Department of Sociology
This conference was held on Saturday, April 18 and Sunday, April 19, 2009 in Reiss Science Building and the Intercultural Center Auditorium. Approximately 170 people attended, including many from out-of-town. The interdisciplinary professional backgrounds of presenters and participants were psychiatrists, psychologists, anthropologists, sociologists, social workers, and lawyers. Members of the GU community registered for free admission. The twelve research papers presented focused on ecological concerns, as well as relationships between families and societies. Some analyses were guided by Dr. Murray Bowen’s pioneering concept of “emotional process in society.” Substantive findings clarified trends in families, societies, and natural resources that evoked social concerns as well as individual/social responsibilities. Speakers addressed topics such as subsistence systems; households as emotional and economic units of society; the influence of physical environments on peoples of the Middle East; the health of water; micro-organisms; environmental stresses; kin groups in non-human primates; climate changes in Arctic communities; migration; emotional neutrality in Northern Ireland peace negotiations; the separation of powers in the U.S. Constitution; and the international management of threatened fisheries.