Local Lives and Global Transformations

Although humans are caught up in profound globalizing processes which create shared insecurities, most people across the Global North and South demonstrate only a limited awareness of their situation and remain predominantly absorbed and diverted by the pull of their local lives. A shared global consciousness is urgently needed but thinly spread. Drawing on global theory and many case studies this book explores both the continuing local roots of globalization and the central role of micro-relationships in helping, often unintentionally, to shape – and sometimes challenge - its associated transformations.

• The book provides an in-depth exploration of the contradiction between the continuing pull of local lives in the face of sometimes threatening global transformations

• It provides both a rigorous investigation and a partial critique of recent globalization theory

• At the same time it explores an impressive range of empirical research drawn from the real, everyday experiences of people across the world

• The discussion brings sharply into focus the hitherto relatively neglected role of intimate, micro-relationships in shaping, ignoring and sometimes challenging globalizing processes.

White Spaces? Racialising White Femininities and Masculinities Conference July 9th 2009

Research Events and Seminars08 July 2009 - 09 July 2009 Start time to be announced Conference
Weetwood Hall

This Conference is an opportunity to draw and extend insights from the international and interdisciplinary field of 'white studies' (Bonnett, 1996; 2007) in organisational and policy analysis.

These new theoretical understandings of whiteness and white identities and ethnicities have been developed and debated in the US, Australia, New Zealand and more recently Europe, including the UK. These developments have taken place within disciplines such as communication and cultural studies, sociology, critical race theory, feminism, social geography, history and literary studies. They have profoundly changed conceptualisations of racialisation and gendering, that is the processes by which we are produced as raced and gendered beings.

For example these debates trouble the distinctions between 'race', racism and anti-racisms paving the way for more fluid understandings of the productiveness of power, its uneven and distributed nature. Such approaches develop forceful critiques of the work that goes into creating and maintaining racialised privileges. They also open up the possibilities for more 'positive' and unpredicatble racialisations.

The key themes and questions to be explored are:

How can we understand whiteness in organisations - as property, identity, discursive position, privilege, relations, embodied practices, emotions, imaginaries, temporalities?

What codes of whiteness are reproduced in contemporary social politics?

How do these codes configure relations with the past and future as well as the present?

What new constituencies and claims can be brought into being through concepts of whiteness, white making, white spaces, white gendering and gendered whiteness?

What is the relationship of these codes and constituencies to organisational practices and other social relations? For example those of class, gender, age and sexualities?

How does this play out in different organisational contexts?

Are there differences in public and private sector whitenesses?

How does this play out in different national contexts?

How does organisational policy and practice sustain whiteness?

What are the dangers in making whiteness an object of organisational analysis given its power to attached itself to a range of political and social agendas including 'progressive' postures?

What do these questions mean theoretically, methodologically and practically for critical organisational analysis going forward?

What does this mean for scholars working in this area?

The conference builds on the success of an earlier conference stream at the 2007 Gender Work and Organization conference. The aim is to extend and consolidate this earlier work and the debates it engendered to connect with other work in this area in order to establish an ongoing forum for future collaboration and collective work.

It aims to bring together contributors to the intial stream with a broader range of contributors from different international contexts and disparate fields, including feminist social politics, organizational sociology, public policy, management and governance. The conference also seeks to include a broader range of postgraduate students and participants outside academia with an interest in critical 'race', feminist and other cultural perspectives on organisation power.

Because the conference aims to facilitate ongoing collaborations amongst participants, its design aims to maximise debate around how these new agendas might be incorporated into organisation, management and policy studies fields and into organizational practice more broadly; and how this sort of work may be developed going forward. Thus, it uses a variety of formats for conference contributions including larger key note and plenary sessions, smaller paper sessions and facilitated dialogue and debate sessions focused around particular conference themes.

In order to maximise the number of contributions we are also welcoming proposals for poster presentations which will be displayed in the communal conference areas and will serve as points of further discussion and debate.

