The organisers of the 2024 Social Policy Association Annual Conference (3rd – 5th July, University of Strathclyde) invite presentations and symposia which engage with the idea of social policy futures.
Social policy research has always been concerned with improving our understanding current and past welfare states, to work towards more socially just futures. Automation and new digital technologies in public services and social protection are often associated with the expansion of state surveillance, control of populations and the dehumanising of social support. Predictive tools and AI-based solutions seem to squeeze the possibility for agency. And yet the promise of imagining better futures is also present in new technologies and in the work of activists, communities, and engaged social policy research.
While welcoming social policy research across all topics and contexts, we encourage engagement with how social policy research can contribute to both understanding, and shaping, better futures. Papers might address questions including:
- What are the roles of social policy research in predicting, imagining or enacting future welfare states?
- How can methodological innovation help us engage better with digital developments and prediction and how are social policy methods themselves being reshaped?
- How are innovations in policy governance shaping social policy-making and societal inequalities?
Abstracts for single papers and, especially, proposals for co-ordinated symposia consisting of 3-4 papers, are welcome. Ideas for symposia will need to be submitted by the panel organiser in the first instance. For papers, abstracts should be 200-400 words. Proposals for symposia should consist of a title and 200 word outline of the aims of the symposium, as well as details of both the organiser and contributors’ names and email addresses. Symposia contributors should submit their paper abstracts separately, indicating their inclusion in the symposium.
All abstracts and symposium proposals will be reviewed by a Programme Committee prior to acceptance. Queries should be emailed to conference2024@social-policy.org.uk.
Abstracts and Symposia proposals can be submitted electronically at: https://app.oxfordabstracts.com/stages/7865/submitter
Deadline for submissions: extended to 19th April 2024.
Read more about the SPA 2024 conference here.