National Conference

 on

Social Work Research: Methodologies of the Peripheralized

Organised by

School of Social Work

Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai

8-9th January 2024

The Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, is one of the premier Institutions of social work education and practice in India. TISS, through its education and research, since 1936, has always responded to the changing social realities while focusing on contributing to  create a ‘people-centred, ecologically sustainable, and  just society’. The Institute ‘over the years, through its research in social work, social sciences, human resources management, health systems and allied fields, has made consistent contributions to public sector, civil society and the development sector and helped shape planning, policy and programme formulation, foster critical rethinking and development of people-centred interventions’. School of Social Work at TISS, initiated in 1936 as the Sir Dorabji Tata Graduate School of Social Work is dedicated to an inclusive and holistic social work education, emphasising theory-practice, research, publication and field action projects. Theorising everyday practice and initiating context based scientific response to field realities is interwoven with the pedagogy, curriculum and practice. To this evidence, the Indian Journal of Social Work which published its first issue in 1940 has a record of uninterrupted publishing for 80 years, and thereby standing strong and robust as a platform for publication and dissemination of knowledge, and nurturing a community of Scholars, Researchers, and Practitioners over these years.

In this backdrop, the School of Social Work is proud to announce a National Conference for Scholars, Researchers and Practitioners in India to foster scientific community, knowledge exchange, mutual learning and academic excellence. We are announcing this National Conference to reflect on our present research work in the light of the Institute's mandate, and the Schools’ academic vision and mission of making education, practice and research intrinsically connected to our response to the emerging social realities continually. At this juncture, the School strongly feels the need to forge new pathways for the future academic research in social work education, and strive to achieve its vision and mission through academic engagement that will lead to building socially grounded academic/scientific community, information sharing, and knowledge exchange across Scholars, Researchers and Practitioners of Schools of Social Work in India.

Aims and Objectives

• To nurture and promote the academic/scientific community of Scholars, Researchers, and Practitioners.
• To unravel and critically engage with cross-cutting areas of social work research - fields of practice, subjects, structures, sectors of development and practice.
• To deliberate and conceptualise theoretical and methodological frameworks suited to social work research.
• To facilitate knowledge exchange across the social work fraternity.
• To advance context based social work education and research in India.

Thematic Focus

The Conference will enter into a dialogical and deliberative engagement on social research and methodologies, and its application in Social Work Education and Practice in the Indian context. True to the disciplinary and Institutional core values of care, solidarity, equity and justice, the Conference will interrogate and encounter the received axiological constructs of social work research methodologies and approaches. The thematic focus, ‘methodologies of the peripheralized’, will act as a ‘frame-of-reference’ for a reflective academic engagement to critically understand the layered dimension of the ‘social worlds’ - ontologies and epistemologies located in the sites of practices across marginalities and vulnerabilities. A greater attempt would be made on conceptualising and visibilizing areas of research, methodologies and publications that would contribute to developing new pathways in researching the social subject/s, the margins, the local, particularities and vulnerabilities. In particular, the Conference is positioned as a theoretico-methodological dialogue of Scholars, Researchers and Practitioners in understanding ‘methodologies of the peripheralized’ (epistemologies of empowerment) connected to the ‘fields of practice’ and ‘social work research’ within the emerging interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary orientations to social research in India.

Subthemes

We are expecting abstracts and full papers either as an original research article, theoretical papers, review papers or commentaries in the fields of social work education and practice on the below mentioned subthemes.

• Research practice in social work - evidence from Field Action Projects and Fields of Practices
• Theoretical-methodological frameworks for margin studies - lens, feminist standpoints, perspectives (decolonial-historical, intersectional), evidence based, context and place based, and culturally sensitive.
• Evidences of social policy evaluation research in social work practice
• Social work interventions through participatory action research
• Researching disabilities and vulnerabilities
• Participatory research methods and practice with child and family
• Researching health, sexuality, gender, women, caste, tribe and identities
• Social Work Research fieldwork process and ethics
• Researching communities and development practice
• Embedding social justice and care, positionality and reflexivity in social work methodology
• Digital and computational methods and applications in social work research
• Emerging areas of social work research - ecology and biodiversity, climate change, livelihood and sustainability, diversity-dialogue, border lives, interstate and transnational migration and refugees.

Participants

• PhD Scholars
• Young Faculties
• Field Practitioners

 Timeline

• The conference is scheduled to take place on the 8-9th of January 2024.
• The last day of abstract submission is 20th November 2023.
• The selected abstracts will be informed by the 22nd of November 2023.
• Registration and Payment deadline on 1st December 2023.
• The initial draft paper submission is scheduled on 5th January 2024.

Submission Guidelines

• An abstract must be succinct, consisting of 300 words, and should be formatted in Times New Roman using a 12-point font size with 1.5 line spacing.
• It should include four to six keywords that serve as an essential description of the research paper.
• It should include personal information: title of the paper, designation, affiliation, Email ID, and contact number.
• Submit the Abstract to conference2024@gmail.com on or before 20th November 2023.
• The total word count for the initial draft paper, including both the abstract and references, should fall within the range of 4000-6000 (Scholars will be given time to strengthen the draft paper after the Conference).
• Citation and references must adhere to the guidelines specified in the 7th APA manual style, and should avoid any plagiarism.
• Submit the initial draft paper to conference2024@gmail.com on or before 5th January 2024.
• Use the following link to submit the abstract: https://forms.gle/xTkCW2u8Lrvx4hcG8
• If you are interested in attending the conference without presenting a paper, please ensure to contact us via email before January 5, 2024.

Outcome of the Conference: The best papers from the Conference will be selected and included in the upcoming publication.

Conference Details

• Accommodation at TISS hostel and food will be provided by the organiser.
• Travel expenditure has to be borned by the participants.
• A nominal registration fee of Rs. 500 will be charged (Details of payment will be provided after acceptance of the paper).
• We welcome online and offline modes of presentations.
• International scholars can participate through online mode.

Faculty Advisory Team

• Bipin Jojo, Dean School of Social Work
• Alex Akhup, SSW Ph.D Coordinator
• Biswaranjan Tripura

Coordinating Team -  PhD Scholars

• Ramachan A. Shimray
• Ankit Kumar Keshri
• Madhavi Kamble
• Sharvari Pawar
• Aditi Mishra
• Rahul Ranjan Raj

Contacts for Queries

Write to us at: tiss.conference2024@gmail.com

Rahul R. Raj: +918828476859

Ramachan A. Shimray: +917086525659