Sociologists Without Borders

Sociologists Without Borders, or Sociólogos Sin Fronteras (SSF), is a public sociology organization. The group's manifesto states that it: "embraces the principle that all humans have inalienable rights to their dignity, their wellbeing, and their agency. As it is, imperialists, commodifiers, warmongers, capitalists, financiers, and global racists have usurped these rights. Sociologists have acquiesced by studying variation in misery and vulnerabilities. Instead, we advocate that sociologists participate, democratically, with others to set standards for human wellbeing and devote our energies to understanding how to achieve these standards."

External links

• Sociologists Without Borders

Founded in Madrid in 2001, Sociologists without Borders/Sociólogos Sin Fronteras has active chapters in Spain, Brazil, Italy and the U.S., with new chapters in Chile, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela. The Spanish and U.S. chapters each has international members. Sociologists without Borders advances a cosmopolitan sociology, the central pedagogical aim of which is to develop a globally inclusive sociological curricula. Its epistemological premise is that human rights and collective goods (including sustainable natural resources and participatory democracy) are two aspects of the same concept. As a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), Sociologists without Borders can be advocates for the oppressed, in the cause of social and economic justice, independently of academic and disciplinary structures. Such structures, sometimes formidable, can constrain sociologists who are committed to scholar-activism or public sociology.

Sociological knowledge is key for the understanding and advance of human rights, and as a foundation for advocating justice and protesting injustice. Human rights include the right to decent employment, social security, education, housing, food security, health care, to cultural, racial, religious, and an ethnic identity, and to sexual preference. Human rights also includes gender equality and the principle that vulnerable groups need special protections. These include children, the aged, the disabled, oppressed racial and ethnic minorities, migrants, and indigenous peoples. That is, the core premise of Sociologists without Borders draws from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) that recognizes “the inherent dignity” and “the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family.”

Human rights are realized with the advance and protection of collective goods, including a sustainable environment, transparent laws and government, public control of natural resources (as a public good or common good), community-based information grids, fair trade, food sovereignty (the rights of farmers and fishers to manage their own resources and livelihoods), and participatory democracy. Indeed, a just society and human rights are themselves collective goods because they are indivisible and inclusive.

While its framework might seem utopian, Sociologists without Borders provides a unique vantage point on a world in crisis: imperial wars, civil strife, diminishing environmental resources, epidemics, and the growing gap between the Global North and the Global South. What this pessimistic account leaves out, and what Sociologists without Borders stresses, is that there are growing interdependencies and solidarities around the world and these draw not from nation-states but from the enormous capabilities and resourcefulness of ordinary people.

LINKS

     Journal: Societies without Borders is the official journal of Sociologists without Borders.

[1]

Spain chapter:[ http://www.sociologossinfronteras.org/] Brazil’s chapter: [www.forumsocialmundial.org.br] U.S. chapter: [www.sociologistswithoutborders.org]