Our Plenary Speakers will be:

Aida Hurtado, University of California, USA, Director of Chicano/Latino Research Centre 2005-2008 And author of The Color of Privilege: Three Blasphemies on Race and Feminism. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996

Gail Lewis, Reader in Identities at the Open University, UK, Director for the Identities research strand for the Centre for Citizenship, Identities and Governance (CCIG) and author of 'Race', Gender, Social Welfare: Encounters in a Postcolonial Society, Polity Press, 2000
Nirmal Puwar, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Goldsmiths, UK, member of the Feminist Review Collective and author of Purwar, N (2004) Space Invaders: race, gender and bodies out of place, Oxford: Berg

Mick Rowlinson, Professor of Organization Studies in the Centre for Business Management, Queen Mary University of London, UK, writes and researches into organizational memory.
Melissa Steyn, Director of Intercultural and Diversity Studies at the University of Cape Town, Soth Africa and author of Whiteness just isn't what it used to be: White identity in a changing South Africa (2001, State University of New York Press)

Vron Ware, Research Fellow at the Open University, UK and author of Who cares about Britishness? A global view of the national identity debate London: Arcadia Books, 2007 Beyond the Pale: White Women, Racism and History London/New York: Verso 1992
Runnymede Trust, London, UK

Other Contributors include: Diane Grimes, Syracuse, USA Berit Gullikstad, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway Shona Hunter, University of Leeds, UK Pauline Leonard, University of Southampton, UK Jennifer Mease, University of North Carolina, USA Patricia Parker, University of North Carolina, USA Elaine Swan, Lancaster University, UK

For further information visit:

http://www.sociology.leeds.ac.uk/research/events/white-spaces-racialising-white-femininities-masculinities/

Development Studies Association Conference September 2009

Contemporary Crises and New Opportunities
University of Ulster, Coleraine Campus
2nd – 4th September 2009

Background to the Conference theme

The year 2009 may well be viewed in future as a ‘turning point’ in the historical evolution of the world economy. Perhaps the last such ‘turning point’ occurred in the 1970s with the demise of the original version of the Bretton Woods system. Living through what many feel are momentous events and historically significant changes there is much to preoccupy us in trying to understand three co-variant sets of crises and their implication for international development.

These 3 sets of crises comprise the organising themes of the conference, each one having its own plenary session:
Climate Change and Energy (1)
Global Economic Crisis (2)
Clashing Values and Lifestyles (3)

The interdisciplinary pursuit of development studies can lay claim to a perspective on these contemporary crises precisely because we have a long established familiarity with the interconnections between them. The forms of globalisation over the last four decades have brought these themes closer together causally. The critique of the limitations of capitalism has to involve resource scarcity, environmental mismanagement and cultural differences about wellbeing and the good life, alongside the delinquency of banks as well as market and regulatory failure.

If we are at some kind of crossroads, then this conference provides an opportunity for a wide range of disciplinary contributions to analysis and understanding. It will be exciting to participate in the exchanges between economic historians, financial analysts, climate change experts and cultural anthropologists and psychologists. The conference can contribute to national and international debates, and lay the basis for future research agendas that combine fresh thinking with prospects for innovative policy.

Parallel Sessions—‘Ground rules’
We will have 40 slots for panels/study groups (hereafter ‘panels’): 8 parallels across 5x 1.5 hour sessions.

As far as possible, we would like panels to relate to the main 3 plenary themes.
We have decided to have no more than 2 presenters per 1.5 hour panel session plus Q&A, to enable depth of presentation and discussion.

We would encourage Study Groups and individual panel convenors to bid for 2-3 sessions in their concept notes—thus having 4-6 presenters per theme across 2-3 sessions. In this way, we hope to encourage more in depth intellectual debate and knowledge progress.
2 papers per slot = 80 papers. Abstracts for this category of papers will be required to be quality reviewed by the panel leaders and one other panel member.

Candidates whose papers are accepted (at all levels) will need to prepare a presentation based on their paper to be with the Conference organisers no later than Friday 21st August 2009

Themed Panels

Those panels that have been chosen will be notified by 27th March and be given a number. Panel convenors will then need to issue their individual Calls for Papers very shortly after this.

The Conference Organisers will need to notify bursary awardees by 1st May to allow them time to organise visa applications and travel arrangements. We therefore suggest that the Call for Abstracts have a deadline no later than Monday 27th April and would welcome Convenors’ views as to which papers they would consider putting forward for either bursary (please see criteria below – and it will be up to each individual submitting to each panel to indicate that they wish to be considered for the bursary awards).

