Rijeka Summer School – RETHINKING DIVERSITY POLITICS IN EUROPE - Deadline for Application: 1st August 2016

Event date
September 12-18, 2016
Venue
Rijeka
Country
Croatia
Short description

Organized by CAS SEE, UNIRI in cooperation with Center for Women’s Studies, University of Rijeka,  Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade, University Paris 8, Vincennes-St Denis.

Description

This summer school (12-18 September) should provide space for recasting frameworks of “diversity politics” and “diversity discourses” in Europe. In light of recent events, the school would like to challenge the crisis of multiculturalism and core European values of solidarity and human rights. The “failure of multiculturalism” narrative has become all too present in Europe, shifting the rhetoric to cultural anxieties and articulating immigration as a national threat. This discourse has also affected “internal immigration”, making certain groups throughout Europe less visible and more vulnerable: Roma, refugees and internally displaced persons, certain LGBTQ communities. Moreover, ethnicity, nationality, religion and race are being forcefully reshuffled, inviting contemporary forces of nationalism and securitization. Hereby, the school is particularly interested to the effects of the ways how European countries ‘manage’ diversity through its policies and practices: from ethnic and racial to socio-economic diversity, but also particularly to citizenship and migration status diversity. It is of crucial interest to map and evidence differences among significantly varying Western European practices (France, UK, Germany etc.), Central European practices (former communist countries with strong opposition to multiculturalism) and South-Eastern European practices in countries where migration is observed as passing-by phenomenon.

The lectures and seminars of this summer school particularly investigate how these three identified regions policies connected to governmentality of diversity are changing after the recent and actual conflicts and migration flows. The summer school will particularly focus on policies and practices that affect marginalized and vulnerable groups in these regions.

The summer school's main goal is to highlight the agency of these marginalized groups in order to understand, how they themselves respond to reconfigurations of diverse politics and practices.

THEMES:

  • Post-socialist transition and governmentality of diversity
  • Transforming racial thinking from a biological issue into “social questions”
  • Gender instrumentalisation in the refugee crisis
  • Universalism vs. Differentialism: Leading to the same politics?
  • EU integration processes and (re)construction of vulnerable groups, with a special focus on Roma
  • Refugee crisis and the Western Balkan Route: The shifting signifier of the marginalized
  • Is the subaltern silent?: the agency of marginalized groups
  • Art and politics of difference
  • Freedom of expression and hate speech in today’s diversified Europe
  • Troubled memory and feminist politics

KEYNOTE PARTICIPANTS:

  • Athena Athanasiou, Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, Athens
  • Ethel Brooks, Rutgers University TBC
  • Eric Fassin, University Paris 8, Vincennes-St Denis
  • Julija Sardelic, School of Law and Social Justice, University of Liverpool
  • Jörg Schulte, Institute of Slavonic Studies, University of Cologne
  • