E-mail correspondence related to ISA 2016

February 1915
Dear colleagues
sharing common interest in longitudinal, multidisciplinary and multi-perspective comparative research of self-management theory and practice in general, focusing what is common and what is specifically different between concepts and practices of self management, participation and organizational democracy, all three contained in the official name of RC10, as well as in Self-Management as Simultaneous Goal and Means of Overcoming Systemic Accumulation of Capital Crisis in particular, during and after the Third ISA Forum 2016.


I thank very much to all those who registered by April 5 at On-line conference registration and thus enabled leaving a trace of reappearance of the concept and practice of self-management in sociological research in the ISA official program and book of abstracts after quite a long time : ).


Session organizers are according to ISA rules allowed to present a paper in sessions they are organizing, but not the chairs - for a very good reason, not to monopolize the limited time allotted to each session. Chairs of other similar sessions therefore decide whether the proposal of a given session organizer will be accepted or not. Due to overcrowding in the session of the first choice, The Role of Participation Organizational Democracy and Self-anagement in the Futures We Want, that session organizers transferred my abstract #82240 they originally accepted for oral presentation, to this session.
I would be grateful for all critical comments and suggestions - beside too long and therefore hard to follow through sentences, of which I am painfully aware of : ) Would you agree that mutual help in improvement of our research thinking, writing and communication capacities is fully consonant with the spirit of self-management?

Since 30. April 2016, we have found with the help of RC10 Program coordinators among registered participants of ISA RC10 program a knowledgeable chair for our session - colleague Azril Bacal.


Under the free commons share alike licence, however, all members of ISA RC10 Internet forum are welcome to post their abstracts and participate in discussion on the title theme on specifics of self-management if they wish to do so on this sub-page. In this spirit, I am posting here my proposed contribution to the affiliated session with a necessarily "catch all title" organised by our RC10 President on the main ISA Forum 2016 theme. The authors of abstracts ID# 73678, 78992 and 75916 originallly have done the same and I hope that they will be happy with this transfer from the session jammed with 30+ abstracts, at the least as much as I am happy to warmly welcome them in this more focused session.

It seams that colleague Vanessa Sigollo, author of the Abstract ID# 76425, as well as colleagues Irena PETROVIC, The University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy, Serbia and Maria IGNACIA COSTA, Instituto de Investigaciones Gino Germani, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina, co-authors of the Abstract ID# 73678 did not register by April 5 2016, since Isaconf.confex.com system has withdrawn these two abstracts from the Program of this session. Alas, Alberto Leonard BIALAKOWSKY, the third co-author of the Abstract ID# 73678 did register, but has two other appearances in the official program (one of them being presentation of the paper The (re)Invention of Labour, the Worker, and Social Domination related to the theme of this session when it focuses the possibilities for a transition from a mode of production centered on the use of forced labour to one based on reciprocity between freely associated producers).
I hope that I am expressing the feelings of other registered session participants as well, that we are looking forward to read Vanessa's, Irena's, Maria's and Alberto's contributions in the form of extended abstracts or drafts of full papers, and in the discussion part of our virtual meeting point at https://isarc10internetforum.wikispaces.com/Self-Management+As+Simultaneous+Goal+and+Means.

On the bases of the content of all abstracts of papers accepted for oral presentation and incoming drafts of full papers, which should be uploaded below respective abstracts as soon as possible if they are not uploaded already, several themes/ questions/ relationships appear to merit conducting a threaded multilogue also before and during the Third ISA Forum 2016 in the discussion part of our virtual meeting place, to avoid reduction of our session to a successive monologues of paper presenters and isolated dialogues scattered in unstructured emails. Common themes/problems mentioned by submitted abstracts' and drafts of full papers' authors are:

