Members of the JustEdu project’s team presented 3 papers at the HDCA Annual Conference “Vulnerability, human development and cooperative re-building in turbulent times”, September 11-13, 2023 in Sofia, Bulgaria and took part in the Summer School on 8th-9th September 2023.
A truly global event, the conference was hosted by the Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” with more than 300 participants from 60 countries from Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand, Europe, South and North America. On benalf of both the Organising and Programme Committees the conference was opened by Prof. Pepka Boyadjieva. A special guest speaker at the opening ceremony as the Bulgarian writer Georgi Gospodinov, Booker International prize winner for 2023. The conference hosted 8 plenary sessions by notable keynote speakers, high-level panel discussions, and 80 parallel sessions. The format of the conference was hybrid, with mostly in-person, but also with online and hybrid sessions. There were also pre-conference events on 10th September and a summer school on 8th-9th September 2023.
The conference was jointly organized by the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology – Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (IPS-BAS), Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”, “Open Society” Institute – Sofia (IOO-S), Trust for Social Alternative (TSA) and Sustainable Cooperation (SCOOP) from the Netherlands and supported by the Austrian Embassy in Sofia.
The 2023 HDCA conference in Sofia sought the answers to number of questions, including:
• How to conceptualize and measure vulnerability and human development in turbulent times at the micro and macro levels – national, regional and global?
• How can the new challenges facing modern societies enhance or limit human development and social inequalities?
• How to promote cooperation between different institutions and organizations in order to enhance development outcomes for all social groups, localities, nations, and regions?
• How to develop capacities related to well-being and justice that respond to changes in work, family, knowledge production, political and social relations, environment, and non-human beings?
Paper 1: Bridging the capability approach and the status model of recognition: Can macro-opportunity structures mitigate individual structural vulnerabilities regarding participation in higher education? by Pepka Boyadjieva and Petya Ilieva-Trichkova, IPS-BAS
Paper 2: Capability actor-networks. Digitally extended parents and online education during the COVID-19 lockdown in Bulgaria by Svetlomir Zdravkov, IPS-BAS
Paper 3: Between agency and social arrangements: African students’ education in Bulgaria (1960–1990) from the perspective of Sen’s capability approach by Vesselina Dimitrova Kachakova, Raia Valentinova Apostolova and Svetla Yovcheva Koleva, IPS-BAS
PhD Student Asen Dimitrov took part in the Summer School.
More information about the conference is available here:
2023 HDCA Conference – Sofia, Bulgaria | Human Development and Capability Association (hd-ca.org)