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ArgumentIn general, the agreement among members of a society is seen as its precondition or basis. Political and philosophical thinking is based on this assumption since the theories of social contract. From this perspective, conflicts, dissent or protests appear to be a threat to the stability of a society. Another tradition contradicts these assumptions by seeing dissent and conflict as the motor of social development or even as an important condition for the stabilisation of a society. These contradictory approaches have recently been discussed for example by J&#252;rgen Habermas and Niklas Luhmann. Habermas proposes that socialisation can only derive from rational agreement, while Luhmann also includes conflictual communication as an option to keep society together. Habermas bases communication on agreement, Luhmann's view allows negation as the expression of understanding a message.The discussion of these contradictory assumptions has mostly been led on theoretical grounds. We welcome on the one hand contributions that enrich the theoretical discussion with a semiotic perspective and that shed light on the culturally rooted dimension of signs of consent and dissent in socialization. On the other hand we also welcome contributions observing the tension between agreement and conflict on concrete examples in past and present, in order to give new impulses to the theoretical debate.Possible phenomena are:new forms of socializationconsent and dissent in media forumscontemporary expressions of protestsigns of agreement and desagreement betwen cultures, subcultures, generations, social groups, gendersbody as sign of agreement and refusalconsent and dissent as instrumentalised argumenttheories of dissent and consentSubmission guidelinesLanguages for papers and communications are english or german.We will accept submissions until February 28, 2014.The abstracts are limited to 1500 characters. Please add a short biography.Scientific responsibilityFlavien Le Bouter: flavien.lebouter@googlemail.comProf. Dr. Eva Kimminich: eva.kimminich@uni-potsdam.de