The Discursive Construction of Reality VI – Interdisciplinary perspectives on a sociology of knowledge approach to discourse research

Over the last decades, the research program outlined by the Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse (SKAD) has spread to many disciplines in social science. SKAD discourse research, drawing upon Michel Foucault’s work, symbolic interactionism and sociology of knowledge, is interested in exploring processes of ‘discursive construction of reality’, social relations of knowledge and knowing, and politics of knowledge and knowing – the manifold ways of discursive meaning making. Bearing these core tenets in mind, the original approach has nonetheless been successfully amended, expanded, and occasionally modified to meet the demands of different fields of study and forms of data. Corresponding studies may be found in sociology, but also in neighbouring disciplines such as cultural studies, political science, historical science, educational science, theology, linguistics, and criminology among many others.

Following the series of Augsburg conferences in 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2023 on interpretive and sociology of knowledge discourse research with over 120 participants and 40 contributions from different disciplines each year, the upcoming conference will continue in the spirit of an interdisciplinary discussion about the foundations and applications of SKAD and SKAD-inspired discourse research, as well as related perspectives (such as subjectivation research, situational analysis, ethnography of discourses and dispositifs).

The conference will be held in German and English. There will be no fees. Cold and hot drinks will be available on site for a small contribution.

Registration at https://www.uni-augsburg.de/en/fakultaet/philsoz/fakultat/soziologie/diskursforschung/veranstaltungen-zur-diskursforschung/