The WZB Berlin Social Science Center and the Fondation Maison des sciences de l'homme (FMSH) would like to invite interested researchers to participate in the conference “Savoir Vivre! New Challenges for Work and Family Life in Germany and France.”
The conference is being organized within the Franco-German program “New Frameworks for Societal Policies and Decision Making,” which aims to foster interdisciplinary exchange and collaboration between French and German researchers in the social sciences and humanities. In the course of two years, the program will create a vast research network through regular workshops, conferences and research stays in both countries. One of the key topics that has been elaborated within the network over the first project year is the changing world of work.
The (de-)regulation of employment, the challenges of reconciling work and family life, and the processes of inclusion and exclusion on the labor market have been key topics in the social sciences in France and Germany for many years. However, little attention has been paid to direct comparisons and transfer analyses across national boundaries. The annual conference will therefore open a binational dialogue to find answers to the following questions: What are the central changes, transformations, and conflicts within the fields of work and family life in Germany and France? What are examples of best practices in both countries? And how can they help us to respond to the new issues of our times?
The conference will explore these questions in three interdisciplinary panels during the first two days of the conference:
1. The politics of work & (un)employment
2. Transformations of care work and family life
3. Migration and the labor market
We are looking for applications from scholars from both countries who wish to contribute to one of these panels in the form of a 30 minute presentation in English (see details below).
To account for the diversity within the Franco-German program, the third day of the conference will broaden its scope and allow all participants (speakers and audience alike) to exchange their ideas in different working groups that focus on various issues. These include new emerging economic elites and discourses, the transformation of evaluative frameworks in politics, health, and education, as well as migration, ecological crisis, and conflicts in modern democracy. Researchers who are interested in this Franco-German dialogue in the field of social sciences and humanities are invited to present their work in one of these working groups (max. 10 min) in order to identify common research interests and potential collaboration partners.
We invite interested researchers to apply to join our Franco-German network. Researchers who would like to participate in one of the working groups should submit a description of their individual research projects (2 pages) plus a short CV (1 page). Researchers who would also like to contribute to one of the three conference panels should, in addition, send a short description of their presentation (max. 200 words). Please send all documents electronically (as a single PDF file) to Friederike Molitor (friederike.molitor@wzb.eu) by December 30, 2016.
The conference is being organized in collaboration with the WZB graduate school “Good work”. Please note that some contributions may be in German. Participants will be invited based on the quality and fit of their research proposals and written application materials. Travel expenses and accommodation will be covered in compliance with the German Travel Expenses Act (Bundesreisekostengesetz, BRKG). For more information on the project “New Frameworks for Societal Policies and Decision Making,” please visit our website: https://www.wzb.eu/changingsocieties.