Workshop on Engagements in everyday life: The analysis of emerging forms of social action, 2024

The New Political Economy Initiative at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay is organising a small workshop titled “Engagements in everyday life: The analysis of emerging forms of social action” in Jodhpur from 21st-22nd October, 2024. Read the note below for the concept note.

Across the world, the new opportunities and challenges of operating in a globalized world alter forms of social action of groups, societies and communities of all kinds. Different social actors, particularly the more deprived and marginalized, as well as women, are variously impacted. Larger neoliberal economic, state and global institutions have their influence over the changing trends of social action. Assemblages and forms of association may be constrained by stratification, exclusion or disadvantage. The notion and understanding of what constitutes the public and how the public is conjured under these new social conditions are of theoretical and functional relevance. Moreover, changing forms of sociality, such as the increased use of social media and the internet, both reposition social action, increasing its possibilities but also offering significant new impediments. Against this backdrop, this workshop aims to delve into alternative forms of action and engagements that extend the register of what has been traditionally included within the domain of recognized forms of social action. By examining the more dynamic and uneven forms of everyday social action, which have typically remained outside of theory, the workshop strives to comprehend the variegated potentialities and experiences that often elude explicit recognition. Women’s everyday efforts towards conscientizing and empowering themselves and others are not always recognized or labelled as such, either by those involved or outsiders. One needs to pay more attention to the looser and more informal networks of diverse groups that have emerged at various levels and their engagement with the public sphere and civil society. To these ends, this workshop will explore and critically engage with questions such as:

1. Where can we locate the seeds of social action in everyday life? What notions of trust or associational foundations lie at the source of its aspirations?
2. What novel interactional processes and alliances can be discerned within the realm of formal and informal employment, particularly in relation to disadvantaged social and economic groups, and how do these relate to a neoliberal global economy?
3. How do these forms of action and social formations derive their imageries, and what possibilities do they endow? What might be the structural impediments involved in their emergence and growth?
4. What processes work towards the patching together of diverse forms of engagement and action? In particular, when it comes to the internet and social media as a space for such configurations taking shape, what challenges may be faced, and alternatively, what possibilities emerge?
5. How can such engagements in everyday life be effectively harnessed to both reinvent and revitalize the public sphere?

Through rigorous exploration of the above questions, the participants are encouraged to re-examine and redefine the possibilities of ordinary social action that lie beyond conventional doctrinal paradigms. By leveraging both theoretical insights and ethnographic accounts, they are expected to contribute to a comprehensive exploration of the transformations of public and social life. It is hoped that this interdisciplinary exchange will expand the theoretical and practical horizons with regard to our thinking about engagement and social action and allow us to reconfigure notions of public trust and civil society.

Given this context, the workshop’s primary emphasis will be on the following six themes:

1. Conceptualizing social action and engagement within everyday social worlds.
2. The interaction of communities and their life-worlds with large-scale development and global economic systems.
3. Women, collaboration and engagements for enfranchisement and empowerment.
4. The informal economy and variable modes of social action.
5. Gendered care work and micro-perspectives on social action.
6. Social media and changing technologies: Transforming social dynamics in the digital age.