ECCI: European Center for the Study of Culture and Inequality

Research description

The European Center for the Study of Culture & Inequality (ECCI) brings together social scientists whose research is devoted to better understanding contemporary patterns of inequality in Europe. Funded by the VUB (Free University of Brussels) and bringing together scholars from 10 different research centers, it aims to provide a platform for theoretical and methodological debate, promote comparative research and international collaboration and support junior and senior researchers who study the dynamics that are shaping inequality within contemporary Europe.

When it comes to the study of contemporary patterns of inequality within the EU, ‘methodological nationalism’ unfortunately remains the default position of much sociological research. However, as the factors that shape this inequality gradually shift to the supranational level, European social scientists are increasingly forced to look beyond the confines of their national social spaces. As an international research group, ECCI aims to provide a platform that is geared towards a more coordinated, transnational dialogue among scholars of culture, class and inequality in Europe. ECCI is animated by three key objectives:

• Stimulate intellectual debate: critical of the increasingly ‘corporate’ nature of large-scale sociological conferences, ECCI aspires to create smaller intellectual spaces in which scholars of social inequality can present and debate their on-going research. In particular it aims to offer a forum to research that identifies novel forms of inequality – in the domains of education, lifestyle and taste, for instance – as well as studies that tackle questions of social inequality using new methodologies. This is done through the organization of thematic lectures and workshops devoted to the conceptual and methodological issues involved in studying contemporary patterns of inequality (see our events).
• Promote international collaboration: to counter the methodological nationalism that continues to mar(k) much sociological scholarship on inequality in Europe, ECCI aims to promote collaborative models of research. It does so through the organization of joint-publications, as well as through the development of explicitly comparative research projects (see our projects).
• Support doctoral research: ECCI aims to provide support for doctoral researchers focusing on the contemporary dynamics of inequality in the EU. It does so by promoting the international mobility of Phd-researchers, organizing training workshops and providing junior researchers with a forum in which they can present and debate their research with more seasoned scholars in the field.