Workshop on Collective Identities, Mobilization and Political Participation to be held in Kiel (Germany), September 1-4, 2005
Background | (top)
There is converging evidence and growing agreement among researchers that collective identities, or collective identification processes, play a crucial role in collective mobilization and political participation. For example, collective identification can be understood as a (meso-level) mediating process which responds to cleavages and opportunities in the (macro-level) social structure and in turn facilitates consensus mobilization so that (macro-level) frictions and contradictions are translated into (micro-level) psychological experiences of common fate involving shared grievances, injustices and common enemies. Similarly, collective identification can translate (macro-level) opportunities into (micro-level) psychological experiences of collective strength and hope. Strengthened by this awareness of common fate and collective strength, collective identification is then likely to facilitate action mobilization and political participation so that people are able to act on (macro-level) social structure and may eventually change it. Finally, the underlying collective identities may in turn be strengthened in the process of participation, both due to an increase in cognitive salience of this identity and due to increased feelings of agency and empowerment. The strengthened collective identity can then again promote subsequent mobilization and participation.
Goals | (top)
The major goal of the workshop is to explore the links between collective identity, mobilization and political participation. As indicated in the model above (which is just one possible working model among many others), such exploration requires the articulation of multiple levels of social scientific analysis and therefore also interdisciplinary, or at least multidisciplinary, cooperation. Moreover, given the ongoing transformation of Europe into a supranational political and economic entity as well as rapid processes of globalization and politically and economically motivated migration, we intend to examine the collective identity-action link with a particular emphasis on minority-majority relations in the context of (im)migration in Europe.
Workshop participants | (top)
The group of prospective participants consists of members of the ESF-network "Identity and Socio-Political Participation" (co-chaired by Bernd Simon, Kiel, and Bert Klandermans, Amsterdam) and 6 invited speakers. Participants are predominantly social scientists coming from the fields of social psychology, sociology or political sciences.| Photo Gallery |  |
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Workshop structure | (top)
The workshop structure is: Lectures - commentators - brief statements - conclusions.
There will be six invited lectures, three on Friday and three on Saturday, with each lecture lasting 45 minutes. Although all lectures share an interest in the identity-action link, the Friday lectures focus more on issues of collective identity and the Saturday lectures on collective action (i.e., mobilization and political participation including protest).
For more detailed information see the full workshop program, the list of participants and the speakers' abstracts .
Invited Speakers | (top)
Ireland, Patrick - University of Texas, USA [abstract] | [reference]
Koopmans, Ruud - Free University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands [abstract] | [manuscripts]
Reicher, Steve - University of St. Andrews, Scottland [abstract] | [manuscripts]
Spears, Russell - Cardiff University, Wales [abstract] | [manuscripts]
Tillie, Jean - University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands [abstract] | [manuscripts]
Verkuyten, Maykel - Utrecht University, the Netherlands [abstract] | [manuscript]
Lectures | (top)
Each lecture is followed first by a commentary (15 minutes) from a social scientist from a different field (i.e., a social psychologist, if the invited speaker is a sociologist or political scientist, and vice versa) and then by a general discussion (30 minutes)
Each day ends with a round of brief statements from half the participants (5-10 minutes each) in which they deal with the following questions:
- How does my research fit in with today's presentations?
- What do I take home?
- What can I contribute?
- What additional information, advice or assistance do I need for my own work?
followed by a summary or conclusions by one of the network co-chairs (with an eye on the identity-action link).
Conference Site | (top)
The workshop will take place at Hotel Seeblick near Kiel. The exact address is:
Hotel Seeblick
Dorfstraße 18
24582 Mühbrook
phone +49 (0) 4322 - 69909-0
fax +49 (0) 4322 – 69909200
e-mail seeblick-engel@t-online.de
