Appel à communications: “Classes to Classifications: How new (and old) systems of ranking, scoring, segmentation and matching shape social groups and markets”, Lugano, Suisse

Call for Papers

“Classes to Classifications: How new (and old) systems of ranking, scoring, segmentation and matching shape social groups and markets”

Interim Conference of the Swiss Sociological Association’s Economic Sociology Network

September 4-5, 2025, | Università della Svizzera italiana, Lugano, Switzerland

 

The Economic Sociology Network of the Swiss Sociological Association, in collaboration with the Swiss National Science Foundation project “Social Patterning of Economic Subjectivities and the Digital Transformation of Retail Finance in Switzerland”, invites submissions for its interim conference, held in Lugano, Switzerland, on September 4-5, 2025 at the Università della Svizzera italiana (USI).

This year’s conference theme is “Classes to Classifications: How new (and old) systems of ranking, scoring, segmentation and matching shape social groups and markets”.

We are delighted to welcome Professor Markus Giesler (Schulich School of Business, York University) and Professor Karen Lai (Durham University) as keynote speakers and to host a special session dedicated to the work of Professor Donald MacKenzie (University of Edinburgh), who will be present for this occasion.

Conference Theme

We welcome contributions from sociology, consumer behaviour, science and technology studies, economic geography, organization studies, and related disciplines that engage with the ways in which social groups are shaped by contemporary ranking, scoring, segmentation, and financialization processes. Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

Designing Data Collection, Segmentation, and Matching Infrastructures. A core feature of “the society of algorighms” is the collection and sorting of vast amounts of data and the use of algorithms and AI for analyzing and exploiting them. At the same time, many organizations still rely on older forms of data collection and segmentation, or merely their own intuitions, which nonetheless require their own infrastructure. In this conference, we invite papers that shed light on the social and cultural dimensions of designing, implementing, and managing these diverse infrastructures for data collection, group segmentation, and user matching. How do organizations design and use these infrastructures to create groupings and how do they allocate specific outputs – such as credit scores, advertising contents, and even user experiences – to specific consumers?

Digital Financial Platforms and their Scripts. A specific focus of the conference will be on financial platforms and their use of classifications. How do IT, digital channels, sales, marketing and UX-designers create financial platforms, and what are the challenges and dilemmas of the process? How do other actors – such as laws and regulations, financial models, strategic objectives, and their corresponding organizational units, such as compliance, risk analysists, etc – shape classification practices, including the kinds of classifications that are permissible or required? What kinds of uses and users do (different) platforms encourage, often unintentionally? 

Varieties of the Financialization of Everyday Life. How do different social groups adopt, resist, and interact with digital platforms, devices, and financial technologies? How do these new technologies affect everyday financialization differently across social groups and geographies? What differences can one observe across age, gender, social class – and other social groups “seen” by the algorithm, and what are the implications of these interactions for reinforcing or mitigating social differences and inequalities?

Broader impacts of new digitally powered forms of classification on contemporary societies. What forms of stratification, inequalities, and exclusion and also, inclusion, are created through classifications? Do they tend to be the same across platforms or do digitally empowered forms of classification lead to more complex topographies of exclusion/inclusion? Do such forms of exclusion overlap with traditionally observed forms of exclusion and inequalities in terms of gender, race, social class, or global inequalities?  Do they deepen or flatten existing differences?

Legitimization, Resistance, Regulation. What are the discourses that enable, legitimize, or challenge classifications and their potential effect on social inequalities, particularly in the context of digital platforms and the emergence of new forms of economic subjectivities? How are systems of classification-based matching related to neoliberal responsibilization of consumers? What implications do new classifications have on processes of resistance or collective action? 

Submission Guidelines

To apply, please submit a 300-word abstract along with keywords to economy@sgs-sss.ch by March 31, 2025.

In the submission, please indicate 

• your disciplinary background (e.g., sociology, consumer culture theory, geography, etc.)
• if the paper would be part of the topics above, the special session on Donald MacKenzie’s work, or another topic. 

Notifications of acceptance will be sent in due course.

We look forward to your contributions!

Organizers:
Léna Pellandini-Simanyi (Università della Svizzera italiana)

Philip Balsiger (Université de Neuchâtel)

coordinators of the Swiss Sociological Association’s Economic Sociology Network.

For further inquiries, please contact economy@sgs-sss.ch.

See the Call for Papers here: https://www.digital-transformation.usi.ch/en/dt/participate

 

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