4th Conference on Solidarity: Solidarity and Isolation

The solidarity/isolation dynamic will be examined in three sessions. The sessions will deal with problems of aging, out-groups, and spatial isolation in the United States and Europe. Germany, a country where all these sources of actual and potential isolation are pressing, and where both in the past and present questions of solidarity have been sharply posed, will be given special attention.

Each session will have American and European speakers who will offer their own views of isolation and consider the reciprocal effects of solidarity and isolation. Presentaters will consider how societies can reduce isolation and which policy levers might make a significant difference.

Session I: Outgroups

Ethnic, racial, religious, linguistic, and other minority groups have been intentionally isolated from the main currents of social and political life in European and American history. How then can we best assess the state of "pariah minorities" in our respective societies, and evaluate implications for social solidarity? Where is isolation most complete, where only partial, and where is it either moving toward (or where has it achieved) genuine social integration? What spheres of life – work, residence, schools, civic institutions, political parties, trade unions, etc. – best facilitate an end to isolation, and why? How do statistical systems enumerate and discern boundaries dividing various groups, and how do these either mitigate or promote isolation?

Session II: Spatial Isolation

What proportion of the population is spatially isolated? To what degree, and in which forms? Whole regions? Rural villages? Urban ghettos? Gated communities? Ignore­your-neighbor apartment living? To what extent is spatial isolation imposed, as in American Indian reservations, and to what extent is it a life choice by individuals who simply prefer to be left alone or by groups with highly distinctive cultures and ways of life? Is there an inverse relationship between solidarity within groups and isolation from larger normative and institutional relationships? Does isolation always, or usually, go hand in hand with deep inequality? How does the official political geography of a country – its districts of representation, its hierarchy of governments and its assessment of qualities required by citizens – intersect with, reinforce, or mitigate, spatial isolation?

Session III: Aging

With the arrival in Europe and the United States of the “Aging Society” (defined as a society in which those over 60 outnumber those under 15 – already true across much of Europe, and due in the US by 2015 or so), a broad array of questions move to the fore. We are most familiar with fiscal, intergenerational, and ethnic questions that concern the age profile of the population. These include such matters as the future of social insurance pensions, concern for whether the elderly will be willing to pay taxes to support schooling and services for children and adolescents, and the overlap between the age and ethnic distribution of the population. Although these matters will almost certainly be raised in discussion, our animating question is different. We consider how, and to what extent, are elderly individuals, living alone, or in a group, such as those in nursing homes and other assisted living facilities, isolated from other cohorts in the population. How does the character and degree of such isolation matter?

We will also ask how the various forms of isolation reinforce each other, and explore to what extent they stem from and/or impact the labor market.

One issue of relevance to policy that might be responsive to social isolation is how the government measures the size and characteristics of different groups. For instance, are there groups invisible in the official statistics of a country, and thus “unavailable” for policy interventions (undocumented immigrant groups or racial minorities, such as the Roma)? From the perspective of what the government knows, or can know if it wishes, what is the meaning of social isolation in a surveillance society? More generally, how does the modern state deploy information gathering tools to learn about otherwise isolated population groups (whether to control or to serve), and what consequences does this have for solidarity. (In the U.S., for example, the decennial census has been described as perhaps the only government activity that is designed to include every individual in the country.) Informal overview comments on “statistical isolation” will be presented at the conference, but every speaker is invited to take note of the issue if inclined.

Program

September 26, 2008

2:00 PM - Introduction
János M. Kovács
Kenneth Prewitt

2:30 PM - Session I: Outgroups
Jens Alber
Jennifer Hochschild
Robert Lieberman
Ivan Szelenyi

6:00 PM - Evening Session: Jacek Kuron Debate
Alfred Gusenbauer
Richard Sennett
Ira Katznelson (Chair)

September 27, 2008

9:00 AM - Session II: Spatial Isolation
Martin Kronauer
Katherine Newman
Saskia Sassen

1:00 PM - Session III: Aging
Lisa Berkman
Heinz Bude
Vincenzo Galasso