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Call for Papers "New Worlds, New Sovereignties" A Cross-Community Interdisciplinary International Conference Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service Victoria University University of Melbourne Melbourne (Australia) 11-14 December 2007 __________________________________________________ >>From Columbus landing in the so-called New World to the post-Soviet expansion of the European Union and beyond, nations and nation-states have continuously preoccupied themselves with the problem of sovereignty. Which human groups should be recognised as possessed of sovereignty and who should be excluded? How do sovereign states accommodate the presence and competing claims of other sovereign states without compromising their own autonomy? Is there a higher power to which sovereigns can turn to have their disputes resolved or is sovereigntys only ultimate sanction violence? Are sovereigns subject to their own law or do they stand outside it? Should nation-states refuse to interfere in each others affairs regardless of the treatment of minorities? Can different sovereignties overlap and coexist or is sovereignty monolithic and exclusive? Are settler democracy and Native sovereignty compatible? How is sovereignty (or are sovereignties) gendered? Our conference will address questions such as these with a view to bringing history to bear on the problems of the present. The conferences standpoint will be from below. We will be focusing on sovereigntys consequences for those whom the current order excludes or diminishes. The conference will bring together distinguished international scholars, policy-makers and community organizations in an exchange of information that will make the fruits of contemporary scholarship available to those responsible for delivering practical outcomes at the local level. At the same time, it will alert academics to the practical experiences and problems that should be informing our scholarship. The conference will be sequential and cumulative. There will be thirteen plenary sessions, each commencing with a panel and allowing an hours audience discussion. Panellists will be selected on the basis of the papers that they propose. These will be chosen for their quality and thematic compatibility. In addition to the panellists, 250 participants will be selected on the basis of participation statements. A call for these statements will be issued in July. Both panellists and participants will be invited to submit proposals for the edited collection of essays that will be published after the conference. We are now calling for proposals for individual contributions to panels. Proposers are required to undertake that their papers are original and exclusively available for us to publish. A decision on publication will be made after the conference. If we do not choose to publish a paper in the book, we make no claim on it. Proposals are invited to address the following topics: A. Thematic: i) Indigenous concepts and practices of sovereignty. ii) Historical genealogies of European concepts of sovereignty. iii) Limits and contradictions of sovereignty. iv) Sovereign subjecthoods individuals, human rights and the nation-state. v) Overlapping and coexistent sovereignties Natives, minorities, and the nation-state. vi) Sovereignty and the new global order. B. Case Studies: i) Aboriginal Australia/Torres Strait Islands (a): Local agreements, delegated sovereignties. ii) Aboriginal Australia/Torres Strait Islands (b): Camp Sovereignty. iii) Native North America. iv) Palestine. v) Timor Leste. vi) Post-Soviet Europe. vii) Refugees, asylum seekers and national borders. The deadline for the submission of proposals is July 15th. Contact: Julie Evans (University of Melbourne) Patrick Wolfe (Victoria University) Email: [email protected] Web: http://www.newsovereignties.org __________________________________________________ InterPhil List Administration: http://interphil.polylog.org Intercultural Philosophy Calendar: http://cal.polylog.org
