POST-PTRS

Dear Colleague,

It was a great pleasure having you at the International Workshop "Paths Towards Reflexive Sociology: Ethnography Matters" that was held by the Institute of Sociology at the Faculty of Arts, Porto, Portugal the past 10th and 11th December. We had two days of wonderful debate on some decisive epistemological, theoretical and methodological issues concerning the research in social sciences, brought to us by the insights of some fantastic studies from all around the world that are being carried on or were recently finished.

As we said in the workshop closure, we now have three purposes: to publish the presented papers and the discussant’s comments on the papers; to try to create a discussion forum on the matters raised by the workshop; to try to arrange for other meetings of the same kind to happen – once again in Porto or in other location. We hope that more and more colleagues join us in this effort.

To keep in touch with the latest news regarding PTRS, don't forget to pass by: http://ptrs-porto.blogspot.com.

Thank you very much and Happy 2010!
PTRS Executive Committee,

Bruno Monteiro

João Queirós

Tiago Teles Santos

ptrs.porto@gmail.com

--

Caro/a Colega,

Foi um prazer ter podido contar com a sua presença na Workshop International "Paths Towards Reflexive Sociology: Ethnography Matters", que o Instituto de Sociologia organizou na Faculdade de Letras do Porto nos passados dias 10 e 11 de Dezembro de 2009. Foram dois dias de intensa reflexão e debate em torno de algumas questões epistemológicas e teórico-metodológicas absolutamente decisivas no que toca à investigação em ciências sociais, a partir dos resultados de algumas excelentes pesquisas em curso ou recentemente concluídas um pouco por todo o mundo.

Como pudemos sublinhar no encerramento da iniciativa, três propósitos serão agora alvo da nossa atenção: por um lado, avançar no sentido da publicação de um volume com as comunicações apresentadas; por outro lado, constituir um fórum de discussão em torno dos aspectos relativos à "prática da razão sociológica"; por outro lado ainda, permitir que se criem as condições para a realização de novas iniciativas do mesmo tipo. Oxalá possamos juntar neste esforço mais e mais colegas.
Para ir acompanhando as novidades, não deixe de passar regularmente por: http://ptrs-porto.blogspot.com.

Obrigado e Feliz 2010!
A Comissão Executiva do PTRS,

Bruno Monteiro

João Queirós

Tiago Teles Santos

ptrs.porto@gmail.com

Note for PTRS Participants

Below you can find some general information on the event.

For additional info, contact us by sending an e-mail to ptrs.porto@gmail.com.

General info

The PTRS discussion-oriented International Workhsop is organised by the Institute of Sociology of the University of Porto. You can find a description of our main purposes, as well as info concerning the Scientific and Executive Committees of the Workshop, here.

English will be the official language of the workshop. All presentations and discussions will be in English.

Participation is totally free of charges.

Venues

The PTRS discussion-oriented International Workhsop that the Institute of Sociology at the University of Porto is organising will take place in Porto, Portugal next December (the 10th and 11th). Porto is the second most important city in Portugal. Although it is a "shrinking city", it's the centre of a metropolitan area with over 1,2 million people and a very beautiful location. For general info, see: http://www.portoturismo.pt/.

Day 1 (December the 10th) will consist of three open debate sessions (1. "Grounded approaches to social change"; 2. "Inside the State"; 3. "The sociological craft: practical sense and reflexivity"). Check the Final Programme attached to this e-mail. Presenters will have about 20 to 25 minutes each one to pose their arguments. Sessions will occur at the Institute of Sociology facilities in Palacete Burmester (click here to check it out; to see and how you can find your way to this venue by car or public transportation, coming from Porto's airport, click here and here; to see and how you can find your way to this venue by car, coming from Porto's city centre, clickhere; to see how you can find your way to this venue walking from Metro Station Casa da Música, click here - the map says the location is "Faculdade de Psicologia e Ciências da Educação", but that's just Google failing to proper update its info; if you search Rua do Campo Alegre, 1055, Porto, Portugal" in Google Earth or Google's Streetview you can also see the place where the workshop's Day 1 is going to happen).

