Centre for Sociological Research (CESO), KU Leuven (Research Group Work and Organisation), and Realist Biography Working Group are pleased to invite you to participate in the workshop:

“Realist biography and European policy”

16th April 2010 – 18th April 2010, at the Centre for Sociological Research, Catholic University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

Abstract: The workshop will explore the possibilities to combine critical realist philosophy with biographical-narrative methods for a well-founded and workable toolkit for practical research in the social sciences, with immediate application to European policy studies. It will draw on the concepts of structure, agency, biography, and reflexivity in order to explore the interrelation between the socio-political processes taking place at the European level and the actually lived lives and practices of those concerned. For the purposes of the workshop we hope that Margaret Archer’s realist social theory can be used for a solid social scientific foundation for biographical methods, particularly since Archer’s internal conversation could be proposed as a real mechanism mediating between social structures and human agency. In addition, we hope to be able to use biographical methods in order to access and interpret the internal conversation as a key source of data for realist social science. We hope to construct an explicitly social realist foundation for research. We start with the hypothesis that there is an internal conversation that acts as a real causal mechanism mediating between social structures and human agency. It is this mediating mechanism in action that we wish to probe as accurately as possible as an explanatory source for the social dynamics at play in EU policy processes at the various levels where European social dialogue comes into play.

Webpage / programme: http://soc.kuleuven.be/web/agendaitem/1/1/eng/583

Keynote speakers and panellists
- Margaret Archer, Department of Sociology, University of Warwick, Coventry;
- Robert Carter, Department of Sociology, University of Wawick, Coventry Prue Chamberlayne (School of Health and Social Welfare, Open University, UK);
- Robert Miller, Queen's University School of Sociology, Social Policy and Social Work;
- Fritz Schütze, University of Magdeburg, Institute of Sociology;
- Tom Wengraf (Honorary Fellow of the Birkbeck Institute of Social Research)
- Valeria Pulignano, Centre for Sociological Research, Catholic University of Leuven;
- Miriam Kennet, Green Economics Institute, UK
- Caroline Gijselinckx, KU Leuven HIVA (Research Institute for Labour and Society)
- Raf Vanderstraeten, University of Ghent, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences
- Geert Van Hootegem, Centre for Sociological Research, Catholic University of Leuven

Registration:

• Limited to 40 participants, so register early to ensure your place. The deadline for registration is March 15th, 2010.
• Attendance fees: EUR 20 (regular), EUR 15 (students, PhD students) covers coffee breaks and workshop printed materials, paid to KU Leuven CESO account (provided upon registration)
• To reserve a place and get further information, contact: Jeffrey Turk: Jeffrey.turk@skynet.be or Adam Mrozowicki (adam.mrozowicki@wns.uni.wroc.pl)