In this way former opposing principles are being forced into a kind of cooperation / interaction which becomes more and more obvious from the latest developments in this area. One peculiarity is that both of these former strictly antithetical factors don’t exclude each other any more completely, rather by their new special relationship determine and define the social fabric newly. The fact is that by the reorganisation of labour the actors are forced into societal lines of conflict, and the inherent effects in turn significantly shape boundaries and issues of confrontation in terms of the cohesion in a society. Again these processes of segregation and separation are interrelated on the basis of their several elements and characteristics, and the effects of such interaction seem to put the social cohesion at risk.

These new conditions are also changing the focus of the European social system considerably which up to now was mainly supporting a kind of economy that regulates the living conditions of the actors in terms of modified social and economical dispositions thus implicitly determining social and cultural settings as well. This shows that a merely functional concept of the social conditions basing one-sidedly just on the interests of the economy will definitely lead to social problems which are characterised by societal problems like increasing isolation, single person households, weak or lack of personal ties and bonding, higher divorce rates, patchwork-families etc. These factors point out that there is also a massive change going on regarding the social cohesion of the actors’ internal milieu and daily life. As a result, there is the tendency that the actors are more easily uprooted from their own indigenous environment. Hence these processes seem to be responsible for creating destabilising elements not only for the individuals but for the entire social structure as well.

One of the main points of this conference will be to focus on this process and to evaluate how far similar effects are being produced in the different countries of the EU. Besides, considering the proximity of economy and the social, these new forms of labour which penetrate more and more deeply into the social structures of the European society may be the causes for profound alteration processes thus affecting the social and economical stability. During this conference attempt will be made to interlink the internal effects and the interconnectedness of this development. The interaction of those different effects and those ones which appear to be fractional shifts only, produce qualitative changes within the social structure. Here it will be the task of the scientists from several countries and disciplines in who have the opportunity of meeting and sharing their views during this conference to analyse and evaluate the present situation in order to work out some answers to the questions concerning the restructuring of socio-structural elements and simultaneously to be able reveal its inherent social consequences. Though the initial conditions and effects of these processes may be similar in the different European countries, yet due to different basic national situations the mechanisms of this development do not proceed merely in a one-dimensional way but nonetheless produce diverging characteristics and differences all over Europe. That is why it is one of the main purposes of this conference to figure out the state of the art of this alteration process and to relate it to the backgrounds of the different European states in the contexts of their particular empirical experiences.

Participants:
Roland Bieräugel, Frankfurt am Main
Annick Bourguignon, Paris
Isaac Catt, San Francisco
Kezban Çelik, Ankara
Patrizio Di Nicola, Rom
Andreas Hellmann, Zürich
Rolf Hepp, Berlin
Peter Herrmann, Cork
Sibel Kalaycıoglu, Ankara
David Kergel, Berlin
Sabine Kergel, Berlin
Klaus Mehrens, Hamburg
Pietro Merli-Brandini, Rom
Hanne Nørreklit, Aarhus
Lennart Nørreklit, Aalborg
Nuria Pumar Beltran, Barcelona
Tadeusz Rachwal, Warschau
Marco Ricceri, Rom
Robert Riesinger, Graz
Franz Schultheis, St. Gallen
Alexander Sieg, Berlin

Kontakt und weitere Informationen:
PD Dr. Rolf Hepp, Institut für Soziologie der Freien Universität Berlin
Tel: 030-838-57621, e-mail: Rolf.Hepp@fu-berlin.de

With sponsorship of: