ABSTRACT. Popular and scholarly intuitions alike tell us that men and women's tastes have manifestly different tastes when it comes to culture. Yet, the empirical results don't always agree: generations of scholarships have found a surprising homogeneity when it comes to the aggregate cultural tastes. Why? In this paper, we argue that such homogeneity is ultimately a facile artifact of an excessively flat operationalization of taste. Building on Bourdieusian work on the unity and multidimensionality of taste, we show that beneath these surface-level similarities between men and women are deep, surprising, and durable between-gender differences in aggregate tastes. Drawing on data from a nationally representative survey of US residents in 2024 and Poisson models of aggregate tastes, we show relying on affective preference as a unidimensional approximation of taste conceals gendered homologies in taste structures. Replicating previous work, we find that men and women share comparable rates of aggregated preferences and aversions to music genres. However, gender homologies become obvious once we begin considering asymmetries and antinomies among the many modalities of taste. These gender homologies are surprising, and do not comport neatly with previous theories on the gendered habitus. Finally, we show that these gendered difference in tastes are durable, and not ameliorated by individuals' accumulation of cultural capital.

ABSTRACT. The paper proposes a methodological reflection starting from two research experiences: a longitudinal study on polyamorous relationships (1st wave: 2017-18/2nd wave: 2023) and a study investigating the dynamics of access to endometriosis diagnosis and treatment (2023-2025). Using tools from different critical theoretical approaches and perspectives – such as performative approaches (West & Zimmermann 1987; Butler 1990; Morgan 2011), queer theories and epistemologies (focusing in particular in their anti-binary, anti-essentialist and anti-assimilationists perspectives) and the feminist standpoint theory (Harding 2004) – the contribution arises insights and questions around different themes. First of all, I will discuss my (partially) insider perspective as researcher in both studies, taking into account the potentialities that this perspective opens up in the interaction with interviewees, but also the ethical doubts which need to be addressed. In relation to the study on polyamorous relationships, it will be a matter of reflection how adopting a perspective centred on relational practices – which does not start from an a priori definition of relationship – has helped to broaden the view, enhancing relational forms other than relationships that have romantic and sexual components. In relation to research on endometriosis, I will elaborate on the discourse around the (de)genderization of pathology, and whether it is necessary to go beyond the cisnormative approach in order to broaden our gaze beyond the typical patient and beyond the definition of pathology as gynaecological. The paper concludes with some open questions concerning the possibility of overcoming the extractivist perspective in research and how to question different cultural normativities (heteronormativity, cisnormativity, mononormativity, amatonormativity, allonormativity and chrononormativity) for a transformative contribution to research practice.

ABSTRACT. In Pakistan's conservative, Islamic context, queer women face unique challenges. This study delves into their lived experiences, focusing on the covert strategies they employ for resistance and resilience while navigating multiple, intersecting identities. Given the societal compulsion to remain closeted, these strategies are crucial for their survival and self-expression. The research is anchored in queer theory and intersectionality, providing a framework to analyze the interplay between sexual orientation, cultural norms, and religious beliefs. This Through in-depth narrative interviews with nine queer women from both urban and semi-urban centers (including Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar, Multan, and Quetta), this study uncovers the practice of “strategic invisibility.” Participants deliberately adopt heteronormative behaviors in public, ensuring safety, while expressing their authentic selves in private or digital spaces. This dual existence serves as a tactical form of resistance. Findings further indicate a spectrum of everyday resistance or micro-activism: younger women tend to leverage digital platforms and pseudonymous online engagement, whereas older or less-resourced women rely on established, face-to-face community networks and subtle physical markers. Participants exploit patriarchy’s inherent blind spots to create spaces of agency and resilience. By challenging Western-centric paradigms that equate visibility with empowerment, this study redefines resistance in non-Western settings. It offers important theoretical contributions and policy implications, advocating for discreet, culturally sensitive interventions that support safe digital and physical spaces for queer communities in similarly restrictive environments.

ABSTRACT. Gender disparities in STEM careers persist despite growing female participation in higher education. This study leverages Machine Learning (ML) and digital methods to examine gender biases in recruitment for STEM roles in Italy, using an experimental design applied to job applications on LinkedIn. Through a large-scale audit study, we submitted matched applications from fictitious male and female candidates to assess employer responses. ML techniques were used to automate data collection, clean job postings, and analyse response patterns. Our findings indicate systematic differences in how male and female candidates are evaluated. While women received a higher number of responses and positive callbacks compared to men, potential biases in algorithmic job recommendations and employer selection criteria remain. These results suggest that ongoing diversity initiatives may be influencing early recruitment stages but do not fully address underlying biases in STEM hiring practices. Methodologically, this research contributes to social data science by demonstrating how ML-driven automation can enhance audit studies, a traditionally labor-intensive method. The integration of ML in our pipeline allowed us to efficiently scrape and process thousands of job postings, track recruiter interactions, and perform statistical analysis on recruitment bias. Furthermore, the study engages with ethical concerns in ML-based social research, such as the risks of algorithmic bias when analysing gender disparities. Furthermore, this study demonstrates the value of LinkedIn as a data source for social research. We collected and analysed job postings, application responses, and recruiter engagement patterns, highlighting how digital platforms mediate access to job opportunities. Our research contributes to discussions on digital labour markets, bias in hiring, and gender inequalities in STEM. It also raises important methodological questions about the use of platform data for studying social phenomena.

ABSTRACT. This research critically examines gendered experiences in urban public space, focusing on street harassment. A qualitative methodology with a critical-case design combines autoethnography and semi-structured interviews, including photo elicitation. Drawing on Bourdieusian theory and feminist epistemologies, the study explores how symbolic violence, spatial exclusions, and neoliberal security policies shape uneven access to urban environments. While the Bourdieusian concept of “sexed habitus” has limitations in capturing gender complexity, it remains useful for analyzing dominant power dynamics, given the persistence of gendered structurations and the relevance of bodily hexis also for non-binary subjectivities. Moreover, a trans-inclusive definition of “woman” is adopted, stemming from the conceptualization of gender both as class and identity (Jenkins, 2016). The study moves beyond incident-based approaches to harassment, centering on women’s lived experiences. While autoethnography offers firsthand engagement with spatial meanings, recognizing the researcher’s social location (also as commonplace), concerns about solipsism are addressed by incorporating diverse voices through interviews. Qualitative interviewing responds to the feminist necessity of accounting for unmediated narratives and nonverbal communication, seeking for the ambiguity of peripheral voices within hegemonic discourse. The research’s premises can be found in a feminist ethical endeavor. Considering this, some ethical considerations have been made while conducting interviews and autoethnography. Concerning both, self-reflection has been realized alongside positionality considerations. Given this background, space is dedicated to discussing my position in the emic/etic divide, considering the partiality of my viewpoint as a white, cis, able, working class, and educated young woman and the power dynamics involved in any investigation process. Lastly, this study demonstrates how feminist research challenges dominant narratives on public space, gender violence, and safety, endorsing the potentiality of autoethnography and interviews as tools for resistance and knowledge co-production. Jenkins, K. (2016). Amelioration and inclusion: Gender identity and the concept of woman. Ethics, 126(2), 394-421.

ABSTRACT. The paper thinks through the convergence of plasticity and deepfakes and the productive possibility of a leaky feminist response to this contemporary situation. The paper is structured around three media texts: 1) mass media circulation and discourse around a non-pornographic deepfake of an Indian actress, 2) users on Reddit discussing the plastic surgery of an Indian actress while discussing a Hindi-language film and invoking resemblance to generative AI images by calling her an “AI doll” and 3) the film-text of Dhoka (Betrayal) in a 2024 anthology film Love, Sex aur Dhoka 2 (dir. Dibakar Banerjee) which dwells on a pornographic deepfake of a male streamer. These moments are situated and contextualised alongside a longer history of feminist debates around bodies in India and older popular and vernacular visual fan practices of making pornographic and non-pornographic collages and photoshopped images of Indian celebrities. Through this, the paper also dwells on the location and ongoing reconfiguration of the public and the private in debates on Indian society and the position of the (woman’s) body. While the woman’s body and deepfakes of it gather moral forces around it, a queer approach to the situation foregrounds the leakiness and plasticity of the situation. By situating deepfakes within this longer history of fan practices and theoretical debates the paper builds on Preciado’s (2013) work to think through deepfakes as a technological intervention that produces new dispositions of the body. Through the digression, the paper attempts to take an off-modern (Boym, 2017) route away from regulation debates that populate policy discourse and mainstream discussions on deepfakes.

ABSTRACT. This abstract explores discrimination in the context of deafness, specifically concerning individuals born deaf who have chosen cochlear implants to address hearing impairment. Deaf individuals do not perceive themselves as disabled but rather as a linguistic minority which leads them to preserve their own identity and language rather than be assimilated through medical interventions such as cochlear implants. The cochlear implant is a medical device invented for repair and reduce the hearing impairment. Discrimination and rehabilitation are interconnected, as both play a significant role in a society built on the myth of the "normal" body. This myth, embedded in a socio-cultural context, highlights the mechanisms of discrimination. In this context, discrimination emerges within the deaf community itself, particularly towards implanted individuals who, rather than embracing sign language, adopt oralism to communicate with the hearing world. Undergoing cochlear implantation means submitting to the medical field, which seeks to "repair" hearing impairment as if it were a pathology. Rehabilitation through cochlear implants often entails distancing oneself from the deaf community, leading to a sense of exclusion for those who do not use sign language. Rather than only "repairing" deafness, cochlear implants have contributed to the creation of inequalities between two worlds, potentially causing identity crises in individuals who undergo surgery without exposure to the deaf community, especially considering that not all implanted individuals are bilingual. Rehabilitation thus results in the medicalisation of bodies where those with cochlear implants follow the path of oralism, becoming deaf individuals who resemble the hearing.

ABSTRACT. In this paper, I will engage with methodological and ethical issues surrounding autoethnographic research, reflecting on my lived experiences of systemic discrimination, mobbing, and eventual expulsion from a former academic institution, where I used to work as an instructor, for being an openly queer scholar that teaches “dangerous stuff” [contemporary feminist and queer theories] to young minds. Through the lens of the “Ethnographic-I”, I aim to examine the intersections of trauma, victimization, and knowledge production, specifically within the realm of institutional power structures that frame certain subjectivities and epistemolgies as “danger” and “perversion” within the neoliberal university and Turkish moral values. By situating my personal experiences of mobbing (including ridicule, psychological violence, and indimidation) within radical collective struggles at the mentioned university, I wish to contribute to the discussions on the ethics of vulnerability and the political stakes of autoethnograpic storytelling and analysis. My narrative will not only express how queer scholars in Turkey are treated as threats to political and institutional hegemony, often facing organizational hostility, silencing, and precaritization, but it will also demonstrate how my own academic precarity was negatively affected by broader structural forces of nationalism, cisheteronormative patriarchy, and epistemic hegemony. Relatedly, I will discuss the methodological and ethical implications of writing about one’s traumatic experiences from a vantage point where one’s aggressor is not longer alive or that one still have hopes, if not no other options, for employment at these higher education institutions. Instead of reproducing binaries surrounding trauma, I aim to present how my in-depth interviews with the other people who witnessed the events at the time provide complicating pictures that defies the orthodox narratives of victim vs. survivor. In conclusion, in this paper, I hope to reclaim autoethnography as a resistance tool for destabilizing epistemic hegemony of the cisheteropatriarchal and nationalist knowledge production systems and show whether autoethographic analyses can present alternative options to such problematizations.

ABSTRACT. Studies that use autoethnography are characterized by a wide variety of approaches. They stand out for the importance given to the personal biography, the body, and the emotions of the researcher, as well as the writing methods employed, which are often in the first person and enriched with innovative techniques. As Jones observes, autoethnography requires that we observe ourselves while observing, question what we think and believe, and challenge our own assumptions, repeatedly asking ourselves if we have penetrated all the layers of our defenses, fears, and insecurities, as our project requires (Jones, 2013, p. 10). I have written an autoethnography about my experience in taking care of my parents, and now only of my father, who has Alzheimer's disease. I wanted to conduct research on care work, one of the key concepts in gender perspective considerations. I began to understand the concept of care work after the birth of my daughter. At some point, I found myself constantly taking care of another person. It’s a dimension that cannot be imagined before living it, and in my case, it mostly involved the first few years of life together. However, even before my daughter was born, I was already dealing with medical and bureaucratic issues for my parents. My mother, who had been suffering from a rare form of thyroid cancer for many years, often needed someone to liaise with the doctors. It wasn't easy to describe delicate and intimate situations. Autoethnography has given me the opportunity to outline situations that many people experience, especially women and those socialized as such; overall, family conflicts, power relations, and issues related to inadequate healthcare services.

ABSTRACT. Autoethnography is one of the main tools of the queer political thought expression. In "Luz en lo oscuro", Gloria E. Anzaldúa states that “autohistoria -teoría” is a hybrid methodology for connecting personal experiences with social realities. It is a way to generate knowledge, purport and identity and to dissolve the boundaries between public and private (Anzaldúa, 2022). Paul B. Preciado defines his "Testo tossico", a “bodily assay”, a “theory of the self” or an “auto-theory”. He blended philosophical reflections, accounts of hormones dosing and detailed reports of sexual practices because he states that this is the means to do and undo subjectivity (Preciado 2015). The Italian context is no exception. The Porpora Marcasciano’s literary production is an endless interconnection among tales from personal life, history of the Italian queer and trans movement and political claims. Why autoethnography is so popular among queer philosophers, activists and artists? We can advance some hypothesis. On one side gender and race are often internalized, as soon as other political oppressive devices; this means that “one has to fight an internal battle before even advancing onto ground of external combat” (Mills, 1997). The weight of this “personal struggle” is an important part of the political account that has to be told. On the other side, sharing individual experience in a collective perspective could be a way to overcome a trend emerging in lgbtqiak+ subjects: the identity politics. Even if born to foster solidarity and cooperation, this strategy risks actually to be featured as a support to individual political subjects, based on identity alone and without any attention to programmatic content (Táíwò, 2024). For social sciences, including autoethnography in research and services design could be a possibility to leave behind approaches based on categories and standards and to welcome the innumerable expressions of humanity.

ABSTRACT. The intervention proposes an analytical autoethnography that intertwines the personal experiences of a research group with a study conducted in Italy between October and November 2024, involving 10 gender-creative children. The first-person narrative becomes a tool for analyzing the process of constructing the research in a socially and politically hostile context, marked by attacks from conservative religious groups, radical feminists, and representatives of the governing coalition, culminating in a public denunciation and a parliamentary inquiry. Through this perspective, the tensions between the academic, activist, and political dimensions are explored, with particular attention to the exposure difficulties inherent in studying gender in childhood.

The methodological approach of analytical autoethnography allows for critical reflection on the key moments that characterized the research, the emotions that permeated the researcher’s work, and the experience of the children and families involved. The analysis highlights the complex intertwining of vulnerability and resilience that characterizes the work of those conducting research in conditions of constant precariousness, showing how institutional and social violence has influenced this process and, at the same time, how collective support has created a space of care and resistance. Starting from these reflections, the dual dimension of academic research is emphasized: on one hand, the contribution to knowledge, with particular reference to gender experiences in childhood; on the other, the promotion of rights, social justice, and freedom of expression.

What emerges is that this dual dimension is not only possible but inevitable when considering the transformative role that gender, transfeminist, and queer studies play in the construction of inclusive and recognition policies. The first-person narrative, in addition to providing a tool for analysis, thus also becomes a means to reflect on the role of academia as a space of resistance and an agent of social change.

ABSTRACT. In 2013 the onset of an aggressive Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma gave me the opportunity to enter two Italian Oncological Institutes characterized by distinct organizational cultures (Schein, 2004), approaches to clinical therapies, relations between research and standardized protocols, regard for emotions, lives and experiences. As a not naïve patient/STS researcher I could feel on my skin the consequences of nuances (and sometimes completely different colours) of organizational culture. On the one hand, an open-ended and reflexive organizational culture, based on high personalization and a translational approach (Institute 2); on the other, a sclerotized, blind protocol approach, where standardization was not in motion towards “local universality” (Timmermans and Berg, 1997) but locked in a dangerous series of bottlenecks (Pellegrino, 2021). The case of severe/critical illness (Rier, 2002) configures autoethnography as an inadvertent, contingent access to organizations, significantly different than the usually negotiated ethnography previously carried out during my research path (see Pellegrino, 2004) and often constraining methodological accuracy because of the extreme vulnerability experienced during several hospitalizations and continuous day hospital therapies. As a researcher in Science and Technology Studies, I used technoscientific artefacts to access organizational culture, especially standards and protocols as part of information infrastructures and classifications (Bowker and Star, 1999). The resulting evidence of a misdiagnosis and wrong therapies for two years, and the reiterated risk of death, positioned me in the wrong box as an orphan of the right classification (Bowker and Star, 1999). Therefore, my way to autoethnography was theoretically informed by both STS and Organization Studies, and methodologically by a mixed approach, both analytic (Anderson, 2006) and evocative (Bochner and Ellis, 2016), which allowed me to deal with dilemmas and conflicts emerging from the field, especially following the emergence of misdiagnosis and forced exit from Institute 1.

ABSTRACT. This proposal aims to explore, through a collaborative autoethnography with two voices, the professional experience of social work with migrants and extreme marginalized groups, focusing on access and orientation services. The autoethnographic method, with its strong exploratory potential and ability to uncover deeper layers of meaning, aligns well with the reflective nature of social work—particularly in such a complex field. Moreover, it responds to the need to reinterpret ethical dilemmas and tensions through dialogue and the critical reexamination of shared experiences. This reflection is based on the authors' extensive experience (from 2019 to 2023) in the social services unit of the Immigration Office of a medium-to-large-sized municipality in southern Italy. It seeks to examine the following key tensions: • The tension between the fast-paced, emergency-driven nature of service provision and the time required to properly assess needs and offer meaningful support, in a context characterized by deep intersectionality and high levels of vulnerability; • The tension between the principle of non-discrimination and the universal right to access services, and the institutional barriers that hinder these rights, whether due to inadequate resources or the implementation of more or less explicit oppressive strategies; • The tension between specialized professional expertise and its lack of recognition, manifesting in limited professional safeguards, restricted autonomy, and an increased risk of burnout.

ABSTRACT. The paper explores the transformative impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the epistemology and praxis of social theory and research. AI introduces unprecedented methodological possibilities, such as assisted hermeneutic comparison and sociological simulations, which significantly expand the analytical capacities of sociology. However, these innovations also pose profound epistemological and ethical challenges. The risk of algorithmic reductionism looms large, as AI-driven models tend to quantify social complexity, thereby neglecting the qualitative dimensions of human agency and meaning-making. Furthermore, the automation of sociological inquiry raises concerns regarding the role of the researcher, who risks becoming a mere supervisor of AI-generated analyses rather than a producer of theoretical insights. The paper critically examines the implications of sociological simulations, particularly their potential to reinforce deterministic models that fail to capture the unpredictability of social phenomena. AI-generated predictions may contribute to self-fulfilling prophecies, shaping public policies and behaviors in ways that entrench existing power structures rather than challenging them. This study also interrogates the ethical ramifications of AI-driven knowledge production, emphasizing the need for human oversight to prevent the reinforcement of historical biases embedded in training datasets. Finally, the paper raises an urgent question: Does sociology risk becoming a hyperreal discipline, more engaged with simulations than with empirical reality? Drawing on Baudrillard’s notion of hyperreality, it warns against a sociology that ceases to analyze the social world and instead studies AI-generated representations of it. The argument underscores the necessity of preserving sociology’s interpretive and critical function amidst the rise of AI, ensuring that the discipline remains attuned to the complexities of human experience rather than capitulating to algorithmic determinism.

ABSTRACT. Artificial intelligence has become so advanced that it can generate a face or a nude body with remarkable precision. Thanks to the GAN algorithm, there has been an absolute refinement since 2014, making it nearly impossible to distinguish an original image from one that has been artificially generated. The potential of this algorithm has led to the degeneration of certain phenomena, as seen in the case of Deepnude. There are bots that can artificially "undress" images of fully clothed women, resulting in the non-consensual distribution of such altered images. Moreover, the precision of this algorithm now extends to videos, allowing the creation of pornographic videos featuring any individual, provided a series of facial photos is available (a scenario that is highly plausible for most people with a social media presence). We are all exposed to this danger, with celebrities being the first to feel its impact due to the abundance of their publicly available photos. Today, however, even ordinary individuals can become victims. This paper aims to undertake a sociological reflection through the lens of the sociology of emotions to investigate the emotional impacts of this phenomenon and to analyse it thoroughly, as it represents a new form of revenge porn. Traditional revenge porn is based on an intimate photo that was shared and then disseminated without consent. With this new technology, the initial image does not exist but is generated by artificial intelligence. Although European states, South Korea, and the United States are working on legislation to address this issue, the emotional effects and social consequences that could arise are predictable yet still underexplored. It is crucial to trace the origins of this phenomenon from 2014 to the present, understanding how, in just ten years, a technology of this magnitude could lead to extremes that often escape human control.

ABSTRACT. The accelerating evolution of Artificial Intelligence (AI) offers unprecedented opportunities to transform higher education by enhancing teaching and learning processes. However, this potential is contingent on university faculty achieving high levels of AI literacy and integrating AI effectively with pedagogical practices. This study, conducted at Southwest University, presents a comprehensive framework aimed at developing and evaluating faculty competence in employing AI for instructional purposes. Grounded in the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) model, the framework systematically aligns AI literacy with the core domains of teacher knowledge—technology, pedagogy, and content—by delineating five key components: technological knowledge (TK), pedagogical knowledge (PK), content knowledge (CK), pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), and their integrative synthesis in TPACK.

A targeted professional development program was designed based on this framework to equip faculty with the necessary skills and expertise to integrate AI tools into their teaching while maintaining fidelity to discipline-specific content and pedagogy. The program seeks not only to enhance faculty’s capacity to adopt AI-driven instructional methods but also to refine their overall pedagogical strategies, thereby promoting more engaging, personalized, and immersive learning environments.

Employing a qualitative research approach, the study implemented a series of workshops that combined theoretical instruction with practical, hands-on experiences tailored to various subject areas. Data were collected through surveys, interviews, and classroom observations to assess the impact of the intervention on faculty AI competence and pedagogical integration. The findings are anticipated to provide critical insights into the facilitators and barriers to AI adoption in higher education, as well as validate the efficacy of a TPACK-based approach in advancing teacher development. Ultimately, this work contributes to the growing body of evidence on AI in education, offering a structured, evidence-based framework to inform future professional development initiatives aimed at leveraging AI technologies for enhanced teaching and learning outcomes.

ABSTRACT. The proposal focuses attention on the processes of integration and inclusion of artificial intelligence in university systems in terms of management and organisation of teaching activities, student orientation and recruitment, with a particular focus on the ethical implications adopted to regulate the use of AI in the daily practices of the various stakeholders (students, teachers, technicians, administrative staff, etc.). Through the presentation of the European project Ethical AI, promoted by the University of Costa Rica with a partnership of universities from different countries at a global level, the contribution will focus on the regulatory framework shared within the network of partner universities, as well as on the verification of its integration within some universities selected as pioneers in the process of integrating AI within the university system

ABSTRACT. The essay proposes a critical reflection on AI, beginning with the studies of J.R. Searle, with the aim of questioning the use of the word “intelligence,” believing that we should speak at most of “imitation,” since artificial systems can simulate rather than duplicate the mind. From the analysis emerges the need to revise the known sociological categories, thanks to the most recent technological discoveries, focusing on foundational concepts of knowledge and cognition, such as brain, mind, consciousness and intentionality, destined to become increasingly central in the comparison between disciplines, for a science that will necessarily have to deal, not only with the epistemically objective, but also with the ontologically subjective.

ABSTRACT. This study explores the risks and opportunities of the social understanding of non-binary identities in digital communities, analysing the discursive dynamics that emerge on Reddit. While the web offers an arena where marginalised subjectivities can find support and visibility, the use of advanced technologies in social research raises crucial ethical and methodological issues. Using a mixed approach that combines web scraping, netnography and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), this research examines the conversations in subreddits dedicated to non-binary identities. Web scraping makes it possible to collect a vast amount of textual data, offering a broad view of the experiences and discursive practices that develop on the web. Netnography, on the other hand, allows us to immerse ourselves in social interactions, highlighting the strategies with which users construct and redefine their gender identity. Finally, Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) allows us to identify the deep structures of discourse, highlighting the kaleidoscopic narratives of non-binary. This research opens a critical reflection on the heuristic pool of digital data and its ability to faithfully represent social complexity. If on the one hand big data can reproduce pre-existing biases, marginalising less visible voices or distorting the meaning of online narratives, on the other hand the adoption of innovative tools allows us to grasp the transformations of gender identities in greater depth, offering more articulated and multifaceted interpretations. Therefore, through this analysis, the research aims to highlight how the data offered by the web is redefining the methodologies of social research, with ethical and epistemological implications that require a critical and reflective approach. In conclusion, the objective is to stimulate a debate on the need for methodological strategies that are attentive to the complexity of subjectivities emerging on the web.

ABSTRACT. This paper explores the integration of Social Network Analysis (SNA) and cartography of controversies as a methodological framework to examine the development of social science research infrastructures, with a focus on ethical concerns in the Italian Online Probability Panel (IOPP) within the European project FOSSR (Fostering Open Science in Social Science Research). By combining Cartography of Controversies (Venturini, 2010) and SNA, the study provides a novel approach to mapping the complex interplay of human and non-human actors, addressing ethical, methodological, and sociotechnical challenges. The study follows five analytical steps, moving (1) from statements to literature, (2) from literature to actors, (3) from actors to networks, (4) from networks to cosmoses (ideologies), and (5) from cosmoses to cosmopolitics (Young, 2022). First, it identifies three dominant ethical perspectives: ethics as constraint, as need, as holistic framework, Secondly, it identifies macro-actors involved detailing its roles and positions. Third, SNA is applied to analyze communication flows and relationships within the project’s digital environment. This step proves to be crucial in bringing out cosmos and cosmopolitics that underlie the two main ideological spheres: Ethics as Justice and Ethics as Practice. Cartography of controversies enriches this analysis by highlighting the complexities of managing diverse stakeholders and technical constraints. The results offer a detailed visualization of the relationships and power dynamics that shape decision-making processes, workloads and collaboration between individuals and their organizations. The central macro-actor plays a dominant role in ethical oversight, but reveal underutilized contributions from peripheral stakeholders, including practical, technical and methodological consultants. Enhanced collaboration across all actors is critical to fostering resilient and inclusive research infrastructures. The study underscores the importance of adaptable ethical frameworks, such as Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) and Ethics-by-Design, to balance operational efficiency with moral imperatives. These frameworks ensuring compliance with Open Science and FAIR principles while fostering sustainable, equitable research practices.

ABSTRACT. In my conference I would like to use Actor-Network Theory as elaborated by Bruno Latour to shed new light on the sociology of Auguste Comte. I will demonstrate the significant differences that separate it from the methodological rules later dictated by Durkheim and his school. According to this classical version of sociology, the social is what, hidden behind people's behavior, guides its sense in a direction that the sociologist is called to unveil, explain, and understand. In summary, the social would be the causal component of action that can only be studied by relating it to other facts of the same kind (with a psychic basis but of collective origin). However, when viewing through this lens, we not only find nothing resembling sociology in Comte, but we also struggle to understand why he undertook an immense operation of encyclopedic organization of the positive sciences to establish it. Nevertheless, the social reappears as soon as we change our method of observation guided by Actor-Network Theory, and as positive philosophy prescribes, we stop seeking social causes of social phenomena and instead direct our attention to positive laws. That is, to those facts of which the positive sciences are the main production laboratory, around which the social is called to decompose and recombine according to varying logics that dictate the rules for producing new collectives (not oriented in the sense of ancient theology nor in that of modern metaphysics). Human endeavors such as art, politics, production, law, and technique, when in contact with science, become distorted; the phenomenology of the necessary, the just, the good, the beautiful, the true is reshaped, definitively moving forward, as it is enriched by newcomers: positive facts. These facts that, once established, lead us to act; the fetishes referred to by the more mature and misunderstood Comte.

ABSTRACT. This paper introduces a three-dimensional approach for analysing brokerage in social networks that have the potential to open new areas of research in Science and Technology Studies (STS). Brokerage is a fundamental concept in social network analysis, where it refers to situations in which actors bridge otherwise disconnected actors. Such brokerage can have both individual consequences and consequences for the network as a whole. While traditional approaches to brokerage focus primarily on counting brokerage instances, our framework expands this perspective by examining three important dimensions of brokerage—brokerage activity, exclusivity, and diversity—focusing both on different established brokerage roles and in total. This comprehensive approach can provide insights into how knowledge flows, innovations spread, and power dynamics operate within scientific and technological networks.

In STS, understanding brokerage can, therefore, be essential for examining how knowledge crosses disciplinary boundaries, how innovations spread throughout research communities, and how certain actors gain influence by controlling information flows. It has been applied in STS, but our three-dimensional framework allows researchers to distinguish between different brokerage patterns that the conventional approach may conflate. For instance, it can differentiate between highly active brokers who connect many otherwise disconnected actors and those who serve as exclusive pathways between specific groups—a crucial distinction when studying gatekeeping in scientific communities.

We demonstrate this three-dimensional framework and its applicability with an empirical example of a collaborative governance network of actors mitigating flood risk together. By applying it to STS contexts, researchers may better understand the structural foundations of scientific innovation, disciplinary integration, and knowledge production. The paper contributes to the growing methodological toolkit for network-based research in STS and offers new perspectives on the relational structures underlying scientific and technological development.

ABSTRACT. This presentation explores the sociotechnical networks that emerge in a workshop about technologies for elder adults in Villa 21-24, Buenos Aires. Through an ethnographic approach based on Actor-Network Theory (ANT), the poster shows the associations between participants, technologies, and mediators (facilitators, family members, peers, and religious leaders), as well as the linguistic and cultural barriers that shape this population's technological appropriation. In this context, religiosity emerges as a key factor in their use of digital devices, whether through sharing religious images or while communicating with support networks linked to the church that manages the Day Center where the workshops take place. We aim to present a visualization of these relationships using a "heterogeneous mapping" that allows us to understand the assemblages of human and non-human actors in the process of digital inclusion and technological appropriation. Our goal is to highlight the empirical potential of this methodological approach in capturing the dynamic co-construction of meaning and the sociotechnical practices that emerge within this cultural and socioeconomic context and shape these people experiences.

ABSTRACT. This study maps and analyzes the social networks of scientists, researchers, and policymakers involved in the development of aerospace technologies in Turkey, where significant breakthroughs have occurred recently. Using Social Network Analysis (SNA), the study aims to: (i) identify key public and research actors within the Turkish Aerospace Ecosystem, a vital component of Turkey’s national innovation system, (ii) examine collaboration dynamics, and (iii) analyze knowledge and technology flows. The study will uncover structural collaboration patterns among public institutions and research institutes. In addition to quantitative network metrics, qualitative data from policy documents, interviews, and institutional reports will be used to provide a comprehensive understanding of the ecosystem. Finally, the findings will offer actionable recommendations for enhancing cooperation in Turkey’s aerospace ecosystem and strengthening the national innovation system.

ABSTRACT. When we talk about “Gambling”, we refer to a universe of human and non-human activities that is extremely heterogeneous in all its characteristics, a hybrid that is well suited to be studied with the ANT approach. Its declinations in problematic terms have for many years now been the focus of much controversy about how this phenomenon should be managed and regulated. The attempt to identify the actants that make up this object-network can benefit greatly from the use of SNA if we limit its use to the sphere pertaining to academic productions only. In this study, through a co-citation analysis performed on the Scopus and WoS databases, it was possible to build a network of scholarly publications, highlighting the most relevant disciplinary areas, lead authors, and dominant theoretical contributions. SNA facilitated the understanding of emerging trends and knowledge considered “canonical” in the field of gambling by identifying clusters of studies that share similar themes and approaches, providing insight into the dynamics of expert knowledge development on gambling. Comparing and integrating the results of the SNA with the material produced during field work, it becomes clear how the definitions of the phenomenon in terms of health risks exerts a crucial agency over all the actants involved. It is around this version of the object that the main controversy is centered, relegating all the remaining controversial components to the background. Based on the results obtained, I believe that SNA can effectively support classical ANT tools, although it is appropriate-as always, after all-to keep in mind that no method, no technique is ever neutral and that the objects we obtain through them are themselves a new and necessarily different instance of the phenomenon we intend to study.

ABSTRACT. In producing scientific knowledge, focusing on the discourses purported by groups of actors involved in such production may help understand how knowledge itself is legitimized and sustained by enrolling different allies. The tradition of Science and Technology Studies (STS) is known for the attention paid to such a discursive form of enrolment and how different networks of association may contribute to sustaining and enduring knowledge claims and their acceptance (e.g. Latour, 1987, 2005). In this proposal, we provide a theoretical and methodological framework for analysing these enrolment forms through Social Network Analysis (SNA) and particularly by using two-mode networks. The latter is known to be fruitfully employed in STS, dealing with the heterogeneity of technoscientific relationships (Mützel, 2009). In our proposal, two-mode networks are part of a protocol designed by the authors to study epistemic enrolment through a process of translation of discourse into network data. We thus present a mixed-method strategy developed in the spirit of qualitative networks (Hollstein, 2011; Bellotti, 2014) and within the perspective of social worlds, in line with the STS tradition (Clarke and Star, 2008). In this context, we consider epistemic enrolment as a set of linkages between knowledge claims and the human and non-human actors that are enrolled discursively to sustain these claims. These linkages are then operationalised by constructing actor-by-claim two-mode networks out of qualitative data collected by web-ethnography. To demonstrate the protocol’s applicability across various knowledge domains, our contribution illustrates the implementation of this analytical framework in two empirical cases concerning discourses in online spaces. The first case involves a study of two distinct "refused knowledge communities" during the COVID-19 pandemic (Neresini et al., 2024), and the second case focuses on the promotion of current space exploration programs via the NASA Artemis social media channels and webpages.

ABSTRACT. This study investigates how media consumption patterns shape anti-establishment voting in Romania, with a particular focus on the 2025 presidential election campaign. This electoral period is marked by an unprecedented political crisis following the annulment of the 2024 presidential elections, when outsider Călin Georgescu unexpectedly won the first round with a declared campaign budget of 0 RON. His subsequent disqualification by the Central Electoral Bureau in March 2025 further deepened political tensions, fueling polarization and distrust in electoral institutions. Using two nationally representative surveys conducted by IRES, we examine how voters of two key anti-establishment parties—AUR (a right-wing populist party) and USR (a centrist anti-elite party)—engage with different media environments. Our findings highlight distinct consumption habits: 63% of AUR voters primarily rely on mainstream TV news, but 19% turn to social media (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube) for political information, a higher proportion than PNL (17%) and PSD (17%) voters. In contrast, USR voters favor online news portals (23%) and social media (28%), with significantly lower reliance on television (34%, compared to 52% for PNL and 77% for PSD). These distinct informational pathways reinforce political silos, deepening polarization. To analyze how these fragmented media ecosystems shape political discourse, we will apply computational analysis of digital interactions during the campaign. Using network analysis (UCINET), we aim to map voter interactions and detect echo chambers and clustering effects among AUR and USR digital communities. Additionally, sentiment analysis of social media debates will be use to assess how emotions such as distrust, outrage, and mobilization narratives drive engagement. We argue that digital media consumption strengthens anti-establishment mobilization and facilitates micro-targeting strategies. By integrating survey data with computational methods, this study offers a multi-method perspective on the role of digital platforms in shaping electoral dynamics in a moment of profound political disruption.

ABSTRACT. The past decade has witnessed a notable surge in populist movements across Europe, encompassing both right-wing and left-wing parties. Their euro-skeptical narratives often challenge the legitimacy of the European Union, with right-wing populism fostering nationalist and exclusionary ideologies that undermine core democratic values. Spain reflects this growing trend, as various political entities leverage social media platforms to propagate distinctly populist messages during electoral campaigns. This paper presents an in-depth analysis as part of a comprehensive international research initiative addressing the intersection of polarization, populism and post-truth politics. In this study we investigate the manifestations of populist discourse in the lead-up to the 2024 European elections in Spain. Our conceptual framework defines populism as a strategic discourse characterized by anti-elitist rhetoric, an idealized vision of the people, and a commitment to popular sovereignty, requiring at least one of the latter two elements alongside anti-elitism for classification as populist. By analysing the official communication from parties represented in the European Parliament, we will employ combination of manual term classification and advanced graph theory techniques -including density analysis, centrality assessments, and community detection- to elucidate information flows and interaction patterns. Additionally, we will utilize Large Language Models LLMs) to identify and categorize predominant themes within populist rhetoric. This study aims to contribute to the understanding of how digital platforms shape political narratives and the implications for European unity amidst rising populist sentiments.

ABSTRACT. Political polarization represents one of the most significant challenges to democratic discourse, with direct implications for public debate and electoral outcomes. This study addresses political polarization by analysing textual content from Facebook and X (about 2634 posts), classified according to a polarization scale ranging from extreme left (-7) to extreme right (+7), including neutral (0). Employing quantitative descriptive methods and topic modelling techniques, specifically Latent Dirichlet Allocation, we explore the distribution and characteristics of political polarization within posts generated by Italian politicians and parties during the last European political elections, related to relevant socio-political issues. The analysis highlights distinct thematic clusters emerging within polarized groups, revealing the core linguistic and topical differences between posts polarized toward the left or right. Furthermore, through hermeneutic analysis, we examine whether the polarization of topics identified is associated with elements of populist communication, such as appeals to emotions, simplification of complex issues, construction of antagonistic identities ('us versus them'), and elements of post-truth, such as selective interpretation of facts, rhetorical strategies, and dissemination of partisan narratives. Our findings provide empirical insights into how polarization, populism, and post-truth phenomena intertwine and are strategically employed in political communication during significant democratic processes such as the European elections.

ABSTRACT. One of the major challenges in international sociological research groups is creating an analytical environment that simultaneously integrates common analytical dimensions and events (or phenomena) of shared interest while preserving the regional and cultural specificities of different research centers and their respective contexts for local or regional analysis. The complexity of contemporary political and media dynamics demands methodological frameworks that are both adaptable and rigorous, ensuring comparability across cases without losing local nuances. This presentation introduces the data model proposed for the 3Ps research group. It is designed to support investigations on polarization, populism, and post-truth across different levels of analysis by using mixed approaches to social and data science. The model is designed to provide researchers with structured methodologies to examine multiple digital and media discourse dimensions, facilitating comparative analysis across diverse sociopolitical landscapes. The study focuses on the integration of data analysis techniques applied to: 1. Political discourse on social media, including posts and interactions from political groups. 2. Traditional and social media content analysis, examining news framing and dissemination patterns. 3. Argumentative analysis of political speeches and publications, identifying rhetorical strategies and discursive structures. 4. Meta-analyses of academic articles and publications, consolidating existing research findings on the 3Ps phenomena. By applying this model to the cases of Portugal, Spain, and Brazil, we explore the methodological challenges, solutions, and future directions in structuring large-scale social data for political and media discourse analysis. This research contributes to the broader field of computational social science by demonstrating how structured data integration can enhance the comparability, depth, and interdisciplinary collaboration in social research while preserving theoretical and contextual integrity.

ABSTRACT. Purpose: This study will examine how political polarization manifests in the Italian debate on differentiated autonomy (2023-2024) through an analysis of discursive practices in traditional and social media. It investigates how territorial divisions are articulated in public discourse and identifies rhetorical mechanisms that intensify political polarization surrounding governance reforms. Design/methodology/approach: The research will employ a multi-platform discourse analysis combining two data streams: (1) systematic collection of articles from national and/or regional newspapers between January 2023 and December 2024, and (2) targeted sampling of Facebook and X (Twitter) posts containing relevant hashtags and keywords (#autonomiadifferenziata, #NordControSud). The corpus will be analyzed through thematic coding, rhetorical analysis, and examination of narrative frames to identify patterns of polarization across different media environments. Findings: Preliminary results indicate distinct rhetorical strategies employed by competing territorial actors, wherein identical policy proposals are framed as either essential reforms or existential threats. Traditional media reproduce institutionalized North-South divisions, whereas social media platforms exhibit more complex polarization patterns that transcend geographical boundaries, creating trans-regional discursive coalitions organized around ideological concerns rather than strictly territorial ones. Originality/value: This research offers methodological innovations for the study of political polarization in territorial disputes by focusing on discursive practices rather than voting patterns or economic indicators. It contributes to scholarship on the "3 Ps" (Polarization, Populism, Post-truth) by demonstrating how center-periphery tensions are amplified through media discourse, providing insights applicable to territorial governance disputes beyond the Italian context.

ABSTRACT. The connection between healthcare measures and democracy has been widely debated, particularly in light of the growing influence of ultraconservative rhetoric challenging vaccination policies. This study examines the impact of such discourses, focusing on far-right narratives shaping HPV vaccine hesitancy in Brazil. It explores political narratives, assessing how denialism and moral arguments surrounding sexuality undermine institutional trust and weaken immunization adherence. Adopting a qualitative approach grounded in Critical Discourse Analysis and Science Data techniques, this study examines digital disputes over the HPV vaccine on Instagram from 2018 to 2025. The analysis is based on social media posts and their comments, mapping the interactions between groups. Data collection was built using Content Library via META. The study employed a data-processing tool called Ford, designed to extract data from Content Library and previously from CrowdTangle, allowing for a structured representation of clusters based on homophilic ties between Instagram channels. To visualize narrative conflicts and the actor-network, Gephi software was used to generate both actor and word graphs. Primary findings reveal three key dimensions: 1. The portrayal of childhood as a moral battleground, where HPV vaccination is framed as a catalyst for premature sexual initiation. 2. The systematic weakening of social participation, as conservative actors disrupt health councils and community-led initiatives, thereby dismantling collective decision-making structures. 3. The strategic use of misinformation, which amplifies distrust and fear regarding vaccines, reinforcing ideological polarization. By linking public health debates to the broader crisis of institutional trust, this study highlights how polarization actively reshapes immunization policies in Brazil. Finally, from a methodological perspective, this study also enables the sharing of scripts and data mining processes for large datasets extracted from the Content Library, ensuring that researchers can conduct new experiments and make further discoveries in the field of studies involving digital methods.

ABSTRACT. In a digital era of social hypertransparency, external perception and image are now considered among the most significant risks for senior executives in all organizations, and especially for NGOs, as their work and purpose depend on their reputation. In this work, two indices are proposed, built using novel artificial intelligence techniques to measure the reputational risk of an organization or a group of organizations. The construction of the indices is based on the use of Transformers combined with social network analysis techniques. Results and conclusions from their implementation are presented in an example of X in the case of the conflict between Gaza and Israel.

ABSTRACT. Following more than four decades of immigration to Italy, the children of immigrants now constitute a significant segment of the population with an immigrant background and play an increasingly prominent role in the Italian educational system. Since the 1990s, research has consistently demonstrated that students of immigrant origin exhibit higher rates of school dropout compared to their native Italian peers. They are more likely to experience grade retention, achieve lower academic performance, and obtain less favourable grades. Moreover, those enrolled in upper secondary education tend to follow less academically demanding pathways, with a higher concentration in technical and vocational institutions. The ‘Bambini e ragazzi: comportamenti, atteggiamenti e progetti futuri’ (Children and young people: behaviors, attitudes and future plans) Survey, conducted by Istat in 2023 on a nationally representative sample of 108,000 young people aged 11 to 19 residing in Italy, provides a unique opportunity to reassess these issues, examining the persistence of educational disadvantage and its association with key demographic, social, and economic characteristics of the respondents and their families. In addition to objective structural factors, the study incorporates subjective dimensions such as self-efficacy, enabling an analysis of the relationship between psychological well-being and educational success. Beyond the comparison with native Italian students, the analyses are stratified by gender, countries and/or macro-regions of origin, and migrant generation to identify group-specific patterns and better capture the heterogeneity of educational trajectories among students with an immigrant background. This research aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of the mechanisms underlying educational inequalities and to inform evidence-based policies that promote equal opportunities and academic achievement for all students in Italy.

ABSTRACT. This study examines the marital and reproductive perspectives of second-generation youth of Albanian and North African descent in Trentino, within the framework of the The Children of Immigrants Have Grown Up project, which investigates the transition to adulthood of young people with a migratory background in Italy. Adopting a qualitative approach based on in-depth interviews with unmarried and childless individuals aged 18 to 30, this research explores their perceptions of marriage, partner selection strategies, and expectations regarding parenthood, as well as how these aspects are negotiated between cultural norms, family pressures, and individual aspirations. Marriage emerges as a central institution, yet one that is subject to reinterpretation and redefinition.

ABSTRACT. Italy holds one of the lowest fertility rates in Europe and the highest maternal mean age at first birth. Yet, births with at least a foreign parent represent a non-negligible 21.3% of all births which occurred in Italy in 2023 (ISTAT 2024) and recent research suggests that migrants have higher short-term fertility intentions than natives (Mussino, Gabrielli, Ortensi, Strozza, 2021). Signs of overall convergence between native and migrant fertility patterns, observed when analyzing actual fertility rates, may therefore be more a result of difficulties in realizing fertility intentions than of changing norms and preferences (Mussino, Ortensi, 2018). Furthermore, little do we know regarding the fertility of second-generation migrant women and men who were born or grew up in Italy. Indeed official statistics are based on data on births occurring in Italy by nationality of both parents; yet, due to acquisition of Italian citizenship upon reaching adulthood for youth of migrant origin, the contribution of second generations to the overall fertility rate is not readily available, let alone by country of citizenship. This study makes use of a new, rich data source, the ISTAT Children and Youth survey conducted in 2023, to examine the expectations and intentions regarding family formation and parenthood among young people aged 11–19. Particular attention is given to differences between native-born and migrant youth. Importantly, the survey enables us to examine reproductive preferences of both girls and boys as well as to consider different countries of citizenship. The paper explores how socio-economic and cultural factors shape adolescents’ family aspirations. The findings will provide new insights into ongoing transformations in fertility and family patterns and their implications for social inclusion and welfare policies.

ABSTRACT. The paper explores the condition of NEETs (i.e. ‘NOT in Education, Employment nor Training’) in Italy, by focusing on the interaction between migrant background and family status. Exploring the young aged 20-29 in the Italian Labour Force Survey (years 2021 to 2023), we study the interplay of fractional migrant generations (2.5G, 2.0G, 1.5G, and 1.0G), family resources (living with parents) and family burdens (having children) on the probability of being NEET, separately by gender. Considering the unbalanced distribution of migrant generations in the young Italian population, we standardize the age distribution of the whole sample by using that of the young with NOmigrant background as reference.

Our analyses show that 2.5G and 2.0G, while being on average younger and more enrolled in education than the youth without a migrant background, tend to replicate their NEET behaviour. Instead, among 1.5G and, especially, 1.0G, who are on average older and more active in the labour market, a higher likelihood to be NEET emerges. Indeed, they rarely enroll in education, and present a strong division of family roles: living independently (lack of parental resources) and having children (burden) push boys towards employment or unemployment (the latter being a NEET condition), while girls towards housekeeping (again, a NEET condition).

Regarding NEET behaviour, a cleavage appears between 2.5G, 2.0G plus 1.5G, who mostly live with their parents, and 1.0G, who tend to live independently. Among the latter, the girls represent an alternative profile to the Italian NEET stereotype of young people living for long with parents without family burdens, while the boys register higher unemployment rates than those known for first migrant generation adults. Our research provides original evidence on the occupational, educational and family patterns of the fractional migrant generations in Italy, who are now coming to age in a relatively ‘new’ destination country.

ABSTRACT. Our research targets tertiary students with a migrant background, belonging to either the first migrant generation (arrived in Italy independently from their parents, e.g. to work or study) or the second generations (i.e. children of at least one migrant parent, either born or brought in Italy before adulthood). A key question is whether the behaviors of second generation students align more closely with those of first migrant generation or with their peers without a migrant background. Recent contributions in the filed suggest that gap with students without a migrant background diminishes for students born or raised in Italy since early age.

Exploiting a unique survey on students enrolled at University of Milan-Bicocca in the academic year 2020/21 (Uni4All), we identify three profiles of second-generation migrants (‘Italy-born to a mixed couple’, ‘Italy-born to non-Italian citizens only’ and ‘Foreign-born arrived before age 14’) and one profile of first-generation migrants (‘Foreign-born arrived at 14+ years old’). Not only are we able to follow their academic career in subsequent years (drops out, graduations, students out of track), but also to trace their living and working situation, ethnic networks, language proficiency and self-assessment.

Our preliminary results on the students with a migrant background show a lower share of drops out but slower academic careers, due to their higher working duties but also the language and network barriers. We highlight both a dual divide (second versus first-generation migrants) and a gradient (across multiple migrant backgrounds), suggesting for instance higher percentages of students on track among the Italians born to mixed couple, then gradually descending towards the last profile of foreign-born arrived in Italy after 14 years old. We aim to contribute to the flourishing and promising field of literature focusing on the academic performance of second generations in Italy, now coming to age for tertiary studies.

ABSTRACT. Italy has become a long-term destination for immigration, leading to the emergence of a new generation with a migration background. Despite the strong concentration of immigrant descendants in younger age groups, they are gradually reaching adulthood and entering the labor market, raising questions about their employment opportunities. Existing literature has widely analyzed the labor market disadvantages faced by first-generation immigrants—who are often confined to precarious jobs, low-skilled occupations, wage and profession penalties—the career trajectories of their descendants remain less explored in Italy. There is increasing interest in understanding the extent to which the children of immigrants experience ethnic penalties, including discrimination and occupational segregation. Our aim is to explore how the theory of segmented assimilation suggests that the children of immigrants may follow divergent pathways by (1) analyzing occupation and overqualification patterns between Italians and foreigners by migratory generation and (2) assessing the role of social networks in determining overeducation for migrants. Using data form the Italian Labour Force Survey, the analysis employs descriptive and multivariate techniques to examine employment opportunities and labor market conditions among second-generation, including those born to mixed-couple parents, those with two foreign-born parents, immigrants who arrived at school age, and first-generation immigrants. Over-education is a key variable, and a two-stage Heckman correction is applied to address sample selection bias. Results indicate that second-generation individuals face a higher risk of labor market exclusion than natives but experience lower ethnic penalty than the first generation. Those born to mixed couples tend to secure more qualified positions, while intermediate generations encounter greater challenges, suggesting that age at arrival plays a crucial role in shaping employment opportunities. Finally, informal networks play an important role for immigrants and children of immigrants, not also for children of Italians (natives and G2mix).

ABSTRACT. My dissertation project is situated at the intersection of German didactics and educational sciences, investigating the influence of addressing practices on students' opportunities for participation in vocational schools. Addressing practices are a key feature of interactions and are particularly relevant in the context of student participation (D’Avis & Meibauer 2013; Rose & Ricken 2018; Breidenstein & Kelle 2002). The overarching research question is: “How do addressing practices in German lessons at vocational colleges structure com-munication between teachers and students?”. The phenomenon of addressing is examined as a specific form of linguistic violence through qualitative methods. The data collection phase took place from February-May 2024, involving participatory ob-servations and audiovisual recordings in four classes. The participatory observation method was supported by (semi-)structured observation sheets and protocols (Boelmann 2018). Au-diovisual data were collected to create transcripts that document the communication pro-cesses. Analyzing the data presents methodological challenges due to the volume and diversity of the data collection methods. The documentary method or conversation analysis will be ap-plied for evaluation. GAT 2 is used for transcription (Selting 2009). For my research ethnomethodological research and knowledge is important for examining interactions within institutional settings. Understanding how social actors construct and ne-gotiate meaning in everyday interactions provides valuable insights into the mechanisms of institutional communication. Ethnomethodology offers methodological tools to analyze how addressing practices emerge and contribute to the structuring of participation in the class-room discourse, thereby enhancing the methodological rigor of this study. By contributing to methodological discussions on qualitative research in institutional con-texts, my work aligns with the aims of the Eleventh Social Science Methodology Confer-ence. It fosters interdisciplinary exchange and advancing research in educational settings. Since I have never worked purely qualitatively, I would be very happy to have the opportuni-ty to exchange ideas and experiences with other researchers.

ABSTRACT. Participatory research, understood as a situated and evolving practice, offers new perspectives for integrating healthcare services with digital tools. This study, based on a co-design approach, explores the active involvement of older adults, caregivers, and healthcare professionals in developing a sociological healthcare dashboard. This tool integrates social, medical, and care-related information, redefining care management and self-management through collaboration among users and professionals. However, conducting participatory research with and for older adults presents significant challenges. The digital divide remains a major obstacle, as many older adults face barriers related to digital literacy and confidence in using technology. Moreover, their involvement in the design phase is often limited to later stages, reducing their ability to influence the development of digital health tools. This research highlights how co-design can address these limitations by creating an inclusive and trust-based participatory environment, fostering solidarity among different actors in the healthcare system and ensuring that older adults are recognized not as passive users but as agents in technological development. This study shows how co-design can bridge the gap between technological innovation and the real needs of older users. The findings emphasize the need for adaptive and context-sensitive methodologies, ensuring that participation is not merely symbolic but truly transformative, reinforcing collaborative networks of care.

ABSTRACT. In recent years, a growing number of post- and decolonial memory activist groups in many European cities have called for a reckoning with the colonial past. By removing, re-signifying, or contextualizing the materiality of colonialism in urban landscapes, these grassroots initiatives view their activities as decolonial practices aimed at undoing colonial knowledge orders. Memory activism thus intervenes in official knowledge production. In particular, scholars of (post-)colonialism are committed to making the colonial past more visible in the public sphere, which also explains the frequent intersection of scholarly work with artistic/political memory work. However, negotiating violent pasts is intertwined with addressing racist continuities in the present. In this context, activists from white and/or academic backgrounds are less likely to face racist, classist or sexist discrimination. Two strands are therefore relevant to participatory research practices in the study of post- and decolonial memory activism: the role of scholar-activism and the reflection on positionality. What does it mean to participate in postcolonial memory activism as a scholar? Participatory research does not simply mean observing, describing, or supporting decolonial practices enacted by memory activists. Rather, it requires the reflective application of decolonizing research methods to challenge Western knowledge production. Starting from a project on post- and decolonial memory activism in Italy and Germany, I will use the concept of scholar-activism to highlight the possibilities and challenges it entails. Through interviews, observation protocols, and (self-)reflective notes, I will critically engage with my positionality and that of the actors involved in post- and decolonial memory activism. As a decolonial approach, a focus on positionality allows for an analysis of the power dynamics involved in categories such as race, class, and gender. In doing so, I seek to challenge the very basis of postcolonial memory-making in European contexts and thus contribute to its provincialization.

ABSTRACT. In Social Sciences, data production may be biased in several ways. In the context of a stigmatised religious minority like French Muslims, the State’s surveillance and repression may limit the access to the field and, consequently, force scholars to adopt categories and research questions produced within the political realm - often characterised by securitarian and orientalist notions. Such a tendency results in an indirect overlap between the State’s and researchers’ agendas.

To overcome such an epistemological risk, researchers studying minorities in contemporary contexts often adopt a participatory research approach.

As a research-to-action approach emphasising engagement and the use of systematic inquiry in collaboration with research participants, participatory research enables researchers to overcome some of their positionalities ambiguities and grasp minorities’ perspectives. For instance, the inclusion of Muslim activists' perspectives in the data production of a research focused on the relations between the French State and Muslim associations, facilitated the emergence of dynamics and problematics otherwise underrepresented in academic research, while fostering a link of solidarity between the researcher and the activists.

The hereby presented paper, by investigating strategies to overcome positionality ambiguities in studying French Muslims activism as a white man, shows and analyses a research pattern from early doubts until the development of a design inclusive of my research participants' perspectives (21 Muslims activists). The outcomes are, on one hand, an interesting perspective over the notion of positionality and the role of solidarity in it; on the other, a descriptive analysis of my personal experience - mistakes included - that may be helpful for other researchers approaching marginalised communities.

ABSTRACT. This contribution is part of a Marie Curie project titled ‘Mig. Pro. – Migrants’ protests: How the borders of citizenship are conceived, mobilized and constructed by migrants’ farm workers protests’. This paper brings a reflection on participatory action research (PAR) applied to co-create and circulate knowledge with migrants’ networks of supporters and with migrants working and living with a precarious legal status.

Research on/for grass roots movements and networks of support for migrant agricultural workers’ (MAWs) rights has gained attention in the last decades in Italy and at times in other national contexts. Even though, migrants’ political agency have only occasionally received resonance in both public discourse and academia (Stepinphiler, 2021). Migrants employed in this specific sector-food production - that result fundamental to our societies are the main subject/actors of this research with the intent to challenge mainstream representations of migrants as essentialised and dichotomist: ‘precarious/well-integrated’, ‘vulnerable/criminals’, ‘invisible-passive/disturbing’, ‘undeserved/essential’; ii) methods utilised so far at least in the Italian context. Thus by looking both at micro/individual and at macro-level interactions in the two specific case studies for the Italian context, and by assuming a critical feminist standpoint this work intends to deconstruct power relations that may have place within the knowledge production itself. Departing from this perspective the contribution intends to share preliminary findings and contribute to the debate regarding PAR’s application. Thus with the intent that PAR’s application can help provide a response also to epistemic injustices (Fricker, 2007) often embedded within processes of knowledge production the paper will share on: i) PAR’s application in specific contexts, that may expose to criticalities and risky situations; ii) relationalities and research practices, by interrogating also on researcher’s posionality; ii) challenges and potentialities of applying PAR for participants for the ethic of knowledge production.

Disclaimer: Project funded by the European Union GA101066659

ABSTRACT. Solidarity is a key aspect of participatory ethnographic practice, but how can researchers foster participation and engage in participatory research through solidarity? This contribution draws on Participatory Action Research (PAR) and feminist methodologies to reflect on the role of solidarity in shaping relationships between academic researchers and civic participants. These approaches emphasize power distribution, democratic participation, and ethical commitments, all fundamental to co-designing research and co-producing situated knowledge.

This presentation discusses the challenges and opportunities for solidarity built between the researcher, organic farmers, and Alternative Food Network (AFN) members in Zagreb as a fieldwork strategy and ethical commitment. This is part of a PhD thesis aiming to understand the working conditions of organic farmers, including several stakeholders in the local AFN, to examine their relationships and dynamics.

Drawing on six months of fieldwork, I reflect on how solidarity relationships with key civic actors facilitated my introduction to the field. Over time, participation in volunteering, events, and collaborations deepened these relationships, demonstrating how solidarity functions as a methodological tool for PAR. While solidarity fostered trust, it also revealed tensions—e.g., researchers’ privilege vs. farmers’ time constraints—highlighting the need for reflection in PAR.

Nonetheless, questions on challenges and opportunities prevail. First, how do power relationships in the existing network of actors enter and co-exist with new solidarity relationships? Second, how do practical constraints—lack of time, funds, and opportunities—limit relationships with research actors? And finally, how is solidarity later joined in efforts of knowledge co-production?

This invitation to reflect opens discussion on how different academic and civic research participants contribute to new meanings and practices of participatory research. By critically examining solidarity as both a bridge and a tension point, this work encourages researchers to adopt reflexive practices that prioritize equity and justice in collaborative knowledge co-production.

ABSTRACT. This research aims to offer a theoretical and methodological reflection on the role that local community participation, supported by open-source digital technologies (QGIS), assumes within territorial regeneration processes envisioned by Italy’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) and the National Strategy for Inner Areas (SNAI 2021/2027). The study focuses specifically on five inner areas in Apulia (Monti Dauni, Gargano, Alta Murgia, Alto Salento, and Sud Salento), traditionally perceived as marginal territories. These areas are analyzed through a dynamic and historically grounded approach, redefining the concept of territory as a continuous layering of socio-cultural processes, negotiations, and conflicts among local actors. Rather than interpreting these territories merely as marginal contexts, the research explores their inherent potentials and unique resources within a dynamic historical perspective, highlighting previously overlooked opportunities for sustainable regeneration. Methodologically, the research emphasizes participatory mapping practices combined with Historical GIS tools (particularly QGIS), aiming to foster territorial narratives that elevate local historical memory, reinforcing the dignity and centrality of community-based knowledge production. The active involvement of local communities emerges as essential for inclusive territorial decision-making processes. Yet, the research also critically acknowledges challenges inherent to participatory methodologies, such as ethical data management, the representativeness of involved groups, risks of local knowledge instrumentalization, and challenges in ensuring the long-term continuity and sustainability of participatory practices. Ultimately, this contribution seeks to explore both the potential and limitations of combining participatory approaches, historical analysis, and open-source GIS technology, proposing a replicable model that redefines marginal areas through active community engagement and historically grounded territorial knowledge.

ABSTRACT. During the last couple of decades, sexual relationships in Iran have been one of the areas which has undergone big changes. A society that has traditionally accepted only marriage as the form of relationship is now experiencing various forms of relationships, such as online dating and sex outside of marriage. The current study investigates how I did an ethnographic mixed-method study to explore the nuances of online dating in an Islamic country. Due to the lack of studies on sexual relationships and mainly online dating in Iran, I recruited an exploratory sequential mixed method. Based on what Creswel says this kind of research method is useful when we are going to develop measures and instruments that are sensitive to the needs of a specific cultural population or sample. When studying populations that are underrepresented or outside the mainstream of Western society, we cannot simply bring in measures and instruments from our Western culture. Against this background, I have used a modified exploratory sequential mixed methods to study online dating in Iran. During the first phase of my study following doing extensive fieldwork in Iran and reviewing the literature, some themes and the main research question arose. How online dating has changed the nature of sexual relationships in Iran? To investigate the main research question, I have used multiple ways such as nethnography, and in-depth interviews. Based on what I found during the first phase some main themes arose. then I developed hypotheses and a questionnaire to generalize the findings in the second phase.

ABSTRACT. The reflexive process that researchers develop in ethnographic research is exacerbated in enactive ethnography, where the researcher becomes part of the phenomenon under investigation (Wacquant, 2006). Doing so, they make their own body a heuristic tool and therefore negotiate their embeddedness in, and embodiment of the field (Bassetti, 2021). This approach well integrates with innovative multimodal approaches supported by a combination of tools and techniques that allow in exploration of participants’ experiences. Moreover, it is particularly suited for investigating tumultuous and dynamic environments, such as the complex contexts of high-risk professions and action sports. This contribution draws upon an ongoing ethnography of alpinism courses held by the Italian Alpine Club, aimed at investigating processes of cultural (re)production in complex contexts. The adopted multimodal approach combines enactive ethnography, visual, creative, and participatory methods (Giorgi et al., 2021). It makes use of diverse tools and techniques, among which the use of bodycams by both the researcher and the participants for producing “climbing videos”. These videos serve both as data and for video-voice elicitation during review-interviews designed to establish a dialogical relationship with the participants—thus for the co-production of situated, context-specific knowledge. This contribution focuses upon: i) the researcher’s positionality – from negotiating the access to the field to her performative and embodied presence within it - reflecting on her integration into the participants group and her comprehension of the observed situations; ii) the adopted tools and techniques, critically analysing their mediation effect in the co-production of data, and consequently on the results; iii) the epistemological and ethical issues related to co-production dynamics and to representation of participants’ voices, also seeking a balance between “going native” and “going alien” by conducting abductive analysis (Timmermans and Tavory, 2022), considering the researcher’s unique dual role as both an observer and a participant.

ABSTRACT. Urban territoriality, in its different configurations, can be defined based on the presence/absence of different organizations in certain spaces: state organizations, companies, residents' associations, sports associations, religious organizations, etc. The most important forms of social inclusion and exclusion in large social systems such as politics, law, health, sport, economics and religion depend directly on the spatial presence/absence of organizations. We seek to reflect on the specificities of peripheral territorialities in the territory of Morro da Mangueira, in Rio de Janeiro, based on patterns of presence and absence of various social organizations, with the aim of understanding the socio-ecological conditions that favour the creation and diffusion of small, medium and large evangelical churches, which are increasingly present in certain spaces of the urban peripheries. How do these religious organizations contribute to shaping peripheral territorialities, including their relationship with other organizations, networks and social communities? In this sense, situated ethnography as a method emphasizes understanding local contexts and the particularities of the territories studied. The use of multimodal techniques, such as observing and recording elements like sound, audio, video, maps and narratives, makes it possible to understand the social, spatial and political organization as well as the social dynamics taking place in this territory. The relationship between the adoption of multimodal ethnographic techniques and the production of specific knowledge makes it possible to record and interpret the complexity and uniqueness of these territories. The aim of this communication is to discuss ethnographic reflexivity as an important methodological and epistemological tool, which allows for greater dialog and interaction between the researcher and the object of research, as well as the production of situated knowledge. The relationship between peripheral territories, samba schools, churches and organizations will be observed through an analysis of the particularities of the research object

ABSTRACT. This study explores the use of Virtual Ethnography and Conversation Analysis (CA) to examine conversations among young peers on an anonymous web app chat. This is the first publicly accessible, nationwide online listening chat designed to identify and address problematic situations with the goal of preventing adolescents distress. Targeting young individuals aged 14 to 25, the service is managed by peers supported by professionals such as psychologists, social workers, and educators. Within this online environment, designed to be aligned with the communication styles of young people, users can interact anonymously with a peer to share issues (for instance, relational problems, school, family, bullying, depression, social isolation, self-acceptance) as well as more serious concerns such as self-harm, suicide or violence. In such cases, the peer can direct young people to appropriate local services. To analyze in detail the interactive practices employed by adolescents and peers on the web app, the study utilizes virtual ethnography and conversation analysis. Virtual ethnography allows the researcher to participate directly in the interactions occurring online. Therefore, capturing the social and communicative practices participants employ to establish interaction and to explore how digital technologies influence and transform the ways in which people communicate, interact, and construct the meaning of their experiences. CA, on the other hand, analyses conversational turns in the digitally mediated relation between the peer and users. In particular, CA focuses on the fine details of online interactions which are essential to understand how the complexity of social relations is established, maintained, and transformed for practical purposes and how people make sense of any given moment in interaction. Firstly, eight conversations each lasting two hours, will be examined through conversation analysis. Secondly, relevant excerpts in which the user seeks help and the peer provides support will be selected. The analysis will specifically focus on the type of support provided by the peer in response to the user’s request for help (emotional, informational, or network support), and if the former employs reformulations to rephrase the user’s problem descriptions. Besides the analysis of the chat conversations, this research will include interviews with peers and professionals about their experiences of working with the chat.

ABSTRACT. How have WhatsApp groups changed the practice of legal support for migrants in a legal assistance for asylum seekers? This is the question that this paper seeks to answer. It is based on a long-term ethnography of an asylum legal assistance within an activist association in France that aims to contest European and French migration policies and the conditions under which migrants are received. These WhatsApp groups, far from being limited to the reorganisation of legal support work throughout the asylum application process, have contributed to the design of a more flexible support framework, capable of supporting migrants' security and relationships of trust. But also, and centrally, of supporting the management and archiving of administrative documents that are essential for legal and administrative work. The creation of these groups is essential for bringing together a pair of volunteers, an interpreter and an asylum applicant throughout the various administrative and legal stages of the asylum process. Participating in these groups becomes both a means of testing and translating one's political commitment into action, and of empowering asylum seekers to be actors in their own processes. The study of WhatsApp interactions in this support work makes visible not only individual and collective practices that are mostly invisible, but also their place in the construction of common knowledge and a militant identity in a process at the crossroads of law, administration, care and reparation that is at the heart of the volunteers' political commitment.

ABSTRACT. The role of journalists in producing and disseminating social knowledge is well established. However, their epistemic authority—their recognized role as credible and trustworthy epistemic agents—requires continuous negotiation with audiences. The rise of AI presents both opportunities and challenges for this authority. While some studies highlight AI’s potential to strengthen journalism, others emphasize its risks. This study examines the integration of GenAI tools in traditional journalistic organizations, moving beyond the question of whether AI can write news reports. Instead, it explores how journalists incorporate these tools in their work. Rather than positioning humans and machines as opposing forces, the study investigates their collaborative potential. Specifically, it addresses two key questions: (1) How do journalists perceive the risks and opportunities of GenAI for their epistemic authority? (2) How do these perceptions shape their engagement with AI tools? To answer these questions, a 10-month ethnographic study (December 2023–October 2024) in a leading Israeli news organization operating as both a print newspaper and digital media platform, was conducted. The research involved approximately 130 hours of participant observation in the newsroom. The findings revealed 9 journalistic practices that involve human-machine collaboration. Overall they indicate that GenAI tools enhance rather than replace professional expertise. Journalists integrate AI within existing professional norms and values, striving to balance technological advancements with journalistic standards to maintain epistemic authority.

