Great Divides: Transgressing Boundaries
We confront a world torn by competing ideologies, divisive boundaries, and the consequences of globalization. Constructs of race, religion, gender, sexuality, class, and nation create serious inequalities, conflicts, and human suffering.
Yet the creation of boundaries, both physical and symbolic, is central to the working of societies and to the ability of individuals to develop their senses of self and community. Although boundary creation has always been a topic of social science interest, today, as never before, we are alert to the consequences of creating divisions. At the 101st Annual Meeting, we, as social scientists, and as scholars and public intellectuals, consider the complex processes and institutional underpinnings that create boundaries—for good, for ill, and perhaps for no purpose at all.
It is important that we look at the obvious divides of geography, policy, time, economics, nationality, religion, ethnicity, gender, and age, and further consider the impact of disciplinary and theoretical divides that affect our analyses. Further we should examine the consequences of various sociological orientations for framing the ways in which the popular press, the law, the media, and people on the street understand their positions and prospects in life.
This intellectual project is integrated with the quest to better understand major social problems—war; hunger; the human rights of women, workers, and religious minorities; access to power; and the worldwide transmission of disease.
The 2006 Program should guide sociologists and the ASA toward an informed engagement in national and international policy debates and toward assuming a visible role in constructing the public agenda.
-Cynthia Fuchs Epstein, ASA President-Elect and 2006 Program Committee Chair
