Prof. Margaret Archer will give a guest-talk at Cardiff University on
an oft-neglected aspect of critical realism. She will address how
groups and group relations are transformed in important respects in
the course of pursuing and introducing social transformations. Her
talk draws empirical illustrations from the contestation of
intellectual property in Late Modernity.

The event is open to established researchers and doctoral candidates
in relevant disciplines. Please register through the link below.

Speaker: Prof. Margaret S. Archer.

Title: How Agency is transformed in the course of Social
Transformations: Don’t Forget the Double Morphogenesis.

Date: Tuesday 2nd December 2014 (2:30-4:30pm).

Venue: Lecture theatre E1.21, Sir Martin Evans Building, Museum Ave.
Cardiff CF10 3AX.

Organisers: Dr Ismael Al-Amoudi, Dr Tim Edwards, Prof. Rick Delbridge.

Registration link and additional info: https://www.eventsforce.net/cbs/105/home

In the second Centre for Social Ontology seminar of 2014/15, Emma Uprichard (Associate Professor at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies) discusses Complex Temporal Ontologies and Method:

This paper reflects on the methodological challenge of applying complexity theory to study social systems. More specifically, the focus is on the problem of capturing complex patterns of time and temporality empirically. The onus of the talk will be: a) to problematize existing longitudinal qualitative and quantitative social research approaches, which fail to capture complex temporal ontologies, and b) to suggest some tentative methodological alternatives which focus on capturing temporal patterns of change and continuity from a complex systems perspective. A particular concern throughout the discussion is how to study complex change and continuity empirically, whilst also ensuring that notions of agency and the reflexive ageing actor remain central.

All welcome! The seminar will take place on October 28th, from 5pm to 6:30pm in R1.15 (Ramphal Building) on the University of Warwick campus. See here for help getting to the campus. Feel free to contact Mark Carriganwith any questions.

International Centre for Critical Realism conference: From the anatomy of the global crisis to the ontology of human flourishing

The International Centre of Critical Realism presents the 17th annual conference of the International Association of Critical Realism.

When?

Friday 18th – Monday 21st July 2014

Where?

Institute of Education
University of London
20 Bedford Way
London WC1H 0AL

Delegates’ Rates

The following Early Bird discounted rates are available until 30 May:

• £240.00 – IACR members
• £320.00 – non-IACR members
• £195.00 – Students and unwaged

Book Now

From the anatomy of the global crisis…

Since 2008, what began with an initial collapse of the financial system has catalysed into an economic and political crisis of global dimensions. Lurking in the shadows of the financial crisis and occasionally breaching daylight is the ecological crisis. Global warming and climate change hangs like a sword of Damocles over the future of humanity. This is to say nothing of business as usual: growing inequality and impoverishment, continuing discrimination and exploitation, all of which functions to foster moral, psychological and existential crises. Current orthodoxy suggests that such crises are only temporary deviations from an otherwise well-functioning system. Prevailing pessimism suggests that it is easier to imagine global catastrophe and the destruction of the world rather than a change in the status quo able to avert such an outcome.

…to the ontology of human flourishing

In light of the global poly-crisis two questions are now before us; ‘how are we to understand our current situation?’ and ‘what are we to do?’ Albert Einstein is widely accredited as answering this by suggesting “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” This new thinking is what critical realism aspires to provide. Certainly, if we are not only to survive but flourish as human beings we require a robust theory and practice able to move us beyond modest business as usual to the possibilities of something more. The 17th Annual Conference of the International Association of Critical Realism (IACR) will explore the different issues connected with this crisis.

Schedule

Wednesday 16 – Thursday 17 July

• Pre-conference workshop on critical realism
  Led by Roy Bhaskar, originator of the philosophy of critical realisim (and metaReality) and Alan Norrie, president of IACR

Friday 18 July

• Educating for the future
  – The ecological crisis
  – Forms of realism
• Book launch with drinks reception

Saturday 19 July

• The political-economic crisis
  – Ethics, emancipation and metaReality in action
  – Dialectic and critical realism
• Conference Dinner

Sunday 20 July

• Ontology of flourishing
  – Love, sexuality and feminism in the 21st century
  – Religion, spirituality and secularism
• IACR Annual General Meeting

Monday 21 July

Half day

• Where do we go from here?
  – Educating for a better future
  – Concrete eutopianism
• ICCR Annual General Meeting and a workshop on the philosophy of metaReality

Tuesday 22 July

• Symposium on integrative metatheories

Speakers

• Priscilla Alderson (Institute of Education)
• Richard Andrews (Institute of Education)
• Margaret Archer (L’Ecole Polythechnique Federale de Lausanne)
• Alison Assiter (University of Western England)
• Roy Bhaskar (Institute of Education)
• Berth Danermark (Orebro, Sweden)
• Hans Despain (Nichols College, Massachussets)
• Sean Esbjörn-Hargens (Meridian, California)
• Lena Gunnarsson (Orebro, Sweden)
• David Graeber (London School of Economics)
• Mervyn Hartwig (IACR/ICCR)
• Nick Hostettler (Queen Mary, University of London)
• Chris Husbands (Institute of Education)
• Bob Jessop (Lancaster University)
• Petter Næss (Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Oslo)
• Alan Norrie (Warwick University)
• Christopher Norris (Cardiff University)
• Alister McGrath (Oxford University)
• Doug Porpora (Drexel)
• Richard Pring (Oxford University)
• Michael Reiss (Institute of Education)
• David Scott (Institute of Education)
• Christian Smith (Notre Dame University)
• George Steinmetz (Michigan University)
• Michael Schwartz (Georgia Regents University)
• Frederic Vandenberghe (UERJ, Brazil)
• Michael Young (Institute of Education)

The latest CSO workshop was held in January 2014, in Magdalen College at the University of Oxford. The papers from the workshop will be published in 2015 as the third volume of the Social Morphogenesis series. These were the papers presented:

Monday 6th January

Philip Gorski – Causal Mechanisms: lessons from the Life Sciences

Colin Wight – Mechanisms, Metaphors and some examples from International Relations

Pierpaolo Donati – Social Mechanisms and their Feedbacks: Mechanical versus Relational Emergence of new Social Formations

Emmanuel Lazega – Dynamics of multilevel networks in social processes: hardwired social control, institutional enterpeneurship and morphogenesis

Tuesday 7th January

Margaret Archer – Don’t Forget the Double Morphogenesis

Tony Lawson – The Modern Corporation as an Out-of-Control Mechanism of Social Change

Andrea Maccarini – Turbulence and Relational Conjunctures: The Emergence of Morphogenetic Environments

Wolfgang Hofkirchner – ‘Mechanisms’ around information society

Wednesday 8th January

Douglas Porpora – Why Don’t Things Change?

Ismael Al-Amoudi and John Latsis – Death Contested: Morphonecrosis and Conflicts of Interpretation