Letter by the new President

Dear RC33 Members,

Finally I can write to you as your new President for RC33. I have been involved with RC33 for quite some time, and I am sure most of you have seen me in (one of) the last conferences. I think the unique selling point of RC33 is its focus on a wide range of methodological issues: combining both qualitative and quantitative research (mostly) from a sociological perspective. In addition, I applaud the focus on true globalization: trying to make sure that we can debate with colleagues from all world regions. Unfortunately, I must admit, there is still an overrepresentation from Western countries. That is to be expected, maybe, since participating in conferences costs a lot of money. In addition, type B and C countries typically have more difficulty in getting Visa’s to attend. Although we have been trying to make it as easy as possible for everyone to attend, for example by lowering conference fees for type B and C countries, we are aware of attending issues. Therefore, one of my goals as your new President is to digitalize presentations from our conferences. By placing presentations on our website (of course with author’s agreement), I hope that people who cannot attend our conferences are also able to keep in touch and have updated knowledge about sociological and methodological issues. As of the next RC33 conference in 2020, we will upload presentations on our new website. Those presentations will be visible for RC33 members only.

That brings me to the next big thing that will happen during my reign as your president: our midterm conference will take place in Cyprus. Thanks to Iasonas Lamprianou, who has been an active RC33 member for years, we will be able to take you to a place that is not only good for work, but also for leisure. And for those of you who know me, I am particularly interested in leisure and spending leisure time in a positive manner (“serious leisure”). Apart from an undoubtedly interesting program, Cyprus promises to bring us sun, sea, and gastronomical delights. Therefore, we will make sure to include some sightseeing trips in the RC33 program.

In addition to the midterm conference, we are very happy that Fumiya Onako is organizing the second RC33 Regional Conference Asia in Japan in 2021. Since the first regional conference in Asia was a big success, we are looking forward to a great conference, again at a great location. We are also trying to organize conferences in other world regions such as Africa and South/Middle America, but that takes a little more effort.

The next ISA World Forum will take place in Brazil. At the moment of writing this letter, there is a lot of commotion amongst RC Presidents of ISA about the most recent election outcomes in Brazil, and what this means for science and freedom of speech in Brazil. Some people have problems with attending a conference in Brazil, while others make the argument that this should be a point where we support Brazilian colleagues and make a statement to the new Brazilian government. Most people think the latter, and I will keep you posted on updates of the situation.

With BMS, we have our very own journal. I hope to have many special issues guest edited by RC33 members. Please let me or Karl van Meter know if you have ideas for topics.

I would like to take the opportunity to thank our past president, Nina Baur, for her broad knowledge and network in sociology. I hope we can keep benefiting from her networking abilities. In addition, I would like to thank Emanuela Sala for her immense work in keeping up our membership lists. She has been part of RC33 for so many years and I will surely miss her. I am very grateful that our board members are such reliable colleagues, that makes my work very easy. I would like to welcome three new board members: Inga Gaizauskaite, Martin Weichbold and Henrik Andersen. Martin is our new secretary and I am very happy to work with him, since I know him to be a very active sociologist. Inga will be our replacement for Emanuela Sala, as a new President of Membership. For Henrik we have created a new position to be the President of Awards. I think it is very exciting to have an award ceremony at the next RC33 Conference in Cyprus. Hope to see you all there, or at any other meeting related to Logic and Methodology!

Your president,

Vera Toepoel