Author: Tommaso Vitale Date: To: ML movimenti Bicocca Subject: [movimenti.bicocca] CfP: Politics of Inequality and Difference,
CEU Grad Conference, 12-13.06.09, Budapest
>
> Dear all
>
> this is the final reminder for the call (below) for papers for the
> conference "The Politics of Inequality and Difference: Critical
> Approaches in Anthropology and Sociology"(Central European
> University, Budapest, Department of Sociology and Social
> Anthropology, 12-13 June 2009)
> please note that the abstracts and requests should be sent directly
> to the conveyors of each panel by Tuesday 31st of March (and NOT as
> a response to the sender of this email)
>
> Ethnicization of poverty (Conveyor: Kristóf Szombati, szombati_kristof@???
> )
> Nationalism and its others (Conveyor: Florin Faje, faje_florin@???
> )
> The politics of space and the ‘right to the city’ (Conveyor: Judit
> Veres, veres_judit@???)
> Governance of inequality (Conveyor: Gábor Scheiring, scheiring_gabor@???
> )
>
> Thanks
>
> +++
>
> The Politics of Inequality and Difference: Critical Approaches in
> Anthropology and Sociology
>
> Central European University, Budapest,
> Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology
> 12-13 June 2009
>
>
> The main purpose of the present graduate conference is to initiate a
> critical discussion of the ways in which the acute problems of
> inequality and difference are currently theorized and
> methodologically engaged both inter-disciplinarily, in the fields of
> sociology and anthropology, and extra-disciplinarily, in relation to
> policy and decision-making. The scope of the conference is thus wide-
> ranging inviting theoretically informed, methodologically reflexive
> and politically aware contributions that engage one or both of these
> major topics. Given the broad research interests of both faculty and
> students special attention will be devoted to a number of topics
> clustered in the following four panels:
>
> Ethnicization of poverty (Conveyor: Kristóf Szombati, szombati_kristof@???
> )
> The aim of this panel is to bring sociological and anthropological
> perspectives on the poverty/ethnicity nexus together by asking how
> cultural differentiation and ethnic competition are linked to class
> dynamics and the rise of social inequalities. Our questions derive
> from an understanding of the ethnicization of poverty primarily as a
> political project (involving a range of actors, social scientists
> included) aimed at producing a new social theodicy, that is
> entrenching a normative answer to one of modernity's most pertinent
> and structurally under (though not un-) determined questions: 'who
> is poor and why'?
> The panel invites written and visual materials engaging with:
>
> • the production and circulation of denigrating discourses and
> images of the 'Poor Other'
> • the memories and everyday experiences of this symbolic production
> • the political debates in which representations of and arguments
> about the ethnic features of poverty are evoked
> • the material and symbolic role of state and market in clothing
> poverty in an ethnic guise
> • stigmatized groups' attempts to evade, counter or strategically
> employ the ethnicization of their social predicament
> • the implication of sociological and anthropological knowledge
> production in the entrenchment or countering of the new social
> theodicy.
>
> Nationalism and its others (Conveyor: Florin Faje, faje_florin@???
> )
> Focusing on the appropriation and use of nationalism by various
> social groups this panel invites reflection on its historical
> transformation from a joint anthropological and sociological
> perspective. Acknowledging nationalism’s complex historical
> development and contemporary manifestations we wish to inquire about
> its past and present political, social and cultural deployment.
> Aware of the relations of power in which the national emerges and
> gains potency we wish to initiate a discussion of nationalism and
> its others. Thus, we call for papers that directly or indirectly
> address one or more of the following topics:
>
> • Nationalism’s political force and relevance
> • When, how and why is the nationalist discourse appropriated? How
> is it used and transformed?
> • Nationalism as a class-based phenomenon
> • Everyday expressions of the national
> • Gendered views of nationalism
> • National identity: caught between the local and the global?
>
> The politics of space and the ‘right to the city’ (Conveyor: Judit
> Veres, veres_judit@???)
> In this panel we invite papers that take up the challenge posed by
> the exhaustion of the imagination of what the city as a body politic
> entails against the backdrop of a general decline in urban
> collective action. We want to move beyond an understanding of the
> city as a tabula rasa to be designed and reorganized according to
> hegemonic functional or aesthetic criteria, and call for a complex
> cultural, political and economic understanding of urban space and
> place with an increased sensitivity to history. We wish to inquire
> the links between space, the securing of rights, and class formation
> and to pose the simple questions: "Whose cities?" and "Whose
> rights?" Tentative themes to be addressed:
>
> • Spatializing the public sphere
> • Urban design and its lateral sidings with power
> • Controlling the public space
> • Social production and social construction of space
> • The relational connectivity between public, quasi-public and
> private space
> • How the "(feeling of) community" emerges and is enacted
> • The chances and challenge of "small places"
>
> Governance of inequality (Conveyor: Gábor Scheiring, scheiring_gabor@???
> )
> Processes of spatial rescaling, decentralization, the emergence of
> new non-governmental political actors, the rise of transnational
> networks and supranational political and economic forces have all
> redrawn the boundaries of the state. Traditional measures to tackle
> inequalities are becoming increasingly difficult to enact. Although
> admitting its changing shape, many maintain that the role of the
> state in governing inequalities remains central. The aim of the
> panel is to bring together sociological and anthropological studies
> on the changing nature of the governance of inequalities. The panel
> welcomes materials within this broad topic with a special (but not
> exclusionary) focus on the following questions:
>
> • Who governs inequalities? What are the key actors and mechanisms
> influencing policies on inequalities?
> • How do new symbolic representations and changing discourses of
> inequality, class and citizenship influence the governance of
> inequality?
> • How is the public-private boundary redrawn in the new structures
> of governance?
> • What is the material and symbolic role of the state, institutions
> and the market in the governance of inequality today?
> • How does the global impinge upon the local in governance and what
> is the answer of the local?
> • How are the interests of marginal groups channeled into politics?
> • What is the practical relevance of sociological and
> anthropological knowledge in the debate on inequality?
>
>
> 300 words abstracts should be submitted by Tuesday 31st of March. If
> an abstract is accepted for the conference a full paper should be
> submmited by Friday 15th of May.
>
> Please note that the abstracts should be sent directly to the
> conveyors of each panel.
> Limited funding for travel and accomodation is available
>
