Economy and Society Summer School
Blackwater Castle, Cork, Ireland.
13-17th of May 2019
Open for Applications! Deadline 31st March, 2019: Inquiries to info.easss @ gmail.com
Contemporary social sciences are increasingly returning to engage with economic questions.
This week-long doctoral symposium bringing together scholars from diverse disciplines to discuss fresh perspectives on ‘the economy’; the market, the state, production, consumption, redistribution, value, money, work, commodities, poverty, welfare, inequality.
How can we re-think these concepts amid contemporary transformations?
President Michael D. Higgins opening the 2015 Summer School with staff and students.
Conceiving the economy as separate from society is problematic; theoretically, politically and morally. An economy is not simply an assemblage of law-like forces of production, consumption and market valuation which provides society with a material foundation. Rather, the ‘economy’ is a set of human institutions which are created socially, transformed through history and open to revision. Furthermore, far from being ethically-neutral laws of nature, economic processes have profoundly moral consequences for our society; with the potential to promote human flourishing or inequality, meaningful life or instrumentalisation, sustainability or ecocide.
The Economy + Society summer school was launched in 2015 under the auspices of the President of Ireland’s Ethics Initiative, an attempt to address recent and on-going crises, to understand and criticise the thinking which put these processes in train. Run by the Centre for the Study of the Moral Foundations of Economy + Society at UCC and WIT, this school is dedicated to investigating how morals, values and ethics inform economic practices, social organisation and politics. Clearly, there are many problematic ‘moral orders’ within society, for instance, those which promote individualism in business, punitive attitudes to marginal groups or divisive and exclusionary politics. Nonetheless, moral orders which promote care, tolerance, sustainability, integrity, equality and a meaningful life still circulate within society, and can be restored and revived.
Therefore, this summer school addresses the multiple and complex intersections of economy and society. Moving beyond the dichotomy of ‘economics versus social science’, this forum explores a multitude of alternative paradigms, methods and concepts, drawing from anthropology, cultural studies, governmentality, history, critical management studies, marketing and organisation studies. It is tailor-made for doctoral students, whether in exploratory stages, interpreting data or writing-up. Drawing together around two dozen academic staff from Ireland and internationally, the summer school is a convivial, supportive and inspiring forum.
Apply now to: info.easss[@]gmail.com
Organised by the UCC/WIT:( http://www.moraleconomy.eu )
Moral Foundations of Economy & Society research centre:
School Directors: Tom Boland & Ray Griffin.