In the evening there will be some cultural activities in Espaços UP (click here and here to see how you can get there from Palacete Burmester). We will show the documentary by Haroun Farocki "Workers Leaving the Factory" (1995, in English with Portuguese subtitles), followed by a debate with two guests.

Day 2 (December the 11th) will have an open session on innovative ways of doing and thinking ethnography and the Final Session with Simon Charlesworth and Ariel Sevilla. The discussant of the Final Session will be our own Professor José Madureira Pinto. It's going to be just great. Sessions will take place at the Main Room (Anfiteatro Nobre) of the Faculty of Arts, University of Porto (click here to see some photos; the main building of the Faculty of Arts is not far away from Palacete Burmester, as you can see if you click here).

For additional info, check the University of Porto, the Faculty of Arts and the Institute of Sociology websites here, here and here. There are also some other interesting locations near our venues. See, for example, the Botanic Garden (it's the building next to Palacete Burmester), the Serralves Museum or the Music Hall by award-winning architect Rem Koolhas.

Lunch

Lunches - both Thursday and Friday - will be at "Restaurante do Clube", a place very close to the Workshop venues (see here and here). For 8,50€ (all included: soup, meat and/or fish dishes, drinks, dessert and coffee), you can eat a nice meal and also get to know everybody a little bit better. Conference participants, discussants and other guests will be there too, so you'll be able to discuss further with them after or before the Workshop Sessions.

If you wish to have lunch with us, please let us know by e-mail or Thursday morning at the Welcome Desk of the Workshop in Palacete Burmester. You don't have to pay in advance; you'll pay there after having eaten.

These are the menus for Thursday and Friday:

Thursday

Fish sticks with yogurt sauce (filetes de pescada com molho de iogurte) and rice (arroz branco)

AND/OR
Lasagna (lasanha de carne) and salad (salada)

+
"Mexidos" (a typical Christmas dessert) / Jelly (gelatina) / Fruit (fruta)

Friday

Tuna "au gratin" with fusilli pasta (gratinado de atum com fusili) / Salad (salada)

AND/OR

"Pepper wrappers" (meat and ham wrappers) (embrulhos de pimenta = queque de carne com pimenta e presunto) and rice (arroz branco)

+
Chocolate mousse (mousse de chocolate) / Jelly (gelatina) / Fruit (fruta)

If you don't like any of the proposed dishes, maybe we can arrange for you to have something else. But please let us know in advance.

Registration!

Register now in the PTRS Workshop by sending and e-mail with your contact details to: ptrs.porto@gmail.com.

Day 1 will take place in the Burmester Building (Room 103) of the Faculty of Arts, University of Porto. Day 2 will take place in the Main Room of the Faculty of Arts, University of Porto (main building).

English will be the official language of the workshop.

Participation is totally free of charges (LAST PLACES TO ATTEND DAY 1 SESSIONS; REGISTER NOW!).

Organisation: Institute of Sociology - Faculty of Arts, University of Porto.

PTRS@Porto: FINAL PROGRAMME

[Minor changes introduced December the 2nd]

Paths Towards Reflexive Sociology: Ethnography matters

Porto, Faculty of Arts, 10^th-11^th December 2009

Programme

Day 1

10^th December 2009

[Venue: Institute of Sociology – University of Porto, Burmester Building, Room 103]

Facilitator: Bruno Monteiro (Institute of Sociology – University of Porto, Portugal; PTRS Executive Committee)

10:00-10:30

Opening Session

João Teixeira Lopes (President of the Institute of Sociology – University of Porto, Portugal)

10:30-12:30

Session 1: “Grounded approaches to social change”

Aslam Fataar (Stellenbosch University, South Africa)

Youth navigation of ‘dys-synchronous’ school spaces across the rural-urban divide in South Africa

Graça Cordeiro (Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology – ISCTE, Portugal)

Lígia Ferro (Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology – ISCTE, Portugal)

Tim Sieber (University of Massachusetts, USA)

The bright side of darker streets: discussing an unconventional exploratory field research experience with Boston community murals