When issuing individual Calls for Abstracts under the Panels, convenors will need to use the form under Annex I and request that participants adhere to the file naming protocol of their Word documents as follows:

“DSAconf09-panelnumber-abs-yourname-papertitle”, keeping the paper title very brief.
Some prompting suggestions (grouped by plenary theme) for Themed Panel Titles might be, but not limited to:

Climate Change and Energy:
Can the Science be Disputed?
Sustaining Behaviours
Gender and Energy
Oil and Water (Wars?)
Green Keynesianism
Intergenerational Transfers
Obama’s Environmental New Deal
Economic Crisis:
Future of the Collier Thesis: adding to the billion?
What must America do?
Can the BRICS regenerate capitalism?
Is a global recession good for long term development, despite short term poverty?
A New Bretton Woods?
The answer: Marx, Polanyi or Keynes?
Moral Hazards and Market Failures
Clashing Values:
Recessions and Social Cohesion
Faith and Millenarianism
Rise of Fascism: migration and xenophobia?
The Politics of Identity
Conflict Contagion and Domino Effects?
State Society Relations: Secularism and the Ummah
Wellbeing: Relative or Universal?
Combined and Exclusionary Development: the alienation problem

Individual and Jointly Authored Papers
We recognise the above process means fewer papers than usual, with several implications:
The theme/quality hurdle for acceptance of abstracts for papers will be more selective:
Attendees often only get funded from their HEI if presenting a paper;
Early career researchers (PhD, post-Doc, or early staff) need conference opportunities;
Bursary supported attendees will need presentation outlets.

Thus, in addition to ‘themed’ panel sessions, there will be 5 or 10 ‘open’ parallels (i.e. 7.5 or 15 hours, 1 or 2 rooms, depending on demand) for up to 4 presentations per parallel session (i.e. an additional 20-40 papers). These may be ‘orphan’ papers, i.e. not panel/theme related and within each session, the presentations may not be related to each other. Abstracts for this category of papers will be quality reviewed by the conference steering group and we would attempt to place papers on similar themes together.

We would also hope to provide a Poster Exhibition facility, either in one of the ‘open’ session rooms, or alongside the publishers’ exhibition space. Therefore, colleagues who do not want to submit a standalone paper are invited to submit a poster with the same deadline for individual papers as below. Poster submissions are not eligible for bursaries and all expenses associated with printing posters will be borne by those submitting.

Information, Queries and Submissions should be directed in the first instance to:
Frances Hill
Executive Director
Development Studies Association
POB 108
Bideford
Devon EX39 6ZQ
Telephone: 01288 331360
Email: conference@devstud.org.uk

The Future of Interdisciplinary in International Relations

A conference organized by the Midlands Regional IR Network
Hosted by the Department of Political Science and International Studies
University of Birmingham, Tuesday 15th September 2009.

Call for papers:
The study of International Relations (IR) has often borrowed from, and built upon, the work produced in diverse academic disciplines. These range from philosophy to economics, sociology to criminology, geography to cultural studies, and from international law to the philosophy of science. Despite the significant debt that the development of IR as a field of study in its own right owes to interdisciplinary scholarship, debates over the future development of interdisciplinarity in IR are too often treated as a marginal concern. In addition, while many IR scholars borrow from the research insights of other disciplines, disciplinary boundaries such as the organizational structures of universities and the specialization of academic journals and publishers often inhibit rather than facilitate dialogue between scholars and students working in similar research areas.
This one-day conference aims to bring together scholars working on contemporary issues in International Relations from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds to discuss the future of interdisciplinarity in the study of International Relations.

The organizers invite potential participants to submit one of the following two types of proposals:
1. Individual conference paper proposals that directly address issues related to interdisciplinary scholarship in IR. The organizers are especially interested in papers that draw on the wide pool of relevant scholarship from outside the traditional 'IR canon', but which also seek to address the challenges involved with producing interdisciplinary scholarship that attempts to engage with an often sceptical 'mainstream' IR audience.

2. Research project proposals that will contribute to - and draw on - interdisciplinary scholarship in IR. This may include PhD research proposals, post-doctoral research proposals, or academic research grant proposals, and may be completed project designs that have already been submitted or works-in-progress. Successful proposals will be presented in a similar manner to conference papers, but with the specific aim of strengthening scholarly dialogue and knowledge exchange over interdisciplinary project design, access to funding for interdisciplinary research projects, and how to publish interdisciplinary research outputs.
Additional information:

The deadline for paper proposals and research project proposals is 1 June 2009. Successful conference applicants will be notified by e-mail by 30 June 2009. Further additional information, including the conference programme, will be published on the conference website in July 2009.
Conference organizers:
Dr. André Broome
a.broome@bham.ac.uk <mailto:a.broome@bham.ac.uk>
Dr. Nicola Smith
n.j.smith.1@bham.ac.uk <mailto:n.j.smith.1@bham.ac.uk>
Dr Annika Bergman-Rosamond
abr3@leicester.ac.uk <mailto:abr3@leicester.ac.uk>

European Consortium for Political Research

5th ECPR General Conference, Potsdam 10 - 12 September, 2009
The 5th ECPR General Conference will be held at Potsdam Universität from 10-12 September 2009. The Academic Convenors for the conference are Professor Luciano Bardi (ECPR Executive Committee) and Professor Martin Bull (ECPR Academic Director). The main academic programme will be organised in the format of sections and panels, with each Section Chair organising a variety of panels in a different field. The programme is intended to be very broad, with over 50 accepted sections. Further information will be continually added to this website, so check back regularly!

