The Discursive Construction of Reality, Germany
Call for Submissions
The Discursive Construction of Reality VI – Interdisciplinary perspectives on a sociology of knowledge approach to discourse research
Conference organisers: Prof. Dr. Reiner Keller, Martin Blessinger, Claudia Foltyn, Amira Malik
| Conference at the University of Augsburg, Germany | March 27th – 28th, 2025
Over the last decades, the research program outlined by the Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse (SKAD) has spread to many disciplines in social science. SKAD discourse research, drawing upon Michel Foucault’s work, symbolic interactionism and sociology of knowledge, is interested in exploring processes of ‘discursive construction of reality’, social relations of knowledge and knowing, and politics of knowledge and knowing – the manifold ways of discursive meaning making. Bearing these core tenets in mind, the original approach has nonetheless been successfully amended, expanded, and occasionally modified to meet the demands of different fields of study and forms of data. Corresponding studies may be found in sociology, but also in neighbouring disciplines such as cultural studies, political science, historical science, educational science, theology, linguistics, and criminology among many others.
Following the series of Augsburg conferences in 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2023 on interpretive and sociology of knowledge discourse research with over 120 participants and 40 contributions from different disciplines each year, the upcoming conference will continue in the spirit of an interdisciplinary discussion about the foundations and applications of SKAD and SKAD-inspired discourse research, as well as related perspectives (such as subjectivation research, situational analysis, ethnography of discourses and dispositifs).
Areas of interest for contributions may include:
- Theoretical and methodological discussions, concept elaboration and extensions of the research programme of SKAD, including the question of how SKAD fits into the current landscape of discourse research or into the specific discussions & theoretical challenges within the scope of individual disciplines.
Concrete methods and ‘modus operandi’ in empirical research contexts, focusing less on the respective object of research but instead on analytical procedures involved in these studies. Especially when going beyond the ‘classic’ text-based or qualitative approaches (including audio-visual, ethnographic, or interview material/ quantitative applications and digital discourse analysis), how do we proceed, in practice, when researching discourses and/or dispositif structures (e.g., ethnographically)? We also welcome research that addresses the relevance of artificial intelligence for discourses and discourse research.
The question of how further heuristic tools and methods can be integrated in a SKAD frame of reference and how can they be applied? This area of contributions includes strategies of mapping (see Adele Clarke for instance), ethnographic research designs in discourse and dispositif studies, the questions of how to integrate and conceptualise visualisations and materiality in discourses studies.
Subjectivation research, which in recent years has increasingly pursued research interests that point to the possibilities of expanding and supplementing discourse and dispositif research. This involves empirical investigation of normative subject positions on the one hand and the human self-relations, subjectivities, biographies, and self- technologies influenced by the subject positions on the other. This focus is concerned with addressing theoretical and methodological questions of how the linking of discursively constructed subject positions and self-relations, biographies, identities, etc. can be conceived, as well as with how the concrete empirical implementation of such research projects can be achieved.
The presentation of ongoing or completed empirical studies that draw on SKAD and/or related perspectives. Contributions from different disciplines and studies are welcome. The focus here is on the respective research projects and their results. At the same time, it should become clear what the specific sociological and discourse-analytical structure and yield of the research presented is for the respective fields of investigation and/or the sociological discourse research. We especially invite research addressing issues of discourse and materiality, control, and violence/censorship (violence in orders of discourse: how different acts of violence shape discursive processes, ranging from ‘violence, force and constraint’ from ‘above’/state levels to ‘violence, force and constraint’ from ‘below’, as e.g. in extremist action or other interventions into the freedom of speech).
The conference will use German and English language. In addition, online access for presentations and participations will be available for those who do not have the possibility to travel to Germany. Please send your submissions to wda@phil.uni-augsburg.de in the form of an abstract (max. 3,000 characters, including title, your name and affiliation, E-Mail and indication for the thematic cluster 1-5 you would like to present in).
Deadline for submissions is October 15th, 2024. Responses about acceptance and a preliminary program will be send by October 31, 2024.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact us. E-Mail: wda@phil.uni-augsburg.de
There are no fees. There will be an opportunity to access cold and hot drinks on site for a small contribution towards expenses. For further information to the registration modalities, travel, accommodation, and more please visit www.diskurswissenschaft.de.
Social Events at the conference
Besides an optional dinner with traditional Swabian and Bavarian cuisine on the first day of the conference we invite you to our closing party on March 28th after the end of the conference in a local club location.
