Archive: Calls

• Borders and walls

Direct link here:
 
Borders, Walls and Security
 
International conference organized by the Raoul Dandurand Chair at the
University of Quebec at Montreal in association with the Association for
Borderlands Studies
 
University of Quebec at Montreal, Quebec, Canada
October 17th and 18th, 2013
 
Fields: Political Science, Geography, Anthropology, Sociology, Law,
Economics, Design, Biology, Art, Environmental studies, Feminist Studies.
 
Grad Students are welcome to submit a proposal.
 
In the post-9/11 world, fences and towers reinforce and enclose national
territories, while security discourses link terrorism with immigration, and
immigration with illegality, criminal violence and radical Islam. The
European Union (EU) claims to tear down walls, while building external walls
ever higher. At the same time, the US considers how best to deploy towers
and walls along its border zones while implementing an integrated border
management regime. This development is not limited to these two world
regions, however. Elsewhere in the global world walls dissecting borderlands
are becoming higher. In Asia, India is finishing up its fence around
Bangladesh. On all four continents, changes in border policy go along with a
heightened discourse on internal control and a shift from borderlines to an
ubiquity of control. Such walls are Œwalling in¹ as well as Œwalling out¹.
By this we mean that the traditional geopolitics of bordering are
supplemented, rather than fully replaced, by a national biopolitics,
involving new definitions of who belongs and who does not belong, who is
potentially represented as a threat and a risk internally, and who should be
removed from the body of the state.
The experience of migrations, asylum-seekers, targeted ethnicities, and
non-citizen residents has also been profoundly touched by securitization
assessments rooted in geopolitics emanating from assessments of conditions
outside of the state. Law-enforcement agencies at national and even
international level, problematize ethnicity and identity in context of
terrorism and criminality, or associated geopolitical orientations based
upon nationalist and ethnicity. Systems and facilities for monitoring and
gathering data on migrants and asylum seekers, are a product of the
opportunity offered by border control, and are now an important component of
a counter-terrorist agenda. They too, demand walls in which to embed their
technologies.
 
Participants are encouraged to critically examine the role of wall in
security discourses, particularly with respect to immigration and
citizenship, and to consider some of the following questions:
 
Theme 1. Border fences, walls and identities
 
Construction of national and local identities
Theoretical limology, walls and epistemology
Anthropological approaches to border walls and fences
Sociology of the walls/fences and their borderlands
 
Theme 2. Impacts of border walls
 
Social and environmental impacts
Economical impacts
Bypass strategies
Security industry and border fences & walls
Art, Borders and Walls
 
Theme 3. Legal aspects of border walls
 
Separation and legitimation
Border walls: failure or success?
International, national and local
Legal aspects: Human rights and the wall, norms and the wall
 
Theme 4. Biopolitics of border walls
 
Security discourses, geopolitical and biopolitical assessments, and walls
9/11 security discourse, marginality and border fences
Spatialization of insecurity and border fences
 
Deadline

Deadline for abstract submission: April 20th, 2013
 
Practical Information

 
Please include the following information (300 words):
 
Name of authors/contributors
Institutional affiliations, titles
Contact: telephone, fax, email, mailing address
Title of the paper
Abstract: Subject, empirical frame, analytical approach, theme
Send your proposals via email in Word format to Elisabeth Vallet at
UQAM:BordersandWalls@gmail.com
 
Languages

Proposals can be submitted in French, Spanish and English. However the
conference will be held in English and French.
 
Calendar

April 20th 2013 : deadline for submitting abstracts and proposals
June 2013 : proposals selection and notification sent to presenters
August, 24th 2013 : submission of papers to discussants
October, 17th and 18th, 2013 : Conference to be held in Montreal

• Workshops ‘Diplomatic Cultures’

A call for participation in the second of three workshops of the ‘Diplomatic Cultures’ research network: www.diplomaticcultures.com
 
