CALL FOR WORKING GROUPS
Navigating Rural Transitions:
Exploring liveable futures
European Society for Rural Sociology
July 7-10, 2025 Riga, Latvia
Submit a proposal to convene a Working Group for the next ESRS conference.
Our focus
The 2025 ESRS conference will take up the theme of ‘Navigating rural transitions: Exploring liveable futures’.
As we navigate ongoing transitions, an exploration of liveable rural futures calls on us to consider the diverse range of challenges and possibilities that lie ahead: from a just, sustainable, and ‘worth living’ futures for all, to survivable or even catastrophic futures, and everything in between.
Understood this way, the pursuit of liveable rural futures requires engagement with critical social-political and social-ecological questions related to, among others, farming, agriculture, and food systems, justice and discriminations, the politics of knowledge, social mobilisations and agency, migration and mobility, technologies, connections and solidarity, care and hope. Additionally, the importance of (local) democracy, collective action, and the development of (relatively) autonomous forms of organisation in rural areas, such as the rural commons, should be considered.
Further, addressing these topics means engaging with the lived experiences and practices of people today, while also taking into account what they aspire and hope for. This requires working with, questioning and developing new theories and methods. It also requires discussions about the roles of researchers and what type of actions are needed.
With this in mind, we welcome proposals for Working Groups (WG) that seek to explore and advance understandings of what is happening and what needs to happen to ensure liveable rural futures in the face of continuing uncertainty and multiple, intersecting, and ongoing ‘crises’. In particular, we are interested in proposals for WGs that interrogate and engage with the different dynamics, practices, tensions, contradictions, and entanglements involved in realising liveable rural futures.
We invite contributions in a variety of formats, including academic presentations and round-tables, audio/video materials, live performances (music, drama, poetry), photo or art exhibitions, and others.
Practicalities
The conference is organised around Working Groups (WG). These WG can take many forms, including academic and non-academic interventions (see below for options).
The deadline for submissions for Working Groups is 18 October 2024.
Please send your proposals by email to the Scientific Committee: ESRS_committee_2025@rsu.lv
The WG will be selected by the Scientific Committee.
November 15 2024, we will launch the call for contributions for the selected WGs. Note that convenors of the WG will be responsible for selecting the contributions for their WG, under the guidance of the Scientific Committee.
How to submit?
Please follow the instructions below when submitting your proposal. Proposals should be kept short and succinct and not exceed one A4 page.
The proposal should be structured as follows:
Title: Short title
Convenors: Name(s), affiliation(s), email address(es). Please identify the contact person.
Topic: Introduce the topic of your WG. This may include a short list of sub-themes. Elaborate briefly on how your proposed WG engages with the themes of the conference.
Objectives: Explain the objective of the working group (WG) and what you hope to achieve from your WG (e.g. sharing new knowledge, discussion, debate, joint publications, networking, future collaborations).
Format: Explain how your WG will be organised and how much time you expect the WG to take. Each conference session will last for 90 minutes. Traditional academic paper sessions are welcome, but we also encourage the use of non-traditional formats (i.e. panel debate, pecha kucha, workshop, world cafe, walk and talk, round-tables, audio/video materials, documentary films, live performances (poetry, music, drama), photo or art exhibits, graffiti, and others). We are particularly interested in WGs that are willing to experiment with integrating different formats.
Key dates
Call for Working Groups launched September 11, 2024
Deadline for WG proposals: October 18, 2024
Call for contributions launched November 15, 2024
Deadline for contributions: February 1, 2025
Acceptance: March 15, 2025
Conference: July 7-10, 2025
Scientific Committee
Dr Jessica Duncan, Chair of Scientific Committee (esrs@wur.nl) Rural Sociology Group, School of Social Sciences, Wageningen University, The Netherlands Dr Fatmanil Doner, ESRS Executive Committee member
Department of Sociology and Social Work, Public University of Navarre (UPNA), Spain
Prof Seema Arora-Jonsson
Department of Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden
Dr Rita Calvario
Centre for Social Studies (CES), University of Coimbra, Portugal
Dr Emily Duncan
Department of Sociology and Social Studies, University of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
Dr Petr Jehlička
Department of Ecological Anthropology, Institute of Ethnology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Czechia
Department of Local and Regional Studies, Institute of Sociology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Czechia
Dr Loukia-Maria Fratsea
Researcher, Department of Geography, Harokopio University, Athens, Greece
Dr Ana Moragues Faus
School of Economics, University of Barcelona, Spain