June 24-26, 2016
University of California, Berkeley

2016 – Berkeley

Moral Economies, Economic Moralities
Theme Overview

Moral judgments that justify or vilify different economic arrangements on the basis of some final value are extremely common in the social sciences. Since the beginning of political economy, market institutions have elicited strong and rival views across a broad spectrum of positions. Those who marvel at the coordinating power of the invisible hand confront those who revile capitalism’s inherently exploitative nature. The celebration of efficiency faces the condemnation of waste. And democratic interpretations of laissez faire meet the hard reality of growing social inequalities. There is no economy that is not political and moral at the same time.

Social scientists, of course, are not the only ones to judge the economy while living in it. E.P. Thompson famously coined the term “moral economy” to denote the inchoate feelings and obligations that orient workers, and make them see certain courses of action (such as riots) as legitimate or illegitimate. To the extent that individuals and institutions act on them, those judgments help constitute economic lines of action, too.

Finally, economic instruments and technologies lay down, and perform, moralized rules about what is expected of economic actors. All exchange systems embed implicit or explicit codes of moral worth in their specific designs and rules; all economic institutions make and remake kinds of moral beings by shifting their classificatory schemes or treatment algorithms. These “economic moralities,” typically fashioned by the action of markets and states, interact more or less peacefully with people’s “moral economies.” Indeed many of today’s pressing political conflicts may be understood in terms of the hiatus between these two social forms.

The 2016 SASE conference in Berkeley, California, hosted by the University of California, Berkeley from 24 – 26 June 2016, will seek contributions that explore the relationship between economy and morality from a variety of disciplinary and methodological perspectives, reaching back to SASE’s origins and moving forward into new territories. Fiat Lux!

SASE/Berkeley Program available here.

 

President and Program Director

 

Local Organizing Committee
  • Neil Fligstein
  • Heather Haveman
  • Annalee Saxenian

 

Getting to the Conference

SASE will take place on the University of California, Berkeley campus, with meetings and events in several different buildings. Registration will take place in the Tilden Room, on the fifth floor of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Student Union/ASUC building (star 2 on the map below). If your hotel is further than a walk away, we recommend using Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART subway train) or the AC Transit buses to get to the conference, as parking near campus is scarce and can be expensive. The Downtown Berkeley BART station is marked by star 1.

berkeley_map

By Public Transportation from San Francisco International Airport. Take the yellow line Pittsburg/Bay Point BART train from the airport and switch to the red or orange line Richmond train at the Daly City, 19th Street/Oakland, or MacArthur stations, and get off at the Downtown Berkeley station.

By Public Transportation from Oakland International Airport. Take the BART train from the airport to the Coliseum station and switch to the orange line Richmond train, and get off at the Downtown Berkeley station.

Getting to Berkeley from San Francisco. The best way to get to the ASUC is via Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART). From any BART stop in downtown San Francisco, you can take a Richmond (red line) train to the Downtown Berkeley (NOT North Berkeley) stop, or you can take a Pittsburg/Bay Point (yellow line) train to 19th St. Oakland, and transfer there (by walking across the platform) to a Richmond train, and get off at Downtown Berkeley. From the BART station, it is a 12-minute walk to the ASUC.

Getting to Berkeley from Oakland. You can take BART from any of the Oakland stops. Take a Richmond (red line) train to the Downtown Berkeley stop. Several bus lines also run from Oakland to campus, including the 1, 1R, and the 18.

For more information about BART, including a mobile trip planner, visit www.bart.gov. You can purchase BART tickets at ticket machines inside any BART station. Tickets are priced by distance traveled, which is posted on the machines. For more information about bus service, visit the AC Transit website at www.actransit.org.

 

Event Locations on Campus

Below is a zoomed-in map of campus, with the locations of various conference events marked by stars. Registration, the banquet, and hospitality space are located in the Martin Luther King, Jr. Student Union/ASUC building (1). Conference sessions will take place in Barrows Hall (2); South Hall, Stephens Hall, and Moses Hall (3); Dwinelle Hall (4); and Evans Hall (5). Hospitality space is also located in South Hall. The welcome reception will take place on the Haas patio (6).

berkeley_event_locations

 

Eating Around Campus

Coffee and bottled water will be available throughout the conference in the two hospitality spaces (ASUC/Tilden room and South Hall Lounge). For lunch, there are a number of options on Bancroft Street and Telegraph Avenue, including Café Milano, Julie’s Café, Free House, Tako Sushi, and the Musical Offering Café. There are also a number of options on campus, including Café Zeb (located inside the School of Law, closed Saturday and Sunday), the Free Speech Café inside Moffitt Library, the Bear’s Lair near the ASUC building, as well as a food court in the bottom floor of the ASUC building.

 

Bay Area Hotel Recommendations

There are many hotel options in Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco. Below, we offer more information about the locations of the hotels featured on the SASE website. To get to any of these hotels from the airports (SFO or OAK), use BART.

