Embeddedness and beyond: Conference on the state of economic sociology

Abstract

Do Sociological Theories Meet Economic Realities?– went the provocative subtitle of the most recent international economic sociology conference ´Embeddedness and Beyon ´, held in Moscow, October 2012. Indeed, approaches towards dealing with the current economic turbulence show how different narratives can sometimes coexist in contested spaces without speaking to each other, as was the case of the Occupy Movement. Here, with their post capitalist vision, participants pitched their tents in front of the very symbol of capitalism: the London Stock Exchange. At the conference, Sandy Ross from the London School of Economics suggested that, as with the Occupy Movement, speaking at cross-purposes should be avoided in science as well. To better capture reality scholars should breach boundaries within economic sociology and between disciplines. To this end the conference was a success, as scholars with various academic backgrounds and inspiration ranging in fields from sociology to cognitive science, economic history and complex system research to science and technology studies gathered from around the world with their palette of research techniques, from ethnographic research to the state-of-the-art mathematicised (network) analytics.