João Caramelo (Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences – University of Porto, Portugal)

Employee ownership of a sugar factory in Brazil: an ethnography of a social and economic alternative experiment

Discussant: Wiebke Keim (Department for Social Work and Social Policy – Fribourg University, Germany)

12:30-14:30

Lunch

14:30-16:30

Session 2: “Inside the state”

John Bourke (Macquarie University, Australia)

Rosemary Lucadou-Wells (Murdoch University, Australia)

Developing a reception theory for the analysis of colonial defamation cases in Van Diemens Land

Susana Durão (Institute of Social Sciences – University of Lisbon, Portugal)

Tales of the field: an ethnographic journey inside police worlds

Christian Hansen (University of Copenhagen, Danmark)

Social workers and the construction and reconstruction of the Danish Welfare State

Discussant: Stefania Barca (Centre for Social Studies – University of Coimbra, Portugal)

16:30-17:00

Coffee break

17:00-19:00

Session 3: “The sociological craft: practical sense and reflexivity”

Marie-Anne Dujarier (Polytechnique, CNAM – Sorbonne University, France)

Aurélie Jeantet (CRESPA – Sorbonne University, France)

Emmanuelle Savignac (CIM – Sorbonne University, France)

To intervene in the media as sociologists: a little exercise of reflexivity on the mediatisation of researchers and knowledge

Manuel Torres Cubeiro (University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain)

Making no sense: biography, reflexivity and mental illness

Łukasz Krzyżowski (Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology – AGH – University of Science and Technology, Poland)

Co-creating of transnational social spaces. Researching migrations across time and space

Isabel Cruz (Institute of Sociology – University of Porto, Portugal)

Between macro and micro: a methodological eclecticism in consumption practices analysis

[DISTRIBUTED PAPER (WILL NOT BE PRESENT FOR ORAL PRESENTATION)]

Discussant: Rita Cachado (Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology – ISCTE, Portugal)

21:30-23:00

[Venue: E-Learning Café UP]

“Workers leaving the factory”, Harun Farocki (1995, 37’)

Film + Debate with Carlos Gonçalves (Department of Sociology and Institute of Sociology – University of Porto, Portugal) and Luísa Veloso (Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology – ISCTE, Portugal)

Day 2

11^th December 2009

[Venue: Faculty of Arts, Main Building, Anfiteatro Nobre]

Facilitator: João Queirós (Institute of Sociology – University of Porto, Portugal; PTRS Executive Committee)

10:00-12:30

Session 4: “Innovative ways of thinking and doing ethnography, innovative ways of disseminating results”

Paula Mota Santos (University Fernando Pessoa, Portugal)

Roberto Alzetta (University of Genoa, Italy)

The camera tends to lie and the audience tends to believe. The implications of the use of film in ethnographic research: the case of the international European research project TRESEGY

Pedro dos Santos Bóia (Institute of Sociology – University of Porto, Portugal, and University of Exeter, UK)

Living ethnography: tensions and articulations between researcher’s knowledge, the actors’ discourses and sociological ‘classic’ deconstruction

Raúl Cabrera (Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Mexico)

Anika Meckesheimer (Universidad Xochimilco, Mexico)

Alterity and autonomy in intervention – doing research with, not only about, civil organizations in Chiapas

Marcelle Dawson (University of Johannesburg, South Africa)

Straddling the divide between academia and activism: exploring different forms of knowledge production

Jonathan London (Department of Asian and International Studies – City University, Hong Kong)

Representing child poverty in Viet Nam

[DISTRIBUTED PAPER (WILL NOT BE PRESENT FOR ORAL PRESENTATION)]

Discussant: Sofia Cruz (Faculty of Economy and Institute of Sociology – University of Porto, Portugal)

12:30-15:00

Lunch

15:00-17:00

Final Session

Simon J. Charlesworth (Clare Hall – University of Cambridge, UK)

Education, unemployment, labour market segregation. Social division and meaningless pedagogy

Ariel Sevilla (Laboratoire Printemps and French Sociology Association, France)