WELCOME WORDS FROM THE LOCAL ORGANISER
Dear Colleague,
I am delighted to be able to welcome you to the ECPR General Conference 2009, which will be held at the University of Potsdam on 10-12 September 2009. The University was founded in 1991, partially on the grounds of research institutions established during Socialist rule. With approximately 16,000 students enrolled in the University’s five faculties, including about 1,300 foreign students from more than 85 countries, the University of Potsdam is the largest research institution in a city that prides itself on having the highest density of academic and scientific facilities in Germany. The campus site at Griebnitzsee, where the General Conference 2009 will be held, has just been transformed by the addition of a new building, in which most of our events will be held. The Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, which acts as our host, focuses on public policy and public management (broadly understood). It offers BA degrees in political science and public administration, sociology and economics as well as a range of postgraduate degrees, including a Master of Public Management, a Master of Global Public Policy, a Master of European Governance and Administration (offered in cooperation with ENA and Sorbonne in Paris and Humboldt-University in Berlin), and an Executive Master of Public Management with the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin.

Potsdam -- a brief look at history

Beyond offering the comforts of a generously refurbished campus, the conference location at Potsdam also serves as a stark reminder of the turbulent history that is the backdrop of modern-day European politics. Throughout modern times, the city and region of Potsdam have served as the stage for some of Europe’s defining movements and moments. In 1685, the Edict of Potsdam ended religious discrimination and triggered an influx of immigrants to the city, most notably of French Huguenots. During the reign of Frederick the Great, the city and, most of all, the Prussian monarch’s summer residence Sanssouci became almost synonymous with European enlightenment. Voltaire joined Frederick’s court, where French was the official language, and stayed at Sanssouci for extended periods.
But Potsdam also played its role during dark moments of German’s more recent history. In 1933, the city hosted the meeting during which Germany’s ailing President Hindenburg shook hands with the newly elected Chancellor Hitler. The ‘Day of Potsdam’ came to symbolise the tragic miscalculation of Germany’s old elites and the rise of the national-socialist movement to power, as the Weimar Republic collapsed. Less than ten years later, a mansion at Lake Wannsee just outside Potsdam hosted the notorious meeting of Nazi officials charged with organising the deportation and extermination of European Jews.
After the Second World War, the allied forces chose Cecilia Court Palace as the site of the ‘Potsdam Conference’ to negotiate the terms of German occupation and Europe’s post-WWII order. The Cold War that soon split the continent saw some of its most secretive moments played out in Potsdam. As recently as during the mid-1980s, Glienicke Bridge, separating the East from the West, was used to exchange captured spies and political prisoners. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, and in recognition of its architectural and landscape treasures, Potsdam was declared UNESCO world heritage site in 1990.
We hope you will enjoy your stay at the University of Potsdam and also find the time to experience some of the unique sites this city and region have to offer.

visit:
http://www.ecprnet.eu/ecpr/potsdam/default.asp

Postcolonial Translocations Conference 21 - 24 of May 2009

For further information visit:
http://www.gnel2009.de/

Glocal Imaginarieswriting/ Migration / Place

07 - 09 September 2009

Lancaster University & the Whitworth Gallery, Manchester

Call for Papers

With an interest in both the material and the imaginative (re)configuration of location, mobility and migration in cities across the world, this conference invites papers from colleagues working in all disciplines/media including the creative arts. Plenary speakers include:

Mieke Bal, Roger Bromley, Shirley Chew, David L. Eng, Gayatri Gopinath, Ranjana Khanna, Susheila Nasta, James Procter, John Thieme, John Urry, Robert J.C. Young, Ruth Wodak
Conference 'streams' include:

The Glocal City; Queer G/localities (Jackie Stacey); G/local Mobilities (Allison Hui); G/local Diasporas (Lindsey Moore); G/local Economies (Sondra Cuban); Discourses of the G/local (Bethan Benwell); Moving Stories: Rewriting Space and Place; (Shirley Chew); Virtual Diasporas (Graham Miekle), Migration and Diaspora (Maggie O'Neill), the Black Atlantic (Alan Rice) and Gendering Diasporas.

Papers are invited from colleagues with an interest in any of these areas but we are also happy to consider proposals which fall outside of them. Papers will be limited to 20 minutes and, in most cases, will be presented as part of a panel of three.

