Closing of the ESA RN5 congress in Gijón

The Universidad Laboral in Gijón has been selected as one of the host cities for the intermediate meetings of the European Sociological Association (ESA) to be held on 28th and 29th August 2023, which will be the prelude to the 16th ESA conference to be held in Portugal in 2024.

Specifically, Gijón was one of the six European countries (together with Berlin, Bologna, Gijón, Helsingborg, Paris and Prague) that simultaneously and interconnectedly hosted the ESA RN5 working group on Sociology of Consumption. These intersessional meetings gathered around the theme of “Uniting across borders”, with the intention of exploring how the sociology of consumption can cross disciplinary boundaries to broaden its theoretical, methodological and instrumental horizons, in dialogue with other sciences. Under the umbrella of this pertinent theme, the meeting, which was held in Gijón (Asturias) over two days, presented 37 registered papers, to which a total of 65 people contributed, most of them from different parts of Spain (such as Madrid, Barcelona, Granada, Salamanca, Pamplona, etc.), but also from Portugal, Brazil and Hungary, who discussed “beyond disciplinary borders” around two main thematic axes: “consumption and crisis” and “food and consumption”.

The congress opened with an international greeting from Marlyne Sahakian, chair of the RN5 table, Sociology of Consumption, of the European Sociological Association, and the other participating venues were greeted via X (formerly Twitter). At the end of the first day of the congress, we had a closing international conference, broadcast and open to participation, by Dr. Emily Huddart Kennedy, from the University of British Columbia, entitled “Ecotypes: five ways to take care of the environment”. Also, after the closing of the second day we had two guest speakers: Dr. Catarina Sales Oliveira, Associate Professor at the University of Beira Interior (UBI) and researcher at CIES-IUL (Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology) whose research interests are gender, health and citizenship; work, entrepreneurship and organizations; and Dr. Jesús Rivera Navarro, Professor of Sociology at the University of Salamanca (USAL), whose main lines of research are the sociology of health and ageing. Both academics, with extensive research backgrounds, shared their valuable perspectives and scientific contributions on consumption and current social challenges.

The interim meetings were connected online for several moments with all European venues, making the event visible and promoting it.