Call for Papers: Thematic Issue of the International Journal of Sociology

A Call for Papers for an upcoming thematic issue of the International Journal of Sociology is now open. Titled “Environmental Sociology Across Borders: Comparative Methodological Perspectives”, this issue will focus on the methodological challenges and opportunities of conducting environmental sociology.

This thematic issue invites contributions that: 

• examine how methodological choices shape environmental knowledge and, conversely, how theoretical and epistemological understandings shape methodological choices across national, regional, cultural, and institutional contexts;
• compare environmental knowledge, values, attitudes, behaviors, practices, institutions, or human–environment relations, or examine processes connecting local, national, and global levels;
• critically assess how methodological and epistemological approaches travel across contexts and how these choices affect substantive findings and sociological interpretations, or
• address the possibilities and limitations of combining different forms of data or knowledge across social and institutional contexts. 

Single-country studies may be considered where they make a clear contribution to broader international or comparative sociological debates and demonstrate how the case extends, challenges, or refines concepts and methodological approaches beyond the immediate national setting.

Overall, the thematic issue seeks to advance a more internationally oriented and methodologically reflexive environmental sociology by demonstrating how methodological choices, epistemological assumptions, and comparative research designs shape what can be known about environmental phenomena across different social contexts.

Main details:

• Editors: Aistė Balžekienė (Kaunas University of Technology) and Markus Hadler (University of Graz)
• Abstract submission: November 30, 2026
• Abstract length: maximum 500 words
• Invitation to submit a full manuscript: December 15, 2026
• Full manuscript submission: March 30, 2027
• Peer review and revisions: From April 2027 onwards
• Anticipated publication: International Journal of Sociology, 2028

Please send abstracts to: [email protected]