The conference “Post-socialism: Hybridity, Continuity and Change” was organized by the Department of Sociology, University of Zurich and the Centre for Empirical Cultural Studies of South-East Europe as part of the project “Life-Strategies and Survival Strategies of Households and Individuals in South-East European Societies in the Times of Crisis”, carried out within the framework of the SCOPES program of the Swiss National Science Foundation. The members of the Conference Scientific Committee were: Jörg Rössel (Department of Sociology, University of Zurich), Predrag Cvetičanin (Faculty of Arts, University of Niš), Inga Tomić-Koludrović (Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar, Split Regional Office), Miran Lavrič (Department of Sociology, University of Maribor) and Ismet Kumalić (Economic Institute Sarajevo).
The main conference topics included: 1. The hybrid nature of post-socialist societies (ranging from the hybrid nature of their social structure to the hybrid nature of the cultural practices within them); 2. The different paths of post-socialist transformation in Central, East and South-East Europe; 3. Survival strategies of households and individuals in post-socialist societies; 4. The role of informal practices (institutions, structures) in the functioning of post-socialist societies and especially the differences in relation to their role in the socialist period; 5. Culture, lifestyles and daily consumption in post-socialist societies; 6. Social inequality, classification struggles, symbolic and social conflict in post-socialist societies.
The conference keynote speakers were: Alan Warde (University of Manchester), Alena Ledeneva (UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies), Eric Gordy (UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies), Geoff Pugh (Centre for Applied Business Research, Staffordshire University) and Vesna Vuk Godina (Center for the Study of Post-Socialist Societies, University of Maribor).
More than forty researchers from Europe took part in the conference – sociologists, anthropologists, philosophers, historians, political scientists, economists and researchers working in the field of cultural studies, discussing the specificities of post-socialist societies and their possible future paths of development.