centre des travailleurs et travailleuses immigrants / Immigrant Workers Center with food from the Afghan Women's Catering Collective.
In the upcoming year, the 113th Annual ASA annual meeting will be held in Philadelphia, August 11-14th, 2018. The overarching theme is, “Feeling Race: An Invitation to Explore Racialized Emotions,” and the President Eduardo Bonilla-Silva of Duke University writes, “we encourage sociologists to engage, study, and theorize the multiple ways in which emotions and feelings matter in racial affairs. We ‘feel race’ in the streets, stores, and the workplace; we ‘feel race’ in friendships and in romantic relations; we even ‘feel race’ in events we do not code as racial such as playing video games or watching movies.”
Our section will be hosting three panels including, “Race and labor and the 50th anniversary of the Memphis Strike”, “Citizenship and labor” and “Labor, labor movements and the Right.” We will also be hosting open roundtables, the business meeting and our reception. The Council has already been busy with Section business. We have constituted an Ad-hoc Committee to help us improve Race and Gender dynamics within our Section. To celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Memphis Strike and tie into the conference theme, we are also working to arrange a showing of “At the River I Stand”as part of the Section reception in Philadelphia. Finally, another effort to continue the vitality and diversity of the section has been doubling our efforts in advertising and recruiting participants in our Mentoring Program.
In sum, it is shaping up to be another exciting Annual ASA conference, for the general meeting and our Section. We encourage you to submit papers for the panels, volunteer for committee service, run for officer election, and contribute to our newsletter, and of course, participate in the mentoring program. To join our section, please visit the ASA Membershippage. If you want to learn more, you can also check out our Facebook page, or follow us on Twitter. I look forward to seeing you in Philadelphia.
In solidarity,
Sarah Swider
scs@soc.ku.dk
The Labor and Labor Movements Section is a well-established section. Under dynamic leadership, the section has organized and sponsored two highly successful mini-conferences; one on Precarious Work, held in Seattle just before the 2016 ASA meeting, and one in NYC in 2013 entitled, “Labor and Global Solidarity: The U.S., China, and Beyond.” These mini-conferences have grown out of efforts to internationalize our section and to build bridges with China labor scholars. They were well attended, global events with scholars from around the world participating in important discussions and debates.
The 2017 ASA annual meeting in Montreal, led by ASA president Michèle Lamont of Harvard University united under the timely theme of “Culture, Inequalities, and Social Inclusion across the Globe.” The meeting and panels dealt with important and pressing social issues including the rising anti-immigration rhetoric, international refugee crises, rising racial tensions, and political polarization.” Our own section participated in these goals by continuing to build international ties, reaching out to our colleagues and sisters and brothers in Canada. The section sponsored panels on “Challenges Facing Canadian Labour” and “Global Labor Protest” as well as an open topic session and our round tables. Our reception was hosted by the Centre des travailleurs et travailleuses immigrants / Immigrant Workers Center with food from the Afghan Women's Catering Collective.
In the upcoming year, the 113th Annual ASA annual meeting will be held in Philadelphia, August 11-14th, 2018. The overarching theme is, “Feeling Race: An Invitation to Explore Racialized Emotions,” and the President Eduardo Bonilla-Silva of Duke University writes, “we encourage sociologists to engage, study, and theorize the multiple ways in which emotions and feelings matter in racial affairs. We ‘feel race’ in the streets, stores, and the workplace; we ‘feel race’ in friendships and in romantic relations; we even ‘feel race’ in events we do not code as racial such as playing video games or watching movies.”
Our section will be hosting three panels including, “Race and labor and the 50th anniversary of the Memphis Strike”, “Citizenship and labor” and “Labor, labor movements and the Right.” We will also be hosting open roundtables, the business meeting and our reception. The Council has already been busy with Section business. We have constituted an Ad-hoc Committee to help us improve Race and Gender dynamics within our Section. To celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Memphis Strike and tie into the conference theme, we are also working to arrange a showing of “At the River I Stand”as part of the Section reception in Philadelphia. Finally, another effort to continue the vitality and diversity of the section has been doubling our efforts in advertising and recruiting participants in our Mentoring Program.
In sum, it is shaping up to be another exciting Annual ASA conference, for the general meeting and our Section. We encourage you to submit papers for the panels, volunteer for committee service, run for officer election, and contribute to our newsletter, and of course, participate in the mentoring program. To join our section, please visit the ASA Membershippage. If you want to learn more, you can also check out our Facebook page, or follow us on Twitter. I look forward to seeing you in Philadelphia.
In solidarity,
Sarah Swider
scs@soc.ku.dk
