ASA Awarded Support for Travel Grants for the ISA World Congress

Applications Are Due March 14, 12:00 p.m. (EST)
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has announced an award of $63,250 to the American Sociological Association in support of travel by
sociologists in the United States to the XVIII International Sociological Association (ISA) World Congress of Sociology to be held in Yokohama, Japan from July 13–19, 2014. The Congress theme is “Facing an Unequal World: Challenges for Global Sociology,” and features sessions focusing on inequalities in different social contexts and situations in an increasingly interconnected, interdependent, and globalized world. For more information about the World Congress see www.isa-sociology.org/congress2014/.

The ASA Executive Office will administer the travel program. Criteria for a competitive award include an invitation to present or acceptance of a paper, the scientific merit of the paper, and the qualifications of the applicant. A committee of sociological scholars will review applications and make recommendations for awards. ASA will seek a balance in the travel awards to ensure that scholars at all levels of experience and at all types of institutions receive travel support. In administering the travel grant program, the ASA encourages young scholars, underrepresented minorities, persons with disabilities, and women to apply for travel support.

The Call for Applications for travel support is posted at www.asanet.org/funding/isa_announcement.cfm. Contact Jordan Robison at isatravel@asanet.org if you have any questions.

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

Travel Grants for ISA Meeting Applications Are Due March 14, 2014 12:00 pm (EST)
XVIII World Congress of Sociology Yokohama, Japan, July 13-19, 2014

The American Sociological Association (ASA) invites applications for travel support to the XVIII World Congress of the International Sociological Association (ISA) in Yokohama, Japan, on July 13-19, 2014. ASA received a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) effective January 1, 2014, in support of travel by U.S. sociologists to this important international meeting.

Travel awards may only be used to defray the costs of jet economy round-trip airfare between the awardee’s home or institution and Tokyo (Yokohama, the site of the World Congress is less than 20 miles from Tokyo). Costs for trains, taxis, and other local travel will not be covered under this grant, nor will meals and lodging.

NSF Travel guidelines set forth in F.L. 26, "Administration of NSF Conference or Group Travel Award Grant Special Conditions," dated January 14, 2013, are applicable. See http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/policydocs/fl26/fl26_113.pdf.

Eligibility: To be eligible for travel support under this grant, applicants must:

1. Be a citizen or permanent resident of the United States;
   
2. Complete an online application form that provides (a) contact information and description of: (b) a scientific paper accepted by one of the ISA program committees, and/or (c) other significant participatory roles in the organization of the Congress;
3. Provide evidence of participation in the ISA program in the form of a confirmation letter of the acceptance of a paper, invitation letters, and so forth; and
4. Provide a 2-page copy of their resume.
   

Please note: Membership in ASA is NOT a requirement for the receipt of a travel award.

Online Application Form:
See <www.asanet.org/forms/isa/user.cfm> for instructions and to submit your application on to the secure website. Applications must be received by 12:00 pm EST on March 14, 2014.

The online application form seeks two general types of information:

1. Contact information and other basic information such as faculty rank, student status, or other professional position, and the amount of travel funding requested; and
2. Materials about the applicant and the applicant’s role in the World Congress in the form of narratives on the following (to be entered as word documents):


For paper presentations:

1. Background and objectives of paper (maximum 100 words);
2. International, comparative, global, or transnational implications of research being presented (maximum 100 words); 
3. Theoretical or conceptual framework (maximum 100 words);
4. Research methods (including description of data and data collection methods) (maximum 200 words);
5. Conclusions, scholarly or scientific merit, and implications (maximum 200 words); and
6. Citations: (If references are cited, they must be included).

Other participating roles:
Aside from paper presentations, acceptable participation at the World Congress includes: preparing an invited address, organizing/chairing a Research Committee session, or having another governance role in the ISA. Applicants should fully describe (a) their role in the ISA World Congress, and (b) the scholarly or scientific merit and implications of their participation for the internationalization of sociology.

Statements confirming participation in the World Congress and a 2-page resume
The online form also asks applicants to upload a: (a) statement confirming their participation in the World Congress, and (b) 2-page resume.

Applicants who receive awards must sign a form agreeing to terms of the Travel Support Program, which include acknowledging the NSF travel support in any papers or publications derived from participation in the World Congress. After attending the Congress, award recipients must submit a brief report on their World Congress activities along with a copy of their airfare ticketing receipt.

Criteria for Ranking of Awards: A Selection Committee of sociological scholars will be established by the ASA Executive Office to evaluate and rank the applications for awards. In ranking applications for awards, the Selection Committee will be guided by several broad principles:

1. The significance of the paper to be presented or the role to be played in the World Congress, including an assessment of the scientific merit of the paper as well as the degree to which the paper (or role) represents a significant contribution to the program.
2. ASA will seek a balance in the travel awards to ensure that scholars at all levels of experience and at all types of institutions receive travel support. Recent PhDs and junior scholars (including graduate students) who show promise and productivity will be given special consideration, because they are less likely to be able to fund their own travel. The American Sociological Association has long been a leader in expanding opportunities for underrepresented minorities and women. As part of achieving balance in allocating awards, the Selection Committee will uphold these principles with respect to gender, race and ethnicity, disability status, rank, and type of institution.
3. Preference will be given to those who have not received prior travel grants through ASA.