ABSTRACT. This paper delves into how analogue and digital cultural translation methods can enhance the accuracy of cultural family studies. It highlights how to foster a deeper connection with the field of study and proposes a novel framework for studying family cultures in contemporary research. Teddy Bear Diaries represents an analogue cultural translation method which provides a unique, intimate glimpse into family life, capturing personal narratives and emotional experiences that enrich our understanding of familial interactions. These circulated diaries are a source of knowledge about the display and normative cultural standards of family life. The strength of the data lies in its circulation - in the school, between families and the school - before reaching the researcher, keeping researcher intervention low while the data remain socially and culturally saturated. An AI chatbot represents the digital cultural translation model. The chatbot is under development to coordinate communication between child services that multicultural families often use, ensuring cross-cultural adequacy and availability in multiple languages. Using a co-creation research design, the AI chatbot will support competency building for both service providers and users, ensuring that the solutions developed are accurate, practical, effective, and ethical in real-world settings. During the development of the chatbot, researchers will collect information from quality-assured sources and generate original content. This approach ensures that the data is accurate. By use of co-creative analogue and digital methodologies, researchers can gain a unique view of family cultures. This approach not only enhances the accuracy of cultural studies but also fosters a deeper connection with the subjects, making the research more relatable and impactful. These methods also allow for comparative cultural research. Having sets of data from different contexts adds to the richness of the data, providing a contrast needed to illuminate the taken-for-granted.

ABSTRACT. Ethnographic research is not merely a method of data collection but an embodied practice in which researchers and participants enter a shared space of transition. Building on Turner’s concept of liminality (Turner 2003), this paper conceptualizes ethnographic fieldwork as a transitional space. Within this liminality, a form of communitas emerges (ibid.), which not only includes researchers and participants but also extends to all relevant entities in the field—living beings, objects, and atmospheres. Through collective practices, all actors transcend social and ontological boundaries, co-creating new spaces of meaning. Ingold and Vergunst (2008) criticise that even multi-site fieldwork tends to focus on fixed locations rather than taking into account the movements and activities in between. However, ethnographic knowledge is also produced in the immediate activities on the margins. These activities bring together practice, action, and speech—“to show that everything takes place, in one way or the other, on the move” (Ingold & Vergunst 2008). This processual dimension of ethnographic research is understood as a form of liminal practice, in which actors partake in a shared rite of passage (Turner 2003). By enactive methodologies (Haskell, Linds, and Ippolito 2002), kinaesthetic empathy (Miyoshi 2020), and liminality (Turner 2003), fieldwork is understood as both a space of reflection and a collective enactment of rites of passage. Participant observation functions as a methodological ensemble that interweaves movement, language, and atmospheres to activate transposable dispositions (Bourdieu 1977: 72; Jackson 1983: 334). This approach opens methodological perspectives for: • Reflexivity as a situated practice: How does the researcher-participant relationship change in the liminal phase of fieldwork? • Multimodal ethnography as a rite of passage: How can enactive methods and embodied practices contribute to the production of situated knowledge? • Ethnography as a relational process: What role do movement, atmospheres, and liminality play in shaping the dynamics of fieldwork?

ABSTRACT. This communication analyses the survey strategies that were utilised to study the social experience of long COVID among migrants in the ViCovLong survey in France. As early as 2021, several studies underscored the unequal impact of this condition on physical health. In numerous European countries, migrants are disproportionately affected in terms of cases, hospitalisations, deaths and mental health. However, despite their importance for prevention and care, as well as for avoiding the long-term consequences of viral infections in vulnerable populations during future pandemics or epidemics, French and European data on the number of migrants affected by long-term HIV infection have been lacking. To construct its research framework, our research drew on a long-term ethnography conducted in the legal assistance of an activist association. This ethnography offered a valuable opportunity to identify the migrants concerned and to creatively design the survey that would subsequently be conducted. This approach facilitated access to the antecedents of migrants' health and vulnerability status in the context of their asylum claims. Moreover, it enabled us to build on pre-existing relationships of trust and security, thereby ensuring that the migrants approached in the survey did not feel manipulated. This approach demonstrates two key points. Firstly, it showcases the significance of ethnography in non-healthcare settings in reaching this specific population. Secondly, it highlights the intricate relationship between physical and mental health, emphasising the challenges in discerning the long-term consequences of the pandemic among migrants. This research also underscores the disparities and inequities in accessing healthcare and specialized care services.

ABSTRACT. The proliferation of studies on migration that we have witnessed in recent years has sparked new epistemological and methodological discussions. This expansion has strengthened the legitimacy of qualitative approaches, opening up a space for reflection on the role of knowledge production within the framework of public sociology. This kind of belle époque of ethnography is also marked by critical issues that highlight the importance of reflexivity.

Starting from our epistemological premises on the role and function of research, and navigating the complex paths of ethnography certain questions emerge that we must confront with courage even at the cost of suspending or reorienting our research. These possible reconfigurations of our empirical trajectory should be seen as a strength rather than as a limitation. Among the many issues at stake we wish to focus on two in particular.

First, the power asymmetries that emerge between the actors create conditions that can lead to paternalistic and ethnocentric dynamics, a variable to consider, especially when research focuses on spaces of segregation or detention. The victimization and depoliticization of interlocutors, as well as the search for recognition and gratitude within interactions, are some of the manifestations of this attitude. The imbalance of resources can also foster extractive processes, where migrants are treated as disposable subjects, instrumentalized and useful to complete a research project, submit an article, write an abstract, secure funding, or organize an assembly or protest.

Second, there is the issue of voice. Who is legitimately entitled to speak about racialization, and border violence? Is it only the racialized person who holds this epistemic privilege? And how does this supposed privilege intersect with a materially grounded intersectional approach? Through what self-reflexive tools can we position ourselves avoiding extractivist drifts while still claiming the right to speak, envisioning our knowledge production as a transformative device?

ABSTRACT. Access to prisons is not a straightforward process dictated solely by formal authorization; rather, it is influenced by an intricate web of institutional dynamics, personal negotiations, and contingent factors such as internal politics and administrative turnover. This proposal explores the complexities of “access” to the research field in prison ethnography, emphasizing the layered and often unpredictable nature of the process. Drawing on some ethnographic experiences conducted over the last 10 years in multiple correctional facilities in Northern Italy, the author reflects on the bureaucratic, relational, and institutional barriers that shape the researcher’s possibility to enter and operate within these spaces. Particular attention will be given to how those challenges, while influencing the researcher positioning within the field, contribute to re-shape what is rendered “visible”. The paper indeed argues that the official approval to conduct research does not equate to unrestricted access. Instead, it often involves a series of negotiations with different institutional actors, including prison directors, healthcare professionals, and administrative personnel, each contributing to the formulation of implicit rules and constraints on the research process that can also reveal to be precious opportunities. Moreover, the paper discusses the influence of informal networks and strategic positioning in shaping access, having pro and cons that should be reflected upon deeply. In this sense, the researcher’s affiliations and prior contacts shape the scope and depth of fieldwork, often determining the extent to which sensitive information can be obtained. By incorporating extensive ethnographic notes and first-hand observations, this work provides a nuanced understanding of how research access is negotiated and maintained over time. Ultimately, it underscores the importance of reflexivity and adaptability in navigating institutional landscapes, contributing to broader discussions on methodological approaches in sociological research.

ABSTRACT. Throughout the use of ethnographic and autoethnographic material, this article discusses the conceptualization and the navigation of some of the main tensions I experienced during the very first approach of my research on the Balkan route, where I was investigating the field to find some of the harsher and neglected consequences of the antimigratory EUropean policies and human rights violations. Starting from reflections triggered by the affective feeling of tensions developed in interaction with the field, a more embodied understanding of researcher’s positionality and investigation is discussed, with particular attention to its ever-shifting and grounded dimensions, rather than more conceptual and theoretical ones. The feeling of discomfort and the changes of positionalities that come from the affective feeling of these tensions are thematized as the driving forces allowing the evolution of the research process itself. In the end it is argued how researcher’s awareness of an undefined, situated, embodied and interactive positionality grounded in autoethnographic reflexivity could be a hermeneutic guideline for avoiding epistemic harms and better acknowledge researcher’s role and practice.

ABSTRACT. This contribution presents a critical reflection on methodological issues that are rarely explored in the field of Prison Studies, specifically the intersection between temporal elements—daily, extended, seasonal, institutionalized, etc.—and qualitative field research, particularly the ethnographic approach. The hypothesis is that from this intersection, both empirical data and original theoretical insights may emerge. The argument is grounded in a data corpus collected through a multi-sited ethnography, which involved periods of full cohabitation with individuals in communities dedicated to post-penal social reintegration, as well as extensive ethnographic data gathered within various penitentiary institutions across Northern, Central, and Southern Italy.

ABSTRACT. This contribution analyzes an intervention involving the relocation of Roma and Sinti families from a “village” to public housing in Venice, framing it within the classic socio-legal theme of law implementation processes (in this case, Article 11 of Veneto Regional Law 10/96, concerning housing emergency situations). Beyond the presented case study, the contribution aims to propose some useful insights for analyzing law implementation processes, particularly in the field of social policies. This includes: 1) establishing a dialogue between the literature on law implementation processes and that concerning critical social work, especially the anti-oppressive approach in social work (Scarscelli 2022), considering the latter as one of the factors influencing the use of laws in a direction that expands the enjoyment of rights by beneficiaries; 2) adopting a diachronic perspective, which, by reconstructing the history of a specific service, allows for a better understanding of the particular culture and work practices that have been structured over time within it, and thus enables a deeper grasp of the elements influencing the implementation of laws by social workers; 3) analyzing the profiles of social workers, with particular reference to their educational, political, and professional background, but also their position within the social services system: are they internal to public institutions, and thus fall into the category of street-level bureaucrats (Lipsky 1980), or are they employed within the Third Sector? 4) considering the influence of the political opportunity structures at supra-local territorial levels (regional, national, European). By applying this analytical framework, and drawing on data from both recent and past research, the article highlights some key interpretative elements that explain why, in the case of Venice, a project with at least partially anti-oppressive characteristics emerged from the implementation of this law, unlike the desegregation project of the via Anelli “ghetto” in Padua.

ABSTRACT. This paper proposes tools to assess the impact of emergency legislation on children's rights. The objective is to assess the effects of emergency legislation on the enforcement of children's rights during the pandemic crisis. It also aims to identify strengths and weaknesses in view of the need to address possible future emergencies: what worked? What are the negative/positive effects of each proposal? A comparative analysis of the emergency legislation of Italy and Poland is proposed. These two countries were selected because both of them took into consideration the protection of children's rights, which were referred to in the emergency legislation more than in the other European states. However, each state chose different paths and priorities. At an empirical level, automatic content analysis tools of regulatory texts were used. This made it possible to analyse and describe whether and how the legislative production of the two countries affected the guarantee of children's rights. Considerations also emerged on the relative priorities, the definition of childhood and the guarantees and protections provided accordingly.

ABSTRACT. This abstract presents the methodological framework that has supported and guided my doctoral research on the configuration of the child's best interest (BIC) in criminal proceedings involving juvenile offenders. Titled “Exploring the interpretation of the Best Interests of the Child principle in Juvenile Justice in Italy and Northern Ireland”, the study adopts a reconstructive approach and mixed methods to examine how the BIC is operationalized within two distinct legal systems. The research design integrates primary data – collected through semi-structured interviews with legal, social, and psychological professionals – with secondary data drawn from institutional reports, statistics, and normative documents. The triangulation of these data, facilitated by the use of NVivo, has enabled a nuanced analysis that transcends formal legal scrutiny by revealing the symbolic, cultural, and operational dimensions underpinning the application of the BIC. Inspired by hermeneutic and phenomenological models, the reconstructive approach has allowed for the categorization, comparison, and problematization of decision-making dynamics, highlighting the underlying representations and motivations driving operational choices. Notably, significant methodological challenges emerged, especially in relation to issues concerning minors, even though the research does not involve them directly. Difficulties included limited access to field data and documentary sources in the Common Law context of Northern Ireland, as well as time constraints and complex ethical and authorization procedures. These obstacles necessitated continuous adaptations of the research design and underscored the need for flexible methodological tools to critically observe the BIC in juvenile criminal proceedings and interpret its application.

ABSTRACT. The purpose of the research is to understand how the legal and judicial practices in two Amazonian municipalities (Apuí and Lábrea) respond to the dynamics of environmental crimes in the region. The research project is a based in a qualitative and quantitative methodology. The qualitative methodology (Denzin & Lincoln 1998; Denzin 2009; Loafland et. al. 2005) supports the semi structured interviews conducted with criminal justice professionals dealing with environmental crimes in the state of Amazonas. Several interviews were gathered in the cities of Manaus, Labrea and Apuí, between 2023 and 2024, involving Judges, civil servants, law enforcement from the Amazonas State and federal State. A mix of quantitative and qualitative methodology supports the parallel acquisition of rappresentative cluster of criminal sentences about environmental crimes issued in the Lábrea and Apuì districts. Sentences constitute an important object of socio-legal analysis, given their significance as outcomes of a decision-making process regulated by a particular combination of procedural and material norms (De Felice and Giura 2016). The court decision is a relevant instrument for understanding how the judicial system addresses the challenges tied to environmental crimes (Giura 2015). By the criminal sentences’ analysis become possible to answer several research questions: the structure of legal proceedings concerning environmental crimes and in which way those facilitate responses to criminal events within the two Brazilian cities; who are labelled as criminals what are the economic, social, and legal features of the environmental crimes observed from the gathered ruling; how long lasts a lawsuit for environmental crime originating from those cities? To reach the goal, the criminal rulings have been submitted to analysis exploiting LiGRE software to code qualitative data gathered from the content of sentences issued in Lábrea and Apuì by Criminal Courts.

ABSTRACT. This presentation will provide an opportunity to discuss an editorial project currently underway, which aims to unravel the nexus between law and borders. In dialogue with critical border studies, which have taken borders beyond their formal legal dimension to grasp their social dimensions, this book aims to put the law back at the center of reflection. In particular, this presentation will be based on the draft introductory chapter of the book and will provide an opportunity to discuss the border as an object and heuristic terrain for a critical sociology of law, then to discuss the methods that enable it to be developed, pointing out their main contributions, limits and challenges. This work is based on a theoretical framework that is strongly interdisciplinary but firmly rooted in the critical sociology of legal phenomena, and on a rich body of empirical material, collected through qualitative methods (participant and non-participant observation, in-depth interviews) on two distinct fields (southern portion of the Franco-Italian border and northern portion of the Franco-Belgian border) over a period ranging from 2015 to 2025. The volume will then be divided into two parts. The first focuses on the law in the operation of border migration control mechanisms, gradually shifting the gaze from law in texts to law in practice, in order to observe how (in)desirable and (il)legalized mobilities are concretely sorted and governed at intra-European borders, comparing both terrains and both mobilities, those labeled as transit migration and those categorized as border work. The second section draws another thread from the relationship between law and borders and uses this specific field to re-interrogate legal mobilization and the relationship between law and social movements, holding together those in support of people categorized as transmigrants, those hostile to them and those carrying the interests of so-called frontier workers.

ABSTRACT. The digital revolution has encouraged major changes in the methods of bottom-up participation in decision-making processes, offering citizens a wide variety of online tools aimed at social research. If previously proposing an online questionnaire was an element of innovation, today the use of web surveys is now consolidated even in the sphere of public administration. In the latter, over the last 10 years, there has been a real constant innovative push, which has provided not only a form of wide-ranging dissemination of research results via newsletters, social media, online periodicals, etc. but also to provide research designs in which mixed methods and e-methods are foreseen. For public administration, the ultimate goal of this link between traditional methods and technological innovation concerns the desire to make all public procedures increasingly streamlined, not only research, finalizing everything to an integrated system that for a researcher means having a greater quantity of information than in the past, easier and more immediate to use in processing, to integrate data from multiple sources. The authors intend to bring to attention a case study on the National Evaluation System intended as a great catalyst for all the forms of innovation mentioned above, which also includes the Self-Evaluation Report drawn up by schools: a tool that collects different types of data, in a considerable amount of different sources. The problem of data comprehensibility, data literacy and data visualization therefore arises. The starting hypothesis is that the tools/documents that are published online on the platforms “Unica” and “Scuola in chiaro” are for use by the community, as an idea of transparency and accountability, to account for the resources spent and the results achieved. But are they really understandable to everyone? How much do they need to be in an educational context or to a wider public?

ABSTRACT. As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly embedded in healthcare decision-making, understanding medical professionals' algorithm awareness is essential for fostering informed adoption and mitigating biases. This pilot study explores how medical doctors (n=101) across different levels of seniority perceive, engage with, and critically assess AI-driven decision-support systems. By integrating mixed methods—including quantitative surveys, qualitative insights, and scenario-based assessments—this study examines attitudes, experiences, and perceived limitations of AI in medical practice. Findings contribute to the development of a Multidimensional AI Literacy Framework (MALF), categorizing algorithmic literacy into six constructs: Technical, Applied, Critical, Collaborative, Ethical-Normative, and Non-Proficient Literacy. This framework serves as a methodological tool to assess professionals' engagement with AI and highlights the need for targeted educational interventions to enhance algorithm awareness. Furthermore, the study explores how interactive learning techniques, such as Explainable AI (XAI), participatory design, and cross-disciplinary training, can improve algorithmic transparency and professional trust. By employing scenario-based methods, the research also elicits reflections on AI’s role in clinical decision-making and its broader societal implications. These findings align with the panel's focus on methodological advancements in algorithm awareness research, emphasizing how educational strategies—including interdisciplinary teaching, human-computer interaction, and real-world case studies—can bridge algorithmic literacy gaps. Addressing these challenges is crucial to ensuring fairness, transparency, and informed decision-making in algorithmic governance across professional fields.

ABSTRACT. The submitted contribution illustrates the doctoral research results on the competencies of managers within Italian public administrations, conducted by the author as part of the PhD program in Educational and Social Theory and Research at the Department of Educational Sciences of Roma Tre University. Specifically, it will outline the different implications of digital tools in document analysis of the research context, empirical research, and data analysis. The research project is rooted in sector studies of the sociology of economic processes and labor. A qualitative methodology employing semi-structured interviews and focus groups investigated three representative contexts for public administrations: hospitals, educational institutions, and correctional facilities. The organizational analysis was structured around four dimensions: structural analysis (Gallino, 1993), cultural analysis (Cocozza, 2004a), and analysis of roles and coordination mechanisms (Mintzberg, 1979). Traditional research methods were complemented by digital tools for each of these aspects. The contribution focuses on presenting the results of the empirical research activities. It will share the opportunities generated using digital traces to understand cultural dynamics in public administrations, some critical issues identified between computational text analysis, Emotional Text Mining, and traditional Content Analysis, and the strong correlation between methodological rigor and ethical considerations that arise in the context of Public Administrations.

ABSTRACT. Through this project we intend to show the results of a successive zoom survey on research samples using a combination of digital and traditional methods. Here we intend to present research on Wikipedia. Among the major online expression platforms, which are often based on a commercial model, Wikipedia is an exception with its free archives. This way, we have been able to build up a database containing information on the 720,000 revisions made to the 2841 biographical pages of candidates for parliamentary elections in France between 2002 and 2024. From this sample, we focused more specifically on the study of the 30 biographical pages, by conducting interviews with the people who are biographed. Through digital observation of the modification history, we were able to ask questions about the modifications made to the pages by the candidates or their staff. Moreover, while editing in Wikipedia is perceived as immoral, we were able to discover the revisions made by political actors and get them to reveal it. Of these 30 pages, we finally focused on 10 pages for which we carried out a content analysis by thematically coding the content added to the pages. By carrying out this precise analysis we were able to put into context the critical opinions given by the candidates about their pages during the interviews. Indeed, we were able to note the major place given to controversy and polemics on encyclopaedia pages. Finally, using the database, we studied the characteristics of each contributor to the 10 pages studied. Through an analysis of digital traces, we established the contributors‘ political profile by studying the candidate pages to which they contributed the most.

ABSTRACT. This proposal aims at providing a methodological framework for the study of online discursive spaces as forms of sociodigital worlds. Interactions in digital environments such as social media can be productive of “social worlds” constituted by processes of meaning-making that involve groups of actors working with shared objects (Clarke and Star, 2008). Indeed, these “universes of discourse” (Strauss, 1978) merit particular attention, especially in the context of controversial issues that are linked to societal concerns, such as health and wellbeing, leading to build and disseminate knowledge even in contrast to legitimate institutions, as is the case with refused knowledge communities (RKCs) (Neresini et al., 2024). As sociodigital worlds, these communities foster intense online debates, which calls for methodological choices apt to provide a deeper understanding of the collective shaping of knowledge in these spaces. The integration of qualitative and quantitative analytic strategies is crucial to gain insights into the construction and reproduction of knowledge in these sociodigital worlds, relying on interpretive tools and formal analytic techniques to unveil the relevant patterns of discourse and meaning. Therefore, the current proposal focuses on a mixed-method strategy that employs web-ethnography and social network analysis (SNA) techniques to investigate the social configuration of RKCs (Picardi et al., 2024; Serino et al., 2024). First, the coupling of the theoretical and methodological lenses of social worlds and SNA is illustrated. Second, appropriate forms of operationalisation are discussed, which consist in the translation of discursive units in the nodes of a two-mode network made up of knowledge claims and actors discursively enrolled to sustain such claims. Third, empirical applications on two RKCs are presented and discussed with reference to how such sociodigital worlds may turn into arenas, i.e., “multiple worlds organized ecologically around issues of mutual concern and commitment to action” (Clarke and Star, 2008).

ABSTRACT. Participatory research in rural contexts presents unique ethical concerns and methodological challenges, particularly when we address power asymmetries between researchers and local population. In this project, we developed a participatory process in Albarracín (Teruel, Spain), a small village, where tensions over tourism development have created conflicting visions about heritage preservation and economic sustainability. As researchers trained in Madrid, we acknowledge the ethical dilemmas of entering a rural space with pre-existing hierarchies. To avoid reinforcing external authority, our approach seeks to decentralize knowledge production through participatory techniques such as Flujograma (Flowchart). This technique facilitates discussions where locals can map relations among problems, identifying key actors and issues, and visualizing the consequences of different decision-making pathways. Collectively, we construct a diagram so residents can see how various tourism models can impact both the local economy and heritage conservation. Yet these participatory methods also raise some critical debates: Who participates? Whose voices are heard? How do research interventions shape local debate? We also address some fundamental methodological reflections on our approach: We have to manage community expectations ensuring participation does not create false hopes for immediate solutions. Understanding that researchers do not dictate solutions in the implementations of proposed measures. They ultimately depend on pre-exisiting power relations among local actors, including municipal government, residents, business… We need to navigate local power structures and avoid over-representation of stakeholders and influential actors to guarantee inclusive participation. By critically addressing these issues, we aim to contribute to the ongoing debate on ethical participatory research, highlighting the usefulness of Flujograma (Flowchart) for collective problem-solving while requiring reflexivity and accountability from researchers.

ABSTRACT. Despite various political and social efforts to promote active aging in Italy, its implementation remains difficult due to the inequality and social vulnerability affecting older people. Older adults now account for 24.3% of the total population, making Italy the oldest country in Europe (Eurostat, 2024). Liguria is the country's oldest region (ISTAT, 2024), with an average age of 49.2 years, compared to the national average of 46.6 and the European average of 44.7. Moreover, the regional active population structure index has dropped from 162.4 in 2021 to 148.8 in 2024. Within this context, this study explored the identity representations of older people in the Metropolitan City of Genoa and its surrounding eastern and western provinces. Using a multimodal qualitative research design, we integrated different techniques and involved 24 participants aged 65 and over. Participants were selected based on factors such as residence area, gender, age, socioeconomic status, and social support network to ensure a heterogeneous sample, using a non-probabilistic approach. Initially, all participants completed a semi-structured interview. In the second phase, they were divided into three groups and participated in a photovoice project, a qualitative visual research method useful in gerontological studies. Our analysis showed a strong connection between participants' narratives and visual outputs, highlighting themes like self-representation, autonomy, and agency, which challenge stereotypes about older people. The findings also emphasized the importance of personal and public spaces in expressing identity. By incorporating self-produced photographic images and applying visual sociology techniques in conjunction with the more traditional semi-structured interview, this study enriched the data by combining creative and participatory methods.

This research approach focused on the participants, encouraging their learning and empowerment. These principles align with participatory action research methodologies, promoting preventive and proactive behaviors to enhance the sustainability of social and healthcare policies, while offering insights for future studies.

ABSTRACT. This study examines how multimodal qualitative methodologies can be employed to explore urban spatial perception and sensory engagement with riverfronts. Focusing on the River Someș in Cluj-Napoca, we investigate how different social groups interact with and interpret this urban space using a combination of surveys, in-depth interviews, mental mapping, and participatory sensory ethnography. Historically, the river functioned as a boundary between urban civility and marginality, neglected by city planning despite its centrality. For decades, the city turned its back on the Someș, treating it as a utilitarian infrastructure rather than an integrated public space. In recent years, revitalization projects have aimed to reintegrate the Someș into urban life, promoting it as a site for leisure, mobility, and social interaction. However, perceptions of these changes vary, reflecting deeper socio-spatial inequalities in access and use.

Methodologically, the study integrates CATI surveys with 866 residents, 24 semi-structured interviews to capture socio-cultural meanings, participatory mapping exercises where respondents visually represent their spatial experiences, and walk-along ethnographic interviews to document real-time sensory engagements. These diverse methodologies offer insight into how urban landscapes are emotionally and materially navigated, contested, and appropriated by different populations. By adopting a creative and multimodal approach, the research aims to bridge the gap between subjective spatial narratives and empirical data in urban studies.

Findings suggest that multimodal methodologies reveal discrepancies between institutional planning perspectives and lived experiences of space. Cognitive maps expose unequal spatial access, sensory observations capture the affective dimensions of urban engagement, and qualitative interviews highlight narratives of belonging and exclusion. This study reflects on the ethical implications of visual and creative methods in urban research and their potential for inclusive and participatory urban planning. By combining methodological innovation with grounded empirical research, this study contributes to the growing discourse on qualitative multimodal approaches in social science methodology.

ABSTRACT. This paper is based on two participatory research experiences carried out between 2019 and the present in the Emilia-Romagna Region.The first experience concerned a social project aimed at indoor sex workers; the second concerned the reception system for minors outside their family of origin.In both cases, the whole research plan, each research step and the related data collection tools were designed in a participatory process.This process involved social workers and, at a later stage, regional and municipal policy makers. In one of the two experiences, the inVisible project, it was also possible to collect the voice of the people targeted by the interventions through interviews administered by the social workers themselves.Each phase of the formulation of findings was shared between the research group and the social workers involved, also through forms of appropriation of the theoretical frameworks applied, giving rise to real moments of "cognitive displacement". These are to be understood as spaces of discontinuity in which to reflect on the reiteration of mechanisms of social reproduction, which take shape in the making of policies. Each of the two experiences had a significant impact on at least three dimensions. Firstly, it led to the sharing and visibility of experiential knowledge, which provided a basis not only for evaluating but also planning policies. Secondly, it clarified crucial nodes in implementing policies that differently involved the various actors. Finally, it facilitated the cognitive contribution in the design of policies (economic and regulatory). By employing a comparative method with these two experiences, this study aims to contribute to theoretical reflection in the field of social work. This theoretical reflection will focus on the role of informational bases as defined within the Capability Approach.

ABSTRACT. This research explores the application of creative methods, particularly collage and drawing, for the study of the urban imaginary of youth in Florence. The urban imaginary, understood as the set of representations, images and narratives through which young people understand and experience the city, is a complex and stratified object of study (Çinar & Bender 2007). The research aims to "make the invisible visible" (Carmagnola & Matera 2008) through the use of visual techniques that allow participants to express and rework their relationship with the city in an unconventional way. Through the integration of creative and traditional methods (semi-structured interviews), the study investigates how collage and drawing techniques can be used to: • Encourage critical reflection on the familiar: encouraging participants to problematize the "taken-for-granted" (Schütz 1967/2018) in their perceptions and representations of Florence. • Explore visual knowledge: analyzing the process of creating mental images and graphic representations, and their link with the urban practices and experiences of young people. • Promote the emergence of hidden narratives: offering participants a means to express points of view and experiences that would hardly emerge through direct verbal approaches. The research also addresses the methodological, epistemological and ethical challenges related to the study of the imaginary through creative methods, critically discussing the role of validity, reliability, reflexivity and the ethical implications in social research. Some examples of the works created during the research are presented and discussed, illustrating the potential and limitations of the creative approach for the study of the urban imaginary.

References: - Carmagnola, F., & Matera Vincenzo (Eds), (2008). Genealogie dell'immaginario. Torino: UTET Università. - Çinar, A., & Bender, T. (2007). Urban Imagineries. Locating the Modern City. Londra: University of Minnesota Press. - Schütz, A. (1967). The phenomenology of the social world. Illinois: Northwestern university press 2018.

ABSTRACT. The Dutch government has designated 20 ‘vulnerable areas’. In these areas, residents are considered to face multiple challenges surrounding poverty, health and safety. Also, up to 32 % of people in these areas have low language proficiency. Heerlen - Noord is one of these areas, where 20 % of inhabitants are classified by the Dutch government as having low language proficiency. In this context, the local library developed a family-oriented literacy program for parents and their children. We aimed to evaluate the program, by exploring families’ perceptions and experiences with the program, as well as the program’s perceived impact. Additionally, we sought to gain insight into the challenges participants may encounter in reading and writing and solutions they find. To achieve this, we designed a multimodal qualitative approach, combining qualitative interviews and Photovoice in a participatory and inclusive research design, which meant that program professionals and community members were involved in the development of the different aspects of the research design, such as research topic, and data collection methodology and instruments. By adopting this approach, we aimed to empower participants, shift traditional power dynamics between researchers and participants, co-construct knowledge, and facilitate mutual learning between researchers and the community. However, we encountered several challenges related precisely to these aims. Did we truly succeed in empowering participants? Did we manage to shift the power balance and transform knowledge production? Were participants’ voices genuinely represented? Furthermore, we faced ethical and practical challenges in applying our data collection methods and adhering to Open Science principles. In our presentation, we will reflect on our research process and findings, discussing what went well as well as problems and challenges and potential solutions.

ABSTRACT. The development of digital infrastructures for research actively promotes a culture of Open Science, supported by the adoption and dissemination of open data. The use of such data raises important methodological questions regarding representativeness, validity and management. This study examines scientific trends in open data research through an exploratory quantitative analysis of 3,000 publications in the social sciences and humanities from 2013 to 2022. The results indicate a growing and diversified interest in three main research areas: the fundamental principles of the open data approach, such as sharing, transparency and open government; methodological and procedural challenges, including data quality, replicability and evaluation criteria; and the broad spectrum of applications across different social domains, ranging from climate change policies to smart cities and the management of the Covid-19 pandemic. In particular, transparency emerges as a pivotal and cross-cutting theme in open data research, with significant consequences for governance structures and evolving scientific practices. The findings also highlight the plurality of perspectives adopted by studies over time, reflecting an increasing focus on the epistemological and social dimensions of data culture. Additionally, different challenges emerge concerning data quality, the limited data literacy among various stakeholders, and persistent tensions between openness and mechanisms of control in open data management. With this empirical study, this presentation engages with the debate on the opportunities and challenges of open data, providing reflections and analytical tools to explore methodological approaches and examine issues related to ethics, transparency, and collaboration in research practices.

ABSTRACT. Data sharing and re-use in the social sciences are practices that are facilitated by the availability of specialised research infrastructures, in particular the data archives. One of the main issues concerning data archives is trust within the scientific community, due to their role as intermediaries between researchers. Under this perspective, data depositors need to be guaranteed that their data will be cared for and accessed in a stable and secure manner, while data users need to be confident to access data easily and in a documented way to reuse it correctly. Based on this assumption, it is interesting to explore how data archives address the issue of trustworthiness towards their community. Trust is a broad concept that often overlaps with quality, validity, and reliability. How can it be measured? And how can an archive demonstrate its reliability to researchers? The acquisition of a “seal of approval” by a research infrastructure demonstrates its reliability. It certifies that the procedures followed for the acquisition, management, and long-term preservation of data meet high-quality standards. This also requires a technologically secure environment as well as skilled human resources qualified to operate the service. All of these requirements enhance the repository reputation and attractiveness to researchers and contribute to determining its ability to become a reference point for the scientific community for both data deposit and re-use. The proposed paper presents the path taken by the Data Archive for Social Sciences in Italy (DASSI) to obtain the quality certification issued by CoreTrustSeal, the certification approach recommended within the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) and selected by CESSDA ERIC for its members. In particular, the paper reflects on the concept of “trust” and its implications for a research infrastructure, highlighting its impact on tasks and roles and focusing on key aspects to meet trustworthiness requirements.

ABSTRACT. Research data infrastructures striving to improve FAIR principles often concentrate on metadata enhancement. However, most FAIR principles apply to both data and metadata. Particularly interoperability aspects can be emphasized, such as standardized knowledge representation, the use of FAIR-compliant vocabularies, and explicit references to other data (Bahim et al. 2020). In this presentation, we will discuss areas of data planning and processing that can make data more FAIR. FAIR enhancement increases the overall re-usability and analytic potential of data, including possibilities of merging and combining different data sources. It is important to train researchers about the established best practices that increase re-usability (e.g. http://www.dlib.si/?URN=URN:NBN:SI:DOC-G0DPXMZ1). For example, comparability of data and conceptual clarity can be enhanced with the use of standard social science variables. Standard social science classification can be derived using shared computer code (see https://www.gesis.org/en/missy/materials/EU-SILC/tools/datahandling) . Data infrastructure services are often asked for advice regarding Data Management Plannig that requres to maximise on FAIR aspects. Historical research project that use printed archival resources from past (Mezzoli, 2022, https://doi.org/10.17898/ADP_HDS47_V1) unified the coding framework from different periods and locations. The variables operationalisations from key social science studies have known reliability and validity characterisations, which the CESSDA European Question Bank, with full survey question text in DDI format, will provide. The use of FAIR-compliant vocabularies, such as the European Language Social Science Thesaurus, to document the conceptual content of data at a granular level can add an additional layer of FAIR (see https://www.cessda.eu/Tools). In conclusions, a higher return on investment can be expected by publishing FAIR compliant data (Inau et al. 2023, https://www.jmir.org/2023/1/e45013 ). Repositories can establish the evaluation criteria for the data that respect different aspects of FAIR data (e.g. https://pubmet2024.unizd.hr/janez-stebe-abstract/).

