The themes of the conference:
Conference format:
All participants will have the opportunity to listen to experts and activists as well as participate in collective thinking and analysis. There will be plenary speeches, workshops, performances, opportunity to meet local NGOs, walks in East Lodnon, and exhibitions organised by local artists, scholars and activists.
Among more than 70 speakers are:
Registeration fees: Full (three days £60, daily £ 25), Concessions ( three days £30, daily £12).
For registeration by credit or debit card, please go the CMRB home page. If you wish to register by cheque (made payable to University of East London). Please send cheques to:
Mastoureh Fathi, School of Law and Social Sciences, Docklands Campus, University of East London, University Way, London, E16 2RD.
For more information please contact: Dr Mastoureh Fathi: m.fathi@uel.ac.uk
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28-29 June 2012 Bangor University, UK
Keynote Speakers:
Prof. Nira Yuval-Davis, Director of the Research Centre on Migration, Refugees and Belonging, University of East London, UK http://www.uel.ac.uk/lss/staff/nirayuval-davis/ Nira Yuval-Davis will speak on the subject of her recent book, The Politics of Belonging: Intersectional Contestations.
Prof. Jie-Hyun Lim, Director of the Research Institute of Comparative History and Culture, Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea/ Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin http://www.rich.ac/eng/institute/lim.php<http://www.rich.ac/eng/institute/lim.php?pageNum=1&subNum=3> Jie-Hyun Lim will speak on his current research project, ‘A transnational history of victimhood nationalism: national mourning and global accountability’. Dr Gurminder K. Bhambra, Director of the Social Theory Centre, University of Warwick, UK http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/sociology/staff/academicstaff/bhambra/gurminderkbhambra/ Gurminder K. Bhambra will speak on her current research on early African-American sociologists and their conceptions of identity, inequality, and social theory.
Overview:
Current debates on gender, nation, sexuality, religion and other categories of social divisions and belonging often address the relations between these categories with the term ‘intersectionality’: intersecting in an infinite variety of ways, each of these categories helps construct all the others. What we are, what we suffer, what we belong to, or what we long to be, is multifaceted and contradictory. Our longings, or aversions, are related to our belongings in but complicated and ambiguous ways, and what social group or category we belong to does not determine our political or cultural values, goals or dreams. And yet: the former inform the latter, if only to the extent that we do not wish to remain tomorrow what we are today. Nor do our positionings, situatedness and belongings simply add up to an ‘identity’ (a being so and not other) – as if my hold of ‘ethnicity no. 7’ plus ‘gender no. 2’ plus ‘citizenship in state no. 11’ etcetera could ever equate to exactly what ‘I am’: ‘citizenship in state no. 11’ does not mean the same depending on whether I am of this or that sex, or sexuality, or age, or ethnicity. These intersections complicate, perhaps thwart, any efforts to ground the cultural and political projects, coalitions, emancipation that we long for in the spaces (physical, virtual, rhetorical) we belong to. The organisers welcome critical contributions on all aspects of ‘spaces of belonging’ under the perspective of the concept of intersectionality. Theoretically informed contributions from scholars in all disciplines in the social sciences and humanities, broadly conceived, are invited, as well as from social and community activists or artists. Key themes of interest to the conference include, but are in no way limited to:
• Citizenship, cultural and state membership • Nation, race, ethnicity, nationality • Indigeneity • Diasporas • Religion • Cosmopolitanism and human rights • Longing and the non-space of utopia • Majority-minority relations • Class and belonging • Sex, gender and sexuality • Standpoints, dialogues and politics of recognition • Virtual spaces of belonging • Belonging, feeling, intimacy • Belonging and equality • Age-spaces and ability-spaces
Abstract Submission:
Please submit, by January 22nd 2012, a proposal of between 300-500 words, including title and references, prepared for blind review, alongside a brief biographical note (max. 100 words), in separate electronic files to berg@bangor.ac.uk<mailto:berg@bangor.ac.uk>
Contacts for questions:
Prof. Howard Davis h.h.davis@bangor.ac.uk
Dr. Sally Baker :s.baker@bangor.ac.uk
Dr. Marcel Stoetzler:m.stoetzler@bangor.ac.uk
Dr. Robin Mann: r.mann@bangor.ac.uk
A conference website containing programme and registration details will be launched in January 2012. The conference is sponsored by the Belonging and Ethnicity Research Group (BERG), the Bangor University School of Social Sciences and the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research Data and Methods (WISERD).
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Friday 17th February 2012,
Kanaris Theatre, Manchester Museum Programme
10.30 Registration, tea and coffee
10.55 Welcome
11.00 Sources of Belonging
Dr Jon Bannister, Glasgow University: Young people, territoriality and
identity Dr Michael Skey, UEL: The significance of (national) belonging
12.30 Lunch (vegetarian)
1.30 Modes of Belonging
Dr Sarah Wilson, University of Stirling: Living across the space: sensory
explorations of belonging Dr Debra Ferreday, University of Lancaster: Online
belongings
3.00 Coffee and Tea
3.30-5.00 Round-table discussion
Professor Nira Yuval-Davies, UEL
Professor Gill Valentine, University of Leeds Professor Richard Jenkins,
University of Sheffield The fee for this event is £10.00; please note that
places for this event are strictly limited to 35. If you would like to
attend, please email victoria.higham@manchester.ac.uk by 16 January 2012.
