Dear development sociologists,

Just a reminder that the deadline to submit a paper for consideration for the 2018 ASA meeting in Philadelphia is 11:59 PM tomorrow, January 11. Please consider supporting our section by submitting your work to one of our three paper sessions, or our roundtables. I am posting the development sociology section program below. You can also find this information under the section listings in the ASA call for papers: http://www.asanet.org/annual-meeting-2018/call-papers.

Good luck!

Jennifer Bair

1. Frontiers of Feminist Development

Organizers: Jennifer Keahey and Kristy Kelly

This panel invites papers analyzing emerging topics and issues in development theory and practice by drawing on feminist, intersectional, post-colonial, and/or indigenous perspectives. Potential topics may include (but are not limited to): socio-environmental impacts of extractive industry, megaprojects, GMOs, and/or climate change; alternative models of social, economic and environmental sustainability, innovations in community organizing, knowledge-production, and resistance; and, integration and translation of human rights paradigms in local contexts. Critical questions of interest include: What are the frontiers of feminist development theory, research and practice? How can the practices of local, national, and global development institutions be improved by integrating insights from feminist, post-colonial, and/or indigenous theories?

2. States, Parties, and Movements in the Global South: Rethinking the “State” in Development

Organizer:  Gowri Vijayakumar

Traditional theories of the state have tended to conceptualize it as a unitary entity, separate from political parties and social movements.  Development sociologists focusing on the global South have increasingly offered broader understandings of states, their role in development, their relation to political parties, and their engagement with civil society, including populist movements on the right and left, labor movements, feminist and LGBTQ movements, and movements of ethnic and racial minorities.  This panel invites papers that offer innovative approaches to states and state programs, global development institutions, political parties, and social movements in the global South.  Papers drawing on research from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, or offering comparative approaches, are particularly welcome.

3. Cities and Development

Organizer: Patrick Heller

Since the mid-20th century, poor countries have undergone accelerated processes of urbanization, and the majority of the world’s population now lives in cities. Varied theoretical approaches from the sociology of development, from modernization to dependency, have emphasized “over-urbanization” and “urbanization without industrialization”, while recent scholarship has turned to questions about  the effects of neoliberal restructuring. The degree to which newer urban contexts are defined by the politics of a “reserve army of the unemployed”, clientelism and populism, has been subject to considerable debate, as has the relationship between governing institutions and social inequalities in such contexts. This panel invites contributions that address how and why cities are increasingly central for rethinking the politics of development and state-building.

4. Sociology of Development Roundtables

Organizer: Benjamin Bradlow