ABSTRACT. The Open Science movement is transforming the research landscape, with funders such as the European Commission mandating transparency and accessibility in research. Researchers must now publish not only their findings but also their datasets and software in trusted repositories, ensuring that research outputs are FAIR—Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. Data Management Plans (DMPs) play a critical role in supporting these practices by promoting structured data handling and sharing. However, the successful implementation of Open Science principles relies on the services and infrastructure provided by data repositories. Repositories are more than storage spaces; they actively facilitate FAIR data practices by offering tools for metadata standardization, persistent identifiers, interoperability frameworks, and long-term preservation strategies. They also support researchers and data stewards in navigating evolving Open Science requirements, ensuring compliance with institutional and funder policies. A key example of this support is Slovenia’s SPOZNAJ project, which aligns with broader European Open Science developments. Slovenia has enacted significant legislative changes in the last four years. New policies mandate open access to research results, responsible evaluation of research work, and citizen engagement in research activities. To strengthen data stewardship and FAIR data management, the SPOZNAJ project consortium launched a data stewardship training program in 2024. This initiative began with the Catalogue of Competences for Data Experts, forming the basis for a three-week training program. In addition to publishing two handbooks on Open Science and Research Data Management Planning in Slovenian, the project also established the Slovenian Data Stewardship Network. This presentation will highlight how repositories, national initiatives, and institutional support can enhance research data management, accelerate the adoption of FAIR principles, and ensure the long-term success of Open Science.

ABSTRACT. The archiving of qualitative data has only recently gained significant attention in scholarly debates (Gaspani et al., 2019). As part of the data life cycle, which aims to ensure long-term preservation of research studies while facilitating access and data sharing, one of the main challenges of qualitative data archiving lies in the process of anonymization. It represents a trade-off between protecting the confidentiality of sensitive participant data and enabling open science, which enables qualitative research transparency, reproducibility, and secondary analysis. This presentation aims to contribute to the ongoing debate on the archiving of longitudinal qualitative data (Neale & Bishop, 2012) by reflecting on the experiences and challenges encountered during the archiving process of ILQA-19. ILQA-19 is a longitudinal qualitative case study initiated in 2020, which explores the transformations in the daily lives of elderly individuals (over 65) in the first cluster of villages in Italy subjected to quarantine following the Covid-19 outbreak. The anonymization and archiving procedures of the study have highlighted the blurred boundaries between “procedural ethics” and “ethics in practice” (Guillemin & Gillam, 2004). By discussing the practice of ILQA-19 archiving, along with some key decisions regarding anonymization throughout the waves, this presentation will document how the situational and relational aspects of qualitative research pose indeed a twofold challenge: the application of standardized protocols (Guerzoni, 2023) and the difficulty of creating codified procedures that can be applied to a specific case study. These complexities underline the delicate balance between adhering to ethical standards and maintaining the flexibility necessary to account for the nuances of longitudinal qualitative research. By reflecting on how this ambivalence is addressed in the context of the ILQA-19 study, the presentation will also offer insights into the broader implications and open challenges for longitudinal qualitative data archiving.

ABSTRACT. Over the past decade, research on right-wing conspiracy culture has surged, drawing more ethnographers into the field. While contemporary ethnographic methods emphasize ceding power to participants and amplifying their voices, studying politically charged communities presents unique challenges—both methodologically and emotionally. This paper examines one critical dimension of this issue: affective dissonance and emotional labor in fieldwork and its aftermath. It asks: How do researchers navigate the emotional labor and affective dissonance of ethnographic engagement in right-wing conspiracy communities? Particularly when it comes to the ethical tensions that arise from the nature of these groups’ beliefs in the face of the embodied researcher. Drawing on the author's own experiences in ethnographic research at (alt-right) conspiracy theory conferences in Indiana and Utah (2022) and follow-up correspondence with participants, the paper interrogates three key axis of affective dissonance in the field.(1) Representing both the harm caused by and harm experienced by participants, (2) negotiating the researcher’s position as a gendered and sexualized body, and (3) balancing empathetic engagement (Verstehen) with critical contextualization. This paper builds on the literature on ethnographic practice, and offers empirical insights and practical strategies for managing affective dissonance while conducting and writing about fieldwork.

ABSTRACT. Qualitative research often brings researchers into close contact with emotionally charged narratives, particularly when working with vulnerable groups. This paper investigates how researchers experience and manage intense emotions during fieldwork and to what extent they feel prepared for such emotional labor. The study combines data from two sources: (1) in-depth semi-structured interviews with 20 researchers (n = 20) from disciplines including social work, psychology and education, and (2) a secondary analysis of 35 field diaries and reflexive journals collected across eight qualitative projects conducted between 2018 and 2024 in North Macedonia and Serbia. The sample of interviewees included early-career researchers, senior academics, and independent fieldworkers, 70% of whom were female. Participants described working with trauma survivors, children in foster care, refugees, and people with disabilities—contexts where emotional intensity was inevitable. Using thematic analysis, four main categories emerged: (1) anticipatory preparedness (what training and support was available before fieldwork), (2) emotional coping during fieldwork (including avoidance, compartmentalization, and peer debriefing), (3) emotional consequences post-fieldwork (burnout, vicarious trauma, identity questioning), and (4) institutional blind spots (lack of formal support, emotional labor as invisible work). Findings reveal a significant gap between methodological training and real-life emotional experiences. While some researchers developed informal coping mechanisms (e.g., peer support groups, art journaling, therapy), others reported emotional overload and ethical dilemmas that remained unaddressed by supervisors or ethics boards. Notably, researchers from feminist and participatory paradigms were more likely to integrate emotional reflexivity as part of their epistemological stance. This paper calls for rethinking qualitative methodology curricula to include structured emotional preparedness, institutional guidelines for emotional safety, and recognition of emotional labor as part of academic workload. In doing so, we argue that emotional reflexivity is not a weakness, but a critical tool for ethical and rigorous qualitative inquiry.

ABSTRACT. In qualitative research, emotions and positionality are not merely methodological challenges but also crucial analytical tools, particularly within the politically polarized environments. This paper draws on ethnographic research conducted in Istanbul’s middle-class spaces to examine how political leanings and religious observance shaped researcher-respondent interactions during data collection. Based on participant observations and semi-structured interviews in three socio-politically distinct neighborhoods, the study explores how respondents framed their lifestyles at the intersection of class, politics, and religion. Discussions on Turkey’s economic and political transformations under the Justice and Development Party (AKP) frequently triggered emotional responses—ranging from pride and solidarity to discomfort and defensiveness—positioning the researcher in ways that required careful negotiation of field relations. Drawing on ethnographic field notes, this paper highlights how confessions of ignorance—deliberate displays of uncertainty regarding religious or political nuances—facilitated rapport-building by allowing respondents to assume the role of cultural or ideological informants. This approach not only diffused potential tensions but also provided a means of navigating broader struggles over cultural legitimacy, moral authority, and political power. Additionally, the researcher’s ethnographic toolkit—including prior professional experience as a psychological counselor—was instrumental in fostering trust, particularly as respondents articulated narratives of resentment, victimhood, exclusion, and marginalization. The researcher’s ability to navigate these emotional dynamics shaped the data collection process, structuring interactions and influencing engagement across ideological divides. Furthermore, linguistic cues, dress norms, and ideological alignments emerged as key symbolic markers that shaped respondents’ perceptions of the researcher as either an insider or outsider. This paper argues that positionality is neither a fixed constraint nor a passive attribute but a dynamic, relational tool that both facilitates and limits access. A reflexive engagement with positionality—through adaptation and self-awareness—deepens our understanding of power asymmetries, belonging, and emotional labor in qualitative research conducted in politically charged environments.

ABSTRACT. In this paper, I share my experiences of anger in fieldwork which many researchers might prefer to keep hidden or avoid discussing. When we consider emotions in fieldwork, we often focus on interviewees’ feelings or the positive emotions of the researcher, like sympathy. But what about the intense, hidden anger or negative emotions of the researcher? This is because interviewees are often workers, migrants, young and less educated, resulting in an unequal relationship where we, as those in power, typically experience positive emotions. But what if I am angry with my highly skilled interviewer?

During my PhD fieldwork on highly skilled migrants, I had some feelings in my heart and some questions in my mind. "Am I judging my interviewees? Do I hate some of them for making me feel less capable? Will my experiences influence my analysis?" The power struggles that skilled migrants experience in their daily lives and the way they projected their need to prove themselves to me during the field research led to a shift in our positions and turned into a kind of power struggle, and how would the complex dynamic of power, emotions and perceived authorities shape my research? Eventually, I realized I had become the field itself, just as qualitative research requires.

I must admit I felt insecure and angry long after fieldwork ended. Yet, conducting data analysis later allowed me to include the relationship between myself and the fieldwork in my analysis. This self-reflexive research made me rethink on so many things, including the ways of relating, the power asymmetries between the researcher and the interviewees, the role of negative emotions and affect, and the limitations of my positions. There is still much to explore about unspoken anger, and I share this experience to invite discussion.

ABSTRACT. The methodological challenges in research on intimate partner violence, particularly in qualitative studies, are multifaceted, especially when considering the emotional dynamics at play. Rearchers often face ethical and emotional dilemmas when interviewing both victims and perpetrators, as these interactions can evoke intense emotions and personal trauma. One of the primary challenges is ensuring a balance between empathy and professional detachment, while establishing a relationship of trust with the subjects. When interviewing victims, the challenge lies in creating a safe and trusting environment that encourages open disclosure while minimizing the potential for retraumatization. Conversely, interviewing perpetrators raises different issues, such as the risk of normalizing abusive behavior or unintentionally reinforcing the aggressor's narrative. Particular challenges arise when the perpetrator is a woman who has killed her partner. In this paper, I draw on my experience of researching homicide in intimate relationships, and the dozens of interviews conducted with victims and perpetrators, to reflect how the intersection of gender, violence, and emotional complexity makes this type of research particularly challenging for researchers, especially women. I argue that a feminist epistemology (with an interseccional lens) and ethics can help to embrace this complexity and deal with the ethical challenges posed throughout the process in order to guarantee the credibility of action-research in an ethic of respect and care.

ABSTRACT. Recently, national and supranational institutions have developed regulations and tools for assessing AI systems (AIS). Such dispositifs are divided into checklists, guidelines, frameworks, and assessment tools. They allow technical assessments of AIS impacts. However, they are mainly based on self-compiled declarations by managers or on checklists conducted by external evaluators, with the risk of partial or self-referential results. This contribution proposes a pluralist approach to assessing AIS by integrating social research methods into AI assessment practices. The triangulation of methods such as participant observation, interviews with key informants, and standardised survey assessment frameworks may improve the quality of the assessments and reduce the limitations of current practices. The results generate two key outcomes: the declared and the detected scores. The first derives from the administration of standardised survey assessment tools to AIS managers, and the second results from the researcher's empirical analysis through fieldwork activities. This integration fills the possible discrepancies between what is declared and what is observed, offering a deeper understanding of the AI system under scrutiny and its social implications. The method is configured as sociodigital because it assumes that the social and the digital are cohesive and inseparable elements which are mutually continuously reconfigured. The AIS is not just a technological object but a phenomenon emerging within the intra-action between digital infrastructures, human practices and social contexts. For this reason, the adopted method does not evaluate the AIS as an autonomous actant but considers its intra-action with the subjects involved in its development and use. The assessment thus becomes an interactive process between the researcher, the AIS and responsible management, in which knowledge emerges from the comparison between declaration and detection. This double articulation may bridge the limits of current assessment practices, offering a tool capable of capturing the complexity of AI Systems as sociodigital phenomena.

ABSTRACT. Social movement actors increasingly combine digital and traditional repertoires of action to promote their claims and advocate for social justice. The concept of hybridization, promoted by Pavan and Earl (forthcoming) to capture the intersecting dynamics between online and offline collective action, challenges methodological distinctions between digital and physical action spaces by highlighting the fusion of ‘social and technological’ agencies and the ‘cross-dimensional unfolding of contentious action dynamics’. This contribution draws on empirical data and methodological reflections from an ongoing PhD project investigating hybrid social media dynamics within a transnational socio-environmental collective action field. Empirical data is composed of Facebook and Instagram posts published by a number of organizations between 2019 and 2024. Organizations were selected if they participated in or endorsed globally-oriented events aimed at building a transnational radical front for climate and environmental justice. Through Social Network Analysis and computationally-assisted discourse analysis, I explore how relational patterns intersect with discursive shifts to appreciate the role of knowledge diffusion in structuring emerging transnational collective action fields. After presenting preliminary insights, I reflect on three methodological issues in socio-digital analyses of collective action fields. First, I problematize traditional concepts of ‘scales of action’ and ‘scale-shift’ in digital settings whose ‘flat’ infrastructures seem to minimize the impact of geographical and structural distance. Second, I illustrate methodological difficulties in studying sociodigital practices in different geographical contexts, highlighting how ‘local’ logics of action might be at work beyond the illusion of isophormity conveyed by digital platforms. Third, I empirically show how the phenomenon of drifting in platforms’ affordances and in actors’ practices poses methodological complication for any longitudinal analysis of hybrid collective action.

ABSTRACT. This paper explores how digital futures take shape in and through interactions with generative AI, focusing on ChatGPT as an active collaborator in speculative ethnographic research. Moving beyond the framing of AI as either a tool or a disruptor, I argue that ChatGPT — and similar technologies — should be understood as agents within evolving socio-technical fields, co-creating the very futures we seek to imagine. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork from a "work futures" workshop — where twelve participants collaboratively envisioned and staged speculative workplaces set in 2050 at the Emerging Technologies Research Lab, Monash University — as well as intensive co-authoring engagements with ChatGPT, I examine how AI contributes to shaping these imaginaries. Rather than simply answering questions, ChatGPT dynamically influenced discussions, storylines, and decision-making processes. To conceptualise these interactions, I introduce conversational choreography — an approach that attends to the iterative, performative exchanges between humans and AI. Through these exchanges, meanings, roles, and speculative possibilities take shape. By analysing these choreographies, I argue that AI is not external to the social worlds we study but actively involved in configuring future imaginaries, roles, and relations. In doing so, this paper contributes to current debates on how to study sociodigital intra-actions and emergent futures, offering conversational choreography as a methodological tool for ethnographically engaging with AI in participatory and speculative settings. Ultimately, I reflect on what it means to engage AI not only as a research subject but as a collaborator in imagining and performing possible futures.

ABSTRACT. Over the past several years, I have explored the entanglement of human-digital agency in several different contexts and frameworks: through the lens of location-aware media and digital affordances (Nunes 2019); in nature, through mobile hiking apps (Nunes 2021); and on TikTok and other social media platforms (2024, 2025). I am particularly intrigued by how we talk about and construct our current understandings of both human and digital agency, and what it might mean if we were to take seriously the notion that our devices and the applications and algorithms that drive them are indeed social actors that "embody" their own form of machine habitus (Airoldi 2022). In the course of this work, I have found myself drawn in two theoretically productive directions. The first draws upon an assemblage of related concepts that complicate how can conceive of the human, the digital, and agency: Barad's (2007) discussion of entanglement and intra-action; Ihde’s (2002) concept of inter-relational ontologies; and Pickering's (1995) "mangle of practice." The second involves how these frameworks likewise complicate how we understand the relationship between researcher and subject matter and draws from the methodological insights of autoethnography (Adams, Jones & Ellis 2014; Poulos 2021). Over much of my work, I have used autoethnographic approaches alongside other methods in trying to answer that most basic of ethnographic and cultural studies questions: What is going on here? Autoethnographic approaches to questions of human-digital agency may well provide a means for addressing both the deeply situated nature of our sociodigital entanglements while also allowing for insights that extend beyond the personal to map potentialities for social being in the digital everyday. In addition to discussing these research-oriented questions, I will also discuss my use of autoethnographic methods within the undergraduate STS classroom to explore concepts such as "technostalgia" and "Life on Zoom."

ABSTRACT. During my PhD research, which explored, among other things, how the Italian sex markets changed over the last fifteen years, I embarked on an online journey to try to understand how the increasing use of online advertising to promote the sale of sexual services consumed in person impacted the sex markets at large. This process landed me on many different platforms: Classified Ads Websites, Client Forums, Adult Service Websites, Review Websites, and much more. However, carrying out ethnographic research within these spaces required me to deal with a number of methodological and ethical issues I, naively, had not anticipated. Still, practicing feminist reflexivity means questioning the ethical implications of our research strategies every step of the way, especially when researching sensitive topics and stigmatized populations, and this is particularly true when assessing traditional research methods’ suitability in the digital context and their underlying assumptions (Hine, 2005). This contribution will therefore present the research design process, the methodology, the ethical dilemmas I faced, and the compromises I had to accept to conduct research on the ICT-mediated sex markets. Furthermore, it will present the different approaches adopted to carry out the research while protecting the privacy of all parties involved. In doing so, the presentation will highlight the importance of remaining aware of the implications and potential harm embedded in each and every methodological tool, and of the unintended consequences that could arise from research, not only for individual sex workers, but also for the sex working community at large.

Hine, C. (2008). Virtual Ethnography: Modes, Varieties, Affordances. The SAGE Handbook of Online Research Methods, 257–270.

ABSTRACT. Conducting feminist research on social media platforms poses unique challenges, particularly in the sociodigital world where gender, intersectionality, and visual culture are deeply entangled with the politics of visibility. The progressive embedding of digital data, devices, and infrastructures within social life necessitates methodological frameworks that take seriously the ongoing intra-action of ‘the social’ and ‘the digital.’ While feminist epistemologies and methods (Harding, 1987; van Zoonen, 1994) have long shaped research practices, and digital methods (Caldeira, 2024; Luka & Millette, 2018) have responded to the evolving empirical world, there remains a scarcity of approaches that explicitly integrate feminist perspectives, digital ethnography, and visual methodologies (Rose, 2016) for investigating digital and queer femininities.

Moving beyond traditional feminist critiques of femininity as disempowering (Bartky, 1990; Bordo, 1997; Brownmiller, 1984), recent scholarship has reframed femininity in digital spaces as simultaneously “queer,” “transformative,” and occasionally “toxic” (McCann, 2018; 2022). Building on the concept that “femme narratives can be used to bolster femme as theory and critical analytic” (Hoskin, 2019, p.1), this paper engages with the methodological challenges of studying sociodigital phenomena such as "digital feminism" and "digital femininity".

Based on the principles we term co-creation, and reciprocity, we outline concepts from (digital) ethnography rooted in the social sciences and integrate these with theory from the study of femininities (Dahl, 2016) and femme aesthetics (Schwartz, 2020), paying attention to visual digital cultures and platform affordances from the field of media studies. In this paper, we propose both a feminist and feminised approach to digital ethnography in which leveraging platform affordances to boost participants’ visibility, fostering the circulation of their visual artefacts, can be understood as a methodological intervention for studying digital and queer femininities in social media spaces.

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Brownmiller, S. (2013). Femininity. Open road media.

Caldeira, S. P. (2024). Exploring feminisms on Instagram: Reflections on the challenges and possibilities of incorporating digital methods strategies in feminist social media research. Journal of Digital Social Research, 6(1), 74-89.

Dahl, U. (2016). Queering femininity. lambda nordica, 21(1-2), 7-20.

Harding, S. G. (Ed.). (1987). Feminism and methodology: Social science issues. Indiana University Press.

Hoskin, R. A. (2019). Can femme be theory? Exploring the epistemological and methodological possibilities of femme. Journal of Lesbian Studies, 25(1), 1–17. https://doi-org.proxy.uba.uva.nl/10.1080/10894160.2019.1702288

Luka, M. E. & Millette, M. (2018). (Re)framing big data: Activating situated knowledges and a feminist ethics of care in social media research, Social Media + Society, 4(2), 1–10.

McCann, H. (2022). Is there anything “toxic” about femininity? The rigid femininities that keep us locked in. In Critical Femininities (pp. 9-22). Routledge.

McCann, H. (2018). Beyond the visible: Rethinking femininity through the femme assemblage. European Journal of Women's Studies, 25(3), 278-292.

Rose, G. (2016). Visual methodologies: An introduction to researching with visual materials. SAGE.

Schwartz, A. (2020). Soft Femme Theory: Femme Internet Aesthetics and the Politics of “Softness”. Social Media + Society, 6(4). https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305120978366

van Zoonen, L. (1994). Feminist Media Studies. SAGE.

ABSTRACT. In light of rising global inequality, public concerns for inequality have been declining. This paradox of inequality has been explained by the rise in meritocratic beliefs in some developed countries. Untested in South Africa, the most unequal society, this study aims to report on these issues by investigating the impact of meritocratic and nonmeritocratic beliefs on redistribution preferences in South Africa. Using the International Social Survey Programme data for 2009 and 2019, we find that contrary to some developed countries, meritocratic beliefs have declined despite persistent high inequality. Nonmeritocratic factors like sex and race are perceived as less critical for personal success, while bribery and political connections gain prominence. Results reveal that stronger meritocratic beliefs correlate positively with redistribution preferences, whereas nonmeritocratic beliefs have minimal impact. This challenges the notion that high inequality intensifies meritocratic beliefs and reduces demand for redistribution, suggesting the need to consider South Africa's unique historical and socioeconomic context.

ABSTRACT. The integration of women into male-dominated (MDOM) occupations has often been explained through non-labor market factors, with a focus on family roles and gendered expectations (Albani 2002; Anker 1996; Goldin 2014; Ibáñez 2017). In contrast, male working trajectories have shown relative stability despite changes in family structures, with limited variation over the life course (Anker 1996; Anxo et al. 2011; England 2010). This stability reflects not only men’s lower involvement in family care and domestic tasks (Brines 1996; Moreno-Colom et al. 2018) but also the centrality of labor market participation to masculine identity (Connell 2005). The construct of masculinity reinforces hegemonic norms by valuing labor performance as a marker of status, sidelining femininity and non-hegemonic masculinities (Connell and Messerschmidt 2018), and maintaining men’s roles as family breadwinners. This work-in-progress explores the conditions under which men transgress gendered occupational boundaries in Spain. Building on theoretical insights, I argue that unemployment can push men into female-dominated (FDOM) occupations (Yavorski and Dill 2020; Dill 2016), even if this shift may serve as a temporary strategy (Torres 2018). Unemployment not only threatens financial stability but also undermines men’s mental, physical, and social well-being by challenging their working identity (Rao 2021; Vandello and Bosson 2013, 2024). While feminized occupations may not align with traditional masculine norms, potential gains in income and occupational status compared to previous roles in masculinized or gender-integrated occupations can incentivize this occupational shift. Using cross-sectional quantitative analysis of male workers from the Spanish Labor Force Survey (2014–2019), preliminary findings tentatively support these expectations, suggesting that economic pressures may lead men to reconfigure gendered occupational choices. These results contribute to discussions on the persistence of gender occupational segregation, highlighting how economic and status incentives can motivate shifts in the gender composition of occupations.

ABSTRACT. Communication rights in the digital era remain constrained by entrenched gender, caste, religious, and socio-spatial hierarchies. This paper examines how these intersecting structures shape digital inequalities for marginalised peoples in rural India, particularly in relation to political information flows and misinformation susceptibility. While existing studies on India’s digital divide emphasise macro-level factors (e.g., geography, caste, gender) and micro-level determinants (e.g., income, literacy, motivation), the role of meso-level structures—such as communities, networks, and spatial organisation—remains underexplored. This study addresses this gap by analysing how gendered, caste-based, and religious social orders influence access to political discourse in hybrid communication environments, where social media and offline networks interact. This study focuses on rural India, with empirical insights drawn from Haryana and Punjab to illustrate broader trends.

Political communication in India is deeply embedded in local cultural milieus, yet research has not fully explored how intersectional social structures mediate information flows between digital and offline spaces. This study examines the socio-spatial factors shaping these flows, focusing on: (a) the cultural construction of public and private spaces—how gendered and religious norms around space usage impact women’s access to political information; (b) gendered configurations of homes and community structures—how restricted mobility, caste-based patriarchies, and informal networks influence exposure to political discourse; and (c) caste-based spatial segregation—how dominant-caste control over public spaces and digital infrastructures affects the dissemination and reception of political content. By mapping these stratifications, the study will assess how they exacerbate misinformation susceptibility and create information asymmetries that disproportionately disadvantage marginalised rural communities.

This research makes a theoretical contribution to equality law studies and feminist digital justice by situating misinformation vulnerability within pre-existing structures of oppression. Understanding how digital inequalities shape rural women’s exposure to (mis)information provides a foundation for advancing gender and caste-sensitive legal and policy frameworks in India’s digital transformation.

ABSTRACT. Going to college has long conferred a large wage premium. We show that the relative premium received by lower-income college-goers has halved since the 1960s. We decompose the steady rise in American higher education’s regressivity using dozens of survey and administrative datasets that document 1900–2020 wage premiums and the composition and value-added of collegiate institutions and majors. Three trends explain two-thirds of rising collegiate regressivity. First, the less-selective and public institutions that disproportionately enroll lower-income students have declined in economic value. Second, lower-income students are increasingly over-represented in America’s shrinking community college sector since 1990. Third, higher-income students have driven declining humanities enrollment and expanding computer science enrollment since the 2000s, increasing their degrees’ value. Differential selection and shifts between four-year institutions are second-order. College-going provided equitable returns before 1960, but collegiate regressivity has curtailed higher education’s potential to reduce inequality and mediates 25 percent of intergenerational income transmission.

ABSTRACT. In the study of intergenerational educational inequalities, synthetic indices such as ESCS or SES are commonly used to summarize individuals’ socio-cultural and economic background. While these indicators provide a useful synthesis, they do not allow for an in-depth analysis of the micro-mechanisms underlying the reproduction of educational inequalities. This study examines the impact of students’ family cultural background on academic performance—measured through standardized tests—and educational expectations. The methodological contribution lies in constructing a typology that cross-classifies parental education levels, considering both homogamous conditions (similar educational levels between parents) and imbalanced situations, to estimate the differential weight of maternal and paternal education. Using OECD PISA 2022 data for Italy, this paper presents the proposed typology and examines its effects on test scores and educational expectations. The analysis proceeds in two steps. First, an analysis of variance compares differences in academic performance across the identified groups. Second, two sets of regression models are developed. The first set, based on multiple linear regression, transforms the typology into dummy variables and examines its effects while controlling for individual characteristics (e.g., gender, migration background). School track is included as a mediating variable to assess its role in shaping test scores. The goal is to estimate whether homogamy or heterogamy in parental education has a stronger impact on academic performance. The second set, based on logistic regression, follows a similar framework but focuses on students’ educational expectations. Here, in addition to school track, students’ competency levels (previously the dependent variable) are introduced as an additional mediating factor. These models allow us to understand whether family educational background influences aspirations beyond actual performance. We expect that in couples where mothers are more educated than fathers, the impact on scores will be stronger than in the opposite combination, reinforcing well-known patterns of educational reproduction.

ABSTRACT. The literature on student learning in Italy has highlighted how academic performance is influenced by multiple factors (individual, institutional, and contextual). Among these, the territorial context plays a crucial role in reproducing educational inequalities, with marked regional differences driven by the variability of educational and socio-economic resources.

To examine these disparities, this study adopts a methodological approach that combines multilevel analysis and multiple linear regression, observing the effect of individual (gender, ESCS, migratory background, grade repetition), school-level (track, average school ESCS), and stratification variables (regions). The aim is to assess variations in educational outcomes both between and within regions, highlighting the strengths and limitations of each method.

We use INVALSI 2022 data, which are comparable to OECD-PISA 2022, to analyse performance inequalities in reading and mathematics. First, multilevel analysis is employed to decompose the total variance in learning. This approach quantifies the impact of the territorial dimension on educational inequalities and provides a structured view of the distribution of learning opportunity. In addition, it distinguishes the share relating to regional differences from the residual variance. However, this technique does not allow for a direct estimation of the relative advantage with being born in region rather than another. To overcome this limitation, we introduce a multiple linear regression model in which regions are treated as dummy variables. This approach enables a direct comparison of regional effects and provides a more precise measure of the territorial impact on learning inequalities.

Results show the advantage of combining both techniques in capturing the complexity of the phenomenon. Multilevel regression highlights the vertical structure of regional disparities, while regression with regional dummies provides insights into their horizontal structure. We conclude that these methods are complementary: they function as bifocal lenses, offering a more comprehensive analysis of territorial gaps in learning outcomes.

ABSTRACT. Discrimination is a social injustice that leads to unequal treatment of equally productive workers in employment, wages, and promotions. Most research on employment discrimination has focused on developed countries with strong institutions and legal protections, while studies on developing countries remain scarce. However, these countries often face persistent gender disparities, ethnic diversity, and weak institutional frameworks. Our study investigates the sources of employment discrimination based on gender, ethnicity, and their intersection in a developing country context using a Bayesian information updating approach. It also examines how information interventions influence employers' belief updating and whether they reduce discrimination. Unlike studies that focus solely on detecting discrimination, our study will try to distinguish between taste-based, statistical, and inaccurate discrimination. Our design is a field experiment. Resumes were created from 200 real job applicants for a temporary research assistant position. A set of 8 resumes, balanced by gender and ethnicity, was randomly assigned to 376 employers for hiring decisions using LimeSurvey. To identify discrimination sources, we compare gaps in expected productivity, actual productivity, and hiring decisions before and after information interventions. The Difference-in-Differences method is also applied to assess the impact of information on reducing employment discrimination. From this study, we expect that the sources of employment discrimination based on gender, ethnicity, and their interaction will be identified. Moreover, the result will inform us whether providing accurate information to employers about workers' productivity can reduce statistical discrimination or not.

ABSTRACT. In this paper, we propose a model for the analysis of general social inequality, using examples from hybrid post-socialist societies in South-East Europe. We argue that, in these societies, social inequalities are generated by both exploitative market mechanisms (based on economic capital) and different types of social closure mechanisms (based on political and social capital). What is more, the influences of these mechanisms are intertwined and cannot be analytically isolated or reduced to a common foundation. Our model of “intersectional class” enables the analysis of the multiple mechanisms generating inequalities in hybrid societies and an understanding of the multidimensional class structure resulting from them. We present four steps necessary for analyzing class in hybrid societies: (1) construction of social space; (2) identification of key generators of social inequality; (3) analysis of indicators of the drawing of symbolic boundaries; (4) analysis of differential association and establishment of social boundaries. We also explain our modifications of the instruments of several established approaches to class analysis, which include a reconceptualization of Bourdieusian notions of political, social, and cultural capital, a different operationalization of social space, and parsimonious ways to study symbolic and social boundaries.

ABSTRACT. In this paper, we attempt to demonstrate the benefits of sidestepping what we see as a strange disconnect between the research traditions studying inequalities in the cultural field by examining the offline and online spheres separately. Instead, we propose a unified research framework for studying the joint impact of what we term “socio-digital inequalities” on four types of cultural practices: offline art-related practices, offline everyday cultural practices, online art-related practices, and online everyday cultural practices. We illustrate our approach using primary data from a comprehensive survey of cultural participation in nine European countries. We explain the broadened conceptualization of cultural participation and our choice of indicators of social, cultural and digital inequalities. Methods applied include multiple correspondence analysis, hierarchical agglomerative cluster analysis, as well as multi-level and linear regression. The obtained results validate our framework and suggest that the subject of further research should be the interplay between inequalities and cultural practices in offline and online domains.

ABSTRACT. Averaging across the OECD, almost one child in eight is affected by income poverty (OECD 2024), although its prevalence varies considerably between countries. Child poverty has detrimental effects on various aspects of children’s lives, including their health and well-being (Chzhen et al. 2021; Ponnet 2014), cognitive development (Engle 2012; Justice et al. 2019; Li and Chzhen 2023; McLoyd et al. 2017; Schoon et al. 2010) and educational achievement/attainment (Alderman 2011; Duncan et al. 1998; Murnane 2007; Ladd 2012; West 2007). Existing work aimed at understanding the impact of child poverty on educational achievement has predominantly focused on individual-level factors (for a review, see Engle and Black 2008), while the influence of national poverty levels – especially with regard to the underlying mechanisms – is not yet well understood (see the review in Hannum and Xie 2017; though see Condron et al. 2024 for evidence on causal effects). We analyze PISA 2018 data to examine the relationship between societal child poverty and educational poverty, i.e. a crucial dimension of educational equity. We estimate mixed-effects linear probability models on the probability to be in educational poverty measured as scoring below proficiency Level 2 in math, across 32 industrialized countries. We find that, even net of compositional differences in individual-level family characteristics, country-level child poverty rates are positively correlated to educational poverty. Educational spending partly explains the relation between child poverty and low achievement levels. Between-school differences account for a considerable proportion of variation in educational poverty, largely due to the way socially disadvantaged students are distributed across schools, which also explains away any residual correlation between child poverty and educational poverty. Thus, in line with previous evidence from the US context, school segregation emerges as a key mediating mechanism through which inequality at the society level affects educational outcomes.

ABSTRACT. This research contributes to the existing literature on the relationship between performance-pay jobs and gender disparities. This topic, widely explored from multidisciplinary perspectives (Mincer and Polachek, 1974; Lemieux et al., 2009; Castilla, 2015; Addabbo, 2020; Abraham et al., 2024), highlights the existence of the motherhood penalty (Waldfogel, 1997, 1998; Correll, 2007). Although previous studies have documented the existence of intertwining gender inequalities legitimised by gender-neutral approaches (Koskinen-Sandberg, 2017), this phenomenon has not been investigated in the context of Italian public administrations. These administrations, following significant transformations driven by New Public Management reforms - particularly Legislative Decree 150/2009 - have adopted performance-based pay systems, linking individual appraisals to both career progression and financial incentives. Despite this structural change, little is known about how such mechanisms interact with gender dynamics, especially in relation to parental leave. Drawing on longitudinal datasets over five years from two large Italian municipalities (N=1839), this study estimates the likelihood of changes in performance appraisal scores associated with maternity and paternity leave, analysing both absolute and differential effects. We assess these dynamics in relation to the entire workforce and specifically within the female workforce. Using a range of econometric techniques, the study investigates the impact of paternity and maternity leave on performance evaluation, enhancing the analysis by incorporating additional regressors. The study pursues three main objectives: (1) to assess the role of performance-based pay as a determinant of gender gaps in Italian public administrations; (2) to explore the impact of maternity and paternity leave on performance evaluations and career trajectories; and (3) to provide a comprehensive overview of gender disparities in this sector.