This workshop will focus on the role of space and spatiality in diplomatic exchange and will take place on Friday 21- Saturday 22 June 2013 at University College London. Confirmed keynote speakers are Iver Neumann (International Relations, LSE), John Watkins (English, University of Minnesota) and Herman van der Wusten (Geography, University of Amsterdam). There are a small number of places available for early career researchers working on relevant issues. Priority for places at this workshop will be given to such researchers based in the UK for whom funding for travel is available. Participation involves preparing a 10 minute presentation on the (changing) spaces of diplomacy viewed through the lens of your research and contributing to group discussions relating to the broad theme of ‘translating diplomatic cultures’ (details here: http://www.diplomaticcultures.com/styled/styled-4/index.html). We are particularly interested in hearing from scholars working on issues around:
 
– Digital/ virtual diplomacy
 
– Embassies and ambassadorial networks
 
– The UN and other international diplomatic fora
 
– The production of diplomatic spaces through performance
 
To apply for a place please contact Fiona McConnell (Fiona.mcconnell@ncl.ac.uk) with a 200 word summary of your research interests and a short biography by 19th April 2013.
 
Podcasts of presentations at the first workshop in this series, held at the University of Cambridge in February, are available here: http://backdoorbroadcasting.net/2013/02/translating-diplomatic-culture/ and a third workshop will be held in The Hague on 8-9 November 2013. To join the email list for the network please enter your contact details here:
 
https://www.mailinglists.ucl.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/diplomatic-cultures

• ABS 1st World Conference

Call for Papers: ABS 1st World Conference
 

 
9-13 June 2014, Joensuu, Finland – St. Petersburg, Russia
 

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 (a more detailed list of possible topics will be added shortly). 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
– tbc
– tbc
 
For further information, updates regarding the conference, and to download forms for submitting proposals, please see the conference website at:
 
http://www.uef.fi/fi/abs2014world
 
Submission deadline for complete panels/roundtables: October 31, 2013
 
Submission deadline for individual papers/posters: November 30, 2013
 
Please send your proposal to
 
abs2014.secretariat@uef.fi
 
www.facebook.com/ABS2014WorldConference
 
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.

• Geopolitics and Great Powers

IPSA RC 41 Second Conference on Geopolitics

 

GEOPOLITICS AND GREAT POWERS

 

An International Workshop on Emerging Regional Contests and Contestants

• Postmodern Cartographies

Postmodern Cartographies: epistemological and methodological issues in mapping power and social change

 

Organizer:  Edoardo Boria, Sapienza – University of Rome

 

Call for papers

There is no doubt that maps represent for the geographer a highly distinctive element of his professional profile. They have however recently undergone a deep epistemological rethinking, rising many questions that are still unanswered. The criticism by postmodernist currents has outlined how maps are inextricably at the center of power relations, thus undermining their presumed objectivity.

The present economical crisis and the deep social malaise call the geographer to answer for the new territorialisation processes, confirming at the same time a fundamental need, intrinsic to the geographical knowledge: to create convincing representations of the world we live in.

The challenges of our time thus require a new epistemological and methodological consideration of maps, which should be able to join the review of traditional concepts inherited by modernity with the unchanged cognitive needs of geography, also through a re-reading of the history of the way of thinking of the discipline. With this prospective, the session invites to present propositions on the following subjects:

–          cartography and power

–          mapping the State and its relations

–          mapping borders in contemporary politics

–          mapping new territorialisation processes

–          counter-cartography projects and radical cartography

–          participatory mapping

–          cartographies of inequalities

–          mapping the European Union project

–          mapping the Arab Spring and democratization processes

–          cartography and ethics

–          cartography and identity

–          cartography and history of geographical thought

–          post-Harleyan developments in cartography

–          epistemological and methodological issues in mapping and mapmaking

 

Session code: S25

If you are interested in participating please submit an abstract of no more than 250 words by filling in THIS FORM and send it to the organizers before march 31st 2013 using this email: s25@eugeo2013.com
No one may submit or take part in more than two presentations.

• Economic recession and Tourism

Economic recession: interpretations, performances and reifications in the tourism domain

Organizers

Chiara Rabbiosi, Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna (Italy)
Valeria Pecorelli, University of Milan Bicocca (Italiy)

Call for papers

One of the most visible phenomena brought about by late capitalism is the increasingly pivotal role of tourism in the economic and cultural life of places. The global demand for tourism has been also consistently increasing. Assuming that tourism is one of the most sensitive sectors in terms of susceptibility to crises on the short and medium term, it is interesting to unveil how current global economic recession and tourism intersect and influence each other.

