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Call for Papers Theme: Opening the Boundaries of Citizenship Type: International Conference Institution: OECUMENE Project Faculty of Social Sciences, Open University Location: Milton Keynes (United Kingdom) Date: 6.–7.2.2012 Deadline: 12.9.2011 __________________________________________________ As part of the activities of the first symposium ‘Citizenship after Orientalism’, we invite proposals of papers to contribute to the International Conference on ‘Opening the Boundaries of Citizenship’. In the last two decades, the question of citizenship has become the object of intense reflection and debate. Whether citizenship was supposed to address just a status or should be conceived also and fundamentally as a practice; the relation between citizenship and nation-states and the reformulation of citizenship in light of supra- national political formations; the impact of human-rights discourse on citizenship rights; the pluralization and fragmentation of citizenship according to different kindd of rights, such as social, economic, cultural, sexual, intimate, indigenous, consumer, environmental, civic rights, are all areas of intellectual and political struggles that point to the central role of citizenship in giving shape and sense to current political articulations. Yet, in most of these debates the question over the Euro-American assumptions for conceiving citizenship remained out of scope. In light of this scenario, the conference aims at exploring forms of political subjectivity that remain unmapped when citizenship is assumed as just ‘membership of the state’, as a synonym for nationality, or when conceived as a practice, it is still understood as a contractual, secular, modern and particularly occidental way of belonging. Contrary to the assumption that only a Western model of society (opposed to Hindu, Muslim, indigenous, etc.) could develop the form of political participation in the public sphere called ‘citizenship’, citizenship can be considered as an ongoing process through which subjects constitute themselves as political, and appears to be open towards its future configurations. In line with the general topic of the symposium, the conference invites contributions addressing the performative and creative side of social movements, practices of identity negotiation and political participation questioning the meaning of citizenship. Which actors, sites and rights are constituted in contemporary power struggles redefining ‘the political’? Which neo-colonial or neo-imperial nodes emerge from the analysis of issues such as democracy or secularism? Under this light, how is the language of law challenged and remoulded? Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: - Migration politics - Religious identities - Debates on secularism - Women’s movements and writing - Feminist, G&L and queer interventions on citizenship - Citizenship, race and colonialism - The sexualization of democracy - The performance of politics - Contesting public spaces - Art, culture and politics - Multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism as modes of administering of difference Keynote speakers: Judith Butler (University of California, Berkeley) Paul Gilroy (LSE) Bryan Turner (CUNY) Engin Isin (The Open University) Abstracts of 500 words (including name, institutional affiliation and contact details) and a brief (strictly 2 pages) CV should be submitted no later than 12th September 2011 through the online application form at: http://www.oecumene.eu/events/1st-symposium/abstracts-and-application If you have any further questions about how to submit your proposal, please email: [email protected] Notification of acceptance will be delivered by 9th October 2011. You can find all the information about the conference and the symposium on the OECUMENE website: http://www.oecumene.eu Contact: Anne Paynter, Project Administrator Faculty of Social Sciences The Open University Walton Hall Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA United Kingdom Email: [email protected] Web: http://www.oecumene.eu __________________________________________________ InterPhil List Administration: http://interphil.polylog.org Intercultural Philosophy Calendar: http://cal.polylog.org __________________________________________________