ABSTRACT. More and more jobs can be automated with the help of AI and other digital technologies. So far, this has potentially affected more men than women. However, this does not necessarily mean that women benefit more from digitalisation than men. There are arguments that they can either exacerbate or reduce existing gender inequalities. Studies have shown that new technology offers the opportunity to challenge existing power relations, role assignments and the given division of labour (see also MacKenzie/Wajcman 1999). This raises the question of the extent to which AI and other digital technologies are contributing to a redefinition of gender relations in the labour market. In our presentation, we first discuss in general terms the extent to which digitalisation can contribute to a worsening or levelling of existing gender inequalities. We provide descriptive evidence that women are less likely than men to work in occupations with a high substitution potential. However, we also show that women in some occupations are exposed to a higher risk of substitution than men. In recent years, technological progress has made it easier to replace tasks that are predominantly performed by women, so that the potential for substitution has increased more for women than for men. Furthermore, the potential for substitution is not realised immediately or completely. The results of the multivariate analysis show that there is a negative correlation between occupation-specific substitution potential and employment trends for women and men. Employment shrank above all in occupations with high substitution potential and a low proportion of women. Can it be concluded from this that the use of AI and other digital technologies reduces gender inequalities? Or are there signs that traditional gender inequalities are nevertheless being reproduced?

ABSTRACT. Despite gradual changes in the division of household labour in contemporary Europe, gender continues to be a key predictor of who performs different housework chores and care work. The persistence of gender asymmetry has been well documented in research and serves as a reliable proxy for gender inequality in unpaid work. However, the attempts to study the intersections of gender and class in this sphere are still rare, which is at least partly attributable to increasingly complex class structures in contemporary capitalist societies. In this paper, we present methodological tools we used to research the intersections of gender-based and classed-based inequalities in the post-socialist Croatian society. To construct the social space of inequalities in Croatia, we utilised a multidimensional model of class analysis for hybrid societies developed by Cvetičanin et al (2021), using indicators of economic, cultural, social and political capital. To gain an understanding of their class dimension, we then projected the qualitatively established types of the strategies of gender division of housework into the space of social inequalities, obtained by multiple correspondence and hierarchical agglomerative cluster analysis. We also projected the gender divisions of different types of household chores and care work, obtained by a nationally representative survey. This approach, based on mixed methods and exploratory techniques, enabled us to establish the importance of class effects in the sphere in which previous research pointed to the prevalent importance of gender stratification.

ABSTRACT. Markets are chaotic and lively places where smells, colours and sounds mingle. Outdoor markets, particularly, are fluid and ever-changing, occupying public spaces for limited periods of time. Their presence and customer turnout fluctuate based on weather and seasonal variations. Ethnography is well suited to capturing markets’ complexity, revealing unexpected aspects that challenge prior assumptions. However, the intersection of formality and informality, the constant social and economic exchanges, and the ephemeral nature of markets make them a challenging research object. This paper examines how market rhythms and temporality shape ethnographic experience and knowledge production, drawing on fieldwork in three outdoor markets in Turin, Marseille and Florence. These markets operate on different schedules - one takes place weekly, while another runs six days a week - affecting the researcher’s opportunities to interact with vendors and customers. Since most sellers live far from the market and must transport their goods after closing, they are available for interviews only during working hours. Interviews, therefore, occur within the market, where sellers have little time to spare and are often interrupted by customer interactions. Given these temporal constraints, we propose a flexible ethnography based on “thin” observation (Valz Gris et al., 2022), relying on flash interviews (Goldstein, 2016). These short yet focused interactions allow researchers to gather valuable insights while minimizing disruptions to vendors' work. Additionally, the interruptions in the interviews offer an ethnographic opportunity. The soundscape of the market becomes an integral part of the ethnographic material. Moreover, these enforced pauses create moments of waiting and silences (Barron, 2022), allowing for self-reflection and speechless observation, enriching the research process. The context-specific nature of market ethnography, shaped by its spatial environment and by its temporal organisation, requires researchers to be flexible, adapting to the rhythms and constraints of the field, and benefiting from them.

ABSTRACT. Ethnography is an essential tool to investigate complex phenomena such as migration processes and trajectories of access to housing rights, particularly in contexts characterized by intricate bureaucratic dynamics that often obscure the "faults" of inclusion systems. Through a reflexive ethnographic approach, this contribution explores inclusion policies and access to housing in the Campania region, with a focus on Naples and Avellino. It highlights how close observation of the field allows informal practices and resistant strategies that escape normative logics to emerge. The methodology combines in-depth interviews, periods of shadowing (Czarniawska 2007), and qualitative analysis, enabling the deconstruction of top-down categories and giving voice to the actors involved. Particular attention is given to the use of relational maps and visual tools (Desmond 2014; Latham 2003; Orango Tango 2018), which allow for the tracing of complex geographies, highlighting power networks, conflicts, and the "faults" of the Italian reception system. These maps not only provide a multi-level view of the relationships between actors and places but also become participatory tools for directly involving subjects in the construction of knowledge. Methodological reflexivity translates into the ability to reformulate research questions based on field encounters, avoiding the overdetermination of actors' agency and promoting effective empowerment. This approach proves crucial in contexts of intersectional vulnerability, where it is necessary to make space for narratives that restore visibility to often marginalized subjects and informal practices, are often invisible when viewed from a purely normative perspective. In this sense, ethnography is configured not only as an investigative tool but also as a transformative and situated practice, capable of producing critical and context-specific knowledge.

ABSTRACT. A presumed gap between the subjectivity of knowledge and the object of study has long been central to scientific reflection, particularly within the positivist paradigm. According to this paradigm, objective knowledge can only be achieved by maintaining a sufficient distance to prevent the researcher from contaminating the data. However, subsequent epistemological evaluations have shown - even in the so-called hard sciences - that the act of observing phenomena inevitably alters the field of analysis.

Ethnography has not been exempt from this debate. Since the 1980s, it has developed a paradigm of incorporation in which the subjective experience and physical presence of the analyst has been re-evaluated, methodologically articulated and even considered reversible. In this framework, distance is not a methodological given, but rather a semantic category that logically structures the dynamic interplay between proximity and distance. These dimensions have to be constantly negotiated in relation to the development of research and its objectives.

Building on these considerations, I will present the limits and possibilities of two ethnographic studies - one on the techno scene and the other on football fandom - in which I engaged in radically immersive forms of participation. These approaches extended to the production of field notes that emphasise 'embodied memories'. These memories are not simply autoethnographic accounts or personal reflections of the researcher, but are deliberately constructed as analytical tools for understanding the pragmatic and contextual dynamics that emerge in the field.

ABSTRACT. Ethnographic research employs a range of techniques that enable an embodied and situated understanding of everyday practices and their entanglement with broader social structures. At the same time, biographical research focuses on the processual and temporal dynamics of practices and self-world relationships and captures how social changes are experienced, reflected upon and integrated into everyday practices over the course of (life) time. In both the ethnographic and the biographical research tradition, there are discussions and arguments in favor of a combination of both research traditions in the framework of situated context-specific knowledge production and implement reflexivity. Lila Abu-Lugh proposes “ethnographies of the particular” (Abu-Lughod, 2008) by following and telling biographies of individuals in ethnographic research as a strategy to write “against” culture instead of formulating generalized narratives about a culture. It is through culture and constructed cultural differences that “the others” are constructed in the first place in contrast to “one's own” culture. Ethnographic research must therefore also be a “writing against culture” (Abu-Lughod, 2008) and address the question of whether there are ways of writing about lived experiences and practices that constitute others as less different. In this panel contribution, I will first summarize approximations and reasons for approaches to the other research tradition from both research traditions (Lechner & Renault, 2018; McQueeney & Lavelle, 2017; Dausien & Kelle, 2009) in order to then present my own research methodology in the field work on experiences of social inequality and migration using excerpts from my own field notes. Finally, I would like to elaborate on essential epistemological opportunities for the Situated context-specific knowledge production (Haraway, 1988) and the demand for a reflexive research procedure (Ruokonen-Engler & Siouti, 2013) that arise from the combination of both traditions.

ABSTRACT. This paper explores the emotional and reflexive dimensions of conducting ethnographic research on tourism in Scampia, a stigmatized and marginalized neighborhood of Naples (Southern Italy). Through an autoethnographic lens, I examine how my dual role as both a researcher and a tourist influenced my emotional engagement with the field and shaped the process of data interpretation. While conducting ethnography on guided tours in this stigmatized area, I grappled with feelings of intrusion, navigating between self-judgment and judgment toward other 'poverty tourists.' Instead of distancing myself from these emotions, I sought to embrace and analyze them. By adopting a reflexive approach to tourism studies (Hall, 2004; Harrison, 2003; 2019; Leite, Castañeda, & Adams, 2019), I recognized that, in many ways, the researcher’s role mirrored that of the tourist, especially in the early stages of fieldwork (Simoni and McCabe, 2008). Reviewing my field diary, I found myself experiencing emotions typical of tourists—curiosity, discomfort, and excitement—while balancing my identity as a researcher. Additionally, repeated participation in guided tours allowed me to appreciate the positive emotions—conviviality, joy, and happiness—that accompany the tourist experience. I found myself interacting with tourists during moments of leisure and being included in their group activities, blurring the line between observer and participant. This reflexive approach helped me acknowledge that I, too, am a tourist in other contexts, prompting me to critically reflect on my own emotions and experiences while navigating the contradictions of researching tourism and simultaneously gaining a better understanding of the phenomenon.

ABSTRACT. This article analyzes the sounds and interactions during services at the Santa Marta Baptist Church, located in the favela of the same name in the South Zone of Rio de Janeiro. The work is based on observations made during evening services at the Church and subsequent interviews with its members, including musicians, pastors, and churchgoers. Through these observations, the article seeks to understand the listening techniques (Feld, 2020) organized by the members of the Church. In parallel, I analyze the interactions between speakers and interlocutors throughout the service (Tedlock, 1939) and the ethics surrounding listening (Hirschkind, 2021). Thus, this work questions how moral codes reverberate in listening (Oosterbaan, 2008) and in interactions based on sounds. Furthermore, we analyze the moralities and identities (Oosterbaan, 2009) that can be accessed by listening to others (Feld, 2020), also perceiving the processes of embodiment, location and interaction with the divine (Eisenlohr, 2024).

ABSTRACT. The rapid rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping how we analyze complex, multidimensional data in the social sciences while simultaneously challenging traditional notions of creativity and human agency. Advanced Machine Learning (ML) techniques now enable researchers to uncover hidden relationships in data from social media, IoT sensors, and other sources. However, these systems often function as opaque “black boxes,” raising significant ethical concerns.

In particular, the lack of transparency in these models can reinforce existing biases present in the training data, leading to discriminatory outcomes that disproportionately affect vulnerable and marginalized communities. When decisions regarding resource allocation, surveillance, or public safety are made without clear accountability, these groups face heightened risks. This paper critically examines the ethical challenges posed by black box generative AI models, exploring how algorithmic opacity complicates the evaluation of creative outputs and decision-making processes while reproducing systemic inequalities.

Drawing historical parallels with earlier technological revolutions, this study situates contemporary concerns within a broader socio-cultural context. It advocates for the integration of Explainable AI (XAI) methodologies within both quantitative and qualitative research frameworks to enhance transparency, ethical accountability, and regulatory oversight. By addressing these challenges, the research contributes to methodological innovation in the social sciences and fosters an interdisciplinary dialogue on the transformative yet ethically fraught role of ML in society.

Ultimately, this paper calls for a re-evaluation of how we attribute value to creative and intellectual labor in an age where generative AI increasingly blurs the boundaries between human and machine-made artifacts, ensuring that vulnerable populations are protected from the adverse impacts of biased algorithms.

ABSTRACT. LLMs are now surpassing human performance for simple text annotation tasks with greater speed and cost efficiency. However, they often struggle with complex annotation tasks that require social contexts leading to biases when compared to human annotations. This is particularly relevant when dealing with personal data and social characteristics—such as age, gender, or race—within distinct sociodigital spheres (e.g., online dating, social media communication, public surveillance, loan assessments). Based on a project investigating inequalities in the platform economy, this article explores the annotation and categorization of content creators’ (CCs) race on YouTube. In the first step, we reclassify a random sample of 500 German YouTube channels using ChatGPT and Gemini. We compare the results of these two LLMs against a gold-standard classification dataset on CCs social characteristics, evaluating their ability to determine race while also eliciting a) justifications for their decisions and b) insights into challenges in handling complex information in annotating race. In a second step we contrast these findings with the results of a focus group discussion with six expert annotators on their experience in annotating race of YouTubers. Through thematic analysis we identify common themes in their reflections, highlighting variations in the performance and practical as well as ethical challenges related to race annotation. Our results show that the annotation process by both human coders and LLMs is characterized by various uncertainties and concerns in handling complex and sometimes contradictory information. They must navigate the influence of their own knowledge, existing biases, cultural contexts and express a certain discomfort with the idea of classifying race and attributing specific labels to people. This process demonstrates a remarkable awareness of ethical issues by human coders and LLMs, which highlights the necessity of handling the results of LLMs' and humans’ work in this area with great care.

ABSTRACT. Large Language Models are, increasingly, heralded as the future of social research, promising to increase scale, speed-up results and reduce costs. While there are good reasons to be sceptical of such claims, our starting point is that we cannot afford to simply accept or reject LLMs. The genie is out of the bottle. LLMs are promoted by governments, universities and funders, and are already in-use for social research in and beyond the Academy. In this context, we must explore what LLMs mean for social research practice and, indeed, for the future of Sociology as a discipline.

This paper mobilises computational and sociological expertise towards a critical and comparative interrogation of three LLM chatbots with varying capacities and business models. Our approach is experimental, deploying iterative analysis of 14,000 free-text responses to a workforce survey, to trace the sociotechnical prerogatives of these applications. In presenting our findings, we focus on the following aspects and their epistemic consequences: (1) multiplicity – how different models work with the same data; (2) dynamism – how models change in real time to produce different results from the same data; (3) hard-wiring – how elements such as the context window/token capacity, and system prompts shape the epistemic ‘tone’; and (4) semantics vs syntax – the challenges of prompt engineering for sociological research. Overall, our aim is to develop a practical methodological approach to reveal, challenge and – at times - ‘work with’ the sociotechnical prerogatives of these chatbots as they produce accounts of the social world.

Our broader conclusion is that there can be no single or fixed answer to determine what LLMs mean for social research. Rather, the priority is to build critical capacity for ongoing engagement with this emergent models to better understand their consequences for Sociology’s dynamic epistemological, ontological and methodological repertoires.

ABSTRACT. Digital platforms structure the accessibility to information while simultaneously acting as pathways for disinformation and election interference. However, assessing how these platforms distribute political content (PoC) remains challenging due to limited data access and rapidly evolving algorithms. Building on algorithm auditing, we present a new methodological approach using 45 Social Research Bots (SRBs) to observe the distribution of PoC before the German federal election in February 2025 on TikTok. The SRBs are automated user agents designed to emulate new, non-partisan participants on the platform, with variations in gender and political interest. Our methodology addresses challenges in platform research by using controlled experimental conditions rather than retrospective analysis, allowing for real-time observation of algorithmic content distribution patterns. Each user engaged with content on the For-You page daily over a period of four weeks before the election, resulting in a dataset of 340,000 posts, with 7% political content. Our findings reveal substantial disparities in the exposure of PoC with implications for information disorders: Far right content appears within 15 minutes, making up over 50% of PoC, creating asymmetrical information environments. Liberal content takes over 90 minutes and comprises only 3%, while conservative and center-left take 38 minutes (14%) and 65 minutes (7%). The significant overrepresentation of far-right content illustrates how platforms may inadvertently create information bubbles that facilitate disinformation spread among politically undecided users – concerning patterns for electoral integrity and democratic discourse. With further analysis this paper investigates whether this dominance results from (a) higher engagement metrics, (b) influencers acting as multiplicators, or (c) more emotionality in the posts. This contributes to an understanding of how algorithmic curation amplifies political narratives and fosters information disorders in democratic processes. This methodological approach is adaptable beyond political contexts and also can be applied to study disinformation in other domains or across other platforms.

ABSTRACT. The recent rise of generative artificial intelligence is profoundly transforming our society, offering new opportunities while simultaneously raising critical questions about the functioning of language models and the underlying processes governing them. Like the algorithms that govern digital systems, language models regulating AI systems embed choices, values, and cognitive frames that reflect not only the work of programmers but also the broader sociocultural and political context in which these systems are developed (Amato, Aragona & De Angelis, 2023). This implies that every seemingly technical decision—ranging from the selection of training data to the adjustment of operational parameters—is ultimately shaped by human worldviews and priorities, directly influencing knowledge production and the representation of digital reality. These considerations underscore the growing need for approaches in explainable AI (Peeperkorn, 2024; Dwivedi et al., 2023). Through an experimental study conducted on Govern-AI, a chatbot designed for professionals in the socio-educational and labor sectors, we analyze how AI-generated responses are influenced by temperature—a key regulatory parameter that affects textual outputs. Our findings indicate that this regulation, often opaque to end users, can modify the level of detail and formality in responses, potentially shaping perceptions of their accuracy and comprehensibility. Our study highlights how such variations, stemming from specific technical and design choices, carry significant epistemological and methodological implications, as they shape the role of LLMs as agents in knowledge construction. Investigating the “behind-the-scenes” mechanisms of these systems and understanding the implications of parameter tuning is not merely a technical concern; rather, it becomes essential in fostering critical awareness and the responsible use of AI-driven innovations, particularly in professional settings where AI is increasingly leveraged to support operational and interpretative decision-making.

ABSTRACT. This study examines the quality and utilization of open government data (OGD) in Italy, focusing on regional and municipal portals. OGDs represent a crucial resource for promoting transparency, innovation and civic engagement, but their effectiveness depends also on metadata quality and effective user adoption. The objective of the research is threefold: identifying trends in dataset usage, assessing metadata quality, and exploring a potential relationship between these aspects. The methodology builds on established theoretical frameworks by Neumaier et al. (2016) and Quarati (2023), adapted to the Italian context. Data were collected programmatically through APIs on CKAN and Socrata portals, selected for their regional and city-wide coverage. Usage metrics were primarily focused on the number of views due to the limited availability of data on downloads. Metadata quality was measured through three main dimensions - existence, conformance and openness - using the DCAT standard to ensure interoperability. The results reveal widespread underutilization of datasets, with significant regional and city disparities between northern, central and southern Italy. Metadata quality varies widely: while existence is often satisfactory, conformance and openness are often lacking, compromising the reusability of the data. Moreover, no clear correlation emerges between metadata quality and usage trends, suggesting that social, economic or technological factors may influence engagement beyond technical aspects. This study highlights the need for targeted interventions to improve metadata management and dataset relevance. In conclusion, it calls for further qualitative research to identify barriers to OGD adoption and inform strategies to maximize their potential in Italy.

ABSTRACT. Despite the growing emphasis on Open Government Data (OGD) as a driver of transparency, innovation, and data-driven policymaking, its practical usability remains limited by persistent quality and applicability challenges. The project “Open Government Data: Understanding Society Through Public Administration Data” - funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research for the period 2023–2027, under Grant No. 15659 dated 28/12/2022 - aims to bridge this gap by developing systematic approaches to validate, document, and merge public datasets for enhanced accessibility and research utility. This presentation will discuss key findings from the project, focusing on: Data Validation and Documentation – Addressing the lack of metadata, inconsistent formats, and outdated datasets through structured validation workflows; Merging and Standardizing Data – Overcoming fragmentation by integrating data from multiple sources (local, regional, national) using a Data as Code framework; Enhancing Accessibility and FAIR Compliance – Implementing machine-readable, API-accessible social indicators to ensure usability for both policymakers and researchers. Through case studies and practical examples, this talk will illustrate how methodological innovations—such as data source validation, JSON-structured metadata, and API-driven dissemination—can improve the reliability and impact of OGD. By aligning technical strategies with the principles of openness and transparency, we can move beyond the narrative of OGD’s potential and focus on making it a truly actionable resource for public good.

ABSTRACT. Open government data holds great potential for social sciences (Charalabidis et al., 2016; Safarov et al., 2017). In socio-demographic research, open data offers publicly accessible information on key indicators such as sex, age, place of living, employment status, education attainment, family composition, and foreign-born populations. Using datasets from the Municipality of Milan and the Lombardy Region's open data portals, along with ISTAT, this study explores the methodological opportunities and challenges of using open government data to analyse population groups. A significant advantage of open data is its availability at various levels of aggregation, from neighbourhood to national records, and for extensive time periods. This allows researchers to study socio-demographic patterns across different spatial scales and track trends over time. Additionally, the large volume of data offers opportunities for comparative analyses and policy evaluation. However, despite these advantages, significant challenges remain. A key limitation is the lack of comprehensive metadata, which complicates data interpretation and integration. Inconsistencies between datasets – stemming from differences in definitions, classification methods, and collection periods – can lead to incoherencies that hinder cross-source comparisons and data integrations. Another challenge is the inconsistency in data availability across territorial levels: while some indicators are available at the lowest level of aggregation, others exist only at higher levels. Additionally, territorial boundaries are not always compatible; for example, the same neighbourhood may be divided among multiple administrative zones. Further complications arise from administrative changes, such as municipalities being dissolved or reassigned to different provinces, making longitudinal analyses difficult. This paper argues that to enhance the applicability of open government data in socio-demographic research, greater coordination between data providers is needed. Harmonising indicators, more explicit metadata documentation, and standardised data formats would improve usability and comparability. By addressing these challenges, open data can better support both academic research and evidence-based policymaking.

ABSTRACT. This paper examines the representation of open government data (OGD) in the centre-left British newspaper, The Guardian, the main news source of British civil servants and local government workers and, from the late 2000s, a key global champion of open data (OD). In particular, between 2008 and 2015, The Guardian was a leading international voice in campaigns for the promotion and release of OD and OGD. Through its articles, dedicated blogs and organization of public events, it became a reference point in (Anglophone) debates on data transparency, participatory democracy and innovation. As a result of its close collaboration with experts and activists in open data communities, the newspaper also put a lot emphasis on methodological concerns regarding the quality and implementation of OD/OGD, highlighting examples of best practices but also failures, providing guidelines to local governments, and organizing data visualization competitions for its readers. Since 2016, however, there has been a marked decline in OD and OGD-related news in The Guardian. In addition to the general dynamics of news cycles and the changing priorities of the newspaper itself (which discontinued its data blog in 2016), unresolved dilemmas about the applicability of OD/OGD appear to have played a role in the sudden drop in the newspaper’s coverage. Based on a content and discourse analysis of the representation of OGD in different European newspapers conducted as part of the “Open Government Data: Conoscere la Società Attraverso i Dati della Pubblica Amministrazione” project at the University of Milan-Bicocca, this paper examines the different and shifting frames through which The Guardian addressed methodological issues related to OGD, and reflects on what this case tells us more broadly about the relationship between open (government) data and the mainstream public sphere.

ABSTRACT. In the debate on social impact assessment there is a tendency to overlook the fact that public bodies are an active player in assessment processes: they define objectives, allocate resources, and condition the implementation of services. The reform of the third sector has given a strong impetus to shared administration, through the tools of co-design and co-programming. The essay examines the guidelines for social impact assessment adopted by the Ministry of Labour and some Italian regions, focusing on the role of cooperation between local authorities and ETS, in the various forms of shared administration. It then highlights the (still limited) experience of thematic guidelines constructed through participatory processes, going so far as to propose a possible strategy of co-construction of evaluation designs.

ABSTRACT. This proposal offers a sociological reflection on the evolution of the measurement of gender equality (Monticelli, Falci, 2024), examining in particular its connection in current trends with the impact generated by welfare interventions in the management of care tasks. It places a specific focus on the social impact on the processes of change activated and supported by third sector organizations, in collaboration with public and private entities (Polidori, Bartoli, 2020). The presentation is part of the theoretical framework of the PRIN PNNR 2022 project “Women’s empowerment: the use of Mentoring and Diversity Management in private sector and public administration as tools for equal opportunities and innovation according to the 5 priorities of the NRRP strategy (work, income, competences, time, power)”*, analyzing the social, political, and economic dynamics that result in an unequal distribution of power between the sexes (Gianturco, Colella, 2023). From this perspective, a methodological reflection relates to the domains and subdomains of the indicators that compose the main gender-related indexes at an international level. This will be followed by an analysis of secondary data, highlighting the trends which underline the growing impact of the activities carried out by third sector in relieving women of the role of caregiver.

* (funded by the European Union - Next Generation EU, Mission 4 Component 1. CUP E53D23021110001, scientific director Prof. Francesca Colella, PI University of L’Aquila).

References

Gianturco G., Colella F. (eds.) (2023). Processi di innovazione sociale per la parità di genre. Lavoro, reddito, competenze, tempo, potere: le cinque priorità della strategia nazionale del PNRR. Milano: FrancoAngeli.

Monticelli A., Falci L. (2024). Tempo e potere nei principali indici gender-related. Riflessione sociologica, trend evolutivi e buone pratiche. The Lab’s Quarterly. XXVI, 4, 2024: 71-94.

Polidori S., Bartoli G., 2020, Cambiamento e impatto sociale negli Enti del Terzo settore, in Amministrazione in cammino.

ABSTRACT. This research is structured around a “puzzle” (Gustafsson and Hagström 2018) concerning the gap between the normative and implementation levels of anti‐poverty policies in Italy, with a particular focus on the phenomenon of non‐take‐up (Van Oorschot 1991). Non‐take‐up refers to the situation in which individuals who are most eligible for social benefits do not apply for them, raising critical questions about the efficacy of locally developed welfare measures. The central research question is: why do individuals eligible for social benefits fail to access and effectively benefit from these measures?

To explore this issue, the study employs a multimodal ethnographic approach capable of capturing the nuances of everyday practices and identity construction. Utilizing qualitative techniques such as participant observation, semi‐structured interviews, and digital ethnography, the research examines how eligibility criteria, stigma, and processes of self‐stigmatization influence individuals’ decisions to apply for support. Drawing on theoretical frameworks including street‐level bureaucracy (Lipsky 2010) and anti‐oppressive social work (Burke and Harrison 1998), the project also investigates the transition from inscribed policy texts to embodied and enacted knowledge (Freeman and Sturdy 2014) that emerges from interactions between citizens and institutional intermediaries, such as Patronati and CAF.

In a context marked by fragmented social policies and increasing organizational complexity, this ethnographic approach is essential for understanding how cultural representations and everyday practices shape perceptions of the right to support. The integration of diverse multimodal tools—including video, photography, and digital data collection methods—increases the study’s analytical capacity by unveiling the sensory and contextual dimensions of potential beneficiaries’ experiences. Ultimately, this research aims to provide empirical insights that promote equity and social justice in the practice of social services, contributing to a multidimensional understanding of non‐take‐up at the local welfare level. This comprehensive analysis integrates policy intentions with everyday experiences, illuminating the interplay between design and actual practice.

ABSTRACT. The social reporting of impacts generated by the third sector and social economy has become a key factor in public and private funding mechanisms, increasing expectations about the capacity to demonstrate long-term transformations (Venturi 2019; Melloni 2018; Zamagni et al. 2015; Vanclay 2003; Esteves, Franks, Vanclay 2012; Di Maggio, Notarstefano 2018; 2020).

Using the ISTAT-MEF dataset, which connects PNRR Next Generation EU measures, well-being and sustainability indicators, and the SDG framework, this paper highlights the importance of balancing micro-level local multidimensionality with macro-level systemic transformations.

This study focuses on monitoring practices adopted by civil society organizations, social enterprises, and local networks to assess their activities' impact. Participatory methods play a crucial role in capturing the relational dimension of change processes but are characterized by methodological and operational complexities. Data collection through collaborative approaches and co-participated evaluation tools often results in fragmented, heterogeneous information that is difficult to standardize. These challenges hinder the integration of participatory assessments into comparable macro-level frameworks. However, excluding such methodologies risks overlooking key dynamics of trust, cooperation, and mutualism that define the actions of civil society and the social economy.

This paper critically examines strategies to reconcile the need for robust and valid evaluation models with the complexity and diversity of social relations. One possible approach is to develop aggregation models for microdata that allow participatory evaluations to be incorporated into public policy assessments at the macro and meso levels. Strengthening these connections can enhance the ability of well-being and sustainability indicators to describe and predict long-term social and cultural transformations, ultimately improving policy design and impact assessment.

ABSTRACT. In Italy, the debate on SVI has intensified with the Third Sector Reform (Law 106/2016 and subsequent implementing decrees) which elevates it as “a qualitative and quantitative assessment, in the short, medium and long term, of the effects of the activities carried out on the reference community with respect to the identified objective” which must be based on social value and function “[...] as an expression of participation, solidarity and pluralism [...]” (art. 2 L. 106/2016, VIS MLPS Guidelines of 2019). In this context, the inclusion in Notice 1/2018 of the Ministry of Labor and Social Policies (addressed to certain types of Third Sector organizations) of the “ex post impact assessment of initiatives or projects” is to “evaluate the results achieved at the end of the activities and the impacts produced two years after the conclusion of the project” (art. 72 of the CTS). Evaluation – not compulsory, but optional, with an ad hoc reward in the selection of project proposals – was to be carried out by a third party delegated by the Third Sector, with proven experience in the VIS sector. Hence our interest - “exploratory” - in having cognitive and informative knowledge of the actual outcome of the approximately 51 projects financed in 2018 that included impact assessment. We have performed an ex-ante analysis of evaluative intentions as inserted in the project proposal and an ex-post analysis of publicly available materials after the conclusion of the projects. We have mapped the actors of evaluations, the methodologies proposed and the public evidence of the evaluations. This prompted us to formulate further research questions as to the potential of evaluation as a vehicle for transformative cultural change in both the ETS and public administrations.

ABSTRACT. Unaccompanied Foreign Minors (UFMs) are among the most vulnerable groups within migrant populations, as they are underage, lack legal assistance, and often come from traumatic backgrounds. According to the latest data, between 2018 and 2023, 71,338 UFMs arrived in Italy. During the same period, 21,594 minors left reception centres and went missing, averaging nearly 12 disappearances per day. The phenomenon of disappearing minors is considered a significant emergency, as these children are particularly exposed to violence, exploitation, and frequently become victims of trafficking. The purpose of this research is to: understand the socio-demographic characteristics of these minors; analyse their care pathways; identify the risk and protective factors associated with voluntary departures; and gather potential prevention strategies. The study analysed 307 social records of UFMs hosted in three reception facilities in Northern Italy between 2013 and 2023, in order to map their key characteristics. Additionally, 16 semi-structured interviews were conducted with social workers involved in the integration processes. The findings reveal several structural gaps within the reception system. First, there are significant delays in appointing legal guardian - figures who are crucial to ensuring legal protection. Furthermore, there is a lack of specialised residential facilities capable of providing an adequate environment for integration. Another critical issue involves communication difficulties between social services, reception centres, law enforcement agencies, and immigration offices. Of particular concern is the insufficiency of transitional support services for minors approaching adulthood, leaving them at serious risk of social exclusion. Moreover, Italian institutions show a clear inability to provide concrete assistance to minors seeking family reunification in other European countries. The inefficient use of legal and institutional tools frequently leads minors to prematurely abandon formal residency pathways, undermining their right to protection and further exposing the shortcomings of the current reception system.

ABSTRACT. Studying the subjective well-being (SWB) of immigrants represents an innovative yet well-established approach to examining their integration into the host country from a subjective perspective. This approach appears crucial for understanding the immigrant-native gap in the SWB of immigrant descendants, facilitating the development of targeted interventions aimed at promoting their successful integration into society. While several aspects of the health outcomes of immigrant descendants align with the immigrant health paradox, showing better results in health compared to natives, multiple studies have reported lower levels of SWB among immigrant in European countries. This paper aims to explore differences in the SWB between immigrant and native adolescents in European countries, including Italy. Our analysis is based on data from the 2018 Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) Survey, which examines the health and well-being of adolescents aged 11, 13, and 15. We focused on 28 European countries (distinguished by main macro-regions of residence) that provided information on the country of birth of both the adolescents and their parents. The study includes 111,897 adolescents, of whom 4,427 are 1.5-generation immigrants and 6,705 are second-generation immigrants. To assess SWB, we used self-reported life satisfaction, measured on an 11-point Likert scale (0–10), and applied linear regression analysis (OLS). Additionally, we examined the association between life satisfaction and various aspects of adolescents’ lives, including family environment, support from family, peers, friends and teachers, and experiences with bullying. Preliminary findings indicate that both 1.5- and second-generation immigrants report lower life satisfaction than their native counterparts. However, life satisfaction is positively associated with perceived support from family, peers, friends, and teachers, an influence that appears to be even more significant for immigrant adolescents than for natives.

ABSTRACT. This study investigates the satisfaction with democracy among first- and second-generation migrants in both their national government and the European Union (EU). As immigrant descendants increasingly shape the socio-political context of their host countries, understanding their attitudes toward democratic systems offers key insights into their integration trajectories. While research has explored their socio-demographic behaviours in terms of education, labor market participation, and social inclusion, less is known about their political attitudes and democratic satisfaction. This paper addresses this gap by comparing first- and second-generation migrants to provide an intergenerational perspective on democratic satisfaction at both national and supranational levels. Our expectations are informed by theories of electoral representation and migrant integration. On the one hand, neo-assimilation theory suggests that second-generation migrants, sharing more socio-economic and cultural traits with natives, should align with natives' positions. On the other hand, the socialization hypothesis emphasizes the enduring influence of migrant family background, suggesting that second-generation migrants may adopt attitudes similar to the first generation, reinforcing intergenerational continuity. Using the 2024 European Election Study (EES), we apply multilevel modeling to account for demographic, political, and country-level factors. Preliminary results show that second-generation migrants generally do not follow first-generation patterns. They report higher satisfaction with both national and EU democracy. However, migrant generation and social class interact in shaping democratic satisfaction. While second-generation migrants in the upper social class do not significantly differ from other groups, long-term first-generation migrants in the upper class report lower satisfaction with both EU and national democracy. This suggests that higher social status does not necessarily translate into greater political satisfaction for well-integrated migrants, but rather that migration status continues to pose structural barriers to democratic experience. Our findings contribute to the broader discussion on immigrant descendants' socio-political behavior by showing how migrant integration and intergenerational dynamics influence democratic satisfaction.

