MIĘDZYNARODOWA KONFERENCJA NAUKOWA/INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE 25.04.2026

Dear Colleagues,

We have the honour to invite you to participate in the annual international scientific conference entitled “Between Agency and Embeddedness. The Individual in the Processes of Shaping Social Reality.” The conference will be held online on 25 April 2026.

Conference Concept and Aims

The conference is devoted to reflection on the place of the individual in social reality and on the processes in which human beings remain simultaneously participants in and co-creators of the social world. A key issue concerns the ways in which individuals undertake action, as well as the mechanisms through which meaning is attributed to one’s own experiences in the context of everyday functioning. The analyses presented will address individual choices shaped by relationships with others and by belonging to specific social groups. Attention will also be paid to the influence of broader social arrangements which, on the one hand, create conditions and resources for action and, on the other, establish particular frameworks and constraints.

At the centre of the conference lies the relationship between individual agency and embeddedness in diverse social contexts. Agency and embeddedness are treated not only as opposing ways of describing the individual’s relationship with the social world, but also as elements of a dynamic process in which opportunities for action and constraints mutually permeate one another. This perspective allows the relationship between individual, group and society to be understood as a continuous and evolving process, rather than as a set of separate levels of analysis.

Areas of reflection

We invite submissions of theoretical analyses, empirical research findings, and reflections arising from professional practice, particularly within the social sciences and the humanities, addressing:

• the ways in which individuals and groups experience agency in everyday and institutional social contexts,
• processes of change and adaptation, as well as forms of resistance to existing social arrangements,
• mechanisms that constrain agency, generate dependency, and contribute to the consolidation of established patterns of functioning,
• the individual–group–society relationship understood as a dynamic and changing process.

Who is the conference open to?

We welcome scholars with an established academic record, early-career researchers, as well as practitioners interested in in-depth reflection on the social dimensions of human experience. Our aim is to create an open and dialogical space that fosters encounters between diverse theoretical and methodological perspectives and encourages critical discussion of contemporary forms of individual agency and embeddedness.

We believe that the conference will provide a space for reflection on the complex processes in which individuals function within relationships and social groups, while simultaneously co-creating the reality in which they live.