Ethnographical data and international comparison. Research notes from the auto-industry in France, Brazil and Argentina

Discussant: José Madureira Pinto (Faculty of Economy and Institute of Sociology – University of Porto, Portugal)

Workshop closure

PTRS @ Porto, PORTUGAL: Registration

International Workshop
PATHS TOWARDS REFLEXIVE SOCIOLOGY: ETHNOGRAPHY MATTERS

Porto, Portugal, December 10th-11th 2009
Faculty of Arts, University of Porto

PROGRAMME

Day 1
Facilitator: Bruno Monteiro (ISFLUP)

10:00-10:30 - Opening Session with the President of ISFLUP, João Teixeira Lopes

10:30-12:30 - Session 1: "Grounded approaches to social change"
Discussant: Wiebke Keim (Department for Social Work and Social Policy, Fribourg University, Germany)

12:30-14:30 - Lunch

14:30-16:15 - Session 2: "Inside the State"
Discussant: Stefania Barca (Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, Portugal)

16:15-16:45 - Coffee Break

16:45-18:45 - Session 3: "The sociological craft: practical sense and reflexivity"
Discussant: Rita Cachado (Centre for Research and Social Studies, ISCTE, Portugal)

21:30 - Documentary: "Workers leaving the factory", by Harun Farocki (1995, 37') + Debate (with the support of the Goethe Institut)

Day 2
Facilitator: João Queirós (ISFLUP)

10:30-12:30 - Session 4: "Innovative ways of doing ethnography and disseminating results"
Discussant: Sofia Cruz (ISFLUP)

12:30-15:00 - Lunch

15:00-17:00 - Final Session with Simon J. Charlesworth (Clare Hall, University of Cambridge) and Ariel Sevilla (Laboratoire Printemps, Université de Versailles, and General Secretary of the French Sociology Association).

Register now by sending and e-mail with your contact details to: ptrs.porto@gmail.com.

Full Final Programme will soon be available.
Day 1 will take place in the Burmester Building (Room 103) of the Faculty of Arts, University of Porto. Day 2 will take place in the Main Room of the Faculty of Arts, University of Porto (main building).
English will be the official language of the workshop.
Participation is totally free of charges (30 places max. in Day 1 Sessions).

Organiser: ISFLUP - Institute of Sociology - Faculty of Arts, University of Porto, PORTUGAL.

PTRS @ Porto, Portugal: Venues, Travel, Accomodation

Venues

The PTRS discussion-oriented International Workhsop that the Institute of Sociology at the University of Porto is organising will take place in Porto, Portugal next December (the 10th and 11th).
Porto is the second most important city in Portugal. Although it is a "shrinking city", it's the centre of a metropolitan area with over 1,2 million people and a very beautiful location. For general info, see: http://www.portoturismo.pt/.

Day 1 (December the 10th) will consist of three open debate sessions (1. "Grounded approaches to social change"; 2. "Inside the State"; 3. "The sociological craft: practical sense and reflexivity"). Presenters will have about 20 to 25 minutes each one to pose their arguments. Sessions will occur at the Institute of Sociology facilities in Palacete Burmester (click here to check it out; to see how far you are from the airport and how you can find your way to this venue by car or public transportation clike here and here - the map says the location is "Faculdade de Psicologia e Ciências da Educação", but that's just Google failing to proper update its info; if you search Rua do Campo Alegre, 1055, Porto, Portugal" in Google Earth or Google's Streetview you can also see the place where the workshop's Day 1 is going to happen).

In the evening there will be some cultural activities in Espaços UP (click here and here to see how you can get there from Palacete Burmester). We will show the documentary by Harun Farocki "Workers Leaving the Factory" (1995, 37' in english), followed by a debate with one or two guests.

Day 2 (December the 11th) will have an open session on innovative ways of doing ethnography and disseminating research results and the Final Session with Simon Charlesworth and Ariel Sevilla. Sessions will take place at the Main Room of the Faculty of Arts, University of Porto (click here to see some photos; the main building of the Faculty of Arts is not far away from Palacete Burmester, as you can see if you click here).