  • self-management as a cooperative tool for keeping workplace for the employed or management technique raising workers' productivity for the owners at the enterprise level within existing dominant mode of production vs self-management as collectively co-created emergence of a new mode of production at all levels of society
  • relationship between class division of labor, private ownership and social ownership through time
  • socially and ecologically destructive dominant capitalist competitive market allocation of scarce resources and investment funds versus self-managing solidary planning of coopertive production of use value by freely asciated producers and consumers from the local to global levels
  • spontaneity, self-organization, egalitarianism and direct democracy from below versus professionalization, differentiation, hierarchical organization from above and representative democracy
  • formal legal institutionalization of proclaimed social relationships versus real state of distribution of social power and influence;
  • importance of participatory and emancipating collective and individual self-education for self-management, moral and material motivation for taking over both rights and responsibilities and overcoming wage-worker mentality
  • three generations dynamics of participation and self-management processes
  • starting reform or revolutionary transformation value orientation of researcher towards idea and practice of self-management



After the Forum, we should gather our human resources to continue systematic structural and longitudinal research of participation, organizational democracy and self-management, that is, alternatives for the future we want. Panelists, members and friends of RC10, namely, are affiliated to numerous educational and research institutions all over the world like


We should use this human resources wealth and comparative advantage for planning and conducting joint research projects with the comparable common core instruments for data collection (see an earlier similar proposal here).

Organizational possibility for such continuous research work could become already existing Participation RN which initiated colleague Garibaldo, after we all agree to expand the title of this research network by adding words "and self'-management".
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I am using this opportunity as well to kindly invite one more time all interested in research of participation and self-management, to actively participate in existing, open new and self-manage relevant virtual threaded discussions on themes mentioned above, after following the link "join" in the upper right hand corner at http://www.wikispaces.com/user/join?goto=http%3A%2F%2Fisarc10internetforum.wikispaces.com%2Fspace%2Fjoin , filling out the form (user name, password, email) and pressing link "join", if you have not joined ISA RC10 Internet Forum already in the past.

Best regards and wishes,
Prof. Dr. Vera Vratuša, Belgrade University Faculty of Philosophy, Department of Sociology, retired
https://www.wikispaces.com/user/view/vvratusa

RC10 Business Meeting

Thursday, 14 July 2016: 10:45 AM - 12:15 PM, NIG, Seminarraum 5C G

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Forthcoming deadlines:

Since April 5, there are no more forthcoming deadlines. Isaconf.confex.com system has withdrawn from the Program papers' authors who did not register by April 5. RC10 Program coordinators and session organizers must finalize the RC10 program in just a few more days, so please answer ASP to queries that might come your way during this time, like invitations to chair sessions having similar topic to your own presentation in another session, provided that you still do not have two appearances in the Third ISA Forum Program.

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Contribute to the elaboration of the collective paper on participation, organizational democracy and self-management

vvratusa Jul 9, 2016

The content of the welcome common effort of RC10 executives to write a collective paper on the past, present and future of participation, organizational democracy, underlines the need to continue this common effort:
- what preceded "inception" of RC10 in 1978 within ISA or what can we learn from the history of RC10 on real social processes and relationships that "promote its topics"?
- do we believe that "the struggle for a better future should include democracy and participation at all levels from the workplace to the political sphere", without even mentioning of self-management except in the title?
- whose precisely socially structured responses to the crises have recently entailed in many countries unpopular austerity measures decided in a top-down technocratic manner?
- what is threatened beside "existing social and political participative schemes" at the global level?
- has not increasing inequality, oppression, and ecological destruction throughout the contradictory history of class division of labor, exploitation and oppression brought about protests and struggles for a better world, revitalizing self-managing organizational forms adequate for economic and social self-emancipation?
- who are the socially structured potential subjects and objects "to promote collaborative research and dialogue between the public and the sociologists on issues of social justice, equality, democracy, participation, working life conditions, and other related issues", while the concept of self-management understood also as historical process and project is left out again from the research framework?
-does not the formulation "the participation in organizational life" imply participation in existing social relationships, especially having in mind focus on "the construction of a more participative society by looking at women’s participation in entrepreneurship; unequal opportunities to participation for citizens within total institutions, in particular prisons, and nursing homes", while relationships at the work place and in community are not even mentioned?
- what does exactly mean "the need for continuing struggles for democratic participation", implying that there exists undemocratic participation and again without any mention of self-management as possible alternative to manipulated and manipulative participation in dominant social order?

Last modified: Thursday, 16 August 2018, 1:56 PM