In addition, we are willing to consider proposals from colleagues who would like to present their work collectively and / or constitute their own 'three paper' panel.

We also welcome papers and presentations from creative writers / arts' practitioners for the 'Moving Stories' stream (to be led by Professor Shirley Chew, editor of Moving Worlds ) but advise that these should include a reflective element; readings and performances per se will be incorporated into the conference programme outwith the parallel sessions.

We expect the conference to deliver several publication outputs, both in the form of journal 'special issues' and a book of 'conference proceedings'.

Abstracts - of no more than 300 words - should be submitted by 16 January 2009 to our conference administrator, Mrs Jo McVicker, Room 190, County College, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YD mailto:j.mcvicker@lancaster.ac.uk. They should include full contact details and, where appropriate, an indication of the stream they would like to be considered for. We hope to be in a position to let prospective delegates know whether their paper has been accepted before the Easter vacation.

In the meantime, please consult the website for further updates on the conference. Registration details will also be posted in due course.

3rd International Conference on Sociology

11-14 MAY 2009
ATHENS, GREECE

The Sociology Research Unit of the Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER) will hold its 2nd International Conference on Sociology in Athens, Greece, 11-14 May 2009. The conference website is www.atiner.gr/docs/Sociology.htm

The registration fee is 250 euro, covering access to all sessions, two lunches, coffee breaks and conference material. Special arrangements will be made with local hotels for a limited number of rooms at a special conference rate. In addition, a one-day cruise to picturesque Greek Islands and a half-day tour to archaeological sites will be organized.

Papers (in English only) from all areas of Sociology, Criminal Justice and Social Work are welcome. Selected (reviewed) papers will be published in a Special Volume of the Conference Proceedings. If you think that you can contribute, please send an abstract of about 300 words, via email only (atiner@atiner.gr), before January 12th, 2009 to: Dr. Gregory A. Katsas, Head, Sociology Research Unit, ATINER and Associate Professor, The American College of Greece-Deree College, Greece. If you want to participate without presenting a paper, i.e. chair a session, evaluate papers to be included in the conference proceedings or books, contribute to the editing of a book, or any other contribution, please send an email to Dr. Gregory T. Papanikos (gtp@atiner.gr), Director, ATINER.

The Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER) was established in 1995 as an independent academic organization with the mission to become a forum, where academics and researchers from all over the world could meet in Athens and exchange ideas on their research and discuss the future developments of their discipline. Since 1995, more than 100 international conferences were organized and more than 80 books have been published. The Institute is organized into four research divisions and 19 research units. Each research unit organizes at least an annual conference and undertakes various small- and large-scale research projects.

Second Global Studies Conference

Zayed University, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
30 May to 1 June 2009
http://www.GlobalStudiesConference.com

The Global Studies Conference and Global Studies Journal are devoted to mapping and interpreting new trends and patterns in globalization. The conference and journal attempt to do this from many points of view, from many locations in the world, and in a wide-angle kaleidoscopic fashion.

Plenary speakers include:
*Georges Corm, Saint Joseph University, Beirut, Lebanon
*Lena Jayyusi, Zayed University, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
*Habibiul Haque Khondker, Zayed University, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
*Vibodh Parthasarathi, Centre for Culture, Media and Governance, New Delhi, India
*Mouin Rabbani, International Crisis Group, Amman, Jordan
*George Ritzer, University of Maryland, College Park, USA

In addition, the Conference will also include numerous paper, workshop and colloquium presentations by practitioners, teachers and researchers. We would particularly like to invite you to respond to the Conference Call-for-Papers. Presenters may choose to submit written papers for publication in the fully refereed Global Studies Journal. If you are unable to attend the Conference in person, virtual registrations are also available which allow you to submit a paper for refereeing and possible publication in this fully refereed academic Journal, as well as access to the electronic version of the Conference proceedings.

Whether you are a virtual or in-person presenter at this Conference, we also encourage you to present on the Conference YouTube Channel. Please select the Online Sessions link on the Conference website for further details.

The deadline for the next round in the call for papers (a title and short abstract) is 11 January 2009. Future deadlines will be announced on the Conference website after this date. Proposals are reviewed within two weeks of submission. Full details of the Conference, including an online proposal submission form, are to be found at the Conference website -
http://www.GlobalStudiesConference.com/.

We look forward to receiving your proposal and hope you will be able to join us in Dubai in 2009.

Yours Sincerely,

Jan Nederveen Pieterse
University of Illinois, Urbana, USA
For the Advisory Board, Global Studies Conference and Global Studies