ABSTRACT. While research has highlighted the role of parental socio-economic status (SES), gender, and migratory background in postponing key life events in European democracies, little attention has been paid to differences in family formation norms and expectations between native youth and second-generation immigrants. This study addresses this gap by examining the timing of parenthood preferences among 18-year-old students in Lombardy, Italy, which hosts 24% of all students with migrant backgrounds in the country. Using original data from the MAYBE—Moving into Adulthood in Uncertain Times project (University of Milan), we analyze 2,756 final-year high school students (77.4% natives, 14.5% children of immigrants, 7.5% mixed origin) surveyed in 165 classes across 81 schools in 55 municipalities, employing a probabilistic multistage sampling design. The MAYBE questionnaire, aligned with the European Social Survey (ESS) Timing of Life module, measures: Fertility norms (perceived upper age limit),Ideal age for first birth,Expected age of parenthood. Additional related items include gender norms regarding parenthood, perceived parent-child similarity on gender norms, and parental age at first birth. Drawing on theories of emerging adulthood, intergenerational transmission, and stratified pathways to adulthood, we hypothesize that parental norms regarding the “ideal” timing of life events and gender roles are passed down across generations (socialization hypothesis). However, for second-generation immigrants, this transmission may be disrupted by structural constraints and cultural adaptation. Consequently, we expect that the effect of traditional family SES variables is weaker for students with a migrant background than for their native counterparts. To test the influence of specific cultural legacies, we differentiate respondents based on religious affiliation, parents’ country of origin, and the political regime of their parents' countries of origin. Using multilevel regression models, we examine individual, school, and municipal-level factors, situating second-generation immigrants within broader socio-economic contexts to contribute to research on family formation and life-course inequalities.

ABSTRACT. Historically emigration nations, Southern European countries have now become key immigration destinations, home to a growing population of immigrant descendants. Despite this demographic shift, political participation among the 1.5 and second generations migrants remain strikingly lower than that of native populations, a phenomenon widely examined in the literature on migrant political incorporation. While much research emphasizes the role of formal political rights—such as access to nationality and voting rights—this paper argues that broader integration policies play a fundamental role in shaping political engagement. Drawing on policy feedback theory and opportunity structures, this study argues that anti-discrimination, labour market access, education, and family reunification policies are not merely background conditions but active forces shaping political participation among immigrant descendants. These policies send powerful signals of inclusion, recognition, and fairness, shaping perceptions of belonging and equal treatment. Specifically, inclusive policies are expected to foster political efficacy—the belief that individuals can influence political processes, and that the system is responsive to their needs—and increase participation. Drawing on European Social Survey (ESS) data from 2002 to 2023 (Rounds 1-11) and the Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX), this study focuses on immigrant descendants in Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Greece. The sample includes 3,976 1.5-generation immigrants (who migrated before adulthood) and 6,530 second-generation immigrants. Using additional measures from MIPEX, a multilevel model is employed, integrating individual-level factors (gender, SES, political interest, political efficacy, religious affiliation, age at migration, and length of residence) with macro-level characteristics, such as anti-discrimination, labour market access, family reunification, education, and access to nationality and political rights. The findings suggest that policies beyond formal rights, particularly those related to anti-discrimination and education, are associated with higher levels of political efficacy and influence political participation among second-generation migrants.

ABSTRACT. Migrant descendants have long attracted the attention of sociologists due to their position between national and cultural identities. This interest - also shared by Italian research (Ambrosini & Pozzi, 2018) - has, in some cases, perpetuated culturalist interpretations that pay little attention to the variety of positions held by these young people, considering not only ethno-cultural aspects but also class and social origin (Eve, 2013). The risk is that studies on young people of migrant descent may overlook the range of their experiences and trajectories, reproducing culturalist and 'groupist' perspectives (Brubaker, 2004). Against these tendencies, research perspectives that situate subjects within their own daily life contexts and develop situated and processual analyses of their constraints and opportunities seem particularly useful (Calabretta et al., 2024). This is even more valid in the Italian context, characterised by profound economic and productive differences at the regional level and a particularly fragmented urban fabric. In this sense, Italian research on migrant descendants already offers a rich local perspective (Caponio & Schmoll, 2012), although comparative analyses and broader analytical frameworks remain scarce. The paper aims to provide a methodological reflection based on two multi-sited studies in Italy. The objective is to explore how the socio-territorial positioning of migrant descendants influences their life trajectories and mobility during the transition to adulthood. During this phase, choices regarding geographical mobility (within Italy or abroad) or plans to settle in the place where they grew up take shape. The study brings together findings from research on young people of Tunisian origin in Modena and Ragusa and a research project on young people of Maghreb origin in Padua and Verona. The result is an enrichment of the debate on the relationship between research on migrant descendants and local contexts.

ABSTRACT. Sociological research with vulnerable populations relies on a relational process of knowledge production, yet cross-language research introduces unique ethical and methodological challenges. Translation is not a neutral act; it is a site of power negotiation, where meaning is shaped by linguistic structures, researcher positionality, and the social hierarchies embedded in forced migration contexts. This panel explores how sociological inquiry can navigate these complexities while ensuring both scientific rigor and ethical responsibility. Drawing on empirical findings from the Protracted Displacement Economies (PDE) project in Lebanon, which documented over 300 hours of refugee testimonies, this paper critically examines three core dilemmas: (1) Power and Participation – To what extent can co-research mitigate the inherent asymmetries in researcher-participant relationships? (2) Rigor and Flexibility – How can translation methodologies balance fidelity to lived experiences with the constraints of standardized research? (3) Authenticity and Interpretation – What strategies prevent the distortion of refugee narratives while maintaining analytical depth? Our analysis of PDE testimonies demonstrates that standard transcription models systematically erase non-verbal cues and refugee agencies, reinforcing dominant research paradigms and limiting the interpretative richness of displaced voices. This contribution directly aligns with the panel’s focus on harmonizing methodological rigor with ethical commitments. By challenging extractive research models, we advocate for multimodal transcription, participatory translation, and reflexive methodologies, which counteract knowledge hierarchies by embedding refugee agency within the research process itself. Rather than treating translation as a technical tool, we propose a paradigm shift that recognizes it as an epistemic act—one that can either reinforce or resist hegemonic research frameworks. Through this lens, translation becomes a critical means of decolonizing migration research, challenging dominant narratives while ensuring that displaced voices actively shape how their experiences are understood and represented.

ABSTRACT. Qualitative research in precarious contexts presents unique methodological and ethical challenges, particularly when working with vulnerable populations. This paper explores how power asymmetries shape knowledge production and the ethical dilemmas that arise from academic extractivism and "research voyeurism." In Latin America, the structural vulnerabilities of many social groups heighten the risk of exploitative research practices, making it crucial to critically reflect on methodological rigor and ethical responsibility. Building on research conducted in Latin America, we analyze how extractive logics—often justified under the need for large datasets or academic productivity—lead to the overuse of already-studied populations, such as low-income communities, migrants, and Indigenous groups. Similarly, we discuss how research voyeurism can turn suffering into an object of inquiry without offering meaningful contributions to participants' lives or challenging the very structures that produce their marginalization. These issues are not just ethical but epistemological, as they shape whose knowledge is valued and whose voices remain unheard. To counteract these tendencies, we argue for an approach to qualitative research that is methodologically rigorous and actively engaged in fostering reciprocal relationships with participants. This shift requires rethinking research practices to move beyond passive observation and embrace participatory and creative strategies that respect and amplify the agency of vulnerable communities. We present concrete examples of research conducted in Latin America where creative methodologies—such as collaborative analysis, visual methods, and non-traditional forms of data dissemination—have enabled more ethical and context-sensitive engagements with participants. By situating these debates within the Latin American experience, this paper contributes to the discussion on how qualitative research can challenge extractivist tendencies while producing ethically and socially relevant knowledge.

ABSTRACT. Despite its abolition in the constitution, untouchability remains pervasive as Hindu social order in urban India. For a long time, it was assumed that it would vanish through rural-to-urban migration. However, it continues to be omnipresent through different practices and codes. Dalit women, formerly known as 'untouchables', are the most vulnerable in this system of social stratification that is perpetuated through direct, structural, and environmental violence, materialized in caste-based labor such as waste picking. Dalits are double-colonized pertaining to India's position in the world-system and their position within the postcolonial nation-state. At the same time they remain indispensable for neoliberal city development and in mitigating climate change through their precarious and feminized labor. Dalits' ground-life realities as survivor communities remain underexplored, particularly in urban settings, as they continue to survive caste apartheid, neoliberalism, and patriarchy through quotidian forms of resilience and resistance.

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in urban peripheries of Mumbai and Delhi, mainly in informal settlements and landfills, this paper explores qualitative research on 'life-course' that incorporates decolonial and feminist learning into research with historically double-colonized and oppressed communities. Over the course of ten months, 53 semi-structured and open interviews with female Dalit waste pickers, their children, and Dalit social activists were conducted. Building upon the Bourdieusian concept of 'habitus' and enriched by theories of decolonization, it delves into questions of critical reflexivity, self-determination, pluriversal knowledge production, and transformative praxis. At the same time, it employs photo-documentation as a form of decolonial counter-mapping and part of a broader mixed-method approach, to supplement qualitative research and visualize the dimensions of structural and environmental violence that are usually go unnoticed. Therefore, this paper seeks to address issues of ethical responsibility and risks in volatile and vulnerable environments, shaped by linguistical and religious diversity and age differences.

ABSTRACT. Research on migrants has long been analysed as an example of hard-to-survey populations due to the difficulty of sampling, identifying, finding, contacting, persuading and/or interviewing migrants. Nonetheless, survey-based research has generated valuable knowledge about migration in different contexts, and many surveys have been made available by data producers for reuse precisely because so much time, money and expertise is required to produce high-quality survey data. In this paper, I focus on issues of survey data reuse in the area of migration. I describe how this type of data is relatively easy to access through repositories after signing the data use agreement, but paradoxically it is difficult to reuse in an ethical and reflexive way. This problem is not sufficiently addressed in ethics textbooks, which devote a lot of attention to the data production phase, while the number of open data available for reuse is increasing and with it the number of new ethical challenges. The reuse of data is usually described in terms of anonymity, confidentiality and appropriate attribution of the data source. As migration research often relates to vulnerable populations, ethical tracking raises further questions. Examining metadata available in repositories allows for understanding the quality of secondary data, but more attention should be paid to understanding the context of the original research and the original research questions. In addition, the consent form should be scrutinised to understand whether the aims of the re-use of data fall within the original research aims described in the form. If this is not the case, a new consent should be obtained. An overview of the research ethics literature will be supplemented by an analysis of licences for the reuse of data to provide practical tips for working with secondary data.

ABSTRACT. Recalling significant life events can be challenging for hard-to-reach populations, particularly street dwellers who often face literacy barriers and histories of trauma. This study integrates the Biographical Narrative Interpretive Method (BNIM) with the Life History Calendar (LHC) to enhance data collection and analysis. Over a two-month ethnographic study, the researcher engaged with 15 street dwellers in Metro Manila to explore: (1) How does the LHC support BNIM and facilitate interaction between respondents and researcher? (2) What are the positive and negative effects of using LHC? and (3) How does the LHC enhance data reconstruction?

Findings indicate that combining LHC and BNIM effectively structured life narratives around key domains such as birth, home-leaving, street dwelling, education, relationships, employment, and childbearing. The LHC enabled respondents to categorize life events systematically, helping researcher accurately document personal histories while fostering deeper rapport and trust. Moreover, the visual and temporal structuring of LHC allowed respondents to recall events with greater clarity, mitigating recall biases and memory fragmentation commonly associated with individuals experiencing long-term hardship. The tool also provided a means for respondents to recognize patterns in their own lives, which in some cases facilitated self-reflection and personal insight.

Additionally, the LHC proved valuable in capturing accumulated risks, critical life transitions, and significant incidents over time, offering a nuanced understanding of the vulnerabilities and resilience of street dwellers. While the process facilitated catharsis and empowered respondents through storytelling, it also surfaced painful memories related to trauma, loss, and abuse. This underscores the ethical responsibility of researchers to incorporate trauma-informed approaches and ensure appropriate psychosocial support mechanisms. Ultimately, this study demonstrates that integrating LHC with BNIM not only enhances methodological rigor in reconstructing marginalized life histories but also underscores the importance of ethical research practices when working with vulnerable populations.

ABSTRACT. Integrating patient-partners into qualitative research is increasingly recognized as a way to democratize knowledge production and ensure that the voices of those directly affected by illness shape sociological inquiry. However, engaging patient-partners, especially those undergoing treatment, raises critical ethical and methodological challenges that are often overlooked. This presentation reflects on a research project conducted in France, where two breast cancer patient-partners disengaged from the study, revealing key dilemmas in participatory research.

The first patient-partner withdrew due to the lack of financial compensation, highlighting the economic barriers to sustained engagement and the ethical complexities of unpaid participation in academic research. The second disengaged during the data analysis phase, feeling emotionally overwhelmed when confronted with other patients’ narratives. These cases illustrate the unpredictable nature of emotional work in participatory research and the difficulties in anticipating the emotional impact of engagement.

By analyzing these experiences, this presentation explores critical ethical and methodological questions: To what extent can researchers anticipate and mitigate the emotional burden placed on patient-partners? Is it possible—or even ethical—to shield participants from potential distress? How can we design participatory research that is both methodologically rigorous and ethically responsible when working with individuals in vulnerable situations?

This discussion contributes to the broader reflection on participatory research with vulnerable populations, emphasizing the need for ethically sound and adaptable research frameworks. It calls for a deeper understanding of the limits of participation and proposes strategies to balance engagement with the well-being of patient-partners navigating illness.

ABSTRACT. Digital environments, including social networks and virtual platforms, have become critical spaces for women experiencing gender-based violence to make visible and report their experiences. Nevertheless, these environments pose substantial ethical and methodological challenges for contemporary sociological research. Although anonymity is traditionally viewed as sufficient protection for participants' identities and privacy, this study argues that comprehensive ethical protection demands more than superficial anonymity. It calls for critical reflection on the collection, interpretation, and public dissemination of victims' personal narratives. This research contends that ethical approaches to digital research on gender-based violence should adopt a multidimensional approach. Such an approach must extend rigorous protection beyond mere anonymization, integrating deeper considerations of emotional and social care. Crucially, methodologies must provide avenues for emotional safety and respect participants' autonomy, safeguarding against instrumentalization and potential revictimization stemming from repeated exposure or biased use of personal testimonies. The study critically examines recent empirical cases and specialized literature to underscore significant ethical repercussions arising from overlooking these considerations. Moreover, the study suggests concrete, innovative methodological strategies to address these ethical challenges, including advanced anonymization techniques, reflexive approaches to handling participant narratives, and explicit procedures for evaluating and mitigating emotional and social risks inherent in digital research. The paper emphasizes an ethical positioning that explicitly recognizes the structural vulnerability of women who have experienced gender-based violence. Ultimately, this contribution seeks to foster a transformative dialogue on developing ethically sound methodologies that comprehensively protect participants' dignity, autonomy, and integrity, thereby strengthening socially responsible and ethically grounded research practices.

ABSTRACT. In the 1960s, a well-known essay by Robert Nisbet (1962) questioned the opposition between art and science, observing that, during the Renaissance, “[...] art and science were universally regarded as but different manifestations of the same form of creative consciousness” (ibid., p. 67), as witnessed, for example, by Leonardo da Vinci. Then, with the industrial revolution, “the myth [...] of method” (ibid., p. 68) was affirmed, which reconfigured the very meaning of science “making it not what it had been for centuries, primarily a pursuit of the reflective mind, but a profession governed by rules and by criteria of service, all of a piece with law, engineering, and medicine” (ibid., p. 68), with consequent enhancement of applied science. For example, we recall the birth of the Land Grant Colleges in the United States (ibid., p. 68) where, as early as the 1950s, Wright Mills (1959) called for the use of the sociological imagination to avoid becoming slaves to a rigid procedural code. Starting from this premise, our paper has a twofold objective: 1. argue about the scientific method as a ‘problem’, relating various sociological classics such as Becker, Nisbet, Wright Mills and Znaniecki; 2. draw attention to “autodramas” as creative sources, referring in particular to the case of the Teatro Povero in Monticchiello.

How do these texts come into being? How do they differ from other experimental theatre performances, such as psychodrama and sociodrama (Bruschi 1999, p. 461), which are referred to in some methodology manuals? After answering these questions, we will dwell on some “fables2 (e.g. the ‘fola di Campriano’), showing how even texts, that have no concrete referents in reality, nonetheless, provide a representation of the world, stimulating both the deepening of themes already explored and the identification of new research topics (Longo 2012, 2019, 2020; Longo et al. 2022).

ABSTRACT. In 2023, I became a certified LEGO® Serious Play facilitator. Having spent two days playing with bricks to reflect on the challenges of working in Higher Education in the UK, I felt driven to adopt this creative methodology to further explore the concept of ‘aesthetic distancing’ in research (Glass, 2006). The approach was adapted for a project – led in collaboration with the NHS (National Health Service) and Motivatemetees® (a Birmingham-based charity) – to explore students’ emotional health and wellbeing in university settings.

Overall, the project required 30 participants to hold diaries for 10 weeks, to investigate whether journalling had any impact on students’ emotional wellbeing. We started the project by conducting 3 focus groups using LEGO® Serious Play to understand how students made sense of their emotional wellbeing, and where they felt they would benefit from more support. After 10 weeks, the project ended with 3 traditional focus groups, where students were asked to reflect on their experiences of journalling (or not). Interestingly, what the students recalled and praised the most were the LEGO® focus groups, something we had not anticipated.

In this session, I will therefore i) explain how we used LEGO® bricks to creatively explore students’ experiences of emotional wellbeing in Higher Education without having to share any direct personal experiences, ii) showcase what the data collected looks like, and iii) reflect on deeper issues, showcasing that creative methodologies allow researchers not only to conduct research in inclusive and sensitive ways, but also help ensure the process is not extractive. In this case, it provided participants with an opportunity to make sense of their own experiences in novel and playful ways, which they reported felt ‘cathartic’. This case study demonstrates that creative methods are not only well-suited for sociological research, but simultaneously can provide participants with new tools to navigate society.

ABSTRACT. For those who work out ideas and projects analogically, there are no ‘invariable’ rules in scientific knowledge, but rather dishcloths to follow, as in a set list that serves to improvise Jazz; as in a script that describes a subject for a micro-screenplay; as in an associational process that triggers brainstorming; as in a design project that involves combining or destroying the rules of the game. By comparing the creative method of designer Munari (1977), Bateson’s metalogues (1976), and Abbott's ‘fractal’ methods of discovery (1997), we will try to understand how some of the techniques used in art to trigger creative processes can provide ideas and tools for sociological analysis, inspiring new theoretical formulations through deconstruction practices involving paradigms, subjects and physical contexts (Glăveanu, 2021). From a comparative perspective, we will examine the common rules that bring the ‘conventions’ of art (Becker, 2008) closer to the insights of the sociological imagination (Mills, 1959), in search of metaphors and simulacra (Baudrillard, 1981) that link different knowledge in the journey towards counter-intuitive and counterfactual understanding (Feyerabend, 1974) in an attempt to go beyond technical rationality (Heidegger, 1953); Severino, 2008) and to return from the Greek concept of τέχνη that combines art, science, and conviviality (Illich, 1974). It is a matter of re-evaluating analogical practices of stimulating the creative gesture capable of activating non-predictable and non-standardisable flows (Csíkszentmihalyi, 2023) that resize the computational and predetermined practices of the Digital Society.

ABSTRACT. This ethnographic study explores the SOAS Library beyond its conventional function as a study space, delving into the social, academic, and personal significance it holds for students. Through participant observation and an autoethnographic approach, I examine how the five floors of the library cater to students differently—not just in terms of study habits but also in their emotional and social interactions. The research investigates questions of spatial attachment, behavioral patterns, and the interplay between academic pressure and the library environment.

Utilizing field notes, informal observations, and personal sketches of the library’s layout, this study highlights the unique atmosphere of each floor—ranging from the social buzz of Floor E to the supposed yet paradoxical silence of Floors B and A. The findings reveal how students navigate these spaces, form unspoken social norms, and establish personal connections with their chosen study spots. The library emerges not merely as an academic institution but as a dynamic ecosystem of emotions, friendships, and intellectual discovery.

By intertwining personal reflections with broader anthropological inquiry, this project sheds light on the ways physical spaces shape student experiences, reinforcing the SOAS Library as more than just a repository of books, but rather, a lived and deeply personal space for those who frequent it.

ABSTRACT. Comics serve as a powerful medium for social justice education and awareness raising. They are particularly effective in distilling information around sensitive or taboo subjects (Logie et al., 2021). In youth research specifically, comics offer a youth-friendly, age-appropriate option for engaging in critical conversations around issues of sexuality, gender and gender identity. This presentation leverages the medium of comics to shore up its transformative potential. I present the findings from a participatory comic research project on Black 2SLGBTQ+ youth experiences in Canada. Youth participants between the ages 16 to 29 participated in two peer-facilitated focus groups that explored the impact of family and social exclusion on their health and well-being. They later took part in a follow up comic workshop where they worked with graphic facilitators and the researcher to co-construct comic panels based on narratives from the previous qualitative data gathering exercise; the focus group. The research project resulted in the production of comic interventions that foreground the epistemological and methodological possibilities of participatory comic methods in gender-based violence mitigation. Importantly, it positions Black 2SLGBTQ+ youth as vital knowledge producers and practitioners championing important community-based solutions that could change lives.

ABSTRACT. The use of creative methodology in crime analysis offers an innovative approach that explores the construction of deviance through literature, particularly Emmanuel Carrère’s novel The Adversary. This work, based on a real case, demonstrates how literary narration can transcend the limits of traditional criminological analysis, providing a deep psychological and sociocultural investigation. The Adversary tells the story of Jean-Claude Romand, a man who led a double life for years, deceiving his family and friends until committing multiple murders to conceal his deception. Carrère adopts an approach that blends fiction elements with journalistic rigor, creating a text that does not merely report the facts but explores them through the prism of subjectivity and fragmented identity. This method allows for an analysis of crime not only as a legal act but as a human phenomenon, characterized by psychological tensions, social constructions, and internal narrative processes within the criminal himself. Compared to other crime fiction and true crime novels, The Adversary raises crucial questions about the reliability of truth and the role of the author as both observer and narrator of crime.

ABSTRACT. In recent years, the use of theatre in social research as a creative and participatory form of qualitative inquiry has seen significant growth, especially in educational institutions and within organisational and business contexts. The uniqueness of such approaches to fieldwork lies in their ability to identify issues, actively implement solutions, and stimulate social change by delving deeply into social and cultural dynamics, including norms, attitudes, beliefs, behaviours, and values. Indeed, by functioning as a liminal space ( Turner, 1982 ) for the negotiation and co-creation of knowledge and meanings, theatre engenders self-regulatory practices and collective self-assessments that prove highly valuable in grasping organizational culture and facilitating the systematic observation of groups and social roles in everyday life. Its intersection with sociology allows the use of theatre independently or in combination with other methods, such as ethnography, focus groups, interviews, surveys, and biographical research. It can also be employed in one or more phases of the research process, serving as a model for data analysis or for disseminating results in an emotionally engaging and embodied manner. In my contribution, I will focus on the main theories that have identified similarities and analogies between theatre, society, and social sciences, laying the foundation for its empirical use. Also, I will explore the most valuable participatory methods, drawing on examples from theatre game books and my personal experiences working with groups and their impact on the researcher/facilitator. Theatre training is a valuable resource for enhancing the communication, creative and metacognitive skills of social scientists, helping them gain greater awareness and understanding of their own choices. Instead, this work aims to identify a theatrical sociology capable of revealing the processes and practices involved in the social construction of reality.

ABSTRACT. In recent years, what can be defined as "women’s protests" have led European feminist movements to reinvent their communication strategies through digital networks. 2016 marked the urgency of two new forms of social mobilization in Europe: on October 3rd in Warsaw, known as "Black Monday," the first protest of the Strajk Kobiet (SK) movement took place in response to a proposed law tightening abortion restrictions in Poland, sparking a new civic force; on November 25th in Rome, the first national demonstration of Non Una Di Meno (NUDM) occurred, leading to a political movement in Italy determined to ensure that no woman is ever lost again, whether to male violence or any other form of abuse. NUDM and SK serve as the two empirical cases examined in this paper, representing resistance to gender-based violence and reproductive rights restrictions. The analysis follows a cross-case method and is structured around the "what," "how," and "why", addressing four primary research questions: What forms of violence, misogyny, and culture are NUDM and SK responding to in their digital communications? How do NUDM and SK use digital media to articulate their mission and document their mobilizations? How can the digital media strategies of NUDM and SK be understood as tools of accountability? Why do NUDM and SK choose to mobilize digital communication technologies in such a way? In order to outline how these movements express their mission, assess digital media as a tool for social accountability, compare their communication strategies, and identify their social impact. The data will be collected through text mining and sentiment analysis of social networks, alongside ethnographic methods such as interviews, surveys, and online community observations. Finally, this paper's main aim is to examine the role of digital media in shaping new forms of civic activism and building social accountability.

ABSTRACT. This study explores the phenomenon of non-reproductive choices (childfree), examining its social and professional implications through a gendered perspective and a thematic analysis of discussions on r/childfree, an international Reddit forum. The childfree identity refers to individuals who consciously decide not to have children, distinguishing this choice from childlessness, which results from external constraints rather than personal preference. The investigation is situated within the context of demographic and economic transformations, highlighting a steady decline in birth rates across Europe, where stereotypes persist that associate motherhood with women’s primary social value. The research reveals that childfree individuals face unique challenges in the workplace, including disproportionate workloads, disparities in access to corporate benefits, and stigma rooted in organizational norms that penalize those who deviate from the traditional worker-parent ideal. Childfree women experience a double penalty: they are perceived as deviating from dominant cultural paradigms while also being burdened with heightened professional expectations. The r/childfree community emerges as a critical space for analyzing these dynamics, as users share experiences, report discrimination, and reflect on cultural perceptions surrounding their choice. This study conducts a qualitative analysis of 1,448 comments from r/childfree, collected between November 2024 and January 2025, employing a methodological framework that integrates digital ethnography and thematic coding through NVivo software to categorize discussions into macro-categories and subcategories, thereby facilitating the examination of discursive patterns, personal accounts, and identity negotiations within the digital sphere. Digital ethnography emerges as a crucial tool for understanding online communities where individuals engage in authentic and voluntary discussions on their lived experiences. The findings underscore the importance of inclusive workplace policies and cultural shifts to address gender inequalities and promote a more equitable society that values the plurality of human experiences.

ABSTRACT. The study of online communities requires flexible and innovative methodological approaches that account for the interplay between platforms, practices, and discursive strategies. This work explores the Ana and Mia digital subculture—pro-eating disorder communities, also know under the hashtag edtw—through a multiplatform ethnographic approach, analyzing how their members shape and adapt their interactions across WhatsApp, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, Spotify, Pinterest, and Instagram. Unlike single-platform analyses, we emphasize the affordances that enable community-building across networks. Using a digital exploratory methodology, we mapped platform-specific vernaculars—as distinct patterns of narratives that shape content flows across platforms, encompassing both the objects of each social network and their specific uses. Our findings reveal that the Ana and Mia community is inherently multiplatform, with users strategically leveraging each platform’s characteristics: Instagram and Pinterest for visual curation, WhatsApp for private support groups and sharing tips and practices, TikTok for humor-based engagement, YouTube for narrative storytelling, and Spotify for the curation of emotional and motivational playlists that reinforce community identity and discourse. This methodological approach highlights the interconnected nature of digital subcultures and underscores the importance of studying platform affordances, algorithmic mediation, and cross-platform migration in contemporary digital ethnography. Moreover, our study raises ethical concerns regarding data collection, anonymity, and the responsibility of researchers when engaging with sensitive online communities. We argue that traditional methodologies must be adapted to account for the fluid, networked, and hybrid nature of digital communities, offering insights applicable to broader research on online subcultures and participatory cultures.

ABSTRACT. Virtual reality platforms like VRChat are not just spaces of entertainment but emerging social worlds where bodies, identities, and relationships take new forms. In these environments, people engage in affective, embodied interactions, dealing with both the possibilities and constraints of digital presence. Rather than seeing VR as a space where body-substitutes interact, this study follows Krell & Wettman’s argument that Social VR does not imply referentiality between body-substitutes but affectual relations between extensions of actual bodies. Individuals, their avatars, and the technology itself function as a cyborg entity, where human experience is co-constructed with digital possibility.

Drawing on digital anthropology and posthumanist ethnography, this research employs participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and experimental social mapping to examine how nonverbal communication, avatar embodiment, and social norms emerge in virtual spaces. We are also looking to incorporate an analysis of creative user practices looking at how individuals express identity, connection, and belonging through customized avatars, in-world performances, and digital rituals

Our choice of methodologies is central to this study and remains a subject of ongoing reflection and adaptation. In VR, each user’s experience is unique, shaped by participants who are highly diverse both culturally and cognitively. Each curates their own experience, connecting from different devices, using various add-ons, designing their own avatars and in-game worlds to engage with different digital communities, and pursuing different goals: (social connexion, gaming, intimacy and more). The adaptability of VR allows users to curate their own social worlds, making it a challenge to conduct a concrete analysis while still letting this diversity of voices emerge authentically. As researchers, we grapple with how to meaningfully compare, interpret, and represent these varied experiences without flattening their complexity. This is an ongoing research project, with findings expected to be published by July.

ABSTRACT. Bariatric surgery is becoming an increasingly common intervention in the treatment of severe obesity, offering a potentially effective solution for those struggling with excess weight that compromises health and well-being. However, despite medical advancements and increased awareness about the risks of obesity, bariatric surgery often remains trapped in a web of social stigma, being perceived by many as a "shortcut" that avoids the commitment and effort required to achieve lasting weight loss. This study aims to thoroughly explore the complex relationship between body, identity, and society that lies behind the choice to undergo bariatric surgery, analyzing in depth the stigmatizing system that is triggered when communicating the decision to embark on a bariatric path. Through a qualitative methodological approach, which uses in-depth interviews and life stories the research will delve into the individual experiences of patients, exploring the motivations, expectations, fears, and identity transformations that accompany the surgical path and the transformations of the body. The investigation will focus on the role of social networks in the construction of body image and in the dissemination of information on bariatric surgery, considering the influence exerted by figures such as bariatric influencers who use social platforms to share their experiences and promote the intervention. Special attention will be paid to the role of online communities and social networks, how they are able to influence life choices and how different communities interact with each other, in some contexts even in a conflictual manner.

ABSTRACT. Online communities are crucial spaces for discussion, information, and support, particularly for individuals affected by stigmatized conditions. This study explores the online discourse surrounding vulvodynia, a misunderstood and invisibilized chronic pain condition, on Instagram. Assuming that discussing vulvodynia online provides emotional relief and empowerment for affected women, the research examines the motivations driving both those with vulvodynia and individuals without the condition to engage in public discussions, as well as the impact of such interactions on personal well-being. Instagram’s publicly available data offers access to extensive user-generated content. This study thematically analyzed 1,000 comments and applied text mining techniques to uncover recurring patterns and discourse structures. Findings reveal a cycle of stigmatization. Individuals sharing experiences narrate encounters with medical and societal bias, rooted in entrenched gender norms that minimize women's pain (Bendelow, 1993). Many report being dismissed by healthcare professionals who attribute their symptoms to excessive emotionality, reinforcing structural inequalities in pain perception (Hoffmann & Tarzian, 2001). In response, affected individuals seek validation and peer support in online health communities (Giarelli, Nigris, & Spina, 2012; Lombi, 2022). However, Instagram’s public and anonymous nature exposes them to further stigma, misinformation, and dismissive attitudes. Despite this, results indicate a counteracting force: in online spaces dedicated to vulvodynia, affected individuals form a collective that challenges stigma, temporarily reversing offline power dynamics. This study contributes to the methodological discussion on online communities as research objects, emphasizing social media’s dual role in perpetuating and mitigating stigma. By highlighting Instagram’s affordances and limitations as a site of collective meaning-making, the research underscores the need for nuanced digital methodologies to study health-related stigmatization.

ABSTRACT. This contribution examines the phenomenon of Italian feminist micro-influencers on Instagram, hybrid actors between digital culture and political activism. While not always affiliated with traditional feminist movements, they are gaining visibility among younger generations by using the web to shape collective identities and negotiate shared meanings.

The analysis, conducted through interviews with influencers and social media content analysis, explores their role in the crossover between online and offline activism, examining how digital efforts translate into tangible actions such as events, campaigns, and local collaborations. This aligns with the concept of "connective action" (Bennett & Segerberg, 2013), where mobilization occurs through flexible digital networks rather than traditional structures.

Through personal branding (Duffy & Hund, 2015; Marwick, 2015) and disintermediated storytelling (Abidin, 2015; Casaló et al., 2020), these activists create strong connections with their audiences, making feminist messages more accessible. While their approach often centers on personal narratives, many incorporate intersectional and community-focused themes, broadening feminism’s reach.

This dynamic is part of popular feminism (Banet-Weiser, 2018), which has found a powerful platform in social media. Italian feminist micro-influencers contribute to this shift by promoting discussions and supporting offline initiatives.

This study adds to the methodological debate on online communities, addressing the ethical challenges of digital research, including privacy concerns and the observation of interactions. Furthermore, the tension between social engagement and Instagram’s commercial dynamics raises critical questions about the future of digital activism.