For additional info, check the University of Porto, the Faculty of Arts and the Institute of Sociology websites here, here and here.
There are also some other interesting locations near our venues. See, for example, the Botanic Garden (it's the building next to Palacete Burmester), the Serralves Museum or the Music Hall by award-winning architect Rem Koolhas.


Travelling

Porto is served by a very nice airport (Porto Airport or Francisco Sá Carneiro Airport - OPO), which is outside the city but not very far away (visit the website here). It's one of Ryanair's hubs, so it's ideal for participants travelling from other european countries.

To come from the airport to the venues, you just have to grab a taxi or take the metro (Purple Line until Casa da Música/Music Hall, direction Estádio do Dragão/Stadium of Dragon, as you can see here). Please make sure you tell us when are you going to arrive at the airport and if you'd like a ride or prefer to explore the way through here by yourself.

For the ones travelling from outside the EU, if you need a document saying you are going to participate in PTRS for visa purposes, please let us know. We'll scan it and send it to you via e-mail a.s.a.p.


Accomodation

Here are some accomodation suggestions. Prices vary a lot, as you can see. You can either find accomodation near the main venues or near the place where we are going to show the documentary (December the 10th, 21h30). You can also stay at Downtown Porto or in the Historic Centre (UNESCO's World Heritage) if you wish to get to know more about the city.

Near Palacete Burmester and the Faculty of Arts...
- Ipanema Park Hotel (*****), click here.
- Ipanema Porto (****), click here.
- Hotel Tuela Porto (***), click here.
- César Hotel (**), click here.
- Pousada da Juventude/Youth Hostel Porto, click here.

Near Espaços UP and Porto's General Hospital (Metro "Pólo Universitário")...
- Ibis Hotel Porto S. João, click here.

In Downtown Porto/the Historic Centre (Metro, taxi and bus to the main venues)...
- Grande Hotel do Porto, click here.
- Mercure Porto Batalha, click here.
- Pestana Porto Hotel, click here.

Don't forget to pass by this website here to collect some additional info.

Any doubts, please let us know. Send us an e-mail to ptrs.porto@gmail.com.

See you in Porto!

PTRS's Final Session

The Scientific Committee is now releasing the first results of the evaluation of the large amount of answers to our Call for Papers that we received throughout the last couple of months.
We don't have yet the final version of the workshop's program, but we can announce that we'll have an outstanding Final Session, with the presence of Simon J. Charlesworth, sociologist and the author of the impressive "A phenomenology of working-class experience", and Ariel Sevilla, from Laboratoire Printemps at the University of Versailles, France, and currently the General Secretary of the French Sociology Association.

Wether you're going to present a paper or not, please make sure that you're going to take part in the debate!

See you in Porto!

The Call for Papers is now closed

The PTRS's Call for Papers is now closed. We have received a large number of proposals from all around the globe and we're already going through them. Authors should be contacted by the Executive Committee during this week or so. Although we're still analysing the proposals, we can anticipate, taking into account the overall quality of the abstracts that were sent to us, a great workshop, with oustandingly innovative and original presentations.

We can talk the talk... and now we're going to walk the walk!

See you in Porto!

PTRS Executive Committee

LAST CALL!

The PTRS's Call for Papers ends this Friday, October the 30th. We have received a significant amount of very interesting proposals, but we're still open to new insights on "Ethnography matters".
Please send your abstract (max. 300 words) and short bio to ptrs.porto@gmail.com until tomorrow night.
To those authors who have already sent their proposals, we'll have an answer on the acceptance of the paper during next week.

Hoping to see you in Porto next December!

PTRS EXecutive Committee

PTRS: Ethnography Matters! Some relevant info (1)

Paths Towards Reflexive Sociology: Ethnography Matters! is taking place next December in Porto.

Day 1 (December 109th) will consist of three open debate sessions. Presenters will have about 30 minutes each one to pose their arguments. Sessions will occur at the Institute of Sociology facilities in Palacete Burmester (see picture below). In the evening there will be some cultural activities.