For further information please contact:
Dr Vanessa May (vanessa.may@manchester.ac.uk)
Dr Michael Skey (m.skey@uel.ac.uk)
Abstract
Belonging has been identified as a 'fundamental need' for humans across time
and space. Moreover, questions of belonging continue to dominate the media
and political agendas, whether in relation to youth gangs in inner cities or
ethnic minorities in national settings. This one day symposium offers a
framework for thinking critically about the different scales, sources and
modes of belonging. It draws together experts from a range of disciplines and
will conclude with a round-table discussion featuring some of the leading
scholars currently working in the field. We invite academics, policy-makers
and other interested groups to participate in what promises to be an
intellectually stimulating event, which will discuss the latest approaches to
conceptualising and researching belonging.
Speaker Biographies
Jon Bannister is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Social and Political
Sciences at Glasgow University. Jon's current research interest include the
investigation of the foundations and interplay between (in)civility and
management of (dis)order in the public realm, and the perception of
behaviour, territoriality and youth 'gang'.; and, knowledge mobilisation and
community safety. He is a co-founder of the Scottish Centre for Crime and
Social Justice Research and Managing Editor of Urban Studies. He has
published over 50 learned articles and research reports and has held research
awards from a number of organisations, including; the Economic Social
Research Council, the National Council of Research Methods, the Home Office,
Scottish Government and the Urban Studies Foundation.
Debra Ferreday is a Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at Lancaster
University. She has published widely on digital cultures, queer theory, and
feminist cultural theory. Her work explores the questions of belonging and
technologically mediated subjectivity across a range of media sites and
drawing on a heterogeneous archive including digital cultures, subculture,
global media and performance spaces. Her book on digital cultures, Online
Belongings, was published by Peter Lang in 2009. He is currently working on a
book on feminine identities entitled Rethinking Femininity, which will be
published by Berg in 2013.
Richard Jenkins is an anthropologist who has always worked in
multidisciplinary settings, having done field research in Belfast, the West
Midlands, south Wales, Denmark, and south-west England. He has investigated
the transition to adulthood, ethnicity and racism, nationalism, informal
economic activity, the social lives of people with learning difficulties, and
modern supernatural and witchcraft beliefs. Perhaps the central theme
unifying these diverse projects is a concern with processes of
identification, as discussed in Social Identity (3rd edition, 2008),
Rethinking Ethnicity (2nd edition, 2008) and Being Danish (2nd edition due in
2012).
Michael Skey was awarded his PhD in October 2008 from the LSE and has since
taught sociology at the University of Leicester and Media and Cultural
Studies at University of Kingston. He is currently a senior lecturer in
Sociology at the University of East London. His research interests are in the
areas of national belonging and globalisation, ethnic majorities, discourse
theory, media, and every day life. He has published work on mass rituals,
theories of nationalism, home and cosmopolitan identities, and his monograph,
entitled National Belonging and Everyday Life, came out at the end of 2011.
Gill Valentine is a Professor of Geography at the University of Leeds. Her
research interests include social identities and belonging (including work
around gender, sexuality, disability, religion/belief and migration), family
life, and consumption cultures. Gill has been awarded research grants and
contracts from UK and European Research Councils, charities, Government
Departments, and non-governmental organisations to a value of over £4
million'. She is currently holds a European Research Council award titled
'Living with Difference: making communities out of strangers in an era of
superdiversity and supermobility'
Sarah Wilson is a lecturer in Sociology at the University of Stirling. She is
currently working on an ESRC-funded project ('Young People Creating
Belonging: Spaces, Sounds and Sight') which combines theoretical interests in
the sociology of family and relationships with developing sensory (primarily
visual and audio) methods. This project builds on two projects on young
people's experience of parental substance misuse.
Nira Yuval-Davis is the Director of the Research Centre for Migration,
Refugees and Belonging at the University of East London. She has been an
expert consultant to various international organisations such as Amnesty
International, the UNDP and the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against
Women. She is a partner in a four-year EU research programme on
EUborderscapes due to start in March 2012. Professor Yuval-Davis has written
three major monographs, about 20 refereed articles and chapters in books on
theoretical and empirical aspects of intersected nationalisms, racisms,
multiculturalisms, fundamentalisms, citizenships, identities, belonging/s and
gender relations. Her latest book is a monograph, entitled: The Politics of
Belonging: Intersectional Contestations (Sage, November 2011)
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Podcasts of the event now available here.
This conference explores the ways in which questions of race, religion and religious affiliation operate in state policies and civil society in Britain and beyond.
It examines how matters of faith are constructed in relation to old and new forms of racism and to other contemporary political projects of belonging. It considers the implications for citizenship and social solidarity in the context of “the Big Society”.
These issues will be examined in relation to specific questions which have occupied the British public in recent years: constructions of “faith communities” in relation to ethnic identities; the place of religion in equality legislation and legal pluralism; debates about dress codes; and the effect of particular forms of religious education, including separate faith schools.
The conference brings together academics and researchers, community activists, race equality groups, and leading figures from secular, Christian, Muslim and Jewish organisations.
Admission to the conference is free but places are limited. For further information and to reserve a place please send an email to: s.thorpe@uel.ac.uk
CMRB, University of East London, Docklands Campus, London E16 2RD
© 2011
The Archive is housed in UEL's new Library building.
It is provided with integrated study facilities, dedicated
seminar/workshop rooms, exhibition facilities, and access to a
500-seat theatre with cinematic facilities
Follow this link to the RCA
webpages
London: City of Paradox
Intersectionality and the Spaces of Belonging
Everyday Belonging: Theorising the Self, Society and Change
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