Questions? E-mail Jordan Robison at isatravel@asanet.org. Awards will be announced no later than April 30, 2014.

Hello all,

Hope you are enjoying the section newsletter.  Here's another announcement/call (courtesy of Joel Stillerman -stillejo@gvsu.edu) that section members might be interested in. 

In Solidarity,

Steve

---
Steve McKay
Director, Center for Labor Studies
Associate Professor of Sociology
University of California, Santa Cruz

_____________________

Call for Abstracts: Precarious Labor in Global Perspective — A special issue of International Labor and Working-class History (ILWCH)

We invite abstracts for this ILWCH special issue focused on the dynamics and history of precarious work around the world in global context.  Definitions of precarious work vary, but a wide range of observers agree that in many settings jobs have become worse in terms of employment security, access to social benefits, and protection of labor rights.  This is especially true in the Global North, where the 1970s marked the beginning of a shift away from relatively stable postwar labor relations based on long-term employment (along with highly gendered employment patterns) and a developed welfare state.  Numerous analysts have explored these changes in work, including the International Labor Organization’s many publications on precarious and decent work; Arne Kalleberg in Good Jobs, Bad Jobs; Tony Avirgan et al. in Good Jobs, Bad Jobs, No Jobs, Françoise Carré et al. in Are Bad Jobs Inevitable?; and many others.

We seek articles that examine the dynamics and history of precarious work, focused on where, how, and why it has emerged, how contemporary precarious work differs (or not) from earlier low quality and unstable work (including work in the Global North before the Fordist era), the link between precariousness and long-term changes such as globalization and neoliberalism, as well as whether and how shorter-term effects such as the recent global slowdown have altered work’s character.  Our goal is to include analysesfrom around the world and different eras that place precarious work in a global historical context.  In addition to analyses from the Global North, we especially welcome studies from the Global South, NICs, BRICs, transitional economies, and others, including cases where precarious work may be receding due to economic, social, and political change.  We are particularly interested in articles, including comparative ones, that examine connections between precariousness and changes in the global division of labor, forms of business organization, configuration of geopolitics, and immigration flows, as well as counter-movements of regulation and resistance. Though changes in public sector employment are noteworthy in many countries, we will limit our attention to the private sector to sharpen the issue’s focus. 

Possible topics for articles include, but are not limited to, the following themes:

• How the shift of industrial activity to new locales, and from integrated production to global supply chains, has reshaped the quality of work around the world vs. earlier industrialization.
• Precariousness in growing service sector industries (both low-skill and professional), including how it differs from earlier precariousness, how it varies around the world, and why.
• Precarious work in agriculture and other primary sectors, including how commodities booms, migration, trade integration, and other processes have shaped these changes
• Mechanisms separating and stratifying precarious work from decent work, and sorting workforce populations between one and the other.
• Top-down and bottom-up strategies and struggles to intensify precariousness and exploitation or, conversely, to reverse, limit, or transform precariousness.
• Comparisons of companies, sectors, or countries with regard to these and other topics.

Prospective authors should send a letter and an abstract of no more than 500 words of work they wish to submit to the journal. Editors will determine whether the proposed work fits thematically in an upcoming issue. The deadline for abstracts is June 1, 2014.  Style and submission guidelines will be sent to authors whose work the editors wish to review.

Send correspondence to:
Editor, International Labor and Working-Class History
c/o The Harry Van Arsdale Jr. Center for Labor Studies
SUNY Empire State College
325 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10013

or via e-mail to: ILWCH@esc.edu, Sarah.Mosoetsa@wits.ac.za, stillerman.joel6@gmail.com,tilly@ucla.edu

Good morning everyone,

Attached is the latest section newsletter.  Thanks again to Mark Sherry for putting it together so quickly!  And thanks to all members who also contributed articles.

As we noted, we'll be producing the newsletter more regularly.  The next newsletter will come out April 1st, so if you have any items to share (short articles, commentary, news, new publications, announcements, etc...), please contact Mark Sherry (markdsherry@yahoo.com) and get your contributions to him by March 24th, 2014.

Enjoy the newsletter!  Lots of great material and information and we hope you'll be inspired to submit something for the next one.

In solidarity,
Steve
---
Steve McKay
Director, Center for Labor Studies
Associate Professor of Sociology
University of California, Santa Cruz

The Labor and Labor Movements Section of the American Sociological Association and the Chinese Association for Work and Labor initiated a scholarly exchange in 2012, and we have now created a web page (click here). We welcome contributions for a new column on labor and labor sociology in China for our section's newsletter.  To submit materials for the China column, please contact Sarah Swider, sswider@gmail.com .