Day 2 (December 11th) will have an open session over new ways of disseminating research results and a final session with keynote speakers. Sessions will take place at the Faculty of Arts, University of Porto (see picture below).











Porto is the second most important city in Portugal. It is the centre of a metropolitan area with over 1,2 million people and a beautiful location.

For more info, see: http://www.portoturismo.pt/

Also check the University of Porto, the Faculty of Arts and the Institute of Sociology websites here, here and here.

The CALL FOR PAPERS is now open!

International workshop
Paths Towards Reflexive Sociology: Ethnography Matters

Porto, December 10th/11th 2009

CALL FOR PAPERS
June 15th-October 30th 2009

Continuous development and changing nature of our society require a steady reflection on and revision of our ways of doing sociological research. Oftentimes, however, sociologists are faced with rigidly structured academic fields that force scholars to be cautious while choosing research topic and methods of inquiry. Nonetheless, social change has a direct impact on what we study, how we conduct research, and how we present our research findings.

Moving from positive science to reflexive science means a constant questioning about the social and political implications of social research. It also means being aware of the specific social effects generated by the researcher’s presence in the world he/she studies. PTRS: Ethnography matters invites papers that address these issues. We welcome submissions not only from scholars, but also from social practitioners and activists who have a first-hand experience.

The session will have two main focuses:

1. Ways of doing and reasoning
New research fields and questions often require not only changes in our research methods and techniques, but also a will to permanently embrace theoretical and epistemological questioning.We use visual materials, instead of only focusing on numbers and words, to make our studies more elaborate; we employ online questionnaires and discussion forums to collect data; we use statistical and qualitative software during the data analysis stage; especially, we submit ourselves to fieldwork harshness.Refusing the academic «state of grace» usually taken for granted, we are ready to reflect upon our work and our place when conducting social research.We encourage submissions that deal with unconventional ways of conducting social research and with the challenges and opportunities of a reflexive sociological craft.

2. Innovative Ways of Presenting Results
Unconventional ways of doing research are not only about employing «new technology» or «innovative techniques». They bring to the fore some of the social, practical, epistemological, and ethical impacts often disregarded in the academic world.Traditionally, sociologists have attended conferences and published peer-reviewed articles and books to share their research results with others. Nowadays, sociologists can’t ignore the growing demands issuing from the very same individuals and communities until now often reduced to the status of mere «objects» or «informants».We thus invite papers that address the nature of research results and new ways of knowledge presentation and dissemination.

Please send your presentation's title and abstract (max. 300 words), as well as contact details, to ptrs.porto@gmail.com.


Scientific Committee

Simon Charlesworth
Clare Hall (University of Cambridge)

Wiebke Keim
Department for Social Work and Social Policy (Fribourg University)

João Miguel Teixeira Lopes
Departamento de Sociologia da Faculdade de Letras (University of Porto)
Instituto de Sociologia da Faculdade de Letras (University of Porto)

Bruno Monteiro
Instituto de Sociologia da Faculdade de Letras (University of Porto)
Centro de Investigação e Intervenção Educativas (University of Porto)

Virgílio Borges Pereira
Departamento de Sociologia da Faculdade de Letras (University of Porto)
Instituto de Sociologia da Faculdade de Letras (University of Porto)

José Madureira Pinto
Instituto de Sociologia da Faculdade de Letras (University of Porto)

João Queirós
Instituto de Sociologia da Faculdade de Letras (University of Porto)

Ariel Sevilla
Laboratoire Printemps: Professions - Institutions - Temporalités (Versailles University)

Executive Committee
Bruno Monteiro
João Queirós


Download the Call for Papers' poster and flyer (low res).

Walk along with us!

Welcome to the weblog of Paths Towards Reflexive Sociology: Ethnography Matters. From this moment on, you can find out everything about this International Workshop that's going to take place in Porto, Portugal, next December.

Keep passing by and learn how you can join us in this sociological journey.

We can talk the talk... but can we walk the walk?

Hoping to see you in Porto!

PRTS's Executive Committee,
Bruno Monteiro
João Queirós