• Diaspora and Education Workshop
25 Ottobre 2013
CFP Diaspora and Education Workshop
16th January 2014
Department of Geography, Loughborough University
Organisers: Liz Mavroudi and Marco Antonsich, Department of Geography, Loughborough University
We are very pleased and grateful that Claire Dwyer has agreed to act as a keynote speaker for this event.
This workshop wishes to stimulate debate on the relationships between diaspora and education/learning and views education in a broad and open-ended way. By examining diaspora and education, we wish to discuss broader impacts of education and learning on diasporic individuals, families and groups but also in relation to homeland/host country contexts. Papers are welcomed on (but are not restricted to) these themes:
• Formal education and policy. E.g.: How do schools and higher education institutions deal with diasporic pupils and students with particular religious, social, cultural, political and emotional needs and wishes?
• Learning and performing identities. E.g.: The informal, active ways in which those in diaspora construct and negotiate their cultural, national, religious, political identities in relation to factors such as space, place, gender, generational differences, language, religion and diasporic/transnational connections. What is the importance of strategic uses of nationalism and citizenship?
• Educating ‘our’ diaspora and homeland. E.g.: the more formal ways diasporic leaders or the sending state attempt to mould and guide diasporas. How do those in diaspora engage with their homeland by creating educational, academic and skilled/highly skilled/professional networks aimed at stimulating change and development?
• Gaining an education. E.g.: clarifying and understanding the role and importance of education to those in diaspora. Is education seen as the key to career ‘success’ or diasporic survival?
This is a free workshop but numbers are limited.
Please send abstracts (300 words maximum) to Liz Mavroudi (e.mavroudi@lboro.ac.uk) by December 1st 2013
• 6ème Festival de Géopolitique
25 Ottobre 2013
6ème Festival de Géopolitique
Grenoble, 3-6 avril 2014
Appel à Communication/
Call For Contributions
“Eurasie, l’avenir de l’Europe ?”
Entre Atlantique et Oural, quelle direction doit prendre l’Europe ? Doit-elle se tourner vers l’ouest au nom d’un héritage occidental qu’elle partage avec les Etats-Unis ? Ou lui faut-il regarder à l’est en épousant la logique d’un continent qui court sans discontinuité majeure jusqu’au Pacifique ? C’est donner un sens à l’Eurasie, l’union de l’Europe et de l’Asie qui constitue pour la géopolitique le pivot du monde et qui rassemble l’essentiel de la population et des richesses mondiales.
Qu’est-ce que l’Eurasie ? Une idée nouvelle qu’a rendue possible la fin du communisme ? Une nécessité qu’impose la constitution de grands ensembles continentaux à travers toute la planète ? Un fantasme souvent rêvé mais irréalisable ? Une construction confuse et floue dont les limites restent imprécises ?
Telles sont les questions auxquelles s’efforcera de répondre le 6ème Festival de géopolitique de Grenoble.
Soumission souhaitée avant le 20 novembre 2013
Plus d’informations sur www.festivalgeopolitique.com
“Eurasia, the future for Europe?”
Positioned between the Atlantic and the Urals, which direction should Europe take? Should it turn towards the West in recognition of its occidental heritage that it shares with the United States? Or should it face East, adopting the logic of a continent that almost always keeps running to the Pacific? This symbolises Eurasia, the union of Europe and Asia which is the global pivot for geopolitics, bringing together the majority of the world’s population and wealth.
What is Eurasia? A new idea which made the end of communism possible? A necessity imposed across the planet by the leading continental groups? A fantasy often dreamed about but never achieved? A confused, vague structure whose limitations remain unfocused?
These are some questions that the 6th Grenoble Festival of Geopolitics will attempt to answer
Please submit before November 20th, 2013.
More informations on www.festivalgeopolitique.com
• ABS 1st World Conference
25 Ottobre 2013
Call for Papers: ABS 1st World Conference
9-13 June 2014, Joensuu, Finland – St. Petersburg, Russia
Please note:
Submission deadline for complete panels/roundtables: October 31, 2013
Submission deadline for individual papers/posters: November 30, 2013
The Association for Borderlands Studies (ABS) invites proposals for individual papers and posters as well as complete panels and roundtables related to multi-disciplinary study of borders, border areas and cross-border interaction. Contributions from all world regions are encouraged. The organizing theme for the 2014 World Conference is:
Post-Cold War Borders: Global Trends and Regional Responses
Since the end of the Cold War era, state borders have increasingly been understood as multifaceted social institutions rather than solely as formal political markers of sovereignty. The changing significance of borders has been partly interpreted as a reflection of global “de-bordering”, and of optimistic scenarios of globalization and international cooperation. However, such notions of “de-bordering” have been challenged by or even succumbed to the reality of ethnic and cultural tensions and increasing complexity and instability in the world system. It is time to ask how often contradictory global tendencies are reflected on the ground. We can recognize global megatrends that are changing the nature of borders but also regional and local processes of border-making and border negotiating.
The unprecedented expansion and transformation of the global economy and the concurrent fluidity of people and goods within a context of increased securitization, signifies fundamental societal challenges that directly relate to borders. On this view, borders help condition how societies and individuals shape their strategies and identities. At the same time, borders themselves can be seen as products of a social and political negotiation of space; they frame social and political action and are constructed through institutional and discursive practices at different levels and by different actors.
Despite new border studies perspectives that favor a broad cultural, economic and complex governance view of borders and borderlands, a strict top-down international relations view of borders continue to dominate policymaking. This current era of heightened globalization requires that we pay attention not only to the tendency of increased governance of borders and border regions, but also at the regional responses to such development.
Through regional responses to globalization, borders are reproduced, for example, in situations of conflict where historical memories are mobilized to support territorial claims, to address past injustices or to strengthen group identity – often by perpetuating negative stereotypes of the “other”. However through new institutional and discursive practices contested borders can also be transformed into symbols of co-operation and of common historical heritage
The general theme encompasses a wide range of topics and approaches. Please consult the conference website for inspiration. We invite proposals that focus on empirical research and case studies, conceptual and theoretical issues, and/ or policy relevant aspect of border studies alike.
Confirmed Keynote Speakers:
- Prof. Oscar J. Martinez, University of Arizona
- Prof. Paul Nugent, University of Edinburgh
- Prof. Anne-Laure Amilhat Szary, Université Joseph Fourier/CNRS-PACTE
- Prof. Anssi Paasi, University of Oulu
- Prof. Alexander F. Filippov, Higher School of Economics/Russian Academy of Sciences
For further information, updates regarding the conference, and to
download forms for submitting proposals, please see the conference website at:
Submission deadline for complete panels/roundtables: October 31, 2013
Submission deadline for individual papers/posters: November 30, 2013
Please send your proposal to
The Association for Borderlands Studies 2014 World Conference is organized by the VERA Centre for Russian and Border Studies at the University of Eastern Finland in cooperation with the Centre for Independent Social Research and the European University at St. Petersburg.
The organizers wish to thank ABORNE – The African Borderlands Research Network and the Finnish Association for Russian and East European Studies for their financial and scientific contribution.
