11ICSSM Keynote Speakers
Enrica Amaturo
Enrica Amaturo is full Professor of Sociology at the Department of Social Sciences of the University of Naples Federico II. Past President of the Italian Association of Sociology (AIS) and former Director of the Department of Social Sciences from 2013 to 2018, and Dean of the Faculty of Sociology from 2002 to 2006. Currently, she is the Director of the PhD course in Social Sciences and Statistics. She was awarded the recognition of Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic for participation in the task force for the COVID-19 emergency. Her main scientific interests focuses on social exclusion processes, inequality, and social stratification and the use of big data and big corpora for the analysis of digital ecosystems
Nina Baur
Nina Baur is Professor for Methods of Social Research at TU Berlin (Germany). Her main research fields are social science methodology, historical sociology and economic sociology. She was RC33 President (2014 – 2018) and is a Board Member of RC56 (Historical Sociology), a member of the DFG scientific networks on “Mixed Methods and Multimethod Research in Empirical Social Research” (MMMR) and „Global Cultures of Enquête: Towards a Praxeology of Surveying (17th – 21st Century)”. From 2020 to 2024, she directed the “Global Center of Spatial Methods for Urban Sustainability” (SMUS), which linked academic institutions from 48 countries in 8 world regions, and she is a member of the Collaborative Research Center “Refiguration of Spaces” (CRC 1265).
Juan Piovani
Juan Piovani holds a PhD in Methodology of the Social Sciences (Sapienza Università di Roma) and a MSc in Advanced Social Research Methods and Statistics (City, University of London). Currently, Juan is coordinator of the Latin American Network of Social Sciences Methodology (RedMet), Full professor of Social Research Methods (Universidad Nacional de La Plata) and Principal researcher of the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) of Argentina. He is also co-editor of International Sociology (ISA-SAGE). His main research interests are the history of sociological methods and the development of social sciences in Latin America.
Mike Savage
Mike Savage is Professorial Research Fellow at the LSE’s International Inequalities Institute. He is an expert in the study of social class and inequality, and has pioneered new research methods and innovative data sources throughout his career. He was one of the leaders of the Great British Class Survey which led to the best selling ‘Social Class in the 21st Century’ and in 2021 published ‘The Return of Inequality: social change and the weight of the past’.
Vera Toepoel
Dr. Vera Toepoel is head of the Methodology Department at Statistics Netherlands. Her work focuses on survey methodology, and innovations in particular. She has been the President of RC33 and the President of the European Survey Research Association. She is the author of the book ‘Doing Surveys Online’ (Sage) and has published her work in journals such as Public Opinion Quarterly, Survey Research Methods, BMS and JOS. She worked on international projects such as Smart Survey Implementation (SSI, Eurostat), Generations and Gender Program, Survey of Health Ageing and Retirement in Europe and worked with panels such as the LISS and CentER Panel (Centerdata).
Sophie Woodward
Sophie Woodward is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Manchester, the Vice Director of the National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM) and the Co-Director of the Morgan Centre for Research into Everyday Lives. She carries out research into everyday forms of material culture in the home, such as clothing and unused objects ‘dormant things’, and has a particular interest in creative methods and material methods.
Plenary Session I
Enrica Amaturo, Text as data: From Media Studies to Digital Sociology and Emerging Technologies.
Abstract
The speech traces the evolving trajectory of Content Analysis (CA) from its origins in the study of traditional media to its current repositioning within digital sociology and the challenges posed by emerging technologies. Historically marked by phases of prominence and decline, CA has proven to be a flexible and hybrid set of techniques that navigates the tensions between qualitative interpretation and quantitative rigor. With the advent of the internet, Web 2.0, and the platformization of communication, CA has undergone profound transformations: the distinction between content and context has blurred, and texts have become inseparable from the algorithmic infrastructures that organize, rank, and circulate them. This shift has pushed CA toward computational methods and interdisciplinary dialogues, situating it as a critical tool in the analysis of big and hybrid data. Today, generative AI and quantum technologies introduce a new paradigm, requiring scholars to adopt adaptive and critically optimistic epistemologies. Drawing on the contributions of the Neapolitan School of Methodology, this presentation highlights how CA can continue to serve as a laboratory of innovation, bridging continuity and transformation in the face of rapidly changing communicative environments.
Nina Baur, Rethinking Populations and Cases. Implications of Taking into Account Digitalization, Migration and Decolonial Contexts.
Juan Piovani, Methodology in the Peripheries: Circulation, Appropriation, and Production of Methodological Knowledge in Latin America.
Abstract
This presentation addresses the current situation of the methodological field in Latin America, within the framework of a global academic system characterized by an unequal structure of knowledge production, publication, and circulation, in which this region occupies a relatively peripheral position. Contrary to the idea that peripheries merely play a receptive role of knowledge produced in the main centers (Europe and the United States), this presentation shows that Latin America has its own tradition of methodological knowledge production, with a strong impact on the regional circuit but little presence in the mainstream international circuit. Original contributions in the field of quantitative methods have been limited, but they have been relevant in the areas of critical epistemologies and qualitative methods, especially participatory action research, anticipating by decades the convivial and participatory turns on which are based some recent methodological trends on a global scale.
Plenary Session II
Mike Savage, Methodological challenges for the study of inequality.
Abstract
20 years ago trailblazing research by economists showed how the granular analysis of administrative tax data could offer powerful tools to highlight inequality trends and also build powerful public movements to challenge them. In this paper, drawing on thinking from ‘the social life of methods’ perspective that I helped to elaborate with colleagues at the ESRC Centre for Socio-cultural Change (CRESC), I reflect on how the granular analysis of inequality has been strengthened by the widespread adoption of administrative data analysis, but has also been limited by what Fourcade & Healy identify as the ‘ordinalisation’ of society. I draw on current collaborative mixed method and interdisciplinary research on the racial wealth divide to both reflect on this problem and also consider how it might be addressed.
Vera Toepoel, In a changing world: The consequences and challenges of societal changes for the social sciences
Abstract
In this presentation I take you on a journey on the different skill sets that are required of a social science researcher. This skill set has become more divers in the last decade(s). I take you through societal developments, technological developments, developments in design, pretesting & evaluation of surveys, as well as new requirements of statistical output and communication. My presentation will focus specifically on new ways of pretesting questions (such as pop-up testing) and the developments of AI/LLMs.
Sophie Woodward, Cultivating the sociological imagination through material methods: being attentive to everyday practices of imagining.
Abstract
Understanding everyday relations with material cultures poses challenges for social scientific methods which prioritise verbal accounts; this challenge is even more marked when we consider how people imagine with and through everyday objects – whether imagining histories, former owners or as yet unrealised futures. These imaginings are central to how we live with things but may not be verbalised at all. In this talk I explore the possibilities for understanding the everyday through creative material methods, through how we develop ‘attentiveness’ as a methodological approach. In doing so I explore how methods for understanding everyday imagination can be a route into developing a methodologically grounded craft of sociological imagination.