Fwd: 4th Global Conference Interculturalism, Meaning and Identity

4th Global Conference:
Interculturalism, Meaning and Identity

Tuesday 8th March ? Thursday 10th March 2011
Prague, Czech Republic

Call for Papers
This multi-disciplinary project seeks to explore
the new and prominent place that the idea of
culture has for the construction of meaning and
identity, as well as the implications for social
political membership in contemporary societies. In
particular the project will assess the larger
context of major world transformations, for
example, new forms of migration and the massive
movements of people across the globe, as well
as the impact and contribution of globalisation on
tensions, conflicts and the sense of rootedness
and belonging. Looking to encourage
innovative trans-disciplinary dialogues, we warmly
welcome papers from all disciplines, professions
and vocations which struggle to understand what it
means for people, the world over, to forge
identities in rapidly changing national, social
and cultural contexts.

Papers, workshops, presentations and pre-formed
panels are invited on
any of the following themes:

1. Contemporary Rediscoveries and Redefinitions of
Culture
~ Multiple, polyvalent and contradictory
conceptions of culture
~ Infinite source of meaning and identity, of
membership and exclusion, of privileging and
stygmatising, of worth and misery, of place and
history, of violence and destruction
~ Cultural remaking of self and other; recasting
of links, bonds and relations
~ The contradictory forces of culture: diversity
versus homogeneity, multiplicity versus sameness,
alterity versus normality, recognition
versus misrecognition
~ Textures of cultures: fixed, fluid, porous,
hermetic, rigid and flexible

2. Cultural Boundaries, Peoples and Nations
~ Dislocation and decoupling of culture and
nation, of culture and place, of culture and history
~ Resurgence of the local, the diminishing
importance of the national and the forces of the
global
~ What does it mean, today, to be part of a
culture, to be part of multiple cultures?
~ Massive and new forms of global migration and
the new hybridity of cultures
~ Assimilation, integration, adaptation and other
forms of 'forcing' cultures on migrants

3. Individuals, Identity and the Inter-Subjective
~ De-centering individuals and the making of
persons; thinking and acting with others and
interpersonality
~ Tensions, contradictions and conflicts of
identity formation and social membership
~ New sources and forms of belonging; new
tribalism, localism, parochialism and communitarianism
~ Bonds of care across boundaries of inequality
and exclusion, ideologies and religions, politics
and power, nations and geography
~ Who am I if not the Relation with Others?
~ Non-recognition as cultural violence

4. Cultural Formations
~ What are the dynamics and processes that define
the central tenets of a culture?
~ How are cultures defined and redefined? Who
participates in the social and political task of
defining and redefining culture?
~ What is shared from cultures? How are cultures
shared? Who has access to the sharing of cultures?
~ Symbols and significations that connect people
to cultures other than 'their own'
~ Culture and the construction of identities:
destiny, happenstance,choice and politics

5. Politicising Culture
~ Political battles over the principles and core
values of a culture, of many cultures
~ The dynamics of cultural recognition and
misrecognition
~ What is the place of cultural claims in today's
forms of social and political membership?
~ Trans-cultural connections that escape
institutional and political control
~ Cultural claims and human rights

6. Art and Cultural Representations
~ Media and the construction of cultures and
identities
~ Production and reproduction of cultural
recognition and misrecognition
~ The contested space of representing meaning and
identity, culture and belonging
~ Art, media and how to challenge the rigid and
impenetrable constructions of culture
~ Living, being and belonging through art; life
imitating art and fiction

7. Crossing Cultural Boundaries
~ Interpenetration, overlapping, crossovers,
interlacing, hybridisation and interdependence
~ Languages, idioms and new emerging forms of
bridging the 'invisible' divide of cultures
~ Conceptualisations that foster the breaking down
of rigid cultural boundaries
~ Equalising cultures; recognition and respect
across cultures
~ How to revamp historically old concepts like
tolerance, acceptance and hospitality?
~ An ethics for cultural relations

Papers will also be considered which deal with
related themes. 300 word abstracts should be
submitted by Friday 1st October 2010. All
submissions are minimally double blind peer
reviewed where appropriate. If an abstract is
accepted for the conference, a full draft paper
should be submitted by Friday 4th February 2011.
Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to
the Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word,
WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following
information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d)
title of abstract, e) body of abstract
E-mails should be titled: Interculturalism
Abstract Submission

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain
from using footnotes and any special formatting,
characters or emphasis (such as bold,
italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and
answer to all paperproposals submitted. If you do
not receive a reply from us in a week you
should assume we did not receive your proposal; it
might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to
look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Joint Organising Chairs:
Alejandro Cervantes-Carson
Hub Leader,
Inter-Disciplinary.Net,
Barcelona, Catalunya, Spain
E-mail: [email protected]

Rob Fisher
Network Leader
Inter-Disciplinary.Net,
Freeland, Oxfordshire,
United Kingdom
E-mail: [email protected]

The conference is part of the 'Diversity and
Recognition' research projects, which in turn
belong to the 'At the Interface' programmes of
Inter-Disciplinary.Net. It aims to bring together
people from different areas and interests to share
ideas and explore discussions which are
innovative and challenging. All papers accepted
for and presented at the conference will be
eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook.
Selected papers may be developed for publication
in themed hard copy volume(s).

For further details about the project please visit:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/at-the-interface/diversity-recognition/interculturalism/

For further details about the conference please visit:
Web address:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/at-the-interface/diversity-recognition/interculturalism/call-for-papers/