When booking, keep in mind that it takes 20-40 minutes to shuttle from San Francisco or Oakland to Berkeley (and vice versa) on the BART public transportation system.

 

Hotels directly on campus

The Faculty Club
The Women’s Faculty Club

 

Hotels that are a short walk to the conference

Berkeley City Club
Hotel Durant
Bancroft Hotel – Berkeley
The Berkeley YMCA
Rose Garden Inn
Berkeley Lab Guest House

 

Hotels that are a long walk to the conference

Claremont Club and Spa

 

Hotels that are a train/bus ride away

Oakland Marriott City Center
San Francisco Hyatt Embarcadero

 

Other Options

There are many other hotel options in Oakland and San Francisco. We suggest however that you reserve a hotel very near a BART station. There are, for instance, a number of hotels near the Powell and Montgomery BART stations in San Francisco, including the Omni San Francisco ($$$), The Inn at Union Square ($$), The Galleria Park Hotel ($$), the Parc 55 San Francisco Hilton ($$), and the Grand Hyatt San Francisco ($$$). There are also other hotels near the 12th St Oakland City Center BART stations in Oakland, including the Courtyard Oakland Downtown ($$), and the Clarion Hotel Downtown Oakland City Center ($$).

You can also reserve rooms or entire apartments in residential properties via Airbnb. Please note that Berkeley has a lot of hills. Be sure to consider that when you consider distance to campus.  North or East of campus is most likely uphill from campus and can be quite steep.

 

Things to Do in the Bay Area

 

In Berkeley

Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. Located in Downtown Berkeley.

The Berkeley Campanile. This iconic tower is located in the center of campus. For a few dollars, you can take an elevator to the top for commanding views of Berkeley and the Bay.

Hike or picnic in Tilden Regional Park, located in the hills above the Berkeley campus, or take a hike elsewhere in the Bay Area.

Drink great coffee. The original Peet’s coffee on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley’s “gourmet ghetto” was the inspiration for Starbucks. Popular local franchise Philz Coffee is also on Shattuck near Peet’s.

Reserve a table at Chez Panisse. Alice Water’s original restaurant, where she pioneered new California cuisine. Chez Panisse features a prix-fixe restaurant downstairs and a more moderately priced café upstairs. Reservations recommended. Located at 1517 Shattuck Avenue.

Catch a concert at Freight & Salvage. Featuring folk, alternative, and world music acts in a beautiful venue with affordable ticket prices. Located in Downtown Berkeley.

 

In Oakland

Visit Lake Merritt. A walking/running path surrounds the lake. You can stop for a drink and a snack at the Lake Chalet.

The Cathedral of Christ the Light, an architecturally impressive church on Lake Merritt.

The Oakland Museum of California. Located in downtown Oakland and featuring a variety of temporary and permanent exhibitions on the history of California.

Yoshi’s. A jazz venue, bar, and restaurant at the edge of Jack London Square in Oakland.

Check out San Francisco Magazine’s special issue on Oakland for more!

Mini-Conferences

SASE received an huge number of submissions for mini-conference themes this year. We are pleased to announce those selected for our 2016 annual meeting!

Submissions to the SASE conference must be made through one of the mini-conferences below (or through a research network). Please note that mini-conferences require an extended (~1,000 word) abstract, and ask that you submit a full paper by May 30th. For further information, please contact the organizer of the mini-conference  to which you are submitting.

Mini-conferences are based around a selected number of focused themes, and have open submissions for panels and papers, based on an extended abstract (approx. 1000 words). Each mini-conference will consist of 3 to 6 panels. Each panel will have a discussant, meaning that selected participants must submit a completed paper by May 30th. In the event that a Mini-Conference proposal fails to attract sufficient participants to make three viable sessions, the conference organizers reserve the right to move any sessions which are organized into an appropriate Network. If a paper proposal cannot be accommodated within a mini-conference, organizers will forward it to the program committee, who will pass it on to one of the networks as a regular submission.