ABSTRACT. This paper introduces the SWIPE Module, a novel survey tool designed to capture respondents’ preferences toward a large set of social media personalities quickly and with minimal cognitive effort. Unlike conventional item batteries, which require multiple repetitive questions, the SWIPE Module prompts participants to “swipe” through 100 digital cards, each representing a well-known social media figure selected based on high traffic volumes. This innovative approach was implemented in two large-scale surveys in Italy: one among 937 high-school students aged 18–19, and another among 4,135 individuals from the general population.

In parallel with collecting swipe-based preferences, we validate the instrument by comparing participants’ SWIPE responses for political leaders with their evaluations on a traditional 10-point scale, demonstrating the Module’s ability to gauge attitudes in line with standard measures while minimizing respondent burden. Beyond these preference data, we link responses to rich contextual information on each social media personality, integrating nearly two years of their online activity—automatically coded for thematic content and issue positioning—to enable a multidimensional analysis of how individual preferences relate to the public discourse of influencers.

Preliminary findings indicate that the SWIPE Module can uncover meaningful group differences in “swipe” patterns, hinting at potential correlations with demographics and sociopolitical attitudes. Our results emphasize how integrating robust contextual data on media figures can enrich survey-based research on social attitudes and preferences. Overall, the SWIPE Module offers survey methodologists and social scientists an efficient, scalable solution for capturing complex respondent–influencer relationships in a fast-evolving digital media landscape.

ABSTRACT. Digitalization has produced a vast range of new data types. Researchers are actively discussing the prospects of using various trackers – pedometers, fitness bracelets, and digital activity trackers – as new sources of information about human behavior. However, obtaining this kind of data requires developing new theoretical approaches and methodological standards. One possible way to obtain such data is through the method of “data donation”, which allows researchers to collect digital behavioral data directly from respondents without installing special tracking applications. In this approach, respondents share with researchers the data their mobile devices have collected. Thus, this study aims to evaluate the concurrent validity of self-reported data on smartphone usage using mobile tracker data obtained from respondents via the “data donation” approach. In current study tracker data is used as a standard source of data, i.e. a criterion (more accurate). We conducted an experiment among iOS and Android users (n=288, non-probability sample). Respondents were asked to estimate in absolute numbers (hours or minutes): 1) average per day phone usage time; 2) time usage for the current day; 3) time usage for yesterday; 4) average time over the past week; and 5) time over the typical week. Data from screen time sections of phones were attached post hoc to the completed questionnaires. Survey data and tracker data were linked at an individual level. The results showed that, for all five measured parameters mentioned above, there is a low positive correlation (between 0.265 and 0.340). The t-test results also showed that there is a statistically significant difference between smartphone self-reports and tracker data. Therefore, digital behavioral data may be more preferable for assessing smartphone use due to its more accurate estimation, ease of data collection, absence of significant additional costs, and presumably shorter response time and less burden on respondents.

ABSTRACT. Social media plays a crucial role in shaping public discourse, especially during elections. Popular platforms like Twitter (X) and Facebook have long served as arenas where political opinions are formed, debated, and amplified, thus shaping public perceptions and dis-course. The reliance on social media for political information raises important questions about how different user groups engage in discussions, frame key issues, and contribute to the broader public debate. Understanding these dynamics is essential for assessing the role of social media in democracy, the potential for echo chambers or misinformation, and the evolving nature of political communication. This study uses data from a survey of the German Longitudinal Environmental Study (GLEN), a newly launched registered-based panel study. This survey was conducted from January to March 2025, with the German federal election happening mid data collection on February 23rd. Around 17.000 participants participated in the survey and were asked to answer the open-ended question “Which topics will be particularly important for Germany in the new year?“. Using the responses to this question, we employ computational text analysis meth-ods to investigate the relationship between social media usage and individuals‘ perception of political relevance in 2025. First frequency analyses based on preliminary data indicate that, as expected, the election strongly influences the answers to the open-ended questions, with the top 5 words being: economy, migration, federal election, war, and Ukraine. Running a structural topic model reveals some patterns following public discourse and election campaigns. With this ap-proach, we investigate how social media usage patterns correlate with specific thematic structures in political relevance perceptions. These findings further aim to contribute to ongoing debates about the implementation and its accompanying challenges of integrating text data in otherwise standardized surveys.

ABSTRACT. In this study we use a combined source of digital observational and survey data collected through a data donation approach to investigate the health-related behaviour of Hungarian social media users. We seek to answer whether vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals can be identified by their digital behaviour and aim to determine which types of online behaviour contribute the most to predicting COVID-19 vaccine uptake. To answer these questions, we predict the vaccination status of participants purely based on their digital footprints on Google, YouTube and Facebook and focus on the diverse importance of features to detect those online activities, along which vaccinated and not vaccinated individuals can be distinguished from each other. In the current data donation study, nearly 800 Hungarian individuals have agreed to share their entire social media activity data stored about them by the platforms for research purposes, including Facebook, Google, YouTube and in some cases, smaller platforms (Instagram, TikTok). The sample of users is representative of the Hungarian internet user population by gender, age and region. The donation was accompanied by a detailed questionnaire that participants filled out. The survey included a number of health-related topics, including questions about COVID-19 vaccination status. For the prediction of vaccination status, digital behavioural indicators were created. Modelling was performed using a fine-tuned and cross-validated XGBoost model. The XGBoost model shows the effect of various digital and social media behaviours as features on the prediction of vaccination status. Key factors include Google searches and clicks on vaccine-related keywords, YouTube video consumption patterns, and Facebook reactions.

ABSTRACT. This study examines the relationship between xenophobic discourse on social media and individual attitudes toward migration, using a novel approach that integrates social media and survey data. Specifically, we analyze Twitter posts from two six-month periods in 2015 and 2022, identifying xenophobic, migrant-accepting, and neutral/irrelevant content through a combination of human and large language model (LLM) annotations. These labeled Tweets serve as training data for a predictive model, which estimates the probability of xenophobic content in the remaining Twitter dataset. The predicted probabilities are then aggregated at the geographical level of "pseudo-counties" (subdivisions based on federal states and municipal size) and by month. To measure migrant acceptance, we use Politbarometer survey data, specifically the percentage of respondents agreeing that migration is the most pressing national issue. Since the survey does not provide county-level residence, we construct 64 pseudo-counties by dividing each of Germany’s 16 federal states into four population-size categories. We then match the aggregated predicted xenophobia probabilities from Twitter to the survey data at the pseudo-county and monthly levels. This methodological approach allows us to model migrant acceptance as a function of xenophobic discourse intensity on social media while controlling for demographic covariates. By bridging social media discourse and survey responses, our study provides insights into how online narratives may shape public opinion on migration. This contributes to broader discussions on digital influence, public sentiment, and the role of social media in shaping societal attitudes.

ABSTRACT. Conducting qualitative research in prisons poses a number of distinctive challenges. These include difficulties in gaining access to the field and constraints imposed by institutional gatekeepers (Reiter, 2014; Sbraccia & Vianello, 2016). The process of negotiating entry frequently culminates in mediated access, which influences the scope and extent of the study, thereby giving rise to critical questions concerning the validity of the knowledge produced (Waldram, 2009). This paper explores the challenges of conducting qualitative research in carceral settings, reflecting on the methodological compromises researchers must navigate. The aim of prison ethnography is to capture the complex interplay of life in prisons, but the reality is often what many scholars have described as a 'partial' ethnography (Mugnaini, 2020). Drawing on insights from sociology, this paper argues that qualitative research in prisons is a vital tool for uncovering hidden power dynamics and control strategies (Foucault, 1975; Melossi & Pavarini, 1977). The implementation of an expanded, holistic approach to research facilitates the maintenance of analytical profundity while concurrently embracing methodological innovation. In this manner, we draw upon Becker's "tricks of the trade" (Becker, 2007), using researchers' adaptability and reflexivity to overcome institutional obstacles without compromising rigour. These challenges are exemplified by two case studies: the study of university education in prison and the exploration of fatherhood among incarcerated men. The first shows how prison university programs facilitate a symbolic escape and personal transformation for detainees yet remain embedded in power dynamics that define access and participation. The second examines the experiences of fathers in prison and how their narratives enable the construction of new identities despite constraints. These two examples underscore the paradoxes inherent in prison research, where moments of genuine connection and insight are often counterbalanced by the structural limitations imposed by the institution (Acocella, Pastore, 2020).

ABSTRACT. This paper examines the integration of qualitative methodology as an addition to quantitative research in the context of Slovene prisons. It focuses on the methodological challenges and concerns encountered during a multi-method study of social climate and the quality of life and work in Slovene prisons, conducted by a team of researchers from the Institute of Criminology at the Faculty of Law in Ljubljana. While the core of the study involved quantitative questionnaires, the research team deepened their understanding of the data through a mix of qualitative methods, including focus groups, interviews, field observations, and visual materials. The paper demonstrates how qualitative approaches can enhance the interpretation of data by providing deeper insights into the context, relationships, and dynamics within prisons. It furthermore highlights the unique advantage of qualitative methods in reaching marginalized populations—such as foreign inmates, individuals of Roma ethnicity, and others with limited (Slovene) language proficiency or capacities to understand — who often find themselves excluded from participation in quantitative surveys and having their experiences overlooked. By making use of certain qualitative techniques, the study effectively captured the experiences of these vulnerable groups, offering a more nuanced and context-specific understanding of their realities. In addressing the limitations of traditional quantitative instruments, this research offers some solutions for overcoming barriers to data collection, ensuring that harder-to-reach populations are included and their experiences accurately represented. Ultimately, the paper underscores the value of combining qualitative and quantitative methodologies to enhance the inclusivity, accuracy, and depth of research in sensitive environments like prisons.

ABSTRACT. Introduction: Imprisonment alters women's childbearing and mothering experiences. Women in prison have diverse and distinct reproductive well-being needs. Globally, incarcerated women globally are of reproductive age, and many are mothers. Their reproductive health needs concerning menstruation, childbearing, and newborn care are often overlooked, unmet by prison institutions, and negatively affected due to the male-centric prison environment. Objective: Using Goffman’s (1961) concept of mortification of self, this article examines the impacts of imprisonment on the mothering identity of 18 Filipino incarcerated women. Methodology: A qualitative inductive approach was undertaken to explore the impacts of imprisonment on the mothering identity of 18 Filipino incarcerated women. This research project used reflexive thematic analysis to examine the data from semi-structured interviews with 18 Filipino pregnant prisoners. Results: The participants’ experiences of childbearing in prison were reflected in three overarching themes: a) Lack of autonomy over pregnancy, b) prisoner identity overriding reproductive well-being, and c) Coping with disrupted mothering identity. These themes reflect the women’s experiences of how imprisonment intensifies their reproductive issues and creates distinct needs. Furthermore, the findings demonstrate how pregnancy needs appeared secondary to their institutionally imposed ‘prisoner identity,’ a situation exacerbated by their experience of systemic scarcity and limited autonomy. Conclusion: This research makes a significant contribution by examining the nexus between pregnancy and imprisonment by unpacking how prison deprivations are linked to incarcerated women’s distinct needs. The findings highlight the urgent need to reform prison regulations and practices to address women’s vulnerability and maternal health in prison. This paper highlights an urgent need to reform correctional policies and practices to address incarcerated women’s distinct needs.

ABSTRACT. Globally the issue of resocialization and social inclusion appears to be in crisis today, with growing doubts about the effectiveness and functionality of these practices. In this context, there is an urgent need to overcome traditional approaches and explore innovative practices, fostering dialogue between reintegrative and educational models from different contexts. This study focuses on two re-educational experiences in Buenos Aires: the Devoto University Centre (CUD) and the San Martín University Centre (CUSAM). These centres boast innovative strategies of prisoner reintegration, based on empowerment and collectivism, deeply rooted in the national cultural and political context. Grossi highlights the importance of analysing both the educational potential and limitations of 'model' experiences from the Global North (Shammas, 2014), while also exploring lesser-studied experiences from the Global South to encourage mutual influence. This study aims to explore the resocialisation strategies adopted by these centres,investigating their underlying dynamics, to understand if and how these models influence social reintegration, promoting the individual's autonomy and empowerment. In particular, the aim is to understand how these practices contribute to building a sense of belonging with the territory, transforming participants into active agents. The study will adopt a qualitative approach, using Constructionist Grounded Theory (CGT), which allows a flexible and in-depth analysis of the meaning that individuals attribute to their experiences (Charmaz, 2006). Data will be collected through in-depth interviews with individuals who have already served their sentences and have reintegrated into society, as well as with professionals involved in reintegration processes. The research will be conducted over the course of April to June 2025 with a focus on understanding the specific dynamics of educational programmes in these centres. The anticipated results aim to shed light on the effectiveness of the educational methods employed, contributing to the broader discourse on prisoner reintegration and potentially informing policy reforms.

ABSTRACT. Monitoring the social atmosphere in six prisons and one correctional home in Slovenia has a long-established tradition, dating back to the 1980s. This practice began as a periodic assessment and has provided valuable insights into the conditions and trends in the development and operations of these institutions. In line with this tradition of regularly measuring the climate in Slovenian prisons, our team at the Institute of Criminology at the Faculty of Law has taken on the task of updating the methodological framework for studying the social atmosphere in these settings through both quantitative and qualitative methods. After thorough consideration, we chose to employ the established "Measuring the Quality of Prison Life" (MQPL+) tool, which was developed at the Institute of Criminology at the University of Cambridge by Professor Alison Liebling. In 2025, we conducted measurements of the social atmosphere in prisons and the correctional home. This effort represented a significant advancement in assessing the social environment and enhanced our ability to compare findings with international research. In the presentation, we will discuss the challenges of applying an established methodological framework in a new setting. We will also address some issues that arose during the preparation phase and the implementation process within a prison environment.

ABSTRACT. Understanding the factors that drive consumers toward sustainable food is fundamental in promoting responsible environmental behavior. The intention to buy organic food is shaped by a complex interplay of personal values, social influences, and context. While awareness of sustainability issues has increased, the gap between knowledge and actual behavior remains a challenge. Uncovering the underlying motivations and barriers that shape responsible environmental behavior can help to reduce this gap. This study aims to identify the key drivers influencing consumer intention to buy organic. Our study uses a representative sample of Spanish consumers to explore sequential drivers behind the intention to purchase organic food. We developed a comprehensive model to analyze the individual drivers of behavior and measure the mean effects of organic food purchase antecedents using a second-order partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). Adopting an exploratory approach, Pathmox analysis, we investigated the existence of social heterogeneity in driver’s mean effects, considering how social context—social position and family lifecycle stage—relate to organic food purchases. Our results uncover that norms (social and personal) play a central role in forming positive attitudes towards eco-sustainable products, significantly influencing purchasing behavior. Environmental knowledge, on the other hand, is important but has a less significant impact. While our analysis of social heterogeneity reveals the existence of different social groups according to age, education and living situation, surprisingly, when analyzing differences in the model mean effects, norms remain the most important drivers for attitude and intention to buy eco-friendly food, indicating that social pressures and internalized values are the main drivers of sustainable consumption, while the mere availability of information is not sufficient to foster a lasting behavioral change.

ABSTRACT. ### **A Systematic Review of Sustainable Tourism Indicators Using LLM-Based Classification**

Sustainable tourism has become a key topic in academic and policy discussions due to its potential to balance economic growth, environmental protection, and socio-cultural well-being. A crucial aspect of this field involves developing and applying sustainability indicators to assess and monitor tourism impacts. However, the extensive and diverse literature on sustainable tourism indicators has led to inconsistencies in classification and purpose. This study conducts a **systematic review** to map the taxonomy and objectives of sustainable tourism indicators by analyzing **5,075 papers** retrieved from **Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus**.

To ensure a rigorous and reproducible selection process, the review follows **PRISMA guidelines**. A **Large Language Model (LLM)-based approach** is employed to classify indicators automatically using **natural language processing (NLP)**. By training the LLM on sustainability-focused corpora, it will identify key dimensions, patterns, and conceptual relationships among indicators. The study also examines the **theoretical frameworks and methodologies** applied in the literature.

The primary objectives of this review are: 1. **Classifying** sustainable tourism indicators into a structured taxonomy using LLM-based clustering. 2. **Analyzing** the intended purposes of these indicators in academic and practical contexts. 3. **Identifying** gaps and emerging trends in sustainable tourism assessment.

By integrating **machine learning techniques**, this review will provide a **comprehensive synthesis** of sustainable tourism measurement. The findings will offer valuable insights for **policy design**, enabling stakeholders to make **data-driven decisions** that align with sustainability objectives.

ABSTRACT. Szeged is the third biggest city in Hungary. The area of Szeged has a rich cultural background and it offers a lot of nature related activites, so it has the potential and all the neceseary attributes to become a slow tourism spot. Slow tourism is believed to be a form of sustainable tourism and some researchers even speak about a new paradigm (Polyxeni, et al. 2017). We still don’t have widespred knowledge about slow tourism – for example we still don’t know exactly who slow tourists are, but we know some of their attributes. What seems to be certain is that slow tourists have an environmentally conscious attitude and they are conscious travellers – but how about the tourists who have some slow attributes but possibly are not concious travellers? All in all the reasearch about slow tourism has some challenges and limits. In my presentation I would like to talk about how I conduct my PhD research about slow tourism in the area of Szeged, why I chose this area in Hungary and how I came to the conclusion that it has a lot of potential in the aspect of slow tourism. The presentation also focuses on the challanges and the limits of my research, and reflects on the data already collected.

ABSTRACT. It is notable that, despite the overwhelming scientific evidence confirming the existence of climate change, a significant proportion of the population remains sceptical. Given the documented link between climate change scepticism and a rejection of sustainable behaviour, as well as a low policy acceptance for climate protection measures, this issue is considered a relevant political problem. Yet, there is a lack of carefully developed instruments that measure all dimensions of climate change denial: Trend, attribution, impact and response (Rahmstorf, 2004; Capstick & Pidgeon, 2014). We build on scales developed by Whitmarsh (2011) and De Graaf et al. (2023) and integrate them into a tested scale. In a web survey of 532 participants from a non-probability online panel, we use Cronbach's alpha and confirmatory factor analysis, to evaluate the dimensionality, scalability and reliability of the newly developed, integrated instrument for measuring climate change scepticism. We propose three scale versions: a 12-item long scale, an 8-item short scale, and a 4-item very short scale. Using nationally representative, large-scale data from the German Longitudinal Environmental Study (GLEN), we evaluate the construct validity, assess climate change scepticism prevalence, and analyze its distribution across socio-economic groups.

References

Capstick, S. B., & Pidgeon, N. F. (2014). What is climate change scepticism? Examination of the concept using a mixed methods study of the UK public. Global Environmental Change, 24, 389–401. De Graaf, J. A., Stok, F. M., Wit, J. B. de, & Bal, M. (2023). The climate change skepticism questionnaire: Validation of a measure to assess doubts regarding climate change. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 89, 102068. Rahmstorf, S., 2004. The Climate Sceptics. Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Potsdam. (accessed 12.03.2025) In: https://www.pik-potsdam.de/~stefan/Publications/Other/rahmstorf_climate_sceptics_2004.pdf Whitmarsh, L. (2011). Scepticism and uncertainty about climate change: Dimensions, determinants and change over time. Global Environmental Change, 21(2), 690–700.

ABSTRACT. Exposure to environmental stress has been addressed from the perspective of psychology and environmental sciences. These have focused their analysis on the degree of social well-being in relation to the impact of variables such as air quality, noise pollution or heat waves. This research, centred on the social impact of environmental variables in urban areas, began to be carried out in the United States, highlighting a relationship between environmental threats in the city and the most vulnerable population, which has subsequently been qualified by research carried out in European cities. From a methodological point of view, these studies have been characterised by being developed either through a qualitative approach, focused on the perception of well-being, or through statistical approaches focused on one or two environmental variables (e.g. pollution, exposure to heat or noise). However, the studies carried out to date have two major shortcomings: i) the development of partial approaches, centred on one or two environmental variables; ii) the use of a-spatial statistical instruments that present distorted results by not taking into account the territorial factor. To mitigate these gaps, this paper proposes an Environmental Stress Index developed through seven environmental variables that globally analyse the main socio-environmental challenges to which the population of the city of Barcelona is subjected. Applied at the census section level and approached through a geographically weighted principal component analysis, the spatial distribution of the values of this index and its relationship with the sociodemographic characteristics of the population at risk of poverty are analysed. The aim of this index is to offer an integrated socio-environmental assessment tool for public policies that can be used to detect the urban areas with the greatest socio-environmental inequality and vulnerability.

ABSTRACT. The eco-social crisis and the urgent need for ecological transitions have positioned universities as key actors in producing and disseminating sustainability-oriented knowledge. At the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), the UCM 2030 Observatory aims to assess how the institution aligns with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, measuring sustainability in teaching and research presents profound epistemological and methodological challenges that require critical examination. Epistemologically, the construction of sustainability indicators in higher education raises tensions between quantification and complexity. While standardization enables comparability across institutions, it risks oversimplifying the transformative potential of universities in the eco-social crisis. The assessment of sustainability must go beyond mere rankings and metrics to capture the systemic and process-oriented dimensions embedded in higher education institutions. Methodologically, this research examines the challenges of designing a composite indicator system suited to the university context. Key issues include data opacity, data scarcity, the heterogeneity of institutional structures, and the risk of metric reductionism. This study critically analyzes these methodological difficulties, assessing both the potential and the limitations of sustainability indicators in higher education. Ultimately, it explores the extent to which these indicators can meaningfully reflect universities’ contributions to eco-social transitions. Through the case study of UCM, this research contributes to rethinking sustainability measurement in higher education by considering not only the technical difficulties of indicator development but also the broader epistemological implications of what and how we measure. In doing so, it engages with the broader debate on how universities can act as transformative agents in the eco-social crisis, moving beyond a purely instrumental approach to sustainability assessment, emphasizing the importance of methodological reflexivity and epistemological awareness in sustainability assessment.

ABSTRACT. Collaborative research between people with disabilities and researchers is crucial in terms of democratizing knowledge, integrating practical knowledge, and promoting social change. To this end, it is necessary to reflect the experiences of people with disabilities in research through participatory action research, narrative approaches, and the use of living labs. Furthermore, by building equal relationships, ensuring accessibility, and ensuring ethical considerations, truly meaningful collaborative research can be realized. Through such efforts, the active involvement of persons with disabilities as “co-creators of knowledge” rather than “research subjects” will lead to the realization of a more inclusive and sustainable society. The author of the report is conducting a collaborative research project on digitization of peer support with stroke and incurable disease survivors since 2021. In this panel, I would like to introduce this collaborative research as a case study and discuss with the participants new horizons of research conducted with people with disabilities.

ABSTRACT. This paper investigates the participatory approach to studying services for people with disabilities, focusing on inclusion and engagement as both a central theme and methodological framework, starting from research realized in Lombardy Region (Italy) thanks to the collaboration between an association for people with disabilities (Anffas). We explore the various meanings and applications of participation, emphasizing the importance of collecting perspectives from individuals directly experiencing situations, supporting them articulating their own experiences. The research employs participatory action research and practice research, engaging both professionals, families and service users in the research process with the aim of transforming daytime and residential services into an inclusive and participatory model. This allows for a synthesis of scientific knowledge and practical expertise from service coordinators and professionals. Moreover, it fosters self-reflection, surfacing the "tacit knowledge" professionals develop from their direct engagement with service users. Importantly, the research incorporates the perspectives of persons with disabilities, their families, and caregivers, recognizing their experiential knowledge as complementary to scientific understanding. The study began by surveying 52 disability services in Lombardy, investigating personalized planning practices and the inclusion of persons with disabilities in decision-making. The second phase of the research focused on analyzing the design and methods of service delivery, evaluating how well these aligned with participatory, inclusive, and self-determination principles, taking the ecological matrix of quality of life domains as the conceptual framework. In this step, the sample consisted of 12 entities, 5 daytime and 7 residential. The final phase involved interviews and focus groups with persons with disabilities, their families, caregivers, service providers, and public institutions, aimed at understanding the relevance and recognition of participatory practices in improving service delivery. The findings contribute to the development of guidelines and indicators for innovation in disability services, promoting better quality of life and well-being for persons with disabilities.

ABSTRACT. The modern economy, rapidly evolving in the digital age, faces challenges that require innovative and responsible approaches to foster sustainable development. In this context, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and the European Social Taxonomy emerge as key tools for integrating social objectives into local and global economic dynamics. Although the Social Taxonomy is not yet formally defined, its principles are already being applied in concrete initiatives, demonstrating how economic development and social progress can coexist and generate tangible benefits for communities. A significant example is the “Sensi” project in the Aosta Valley, which promotes accessible tourism and the inclusion of people with disabilities. This virtuous model highlights how businesses and communities can go beyond profit, generating social value and improving collective well-being. Such initiatives embody the principles of CSR, showcasing their potential to drive concrete transformations for a fairer and more sustainable future. (https://www.rivistacorporategovernance.it/Article/Archive/index_html?ida=211&idn=22&idi=-1&idu=-1)

ABSTRACT. The participation and voice of persons with disabilities in disability research is one of the fundamental principles of Disability Studies and the Human Rights Perspective of understanding disability. However, the topic of accessibility in research has received little attention in the methodological literature. For example, research reports refer to online surveys for people with disabilities that are not digitally accessible. Some groups of people with disabilities (e.g. D/deaf people, people with intellectual disabilities) are rarely directly tested due to communication difficulties. This results in the exclusion of many important perspectives from disability research and takes away the voice of already marginalized groups. The purpose of my presentation is to raise awareness and methodological sensitivity among researchers who conduct research with people with disabilities. The issue of ensuring accessibility in research is crucial and will be considered at the level of axiological assumptions, legal considerations and practical guidance for those conducting research.

ABSTRACT. This proposal presents the first results of the “Universitabile” doctoral thesis, which has as its target population students with disabilities and DSA enrolled in A.A. 2020-2021 at La Sapienza, Tor Vergata and Roma Tre. The research aims on the one hand to explore and describe the factors that affect inclusion/participation and university performance of young people with disabilities and SLDs, and on the other hand to analyze the role of study support services. Since the beginning of the 21st century, Italian universities are increasingly plural places (Bolt and Penketh, 2016) and have to deal with the diversity and ways of inclusion of students with disabilities or SLDs (Oliver and Barnes, 2010) who have become a non-negligible part of the Italian student population (Censis, 2017). Here we hypothesize that university policies may produce ambivalent effects. In fact, these may contain “in germ the cues for a reversal of perspective, which from the anti-discriminatory strategy and the egalitarian ideal risk opening the door to the most extreme differentialism” (Piccone Stella, 2003). With this in mind, the survey aims to assess how accessibility to facilities and quality of services contribute to physical and social inclusion, through the use of the mixed methods approach (Mauceri, 2017), involving the administration of questionnaires to students and in-depth interviews with service workers

ABSTRACT. The inclusion of students with disabilities in higher education is a complex social phenomenon, influenced by institutional, cultural, and relational dynamics, requiring a rethinking of educational practices and support models within academic settings (Moriña & Biagiotti, 2021). In this context, peer tutoring emerges as a key tool for fostering mediation processes and didactic adaptation, whose impact can be analyzed through reflective and qualitative methodologies (Schön, 1987). The study is based on a qualitative approach combining semi-structured interviews and the analysis of a custom-designed self-reflection sheet. This sheet was developed to encourage peer tutors’ awareness of their own practices and the challenges encountered in supporting students with disabilities, integrating anticipatory reflection (van Manen, 1993) and reflection-on-action (Schön, 1987). Data analysis highlighted how structured reflection facilitates the re-elaboration of experiences, promoting an enhancement of inclusion strategies and a greater ability to adapt to students’ needs. The research places peer tutoring within the broader social and institutional dynamics that shape the experiences of students with disabilities. This approach has highlighted the importance of considering the interactions between individuals and their environment in fostering inclusive educational practices (Terraneo & Tognetti Bordogna, 2021). Preliminary results suggest that inclusive tutoring is not just an educational practice but a social mechanism that redefines power relations and support structures in contemporary universities. Therefore, this study aims to explore tutoring as an interactive space where new inclusive practices are negotiated and constructed.

Moriña, A., & Biagiotti, G. (2021). Academic success factors in university students with disabilities: A systematic review. European Journal of Special Needs Education, 37(5), 729-746.

Schön, D. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner. Jossy Bass.

Terraneo, M., & Tognetti Bordogna, M. (2021). Disabilità e società: Inclusione, autonomia, aspirazioni. FrancoAngeli.

Van Manen, M. (1993). The tact of teaching: The meaning of pedagogical thoughtfulness. State University of New York Press.

ABSTRACT. Qualitative interviews have been a core technique of sociological methods for generations, providing essential insights on how subjects experience the world around them. As digital technologies now pervade everyday life, particularly the lives of young people, new opportunities have emerged to adapt traditional in-depth interview techniques through the use of these technologies in the course of interviewing study participants. Video provides an especially promising pathway for sociological research as the use of TikTok, YouTube, and other video-based platforms become routinely integrated into everyday activities. Yet, rather than be reactive to content posted on social media platforms, scholars have an opportunity to more proactively integrate video into sociological research. This paper describes a novel approach involving the integration of video-based experience sampling techniques to adapt qualitative in-depth interviews that focus on the experience of specific social events. By incorporating brief video data captured systematically through smart-phone apps designed for experience sampling into qualitative interviews, such techniques can not only invigorate the interview process, but also help scholars move beyond certain challenges of traditional qualitative interviews. In this paper, we describe the processes and procedures for conducting these video-augmented qualitative interviews as well as highlight how the approach may enhance opportunities for qualitative analysis and minimize certain limitations of traditional qualitative interviews. While traditional in-depth interviews are likely to remain at the core of qualitative sociological inquiry, video-based experience sampling techniques may be especially useful for qualitative interviews about behavior and experiences that occur during specific events or discrete moments of time.

ABSTRACT. Oral History Photography is a participatory research-creation methodology that fuses oral history and photography into an integrated process of meaning-making. The research process itself is not neutral; it is shaped by ongoing negotiation, where researcher subjectivity, participant agency, and the broader methodological framework interact in complex ways. This presentation examines how these elements interact in the construction of meaning within Oral History Photography. It explores the ways in which visual and narrative forms influence one another, the challenges of balancing aesthetic and ethical responsibilities, and the complexities of representing lived experience in ways that account for its fluidity and relational nature, while also recognizing the interpretive role of both researcher and participant. It considers how participatory research-creation engages with questions of agency, power, and representation, highlighting the tensions that arise when shaping what is seen, told, and ultimately understood.

Oral History Photography operates within participatory research-creation, requiring critical reflection on the responsibilities researchers hold in constructing meaning. This presentation argues that beyond ethical considerations, participatory research-creation requires actively navigating relational dynamics, negotiating power, and making interpretive choices that shape meaning—processes that directly influence research outcomes and the ways in which knowledge is produced.

ABSTRACT. This paper examines how creative methods, drawing on innovative arts-based and design-based approaches, can be employed in a multidisciplinary classroom to enhance student’s critical literacies regarding the role of technology in society. There is currently growing interest for creative methods for researchers (Kara, 2020) such as drawing, storytelling, photography, autoethnography and speculative design. Much focus has been on how these methods are used for social and artistic research. This article argues, however, that we can also use creative approaches to develop critical, imaginative, and playful pedagogical methods to enhance students’ understanding of technology by “inspiring new ways of thinking, making, doing, teaching and learning” (Lupton & Leahy, 2021: 1) This paper aims to explore how a pedagogical approach to prompting sustained critical digital literacies can be facilitated by trying out different methods in educational settings. The term critical literacies refer to the use of communication and knowledge tools to analyze, critique, and transform the norms, rule systems, and practices governing the social fields of everyday life (Luke, 2004). This is concerned with how society and politics are structured and work to one’s advantage or disadvantage (Kellner 1995) and how issues of ideology, bodies, power, and gender produce various cultural artifacts (McRobbie 1997). From a feminist pedagogical perspective, critical literacy focuses on how cultural texts and artifacts function to produce certain relations of power and gender, class, race, and generational identities that students may learn to use or resist as part of their everyday experiences. This contribution draws insights from a set of pedagogical experiments conducted in Norway, Denmark, the UK and France over several years, involving more than 500 young adults that consisted of using creative methods in classrooms and workshops. Some of the creative, multimethod pedagogical activities were designed to train students to develop self-reflexivity about their own digital media production and consumption (Markham, 2018; Markham & Pronzato, 2023), and critical consciousness about systems of power in which one is embedded, and which one is also complicit. Others encouraged participants to comprehend interactions between systems, or infrastructure of technologies, including algorithms, interfaces, platform design mechanism, devices. It involved getting students to map relations between social, cultural, economic, and political contexts in which technologies operate. Participants engage in activities like observing, making fieldnotes, drawing, sketching, sensing, storytelling, designing, and multimodal analysis. Such approaches are important because the complexities of today’s world and the increasingly diverse areas in which people in disciplines like anthropology, media, design, engineering, and computing, intervene require rethinking the curriculum in these at the higher education level. As in all other professions involved with technology production, the curriculum of in some of these disciplines is built around developing bachelors and master’s students’ practical experience and introducing them to professions where they would later become designers of services, systems, products, and interactions. By producing artifacts, systems and infrastructures, they would inadvertently be shaping cultural meaning and social futures. The article argues for the need for developing a broad range of critical, analytical and conceptual skills related to the social, cultural, and economic context of technology integration alongside advanced skills in their specialties. Incorporate critical literacies into the curriculum as an important step in adequately preparing students for future societal challenges in their various roles as professionals, citizens, producers and consumers.

References Kara, H. (2020). Creative research methods: A practical guide (2nd ed.). Bristol: Policy Press. Luke, A. 2004. Two takes on the critical. In B. Norton and K. Toohey (eds.), Critical Pedagogies and Language Learning, 21-31, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Luke, A. 2012. Critical Literacy: Foundation Notes. Theory into Practice, 51.1: 4-11. Lupton, D., & Leahy, D. (2021). Thinking, making, doing, teaching and learning: bringing creative methods into health education. In Creative Approaches to Health Education (pp. 1-13). Routledge. McRobbie, A. (1997). Back to reality? Social experience and cultural studies. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. Markham, A. N. (2018). Critical pedagogy as a response to datafication. Qualitative Inquiry. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800418809470 Markham, A., & Pronzato, R. (2023). A critical (theory) data literacy: Tales from the field. Information and Learning Sciences. https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/ILS-06-2023-0087/full/html New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66: 60-92.

