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Call for Publications Theme: Peripheral Visions in the Globalizing Present Subtitle: Community, Contestation, Critique Publication: Edited Volume Deadline: 1.2.2015 __________________________________________________ Although discourses on globalization tend to stress the decline of organizing the world in terms of center and periphery, and although these categories have themselves been reformulated as shifting and multiple, it nevertheless seems impossible to give shape to the world without some notion of the central and the peripheral (as implied, for example, in the urban-rural distinction). Given the continuing prevalence of center and periphery as categories of thought and the dominant emphasis placed on identifying and exploring what is conceived as central or centralizing, this edited volume provides a necessary and more sustained focus on the peripheral. The peripheral is taken in its broadest possible sense as referring to spatial locations, social groups, cultural forms and media practices. We wish to explore the conceptual meanings and material effects of the peripheral, as well as its dynamic relationship to what is seen as central. We invite contributions that investigate how today’s peripheries are (strategically) employed, lived and imagined, and what visions emerge from them. In choosing the word “visions,” which implies a sense of futurity, we seek to counter the long-standing association between peripheries and backwardness. We are especially interested in cultural representations and imaginations of the peripheral and how these feed into notions of community, contestation and critique. We depart from an understanding of peripheries: - as dynamic and shifting realities: in the context of globalization, significant changes are taking place with regard to which parts (of the world, of Europe, etc.) are considered to be at the core and which are becoming more tangential. The consequences of such shifts are far-reaching and may, for example, be discerned in the rise of populist nationalism in nations whose centrality is perceived as being under threat. It is imperative not only to investigate the complex relationships of peripheries to centers, but also those between different (emerging) peripheries. - as complex and perspectival constructs: peripheries may be discerned on global, continental, national or local scales, and can be highly complex, since what appears as peripheral from one point of view may seem central from another. Peripheries may manifest and be mobilized as zones of exclusion (e.g. borderlands, ungovernable regions, new media black spots), exclusivity (e.g. gated communities, non-mass tourism, niche cultures and media), extraction (e.g. of resources, labor or cultural forms), expression (e.g. creative subcultures, spiritual movements) or contestation (e.g. cultural or political counter-movements, social media protest networks). - as evaluative and affective modalities: to be deemed “peripheral” has profound consequences for the organization and assessment of beings and matters, for instance in terms of warranting attention, investment or protection. Peripheries may be valued as sites to escape the pressures of globalization, but can also become associated with less desirable effects of national and transnational policy, such as waste, resource extraction and containment (of prisoners, migrants, information). Peripheral spaces, social structures, cultural forms and media practices yield particular forms of subjectivity, affective investments, and (political) imaginations. Thus, peripheral visions can be understood neither as necessarily nostalgic nor as automatically progressive. We welcome contributions analyzing case studies from around the world in relation to one or more of the following questions: - Where exactly are today’s peripheries (geographic, social, cultural) located? - What visions of the past, present and future do today’s peripheries project? - How do today’s peripheries relate to global, national or local centers, and does this relation still accord with its dominant theorization in world systems theory, postcolonial theory and globalization theory? - How do today’s conceptualizations of peripheries (dis)connect with notions of marginality, liminality, regionalism and locality? - How does the construction of today’s peripheries intersect with that of borders and frontiers? - What communities are forged and/or disrupted in today’s peripheries, and how do such communities negotiate processes of inclusion and exclusion? - What contestations – progressive or reactionary/conservative – emerge from today’s peripheries? - What new forms of critique might today’s peripheries yield? - What structures of feeling and affects are associated with today’s peripheries, and what potentialities do they yield? Submission Abstracts (max. 500 words), with a brief CV (max. 200 words), should be submitted by 1 February 2015 to: [email protected] Notice of acceptance will be given by 1 March 2015. Complete papers should be 5.000-7.000 words, written in MLA format, and should be submitted by 1 June 2015. Volume editors Esther Peeren (Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis/Amsterdam Centre for Globalisation Studies, University of Amsterdam) Hanneke Stuit (Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis, University of Amsterdam), Astrid Van Weyenberg (Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society, Leiden University) Contact: Peripheral Visions Project Email: [email protected] Web: http://https://www.facebook.com/events/1507593112828802/ __________________________________________________ InterPhil List Administration: http://interphil.polylog.org Intercultural Philosophy Calendar: http://cal.polylog.org __________________________________________________