The session will particularly question how topics related to economic recession are interpreted, performed and reified by a variety of actors in the European tourism domain:

• How do political and economic élites, policy-makers, intermediaries of any kind, tourists, etc. react to major, global, economical changes? E.g.: changes in the geography of holidays, in the length of journeys; changes in partnerships between public and private actors; changes in the awareness of the potentiality of the tourism domain as a sphere to attract exogenous economical/cultural/social resources; the repositioning of tour operators towards new tourist targets.
• Is it possible to identify new or renewed themes in the tourism domain that become the object of material and discursive mobilization in order to answer problematic conditions brought about by the economic recession? E.g.: the promotion of innovative tourist destinations, itineraries, events, etc. as an answer to the need for sustainability; but also the promotion of luxury destinations that may attract consumerist élites.
• How do the possible changing attitudes of political and economic élites, policy-makers, intermediaries of any kind, tourists, etc. influence the economic and cultural, social and spatial life of tourism destinations at micro-scale level? E.g.: in terms of “power relations”, “participative democracy”, “transition to a low carbon society”, “social innovation”, “socio-spatial segregation” just to quote but a few debated themes.
• How are lock-ins dismantled or reproduced in tourism?

We particularly welcome papers that focus on fostering the renewal or the “(re)invention” of tourism destinations, tourism sites within cities, tourism itineraries, products, policies and even of particular categories of tourists as a possible solution or as a reaction to economic recession.

Priority will be given to the presentation of those case studies embedded in theoretical accounts or exploring emerging trends in tourism with the help of analytical categories.

Papers will be discussed either in English and French

Session code: S10

If you are interested in participating please submit an abstract of no more than 250 words by filling in THIS FORM and send it to the organizers before march 31st 2013 using this email: s10@eugeo2013.com
No one may submit or take part in more than two presentations.

• Geographies of TransformAction

Geographies of TransformAction: Spaces, processes, practices and tactics of reappropriation in contemporary activism

Organizers

Network Geografi-A:
Margherita Ciervo, Economy Dept. University of Foggia (Italy)
Arturo Di Bella, Political and Social Science Dept., University of Catania (Italy)
Daniela Festa, Equipe Mosaïques, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, UMR LAVUE 7218 (France)
Valeria Pecorelli, Sociology Dept. University of Milan-Bicocca (Italy)
Massimiliano Tabusi, Università per Stranieri di Siena (Italy)

Call for papers

This session calls for papers that, through the lens of critical and active geography, focus on self-organized resistance and innovation practices performed by civil society and social movements at the present time.

New social movements, which seem capable to influence increasingly the contemporary powerscape of actors, integrate the critique to neoliberism with protest, constructive actions, and alternative territorial development models, adopting multiple tools and performing different repertoires (Ranciere, 1990; Castoriadis, 1998; Routledge, 2003; Amin, Thrift, 2005; Vanolo, Rossi, 2010).

Through the autonomous re-appropriation of tangible spaces (e.g.: territories, dismissed buildings, public places, empty areas, artistic labs etc.) and intangible spaces (e.g.: participation, citizenship, democracy, communication etc.), social movements and collective practices define new and immediate cooperative modalities of imaginaries, active engagement and innovative forms of government.

Despite possible destabilizing factors (Chatterton, 2005; Holloway, 2010), such as assimilation and cooptation by the established system (political parties, trade unions, elite etc.) and by hegemonic practices (Harvey, 2012), social movements remain key-actors in the reinvention of the contemporary political process.

The objectives of the session are summarized as follows:

• questioning contemporary social movements role in the spatial requalification and democratic regeneration of territorial systems at different scale levels;
• analyzing types of repossessed spaces, articulated practices and alternative participated models of government as well as achieved results, limits, contradictions;
• identifying innovative potentials of civic activism practices in changing power and government relations;
• discussing responsibilities of critical geography in investigating, supporting and nurturing the work and the practice of social movements;
• collaborating at the ‘Manifesto for Geography of TrasformAction’.

