• Back
• Call for Papers
• Sessions Plan
• Registration Form

March 2013

I-SAPS invite papers from academics, public intellectuals, and policymakers addressing the multi-dimensional transformations that are taking place in Pakistan and South Asia. The papers can belong to any of the following major themes or a theme of relevance to the general topic of the Colloquium.

Major Themes

1. Role and relationship of an individual with societal transformations
2. Approaches/dimensions of societal transformations/drivers of societal transformation: legal, economic, cultural, technological, global, political
3. Agency, strategy and policy in societal transformations
4. The politics of social change
5. Building sustainable communities
6. Measuring societal transformations
7. Divergence and convergence of societal transformations in South Asia
8. Inter-civilizational contact and societal transformations

At the first stage, please send an abstract of 300 words at
info@i-saps.org before 15th June 2012. The Colloquium will be held in March 2013. Selected papers from the colloquium would be published in book form, as a volume of peer-reviewed articles.

Dates to Remember

Last date for submission of Abstracts for Research
Papers: June 15th , 2012
Last date for submission of Draft Research Papers and Presentation: January 1st , 2013
Revised paper for publication: June 05, 2013
Book Publication and launching: July 05, 2013

March 19, 20 2013

Venue: Higher Education Commission Islamabad

Institute of Social and Policy Sciences (I-SAPS) Islamabad in collaboration with Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Pakistan (SSHRCP), Higher Education Commission, is organising a Colloquium on "Public Action in Pakistan: Between Apathy and Anger." The Colloquium is first in the series of annual multi-disciplinary colloquia which will allow different social sciences´ perspectives leverage and enrich each other. Beyond its scholarly goals, we hope that the Colloquium would inform the debates on public policy and development agenda in Pakistan.

We are inviting scholars in local as well as international academia to discuss the difficulties in dealing with social change especially in developing and Muslim societies like Pakistan from multi-disciplinary aspects, with special reference to individual´s personal behavior and its relation to societal changes. While noticing the non-presence of robust movements of social action in Pakistan, the academic wisdom identifies the supposedly widespread ·apathy· towards public action in Pakistani society as one of the major reasons. Dubbed at times as social malady, many observers claim that apathy is a commonly observed phenomenon in developing countries. Its symptoms include lack of participation and social responsibility resulting in meek public actions, allowing either the status quo or worsening of individual rights and civil liberties. While most continue with daily toil despite a perception of worsening social milieu, many are caught by raw anger which could vent out itself in self-destructive individual or group behavior. Before the recent upheavals in the Arab world, it was generally believed that apathy has become an epidemic in Muslim societies. The phenomenon also exists in the developed world where mass apathy towards political events and social movements has recently been getting a serious and closer academic attention.

The Colloquium aims to study the dynamics of social change with special reference to Pakistan. We would welcome theoretical and empirical contributions from historians, anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, economists, psychologist, media specialists, development practitioners etc., elaborating the historical and cultural contexts of the phenomena of apathy and anger in Pakistan and proposing solutions to the social problems caused by them.

We are accepting the Abstracts of proposed papers, 200 to 300 words, by 31 Jan, 2012. The draft papers and presentation shall be submitted by March 10, 2012. The accepted papers will be circulated to participants prior to the event. The Institute hopes to sponsor the participation of a limited number of scholars in the Colloquium in the beautiful city of Islamabad. After the colloquium, developed versions of the papers presented in the colloquium will be eligible for publication by June 2012.

With a view to encourage fresh empirical studies on different approaches and dimensions of Apathy and Anger, I-SAPS is also sponsoring some fresh empirical studies.

For more details, pl click Call for Proposals for Empirical Studies

Contact for more information

Institute of Social and Policy Sciences
info@i-saps.org
P. O. Box 1379
Islamabad- Pakistan
Tel: +92-51-111-739-739
Fax: +92-51-2825336

More..