Living Together: CRONEM 6th Annual Conference 2010

Centre for Research on Nationalism, Ethnicity and Multiculturalism (CRONEM)
University of Surrey / Roehampton University
CRONEM 6th ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2010

Joint international conference with the Runnymede Trust (http://www.runnymedetrust.org )
Living Together: Civic, Political and Cultural Engagement Among Migrants, Minorities and National Populations: Multidisciplinary Perspectives ( 29 - 30 June 2010)
University of Surrey, Guildford, UK

CALL FOR PAPERS
(Deadline 15 February 2010)

This conference will range across different academic disciplines and explore links between academic knowledge, policy, practice and the media. The format will consist of keynote addresses, parallel paper sessions, convened symposia, a poster session and a panel debate organised by the Runnymede Trust.

Speakers already confirmed:
Benjamin R. Barber, President (CivWorld at Demos) and Walt Whitman Professor Emeritus, Rutgers University, USA
Constance Flanagan, Professor of Youth Civic Development, Penn State University, USA
Yvonne Galligan, Director, Centre for the Advancement of Women in Politics, Queen's University Belfast
Jørgen S. Nielsen, Director, Centre for European Islamic Thought, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Lord Bhikhu Parekh, Professor of Political Philosophy, University of Westminster, UK
Antje Wiener, Professor of Politics, University of Hamburg, Germany

Despite the recent " Obama effect" , conventional forms of political participation have declined in many countries in recent years, with growing levels of political apathy, disengagement from formal democratic processes and increasing distrust of, or lack of confidence in, political institutions. However, research suggests that issues, which might have mobilised individuals into taking political action in the past, are now being tackled in many cases via voluntary, community or charitable activities, protest movements or consumer activism instead. Hence, current trends in political participation, especially among younger people, may be indicative not of public disengagement per se but of a shift to a different kind of public activism.

Gendered perspectives on cultural, civic and political engagement, which explore the conditions governing women ' s participation, as well as perspectives which examine engagement and participation among migrant or minority groups, can be especially illuminating here. Women, migrants and minorities play vital roles in any society, contributing through their skills, labour, taxes, community participation and cultural activities. Yet, when restrictive criteria, practices or policies prevent members of these groups from participating fully in the political, civic and cultural life of the country in which they live, members of these groups often develop novel forms of engagement in order to circumvent the obstacles.

Policy can have a crucial impact on levels of participation, either by creating impediments and barriers to participation by specific groups, or by minimising these impediments. However, policy issues can be complex to tackle, with the policies which exist at different levels (e.g., at community, regional, national and supranational levels) often being incongruent with each other, and with discrepancies frequently existing between intended policy, the content of policy texts, policy implementation, and the interpretation of policy by citizens.

This conference aims to take stock of the different forms of civic, political and cultural engagement which currently exist, and investigate the factors and processes which are driving them. A special feature of the conference this year will be an event organised by the Runnymede Trust, which will consider where Britain stands 10 years after the Parekh Report (http://www.runnymedetrust.org/projects/meb/report.html) on the future of multi-ethnic Britain and 25 years after the Swann Report.

We would like to encourage the submission of papers which address the following themes:
> · Active engagement, interaction, expression and dissension at civic, political or cultural levels
> · The participation of young people, women, migrants and minorities
> · Different forms of engagement among adult national majority populations
> · The role of public policy in civic, political or cultural participation

As this is an international conference, papers reporting on contexts other than the UK are especially welcome.

For more information about the Call for Papers, abstract submission forms and registration, please visit http://www.surrey.ac.uk/Arts/CRONEM/index.htm
For any conference queries, please contact Ms Melek Muderrisgil (Melek.Muderrisgil@surrey.ac.uk)

The Journal of Critical Globalisation Studies presents the GSA Conference 2010:

Global Studies and International Relations: mutual bedfellows or contesting paradigms?

Merton College, University of Oxford,
1st – 3rd September 2010

Confirmed Keynotes:

Prof. David Chandler (University of Westminster)

Prof. Martin Shaw (University of Sussex)

Prof. Sandra Halperin (Royal Holloway, University of London)

Prof. John Urry (University of Lancaster)


The nation-states, statesmen, civilizations and empires that constitute the traditional units of analysis in International Relations no longer seem to adequately capture the cascading interconnectedness and so-called fluid processes of the globalizing world. If relations between nations dominated 20th century understanding of world events, it may now be the case that Global Studies offers new sets of vocabularies, new conceptions of relationships and better ways of imagining the complexities of 21st century world social relationships.

Nevertheless nation-states still exist. They are still powerful actors and they are still a pervasive way of categorizing, quantifying and understanding human behaviour – both in the theoretical attitude of the academic and the attitude of individuals making sense of their worlds. Power politics has not disappeared with the rise of the ‘global’, nation-states still have standing armies and the relations between them still determines the living conditions of great populations. Most recently, it is states that have shored up the faltering global economy.

The 2010 GSA conference seeks to probe the relationship between these two different approaches to understanding world social relationships. Indeed, is the advent of Global Studies an extension of International Relations, on a continuum with it, or does Global Studies represent what Foucault termed a new episteme, with the implication that International Relations and Global Studies cannot speak to each other for lack of a common language? Moreover, can Global Studies challenge the dominance of International Relations in both social science departments and policymaking fields? Or will global ‘outlooks’ still depend upon visible territorial borders, the outcome of historical and territorial conflicts between states.

In sum, the Global Studies Association conference 2010 will offer a rare opportunity, and intimate setting, for scholars from both IR and those working under the umbrella of Global Studies to engage in debates concerning the very foundations of their respective disciplines, in order to address the possibility of a more mutual understanding of the world. The intention is to establish a creative and progressive forum that will benefit researchers from all relevant disciplines. To this end we invite papers that address the conference theme and can include, but not be limited to, the following areas:


*International Law.

*Risk Society and Network Society.

*Conceptions of inside and outside.

*The transformation of (state) borders.

*The empowerment of the global individual and non-state entities.

*The importance of transnational and hybrid identities.

*Changing ideas of nationalism and citizenship and ramifications for IR.

*The European Union and ideas of regionalisation.

*Global ‘terror’ and international war.

*The making of place, the imagining of life worlds.

*International and the global: continuum or epistemic break?

*Global Studies and IR: methodological issues.

*Teaching International Relations and Globalization in the university.

*Theoretical approaches: possibilities for disciplinary alignments?



Proposals for papers should take the form of a 300 word abstract and may be submitted on any aspect of the conference theme. The organisers will allocate papers to an appropriate panel.

The deadline for submission of abstracts is 30th April 2010. Abstracts should be submitted to:

abstracts@criticalglobalisation.com.


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