 

Session code: S14

If you are interested in participating please submit an abstract of no more than 250 words by filling in THIS FORM and send it to the organizers before march 31st 2013 using this email: s14@eugeo2013.com
No one may submit or take part in more than two presentations.

• EUGEO Congress – CFP

The fourth EUGEO Congress will take place in Rome, 5-7 September 2013.

 

Researchers and experts from all over the world are invited to submit proposals for the presentation of their research within one of the following sessions.

 

If you are interested in participating, please submit an abstract of no more than 250 words by filling in this form and send it to the session organizers using the corresponding email only before march 31st 2013.

No one may submit or take part in more than two presentations.

 

Call for papers

• New geo-graphies of exile

New gep-graphies of exile. Displacements, re-placements and literary reconstructions od belonging

Organizers

Elena dell’Agnese, University of Milano-Bicocca (Italy)
Michael J. Shapiro, University of Hawai’I at Manoa (USA)

Call for papers

“…writers in my position, exiles or emigrants or expatriates, are haunted by some sense of loss, some urge to reclaim, to look back…but, .. physical alienation …almost inevitably means that we will not be capable of reclaiming precisely the thing that was lost; that we will, in short create fictions” With these words, the exiled writer Salman Rushdie introduces his collection of essays entitled “Imaginary Homelands”. Indeed, experiencing exile, that is being banished from a place considered as “Home”, often suggests to a writer the literary re-invention of that place.

The positionality of the displaced writer is influenced not only by the feeling of difference, but also by questions of gender, time, nation; and by his/her capacity of overcoming the “frontier” between Here and There, of re-placing him/herself and of re-inventing new geo-graphies of emotions. Beyond the rhetoric of displacement, the experience of exile can invite the displaced writer into a new aesthetic experience and reframe his/her sensible world. Other people’s bread can be salty, as objectively remembered by Dante (since in Florence, bread is salt-free), but one can also learn how to appreciate its different taste.

The three panellists (Marcella Schmidt di Friedberg, Giulia de Spuches, Michael J. Shapiro) will interrogate in this perspective the works of the exilic writers Charles Selasfield, Nuruddin Farah, and Ismet Prcic. The session is open to papers concerning other exiled authors, who, in different times and space settings, re-imagined their lost homelands, but also learned how to re-place themselves into the new spaces in between.

This session is linked to the IGU Commission on Political Geography Research Network

Session code: S21

If you are interested in participating please submit an abstract of no more than 250 words by filling in THIS FORM and send it to the organizers before march 31st 2013 using this email: s21@eugeo2013.com
No one may submit or take part in more than two presentations.

• Integration(s) in the Mediterranean

International Conference / Colloque international

 

Rennes-2 University / Université Rennes 2 Campus Villejean – Rennes – France 24th-25th of October 2013/ 24-25 Octobre 2013

 

Integration(s) in the Mediterranean/Intégration(s) en Méditerranée

 

ESO-Rennes, Rennes 2 University, Centre of Excellence Jean Monnet/ESO-Rennes, Université Rennes 2, Centre d’Excellence Jean Monnet

 

Abstract

This interdisciplinary conference aims at offering an analysis of the state of the Euromediterranean in a changing context, observing formal and informal processes, spaces, norms and forms of regional integration. Particular attention will be given to the integrations from below and the views from the south of the Mediterranean area.

 

Résumé

Ce colloque pluri-disciplinaire interroge l’Euroméditerranée au regard des changements récents, et s’intéresse plus particulièrement aux processus formels et informels, aux espaces, aux normes et aux formes de l’intégration régionale. Une attention particulière sera donnée aux intégrations par le bas et vues du sud de la Méditerranée.

 

Submit a paper

Please send a 400-word abstract and a 1-page CV by the 6th of April 2013 to conference-med@univ-rennes2.fr. Final selection will be given by the 6th of May 2013.

 

Soumettre une proposition
Merci d’envoyer un résumé de communication de 400 mots et un CV d’une page avant le 6 avril 2013 à l’adresse suivante:
conference-med@univ-rennes2.fr. La réponse du comité de sélection sera donnée le 6 mai 2013

 

Call for paper