CALL FOR PAPERS for the V Forum of the International Sociological Association

Call for papers. The deadline for submission is the 15th of October, 2024

The INCA project team has organised a session to be held during the V Forum of the International Sociological Association, to be celebrated in Rabat, Morocco, on 6-11 July 2025.

The session is organized by Adam Mrozowicki (University of Wroclaw) and Dora Fonseca (Colabor). The session description is as follows:

Infrastructural Power of Gafam and Worker Power in the Platform Economy

GAFAMs, big tech platform companies such as Google (Alphabet), Amazon, Facebook (Meta Platforms), Apple and Microsoft, are pressuring national industrial relations systems everywhere. As infrastructural platforms, these transnational companies provide essential infrastructures (both physical and digital), thus amassing great power. GAFAM operations are carried out by combining both direct investment and outsourcing and subcontracting GAFAM services. Outsourcing services allows GAFAM companies to indirectly influence industrial relations systems and mitigate the internal impact of the capital/labor conflict within their own business units by displacing these tensions to intermediary levels. It also allows GAFAM to circumvent national legal frameworks on labour standards, in addition to the adoption of union-busting practices that disrespect the internationally recognized rights (by ILO) of freedom of association and collective bargaining. Labour conflicts have been on the rise in several GAFAMs’ sites, bringing to the fore debates on the impacts of GAFAMs on national industrial relation systems, and evince different strategies from industrial relations actors, both traditional and new. Labour movements’ power resources and innovation capacity are being tested, and different responses and outcomes might be expected according to the varieties of trade unionism at stake. By the same token, industrial relation systems are expected to display distinctive levels of resilience in the face of GAFAMs challenges.

We invite papers which draw on social theory and industrial relations to discuss and illuminate the challenges posed by GAFAMs to national industrial relations systems all around the world.

https://isaconf.confex.com/isaconf/forum2025/webprogrampreliminary/Session19950.html

Abstract submission can be found here:

https://isaconf.confex.com/isaconf/forum2025/cfp.cgi

FAQ is located under this link:

https://www.isa-sociology.org/en/conferences/forum/rabat-2025/5th-isa-forum-call-for-abstracts

Key Points for Submission

For submitting your abstract, you should prepare:

Title

Keywords – Up to four custom keywords.

Author(s) – Presenting author and any co-authors. There is a limit of seven (7) authors.

Abstract – Abstract text may not exceed 300 words and can be entered in either English, French or Spanish.  Please review the languages accepted in the session you want to submit for.

Duties and Deadlines

Abstracts Submission Opens: August 5, 2024

Abstracts Submission Closes: October 15, 2024 – No deadline extensions.

Notification of Acceptance: December 5, 2024

Rules for all presenters

All abstracts must be submitted in English, French or Spanish. Please review the languages accepted in the session you want to submit.

There is a limit of seven (7) authors per abstract.

Authors and co-authors cannot present and chair in the same session. Please note that the session organizer and chair do not need to be the same person.