Editorial (1.3)

This third issue of Global Dialogue expands its reach. Two teams of translators – one in Japan and the other in Brazil – have volunteered to add two new languages to the 5 we already have. Through the network of translation teams Global Dialogue is building its own international community of young sociologists. This issue leads with an interview with one of the great architects of internationalism – President of the Japanese Sociological Society, Shujiro Yazawa – followed by ISA Vice-President Margaret Abraham’s plans for the Buenos Aires 2012 World Forum. The theme – Social Justice and Democratization – was proposed by the local organizers, Alberto Bialakowsky, President of Asociación Latinoamericana de Sociología (ALAS), and Alicia Palermo, President of the Argentinian Sociological Association (AAS), and endorsed by the Research Coordinating Committee. It is especially apt in the light of social movements in Latin America, but elsewhere too, most recently and notably in Tunisia. We also continue the dialogue about the meaning of internationalism today: Ulrich Beck responds to Raewyn Connell, Helma Lutz reflects on “cosmopolitanism” in Germany, and Sari Hanafi explores the visions behind “multi-versalism”. We have reports from China, Malaysia, Australia, Poland, Colombia, and the UN. Jennifer Platt writes about the history of the ISA office, the dynamic infrastructure of sociology’s internationalism, while Jen Schradie asks whether the new informational technology, upon which our communications increasingly depend, is actually excluding sociologists from many parts of the world.