ABSTRACT. Reflections on the objectives and characteristics of research have expanded the methodological landscape, fostering the integration of techniques that adopt diverse expressive languages. In particular, the adoption of participatory and creative methodologies allows for a deeper exploration of social phenomena, offering new perspectives (Giorgi, Pizzolati, Vacchelli 2021). This paper examines the use of Collaborative Filmmaking, a visual and participatory technique (Baumann 2020), within a project line dedicated to adoption, as part of the FORTIES project—an interdisciplinary research into parental well-being in contexts of late and latest-late fertility in Italy. The objective is to explore the specificities, critical issues and useful resources in the complex adoption process. In this context, Collaborative Filmmaking actively involved participants in the co-definition and co-production of research outcomes, providing an emic perspective on adoptive experiences. The research included approximately 30 video interviews with adoptive couples and professionals in the field (psychologists, social workers, etc.). The collected material will be used to co-create a documentary on adoption, currently in production, ensuring the direct involvement of interviewees. The use of this research technique aims to bring out participants' knowledge of the phenomenon through a bottom-up approach, fostering their empowerment and agency while encouraging reflection on the researcher's role (Decataldo, Russo 2022). This method minimizes the researcher's observational bias, facilitating a participatory reworking of emerging themes and amplifying insider voices. The production of participatory films extends the impact of research beyond academia, raising public awareness and highlighting the most sensitive stages of the adoption process while considering the regulatory framework and parental welfare policies in Italy. This study also delves into the ethical challenges of participatory research, including power dynamics, representation, and data ownership. Through the analysis of methodology and preliminary findings, this contribution aims to reflect on the scientific and communicative potential of these specific research approaches. ________________ Baumann, S. E., Lhaki, P., & Burke, J. G. (2020) Collaborative filmmaking: A participatory, visual research method. Qual. Health Res., 30(14), 2248-2264 Decataldo, A., Russo, C. (2022) Metodologia e tecniche partecipative. La ricerca sociologica al tempo della complessità. Pearsons. Giorgi, A., Pizzolati, M., Vacchelli, E. (2021) Metodi creativi per la ricerca sociale. Contesto, pratiche e strumenti. Il Mulino.

ABSTRACT. With big tech becoming increasingly dominant across politics, economics and culture, it may seem as if pathways to future technologised societies are pre-determined. Top-down, proprietary visions that celebrate the potential roles of AI, ML, immersive and robotic technologies in widescale digital transformation are supported and promoted by nation states and international companies. Methodologically, academic research tends to approach such visions as sociotechnical imaginaries, analysing policy documents and media representations and conducting ethnographically informed research (e.g. Jasanoff and Kim 2015). Such work is necessary to better understand how future imaginaries are constructed and framed and how visions are materialised in practice. However, what is also required are new methods for imagining and making better futures. In this paper, we examine the roles of community technologies in future-making through a collaboration between a university researcher and Knowle West Media Centre (KWMC), an arts centre and charity, located in a post-war council estate, Bristol, UK, facing many social injustices.

First, drawing on work on utopia as method (Levitas 2013) and collective, yet differentiated, people-centred ‘ustopias’ (Benjamin 2023), we examine how academic researchers may not only study future imaginaries but actively cultivate them. Second, we argue community tech – broadly, technology built with, by and for communities – offers much potential for making futures. Working with community tech can centre those marginalised from designing and implementing (big) tech, facilitating bottom-up futures that work for them. We focus on the co-development and deployment of creative visual methods to produce and materialise images of better futures in engaging, inclusive ways. We discuss some of our collaborative work to date, including experimenting with hybrid technologies at a community festival, a working group on community tech futures, public programming and an exhibition on KWMC’s rich array of work on empowering learning, community storymaking, data publics and making real.

ABSTRACT. Methodological reflections on participatory research often focus primarily on the role of the researcher, emphasizing the importance of sharing power and fostering genuine co-production of knowledge. However, less attention is given to the role of other social actors, such as stakeholders and epistemic communities (Marcus, 2000; Rappaport, 2008), in shaping the research process and its outcomes. Community-driven research carries the same risks as researcher-led approaches: it can reproduce stigma, reinforce hierarchies among participants, and fail to engage key local actors essential to understanding the phenomenon being studied (Kennelly, 2018). This paper critically examines the methodological challenges of participatory research, questioning the assumption that community-driven approaches inherently lead to more inclusive and equitable outcomes. While participatory methodologies aim to decentralize research authority, they can also create imbalances in representation, privileging certain voices over others. The negotiation of power within participatory frameworks extends beyond the researcher-participant relationship and requires scrutiny of how epistemic communities and stakeholders influence knowledge production. We examine these dynamics by engaging with the existing literature and case studies on participatory methodologies across different research contexts, highlighting instances where community-driven initiatives have inadvertently reinforced exclusionary practices. Building on this discussion, we present an empirical study conducted in an Italian city with people who use drugs, where a community-driven research approach aimed to involve both PWUD and local residents in shaping urban policies. This example illustrates how pre-existing stigmas persisted within the research process despite efforts to decentralize knowledge production. By examining these challenges, we propose methodological strategies that enhance inclusivity while mitigating the risks of epistemic dominance. This discussion contributes to broader debates on qualitative multimodal research, ethics, and the complexities of achieving meaningful collaboration in participatory inquiry.

ABSTRACT. Housing related conflicts have intensified due to declining public investment, public housing deterioration, and housing policies' financialisation. These dynamics have fueled debates on affordability, social inequality, and the balance between housing as a right and as a market-driven service. This contribution is part of an ongoing PhD research project which focuses on the conflictual relationships between different actors locally and variously involved in occupations issues. All processes, including those resorting to repression, those practising the squats and those evolving in dialogical and collaborative relationships, manifest a high degree of conflict. Indeed, actors’ identities and actions always go through tensions and threats, which eventually contribute to the shaping of the local housing welfare system. The research integrates perspectives from welfare institutions, social movements, and civil society studies through an organisational theory approach. The methodology consists of adopting a mixed-methods approach within a comparative case study design. The combination of document analysis, semi-structured interviews, social network analysis, and participatory techniques help define the shared sphere of action among local actors, revealing how they perceive threats and experience them. Additionally, the study examines how organizations envisioned housing welfare scenarios, exploring the role of conflicts in shaping their desired welfare system and the strategies they developed to make it concrete. The use of participatory techniques highlights the role of emotions and expectations in shared scenarios, which traditional qualitative approaches may struggle to capture. The contribution aims at reflecting on participatory research and representation, especially focusing on the potentialities of techniques such as the photo voice or the production of artifacts. Additionally, the challenges of conducting fieldwork in conflictual contexts marked by power asymmetries and resource struggles will be examined through engagement with other conference participants.

ABSTRACT. In recent decades, infrastructure and public health initiatives in several Western countries have been downsized and privatized (Roscoe et al., 2021; Price et al., 2024). This neoliberal shift in policy has impacted patients access to care and the workload of healthcare professionals, who must deal with heavier shifts, higher patient volumes, and requests of greater individual responsibility (Wichterich, 2020). In this context, emotional labour has become a key dimensions of healthcare workers’ experiences (Whiley and Grandy, 2022), who are required to manage their emotions and expressions to meet job demands (Zhang et al., 2021), risking poor health outcomes (Roh et al., 2016; Kim and Choo, 2017). Interestingly, these challenges frequently stem from implicit, internalized rules within professional environments and cultural contexts (Moretti and Pronzato, 2024). In this contribution, we outline a creative method for investigating the multifaceted, embodied and complex ways in which emotional labour is experienced by healthcare professionals. Through Delphi technique, we have anchored a collective discussion with selected groups in which we use prompts, structured interviews, and body mapping techniques to support healthcare professionals to explore and reflect on their lived emotional experiences. Specifically, we involved 20 healthcare professionals, located in Italy, to favour the production of visual, discursive, performative self-narratives. Bodymapping raised the attention on the individuals’ experiences and perceptions of emotional labour, reflecting on how the regulation and management of emotions in healthcare is visualized and is shaped by social dynamics, working conditions and professional life. Particularly, the storytelling flow highlights the embodied and taken-for-granted aspects of emotional labour and the necessity to shed light on how these elements affect professionals’ bodies, feelings, and activities. This arts-based study sheds lights on how a creative method could be used as a self-reflexive, informative and supportive tools in the complex field of healthcare.

ABSTRACT. This discussion originates from an ethnographic research conducted between March 2022 and October 2023 on vulvodynia. The research unfolded through two Participatory Action Research methodologies: the creation of an artifact (collage or drawing) representing a body part significant in the experience of the illness, and the Identity Box (Brown, 2019), creating a symbolic path composed of objects narrating the body perception from the onset of pain. The common denominator of suffering shortened the time needed for trust to form, which would otherwise have been required. Conducting participatory and creative research means leaving room for the participants to maneuver allowing participants to feel like co-authors of the work (Moretti, 2022). The objects and drawings become the why of the research. Pain was transferred from the abstract world to the concrete one, resisting the death of language (Scarry, 1990). The panel will focus on how useful it is to invoke creative methodologies to investigate health discrimination. Bearing in mind that pain has no objective references in the concrete world (Scarry, 1990), how functional does it become to question that same abstract material by shaping something that is concrete by nature? Vulvodynia is an unrecognized and invisibilized chronic pain condition by the Italian State. The will not to see manifests through acts of invisibilization: at the levels of rights, social body, and existential space (Ramsay, 2019). Objects take on new roles, losing their essence to embody symbolic power and existence. A postcard to express the dyagnostic delay, a yoga mat to discuss therapeutic taming, a drawing to accept pain, and an elastic band to maintain the balance of a suffering body. If objects speak of Us (Miller, 2008), then interrogating them diversifies the experience of narrating the body, allowing it to exist and thus becoming a story Not to pass on (Morrison, 2013).

ABSTRACT. This paper illustrates the potential of collaborative poetic inquiry to disrupt hegemonic power relations in migration studies by platforming the subaltern knowledge of postcolonial migrant groups. It draws on preliminary findings from fieldwork in Lisbon for my doctoral research, which explores how Lusophone immigrants recount and resist persisting colonial discourse and dynamics in present-day Portugal. Constituting over half of all voluntary immigrants in the country, Lusophone immigrants are those who originate from countries formerly colonised by Portugal. As both economic migrants and postcolonial subjects, they hold a uniquely vulnerable position in Portugal’s sociopolitical landscape, being targets for national narratives that glorify colonial history and oppose increasing immigration, often simultaneously. I place Lusophone immigrants’ narratives at the centre of inquiry through an innovative co-creative methodology that combines collaborative poetry workshops with unstructured follow-up interviews. In three two-hour workshops run in collaboration with Lisbon-based immigration NGO Casa do Brasil de Lisboa, participants are first introduced to the basics of poetry and provided with prompts and activities to inspire their writing. Participants then submit their poem(s) at the interview stage, having the opportunity to expand on the writing process and overall experience. Virtually unexplored within the social sciences, this approach to poetic inquiry extends beyond the usual researcher-led poetic re-presentations of participant narratives by enabling the involvement of participants in research “as (co-)writers of poems based on their experiences” (Manning, 2018). In doing so, it edges toward the deconstruction of Western methodological and epistemological traditions used to explore and explain the experiences of subalternised migrants in the global North. In line with the focus of this panel, my paper takes an arts-based, participant-centric approach to offer insight into postcolonial immigration to Portugal – the European nation with the longest experience of colonialism –, and the related social implications, notably race-based inequality and exclusion.

ABSTRACT. The historical center of Naples, traditionally home to working-class communities, is undergoing gentrification driven by tourism demand and real estate speculation, leading to a dramatic rise in rents. This has displaced low-income groups, including queer individuals, who face heightened challenges in finding affordable living spaces due to economic precariousness and social discrimination. In response to the housing crisis, queer cohousing in Naples offers an inclusive space for resistance, aiming to create alternative forms of living that challenge gentrification through shared rental and solidarity. We present a collaborative autoethnography of Casa Gold, a queer cohousing project involving three individuals from diverse backgrounds: a precarious researcher, a gender studies PhD student, and a street educator psychologist. Our choice to live together stems from a desire to build a safe, inclusive refuge that resists gentrification and marginalization. This research adopts arts-based methods, including collages, paintings, photographs, and performance art (e.g., sketches and lipsyncs), to explore the house as a safe space for queer people. These visual and performative expressions, shared on the Instagram account @casa.gold69, form the empirical foundation of our study. In this work, art is not reduced to standard performances or representational acts, but emerges as a liberatory, expressive force intertwined with queerness. By engaging with creative practices, we give voice to embodied experiences, subverting conventional narratives of housing while envisioning an ideal queer living space. These arts-based methods provide a means to understand space, identity, and belonging in ways that challenge dominant socio-economic frameworks, allowing us to capture the transformative potential of collective and creative forms of resistance.

ABSTRACT. The extant literature in the field of Survivor Studies has focused primarily on the experiences of psychological and physical abuse related to psychiatric mental health service users (Faulkner, 2017; Shimrat, 2021), while some contributions have analysed the biographical trajectory of survivors of sexual abuse (Maltz, 2012; Domhardt et al., 2015). However, to the best of the author's knowledge, there is an absence of literature addressing the experiences of disabled survivors. Within this epistemological framework, the autoethnography (Adams et al., 2016; Gariglio, 2017; 2018) of the first speaker aims to explore her own embodied experience as a disabled survivor of violence, and the collaborative experience of the second speaker, which aims to explore experiences of violence among survivors with and without disabilities, is a natural fit. In light of these challenges, the primary researcher opted to employ visual elements, namely comic strips and illustrations, to facilitate a more efficacious depiction of her internal landscape and the experiences of violence she endured, in comparison to conventional textual methods. This approach has proven to be particularly fruitful in circumventing the difficulties encountered with the autoethnographic method and in accounting for experiences that are impossible to narrate otherwise. In the second research experience documented here, the second author employs visual methods, including comic strips and drawings, to facilitate a collaborative autoethnography and to engage with women living with disabilities who have experienced violence. In this particular instance, the utilisation of visual methods not only served as a medium for eliciting information but also as a conduit for co-constructing narratives.

The objective of this contribution is to initiate a critical reflection on the limits of the autoethnographic approach with respect to the narration of traumatic experiences - especially in survivors of violence - and to offer some possible solutions.

ABSTRACT. The arts have gained prominence in the methodology of social sciences, challenging standard research through creative and participatory method to engage - in a symbolic alternative space - subaltern voices within an 'ethics of care' framework (Moralli 2024). In relation to the issue of migration, the arts have emerged as a practice capable of generating new intercultural perspectives and counter-narratives (Colombo et al. 2011), thus changing structures of power and domination. Linked to this trend, and also considering the relevance of arts in educational contexts, our paper aims to present the results collected within the research project "The Cultural Literacies' Value in Europe" (Horizon-Clivie), which aims to understand the role of arts in educational settings to promote inclusion, especially in contexts of structural inequalities. The target group are young people (10-18 years old) who experience multiple disadvantages in terms of migrant background and socio-economic status. In particular, we present results from two cases of non-formal educational settings - Spazio Pontano 43/Tempo per l'Infanzia and FormatArt - located in peripheral and multiculturally conflicted districts of Milan (Corvetto and via Padova), which promote arts-based activities targeted at young people. Adopting a multicultural lens (Camozzi 2019), through participant observation and interviews, the research team investigated how two selected arts-based educational projects developed by these organisations promote the emergence of emotions, representations and conflictual values among young people experiencing social injustice in everyday life. Furthermore, participants were involved in constructing an emotional collective mapping in the form of the emotional cartography (Mekdjian 2015) in a relational and participatory space (Nunn 2022) to explore issues of inequality related to the multicultural context in which they live. Finally, ethical issues related to the involvement of minors are addressed, along with a reflection on the role of the researchers in constructing an inclusive community for the participants.

ABSTRACT. Carnival can be seen as a powerful learning tool, where art serves as a methodology for building knowledge. By bringing together music, dance, theater, history and cultural identity, it becomes a dynamic space for teaching and social transformation. Samba school parades are real lessons in Brazilian history and political formation, because they tell rich narratives about historical events, important figures, social struggles and aspects of national culture. From the creation of the samba-enredo to the performance on the avenue, these performances function as a form of popular education, teaching and raising awareness among millions of people. In this sense, carnival is also an educational process, originating from the popular classes, a process that involves issues such as research and historical memory - samba schools build plots based on historical, cultural and social themes, identity and belonging - carnival values popular knowledge, promoting the recognition of African, indigenous and European heritages, and political education and social criticism - many plots denounce inequalities and social problems, such as racism, poverty and corruption.Art in Carnival enables teaching in a playful and accessible way. Teachers and educational institutions can use Carnival as an interdisciplinary theme, connecting art, history, literature and sociology, promoting learning in an engaging way. Samba schools go far beyond Carnival: they are true educational and transformative institutions, playing an essential role in the cultural, social and political formation of their communities. Through art, teaching and the valorization of national identity, these schools create learning spaces. The parades are also political manifestations that recover forgotten histories, denounce injustices and celebrate popular resistance.

ABSTRACT. This study introduces both a conceptual and empirical approach to the analysis of demographic literacy. We define demographic literacy as a distinct and autonomous construct, separate from other forms of literacy such as numerical, informational, and financial. Methodologically, we contribute to the measurement of demographic knowledge by proposing innovative indicators specifically focused on population aging. We rely on a survey conducted by Ipsos for Osservatorio Senior and Astra Ricerche. It was conducted in Italy from 29 November to 14 December 2023, using the probabilistic panel of Ipsos, and the CAWI technique. The survey is based on a random stratified sample of N=1575 individuals aged between 20 and 69. It applies trimmed weighting on occupational status and gender, education, and age, as well as geographical area. Through an empirical analysis that relies on a Machine Learning (ML) technique, i.e. Random Forests (RF), we identify key predictors of demographic literacy in Italy, offering new insights into its determinants and potential implications.

ABSTRACT. Recent advancements in Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning (ML) have facilitated the release of numerous Artificial Intelligence (AI) models. A growing body of work, motivated both by scrutiny of these models’ inherent biases and limitations and by interest in their practical applications, can now be classified as model inspection. This approach involves administering social research techniques such as tests, quizzes, tasks, and questionnaires to AI models in order to inspect and analyse their behaviour, in a similar fashion to auditing and methods used for Explainable AI. Although the volume of contributions in this domain has increased, they originate from varied sources and often lack standardization. Methodological guidance for social scientists remains notably absent, prompting the introduction of a unifying framework for AI model inspection. This framework proposes a typology bridging the classical distinction between discriminative and generative models and more recent hybrid models, with emphasis on downstream model testing, specific tasks, intrinsic and extrinsic testing, and input/output data modalities. Modern ML algorithms and the systems in which they are implemented each exhibit distinct characteristics that inform methodological challenges for social research. These challenges can be addressed through a range of methods at different levels: it’s possible to distinguish them as part of applied, system-wide, and sociotechnical approaches. This typology can support design at any of these levels by accounting for the research object’s properties and affordances. Techniques, case studies, and ongoing research pertaining to select classes within this typology are discussed, drawing on fields ranging from computer science to auditing, psychology, and consumer studies. Advantages and challenges of these applications are explored, highlighting the need for caution in research design and the interpretation of results.

ABSTRACT. This study explores the methodological challenges of using machine learning (ML) for public sentiment analysis in social research, focusing on digital reactions to the UnitedHealthcare Affair. Using data from Google Trends, Bluesky, Reddit, and YouTube, we employ natural language processing (NLP) techniques, including sentiment analysis and emotion detection via transformer-based models (BERT, DistilRoBERTa). Our analysis investigates how platform affordances influence sentiment dynamics and engagement patterns, raising key methodological questions about algorithmic bias, model validity, and cross-platform generalizability. We preprocess textual data using tokenization, lemmatization, and stopword removal before applying sentiment classification models such as VADER and transformer-based neural networks. Emotion detection employs models trained on Ekman’s six emotions, allowing for a nuanced understanding of how anger, fear, and sadness evolve over time. Our findings reveal that sentiment polarization increases even as overall engagement declines, particularly on platforms with constrained post lengths. Comparative analysis highlights systematic differences in sentiment expression, with YouTube fostering neutral discourse due to its journalistic content, while Bluesky amplifies emotional reactions through its microblogging format. Methodological challenges include biases in pre-trained models, limitations in irony detection, and disparities in sentiment annotation across platforms. Additionally, the time-lag effect between search trends (Google Trends) and social media engagement suggests that ML models could leverage search query spikes for predictive analysis. We discuss the role of explainable AI (XAI) in enhancing transparency and mitigating ethical concerns related to black-box algorithms. This study contributes to the advancement of ML methodologies in social sciences by critically assessing model reliability and ethical considerations. We propose an interdisciplinary approach that integrates ML with qualitative methods to improve sentiment classification accuracy, reduce bias, and enhance the interpretability of digital public discourse analysis.

ABSTRACT. Digital Twin technology consists of virtual replicas of physical systems that integrate real-time data, simulations, and predictive analytics to model urban environments. By providing data-driven representations of cities, Digital Twins are becoming tools for urban planning, infrastructure management, and decision-making processes. Their adoption intersects with governance structures and raises various social, economic, and political implications that extend beyond their technical functionalities. These governance models intersect with a wide range of social issues, highlighting the importance of analyzing them through social science frameworks. One of the most relevant approaches in this context is narrative analysis, which helps uncover perceptions, expectations, and challenges related to the implementation of Digital Twins. Analyzing discourses enables the identification of development, application, and management perspectives, as well as the implications highlighted by key actors involved in disseminating information about this technology. This study examines statements from certified information sources collected through the Factiva database, leveraging advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning tools. The integration of AI-powered methods allows for the identification of recurring patterns and emerging topics within public discussions on urban Digital Twins. This approach highlights aspects of particular relevance to social sciences that might otherwise remain hidden, providing deeper insights into the adoption dynamics and the narratives shaping the debate around this technology. We argue that this combined use of narrative analysis and AI-powered methods presents an innovative opportunity to explore the relationship between this urban technology and society. This is particularly relevant because discourses and ideas not only shape public debate but also influence the development trajectories of these models, the affordances of these emerging technologies, and provide insight into their future directions.

ABSTRACT. The exponential rise of generative open-source AI technologies, particularly Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and its advanced variants, offers promising opportunities for methodological innovation in systematic literature reviews (SLRs). This study presents a systematic review of over 600 scientific publications from the past five years, focusing specifically on the application of indirect questioning techniques (IQTs) in surveys addressing sensitive topics. The review leverages state-of-the-art Large Language Models (LLMs) integrated with advanced RAG techniques, which optimize data retrieval through memory-enhanced algorithms, thereby streamlining literature screening, thematic coding, and information extraction processes. Key research questions addressed include: (1) What types of IQTs are currently in use? (2) Which research topics employ IQTs? (3) Which disciplines apply IQTs? (4) What differences in prevalence exist between direct and indirect questioning methods? (5) What potential biases are associated with IQTs? We conducted a comparative methodological analysis to evaluate whether advanced RAG-enhanced LLMs can match the performance of traditional human coding. This study explores the potential of these AI systems to accelerate literature reviews and process large-scale textual data, as well as the areas where human coders excel in capturing subtle, context-dependent nuances and interpretative complexities. Ultimately, this investigation provides critical insights into the capabilities and limitations of generative AI in social research methodologies.

ABSTRACT. Generative AI for image creation emerges as a staple in the toolkit of digital artists, visual designers, and the general public. Social media users have many tools to shape their visual representation: image editing tools, filters, face masks, face swaps, avatars, and AI-generated images. The importance of the right profile image can not be understated: It is crucial for creating the right first impression, sustains trust, and enables communication. Conventionally correct representation of individuals, groups, and collectives may help foster inclusivity, understanding, and respect in society, ensuring that diverse perspectives are acknowledged and valued. While previous research revealed the biases in large image datasets such as ImageNet and inherited biases in the AI systems trained on it, within this work, we look at the prejudices and stereotypes as they emerge from textual prompts used for generating images on Discord using the StableDiffusion model. We analyze over 1.8 million prompts depicting men and women and use statistical methods to uncover how prompts describing men and women are constructed and what words constitute the portrayals of respective genders. We show that the median male description length is systematically shorter than the median female description length, while our findings also suggest a shared practice of prompting regarding the word length distribution. The topic analysis suggests the existence of classic stereotypes in which men are described using dominant qualities such as "strong" and "rugged". In contrast, women are represented with concepts related to body and submission: "beautiful", "pretty", etc. These results highlight the importance of the original intent of the prompting and suggest that cultural practices on platforms such as Discord should be considered when designing interfaces that promote exploration and fair representation.

ABSTRACT. The term 'radicalization' has emerged as a focal point of intense scrutiny within both the media and scholarly domains. Nevertheless, for nearly a decade, numerous scholars have highlighted the profound empirical deficiencies characteristic of the radicalization research domain, which predominantly relies on secondary data and theoretical frameworks. Contemporary scholarship has certainly begun to bridge the empirical chasm within radicalization studies. But, in the wake of a 'reflexive turn' prompted by the rise of post-positivism and concurrent calls for the decolonization of the social sciences which urge researchers to introspectively evaluate their positionality and privilege and to scrutinize their potential complicity in perpetuating gendered and racial hierarchies, epistemological inquiries remain scarce within the domains of radicalization and terrorism studies. Particularly concerning is the lack of critical engagement with positionality in a research area where respondents are often male, racialized, and from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Our research that draws on a discontinued 18-month empirical inquiry in jails with detainees condemned for terrorism or labelled as radicalized by the penal institution endeavors to fill this gap by elaborating on the negotiation processes we displayed to access detention centers, analyzing the ramifications of surveillance and detention protocols on our investigative processes, and discussing the methodological and reflective recalibrations undertaken in our research project. Finally, we discuss the difficulties we encounter regarding the restitution of our results without instrumentalizing and compromizing our participants.

ABSTRACT. Foreign Information Manipulation and Suppression (FIMI) refers to a pattern of actions, often not illegal, that can undermine or negatively influence political values and processes. It is a strategy employed by various governments and has become increasingly common in global emergencies and conflicts. For example, Russia has used FIMI to manipulate public opinion and justify its aggression during the invasion of Ukraine, while China deployed similar tactics during the COVID-19 pandemic (EEAS, 2023). As part of a recent wave of transdisciplinary research, the Horizon RESONANT project – which includes the Department of Sociology and Business Law at the University of Bologna as a partner – seeks to examine the information manipulation and interference carried out by non-European state and non-state actors, focusing on the impacts these actions have on specific target groups, such as diaspora communities in Europe. In this context, interviews with members of the diaspora from authoritarian states have immediately highlighted the potential physical or psychological risks for the participants or their families, should the authoritarian governments become aware of their participation in the project and/or the views expressed during the interviews. Simultaneously, similar risks and consequent precautions should also be considered for researchers. Therefore, how to address the risks for both researcher and social units involved in research while preserving anonymity and safety online or offline, in the fieldwork and during research? To balance scientific rigor and flexibility, the project has implemented measures such as confidentiality declarations, interviews conducted by experts adhering to data minimization principles to prevent incidental findings, transparency regarding research benefits, clear communication of participants' right to withdraw, and the avoidance of involving participants dependent on project partners, all as part of informed consent procedures to ensure participant safety. Accordingly, with the aim of investigating the complex dynamics between individual behavior, European democracies, and autocratic regimes, as well as navigating, anticipating, and mitigating risks to both research participants and the processing of personal data, the talk aims to collectively discuss the detailed set of ethical recommendations adopted to evaluate its effectiveness and/or possible implementation.

ABSTRACT. Assisted Voluntary Return (AVR) programs are legal-administrative tools designed to facilitate the return of migrants to their countries of origin. However, migrants often perceive them as mechanisms of migration control, and sometimes even as deportation instruments (Leerkers et al., 2017). The concepts of voluntariness and assistance are problematic, as migrants participating in these programs are often in situations of structural vulnerability that limit their choices (Webber, 2011; Carling, 2020). Given these critical issues, evaluating the impact of AVR programs shouldn’t be reduced to a purely accountability-based approach. Migration policies, more broadly, need to be analyzed in close connection with individual trajectories and transnational dynamics, which constantly redefine social identities and affiliations. These dynamics influence the motivations and decisions related to departure, as well as return and reintegration in the countries of origin (Donato, 2023). Based on the empirical evidence gathered from analyzing data obtained through a survey of key informants involved in AVR programs, interviewed as part of the “We Propose” project (www.wepropose.it/en), the need for impact evaluation approaches that go beyond purely quantitative indicators becomes clear. Instead, evaluative tools should be grounded in the direct experiences of returnees and the actors involved. Such an approach allows for an understanding of the interactions between individual and transnational factors, providing a more nuanced view of return and reintegration processes. In particular, analyzing the perceptions of returnees emerges as a key element for assessing the effectiveness of AVR programs. This approach allows us to move beyond a purely administrative perspective and recognize return as a socially negotiated process. A multidimensional approach, based on inclusive and participatory methodologies, could support more sustainable and context-sensitive reintegration processes. To this end, however, it is essential to directly involve not only the returnees but also key stakeholders — including policymakers, third-sector organizations, and civil society — in order to gather diverse perspectives and critical evaluations.

ABSTRACT. What is the role of academic communication and dissemination in sociological research on migration? What challenges arise when researching sensitive topics, vulnerable populations, and media narratives? The PRIN-PNRR Project, "We Propose. Processes, Policies, and Networks in Support of Women’s Returnees to Tunisia and Morocco," explores the journeys of female returnees, examining the underlying success and failure factors behind their desire to return, with a focus on migrant women’s agency. The project includes artistic communication and dissemination activities as an integral part, providing an opportunity to reflect, both ethically and methodologically, on contemporary ways of highlighting the thoughts and perspectives of the women involved in the research, through interviews and focus groups. Ongoing exchange and collaboration among the three Research Units involved (LUMSA, UNICT, UNIBO) has allowed the research findings to be complemented by communication outcomes from the project’s social media platforms. These outputs are further integrated into a co-created artistic dissemination tool and co-produced guidelines on women migrant entrepreneurship, informed by a postcolonial and feminist approach. The process involves continuous mediation between the limitations and opportunities of public communication in social research on gender migration, raising questions about how academia can contribute to co-creating more fair and accurate narratives. It also seeks to improve understanding of the impact of public policy on migration and its effects on the subjects of the research.

ABSTRACT. The proliferation of digital communities centered on vulnerable and marginalized identities provides sociological research with unprecedented access to processes of identity construction, collective meaning-making, and experiences of stigma and recognition. However, applying computational text analysis to these contexts raises critical methodological and ethical challenges, requiring reflexive approaches that balance analytical scalability with respect for the agency and epistemic positioning of vulnerable populations. This contribution focuses on the Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN) as a strategic case study to evaluate the methodological and ethical risks associated with computational approaches, including Natural Language Processing (NLP), sentiment analysis, and topic modeling. A corpus of over 6,000 user-generated comments was processed through a multi-step sentiment and thematic analysis pipeline, with the goal of identifying recurring emotional patterns, thematic clusters, and shifts in discourse over time. These algorithmic outputs were triangulated with 16 semi-structured interviews conducted with AVEN members to assess the interpretative validity of computational findings and to capture new perspectives overlooked by automated tools. The AVEN case allows us to test the computational techniques performance in analyzing marginalized intersectional identities online and to highlight how algorithmic reductionism risks oversimplifying complex experiences. The paper advocates for a hybrid methodological framework, where computational scalability is combined with participatory validation, fostering a research process that preserves epistemic justice while enhancing analytical rigor when working with vulnerable populations.

ABSTRACT. This paper reflects on the ethical and methodological challenges encountered in the course of the data collection carried out for the project ‚Marginality on the Margins of Europe – The Impact of COVID-19 on Roma Communities in Non-EU Countries in Eastern Europe (2020-2021)’, funded under the UK International Research Development Fund COVID-19 Urgency Call and aiming to carry out rapid research on this topic.

The project collected data from Roma communities across seven non-EU countries during June and July 2020, at the height of pandemic-related restrictions, when vaccines were not yet available. This situation presented the project coordinators with a set of ethical dilemmas and methodological challenges. Local researchers were tasked with carrying out interviews with Roma stakeholders and an online survey with members of Roma communities. Some of the ethical dilemmas encountered had to do with the ‘do no harm’ ethic of empirical research. The risk of contagion – both for the local researcher and the respondents – was always present, even where all precautions were taken. Privacy was often an issue, especially when the surveys had to be conducted by phone (so within earshot of others), due to the lack of internet connection.

Methodological challenges were caused by the overlap between researching vulnerable communities while abiding by pandemic restrictions. The sampling approach used for the survey was snowballing, and by was mostly administered online (by sending the respondent a link). This created several biases, including a socio-economic one (literate owners of mobile phones responded more frequently), a gender bias (women were harder to reach, especially where the household had just one mobile phone), as well as an age bias (the elderly were less accessible). In several cases, due to lack of internet connections, the researchers conducted the survey via phone, complicating the reliability and comparability of the data.

ABSTRACT. This article examines the ethical challenges and risk management strategies employed during qualitative fieldwork conducted in Egypt in 2019 and 2025, amidst an increasingly oppressive political environment hostile to academic research. It presents a framework for implementing dynamic risk assessment and adaptive ethical practices in high-stakes field research settings. The study introduces the concept of the Field Research Risk Escalation Curve, illustrating how risks can increase over time due to expanding sample size, growing sense of security, and increasing data collection temptation. To mitigate these escalating risks, the article emphasises the importance of continuous situational awareness, periodic risk reassessment, and flexible adaptation of research strategies.Key ethical considerations addressed include obtaining informed consent without written documentation, protecting participant anonymity, and managing data securely in a volatile political context. The article argues for a comprehensive approach to risk assessment that considers potential harm not only to the researcher and participants, but also to their extended social networks.The article advocates for institutional support in the form of specialised training for researchers working in oppressive contexts, separate from formal ethics approval processes. This would allow for candid discussion of identified risks and mitigation strategies without jeopardising research access. By sharing strategies for navigating the complex ethical landscape of conducting research in oppressive environments, this article contributes to the ongoing dialogue on balancing academic rigour with participant safety in cross-cultural qualitative research. It underscores the need for continuous ethical reflection and adaptation throughout the research process, from pre-fieldwork planning to post-fieldwork data management and dissemination