Max Weber delivered his inspired and inspiring lectures – “Science as a Vocation” and “Politics as a Vocation” – at the invitation of Munich students in 1917 and 1919. He poured his whole life experience, as scientist and politician, into these lectures, developing a sociology of vocations but not directly examining the vocation of sociology. […]

by Zygmunt Bauman, Leeds University, UK.  Zygmunt Bauman has become the iconic sociologist of modernity. Born in Poznań, Poland, in 1925 he was for many years a committed communist. A prominent sociologist at the University of Warsaw, he was forced to leave Poland in 1968 as a result of anti-Semitic purges. He took up a […]

Everyone in the ISA knows the name Izabela Barlinska – and she knows almost everyone! Efficient and creative, loyal and dedicated, soft-spoken but resolute, she has been associated with the ISA for some 35 years. Mistress of many languages, including English, French, Spanish, Russian and her native Polish, she occupies the hot seat in the […]

by Tamara Kay, Harvard University, USA In an urban slum in India children huddle around an old vegetable cart fitted with a television and DVD player transfixed by characters who sing about the letter “ma” in Hindi. In Tanzania children listen to a radio program that teaches them how to treat a mosquito bed net […]

by Herbert Docena, University of California, Berkeley, USA[1]  UN conferences have grown larger and larger through the years, attracting thousands of government officials, activists, business executives, and even celebrities. At the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro this June – said to be the biggest UN conference in history – another group […]

by Sylvia Walby, Lancaster University, UK, and former President of the ISA Research Committee on Economy and Society (RC02) The wider implications of the financial crisis are contested. Is the crisis (2007-12) an opportunity for a radical restructuring of economy and society in either a left (social democratic or socialist) or right (neoliberal or fascist) […]

by Tamara Martsenyuk, National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Ukraine International Women’s Day (8 March) brings Ukrainian women not only flowers and extra attention but also reminders about their rights for which they have been fighting for more than a century. Last year a young feminist initiative, “Feminist Offensive,” established new ways of celebrating the 8th […]

by Gabriel Kessler, National University of La Plata, Argentina Concern about crime has spread throughout Latin America. This is not surprising given that this region, which contains only 14% of the world’s population, accounts for about 40% of all homicides with firearms. Fear of crime is very high even in countries with relatively low crime […]

by Mara Viveros-Vigoya, National University of Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia Numerous studies have shown that the Colombian population of African origin has the lowest income level, the poorest quality of life, the highest rate of child labor, the lowest rate of social security affiliation, and the highest demographic vulnerability of any group in Colombia (Urrea et […]

by N.V. Romanovsky and Zh.T. Toshchenko, editors of the Russian journal Sociological Studies Victor Vakhshtayn’s article in Global Dialogue 2.3 prompted us to write this commentary on the state of sociology in Russia. Vakhshtayn’s assessment of contemporary Russian sociology is arguably shaped by the author’s limiting himself to methodological issues. Vakhshtayn charges his opponents in […]

by John D. Brewer, University of Aberdeen, Scotland, and President of the British Sociological Association, 2010-2012 The British Sociological Association (BSA) celebrated its sixtieth anniversary in 2011. At just over 2,500 members it is small in a world context, but in its own terms it is going from strength to strength. This is our largest […]

by Koichi Hasegawa, Tohoku University, Sendai, and Chair of the Local Organizing Committee of the ISA 2014 World Congress of Sociology in Yokohama, Japan Last May, under the strong leadership of Shujiro Yazawa, President of the Japanese Sociological Society, Japanese sociologists created a network, now numbering more than 150 members, for research and information dealing […]

by Laura Corradi, University of Calabria, Italy  “The Italian University is hardly surviving. It is in a condition of disease and growing marginalization, which can find little comparison in our contemporary history. Economic resources for the institutional functioning of one of the oldest academia in the world were drastically reduced well before the present global […]

by Rosemary Barberet, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, USA This past April, I attended the 21st Session of United Nations Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ) in Vienna as a representative of the International Sociological Association (ISA), which has consultative status as a non-governmental organization. I have been observing these […]

Photo Essay by Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of California, Berkeley, USA The moment I heard the camera click, I had to dart away, gagging. The stench of human decomposition stayed with me for the rest of the day. The image I had captured was of a refrigerated unit in the Medical Examiner’s Office in Tucson, […]

by Jennifer Platt, University of Sussex, UK, and ISA Vice-President for Publications, 2010-2014 Many ISA members will know that since 2005 Vineeta Sinha has been editing one of our membership benefits, the electronic journal which was initially called the ISA E-Bulletin, but recently became the ISA eSymposium. This change marked the shift towards digital presence […]