Structuration (strək-chə-ˈrā-shən): The process of creating social relations, mainly those organized around social class, gender, and race.

The Graduate Program at the Simon Fraser University’s School of Communication invites submissions for our annual conference, CONDUITS, this year entitled: “Structuration.”

Structuration is a theory originally articulated by sociologist Anthony Giddens (1984) to describe the mutually constitutive entanglements of human agency and social structure(s) that construct our world. Transcending the orthodox dichotomy between systems and subjects, Giddens accounts for the emergence and reproduction of social systems as the result of structured and habituated human action. The late communication scholar Vincent Mosco (2009) elaborated upon structuration in a political-economic mode, lending it a stronger social emphasis. By doing so, he focused scholars’ attention to the dimensions of race, class, and gender in the construction of social relations. In particular, he argues, “structuration calls on us to broaden the conception of class [...] to incorporate both a relational and a formational sense of the term” (16). Mosco advanced the political economy of communication beyond the study of media industries and strictly economic conceptions of class, expanding the field’s horizons to include all “social relations, particularly the power relations, that mutually constitute the production, distribution, and consumption of resources, including communication resources” (2). His work thus challenges the political economy of communication to become a more ambitious “study of control and survival in social life” (3).

To commemorate his life and work, our conference embraces Dr. Mosco’s imperative for the political economy of communication, and social sciences more broadly. We challenge scholars to tackle the hard problems of agency, social structure, gender, race, and class—and to do so ambitiously. 

Challenges include but are not limited to:

• Agency and social structure

• Social relations of sex, gender, race, and class

• Work, labour, and revolutions

• The Digital Sublime and the artificial intelligence

• (De)colonization as (re)structuration

• War, Political Economy, and Internationalism

• The end(s) of scholarship

The CONDUITS organizing committee values the interdisciplinary nature of the graduate program at the School of Communication at SFU, so we welcome submissions from a wide variety of disciplines including but certainly not limited to history, media studies, film production, geography and urban studies, education, philosophy and mathematics, economics and actuarial sciences, labour studies, Indigenous studies, international relations, health science, computer science and mechatronics, anthropology, gender studies, sociology, and political science.

We welcome individual, co-, and multi-authored proposals for presentations or artistic

interventions. Abstract submissions should be around 200-250 words in length and will provide a title, description of the presentation, and the authors’ full name(s) as well as institutional affiliations, if any. We also ask for a short biography of 50–100 words and contact information of the presenter(s).

Art works can be audio-visual, up to 10 minutes in length (mp3 or mp4), or up to 10 images (JPG, PNG, or GIF). Submissions may take the form of a short excerpt, up to a third of the length of the final submission. Please include a short (50–100 words) description of the work’s relevance to the conference theme, a title, and the creators’ full name(s), as well as institutional affiliations if any. We also ask for a short biography of 50-100 words and contact information of the presenter(s).

Submit proposals by Google form by 11:59 PST April 7, 2024.

Contact:

Please visit our website conduits.ca for further details, or reach out to us at conduitsconference@gmail.com with questions/comments/suggestions.

Accessibility Statement:

The conference will have a hybrid format. We are committed to creating a

conference accessible to everyone. For participants attending the conference in person, we will be pleased to welcome you at Simon Fraser University’s Vancouver Campus at Harbour Centre. If you have any questions, comments, or requests regarding accommodation, please reach out to us at conduitsconference@gmail.com with the subject line “Accessibility.”

Land Acknowledgment:

Simon Fraser University has three campuses. We acknowledge the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish), səl̓ilw̓ ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), q̓íc̓ əy̓ (Katzie), kwikwəƛ ̓ əm (Kwikwetlem), Qayqayt, Kwantlen, Semiahmoo and Tsawwassen peoples on whose unceded traditional territories our three campuses sit. It is vital we continuously think about our role in on-going settler-colonialism and engage in material action.

References

Giddens, Anthony. 1984. The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Berkeley Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Mosco, Vincent. 2009. The Political Economy of Communication. 2nd ed. Los Angeles: SAGE.