A Platform Economy? A Sharing Economy? A Gig Economy? The Changing Nature of Work, Employment, and Market Competition
detailed info
Organizers
Ruth Collier
Martin Kenney
john zysman John Zysman
Marion Fourcade
Building Bridges between Economic Sociology and International Relations
detailed info
Organizers
Henry Farrell
Kathleen McNamara
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): Moral Economies for Governing the Firm?
detailed info
Organizers
Catherine Casey
Juliane Reinecke
Countermovement Revisited: On the Analytical Power and Boundaries of Polanyi’s Concept Today
detailed info
Organizers
Saskia Freye
Sascha Münnich
Disrupting Capitalism? Market Coordination and Regulation in the Digital Age
detailed info
Organizers
Jean-Samuel Beuscart
Thomas Beauvisage
Kevin Mellet
Olivier Pilmis
Marie Trespeuch
Domesticizing Financial Economies - Part 3
detailed info
Organizers
Joe Deville
Jeanne Lazarus
Mariana Luzzi
José Ossandón
Institutional Experimentation and Subnational Economic Governance: Building New Narratives and Capabilities
detailed info
Organizers
Phil Almond
Peter Fairbrother
María González
Christian Lévesque
Gregor Murray
Islam and the Construction of New Economic Moralities: Divergence, Convergence and Competing Futures
detailed info
Organizers
Mehmet Asutay
Necati Aydin
Haider Ala Hamoudi
M. Kabir Hassan
Aaron Pitluck
Lena Rethel
Market Morals, Taboo Categories, and Redefined Legitimacy
detailed info
Organizers
Barbara Brents
Erica Coslor
Brett Crawford
Martin Parker
Moral Economies of the Digital
detailed info
Organizers
Dean Curran
Dave Elder-Vass
Elisa Oreglia
Nikos Sotirakopoulos
Janaki Srinivasan
Morality and Materiality in Markets
detailed info
Organizers
Christopher Steele
Klaus Weber
New Political and Moral Economies of Sovereignty
detailed info
Organizers
Brice Laurent
Benjamin Lemoine
Roi Livne
Re-embedding the Social: New Modes of Production, Critical Consumption and Alternative Lifestyles
detailed info
Organizers
Francesca Forno
Torsten Geelan
Paolo Graziano
Lara Monticelli
Reducing Inequality: Yes We Can?
detailed info
Organizers
Lane Kenworthy
Ive Marx
Brian Nolan
Wiemer Salverda
Scrutinizing Organizational Inequalities: New Theoretical and Empirical Approaches
detailed info
Organizers
Donald Tomaskovic-Devey
Eunmi Mun
The Marketization of Everyday Life
detailed info
Organizers
Anne Jourdain
Sidonie Naulin
The New Collective Goods of Sharing Economy
detailed info
Organizers
Cecilia Manzo
Ivana Pais
Francesco Ramella

Featured Speakers and Panelists

SPEAKERS AND PANELISTS

Here is a sampling of the outstanding scholars giving featured talks or participating in featured panels in Berkeley this summer.

Joshua Cohen
Read more
Paul Pierson
Read more
Ananya Roy
Read more
Maciej Cegłowski
Read more
Kieran Healy
Read more
Stuart Russell
Read more
AnnaLee Saxenian
Read more
Gabriel Abend
Read more
Jens Beckert
Read more
Heather Haveman
Read more
Kimberly Kay Hoang
Read more

Brexit Special

During our conference at UC Berkeley this past summer, there took place a passionate impromptu session on the Brexit referendum. Many of those who spoke at the session were later asked to expand on their participation in writing. You can find contributions by Jacqueline O’Reilly, Julie Froud, Sukhdev Johal, Karel Williams, Chris Warhurst, Glenn Morgan, Christopher Grey, Geoffrey Wood, Mike Wright, Robert Boyer, Sabine Frerichs, Suvi Sankari, Akos Rona-Tas, and Patrick Le Galès here, in the latest issue of Socio-Economic Review.

As SER was unable to publish all of the speakers from this session within their pages, we make the unpublished contributions available to you here.

Christopher Cocking
"Brexit and psycho-social influences on aggression - I predict a riot?"
Jane Woods
"Impact of Brexit on Contract Law"
Özlem Onaran / Alexander Guschanki
"Rising inequality in the UK and the political economy of Brexit: lessons for policy"
Olivier Choinière / Bernier Arcand Philippe
"Brexit: is this truly a victory of the people against the elite?"
Bryn Jones / Michael O'Donnell
"Dangerous Myths in the post-Brexit Narrative"
Geoff Evans
"Brexit: The Democratic Expression of the Class Struggle"
Jonathan Preminger
"The reemergence of the nation-state and an opportunity for the Left"
David McCourt
"Brexit and Britain’s Role in the World"
Gabriel Fernandes Rocha Guimarães
"Brexit: the return of fascist ultra-nationalism?"
Eoin Flaherty
"Northern Ireland's economy post-Brexit"
Thomas Prosser
"Populism, Brexit and the decline of civil society: two proposals for the rejuvenation of civil organizations"
Jayne Woolford
Jayne Woolford
"The “questionable strategies and woolly outcomes” of EU funds in Wales: lessons and implications for post-Brexit regional economic development policy."
Jo Wilding
"Brexit and the future of UK immigration"
Tim Vlandas
"Labour market factors and the Brexit vote"
Ulrike Theuerkauf
"Socio-Economics, politics and the Brexit vote: Why the rise in racist incidents won't just go away"
Aseem Prakash / Nives Dolsak
"Manufacturing Dissent: How The New York Times’ Covered the Brexit Vote"
David Bailey
"What does Brexit mean for UK Automotive, Manufacturing, and Industrial Policy?"
Edward Ashbee
"Brexit, the Leave campaign, immigration and processes of ideational change"