Social work in turbulent times: Reaching for real utopias

This is a call for abstracts for the critical social work stream at the 2025 annual conference of the Sociology Association of Aotearoa New Zealand, to be held in Wellington, Aotearoa, from 3 to 5 December. We encourage papers based on presentations to be submitted to the journal, and they may be collected in a special issue. The submission date for conference abstracts has been extended till 1st September 2025

This stream calls for papers that explore any aspect of the turbulent times and challenges facing social work and the communities we serve. We are also interested in analyses that advance real utopias: hopeful responses and visions for social equity and social justice at the level of the individual, family, community, region, country or planet. We especially welcome papers from Indigenous and/or postgraduate researchers.

Please send your abstracts (100-word max) and any inquries to
Donna Baines at donna.baines@ubc.ca or
Neil Ballantyne at neil.ballantyne@openpolytechnic.ac.nz or
Liz Beddoe e.beddoe@auckland.ac.nz
by September 1 , 2025.

Full conference details: https://www.saanz.net/saanz2025/