The Council of National Associations, which is composed of representatives from ISA member countries and affiliated organizations, holds a conference every four years. The first one was held in Miami, Florida in 2005 and Sujata Patel, former ISA Vice-President for National Associations, is publishing a Handbook on Diverse Sociological Traditions based on the papers given there.

The next conference of the Council of National Associations will be held at Academia Sinica in Taipei, March 23-25, 2009. The theme of the conference will be Challenges for Sociology in an Unequal World. Each National Association that is a member of the ISA will be expected to send a representative who will deliver a paper on this theme. In order to obtain funds for the travel and living expenses of representatives from B and C countries as well as living expenses of representatives from A countries, we require submission of preliminary titles and authors (with positions and affiliations) by February 15th, 2008. Send them by email to:

Michael Burawoy Burawoy@Berkeley.edu and
Michelle Fei-yu Hsieh mhsieh17@gate.sinica.edu.tw

Dr Hsieh of Academia Sinica will be helping Dr. Ming-Chang Tsai, the local coordinator, to organize the conference in Taipei. We will need your final paper a year from now, but more about that later.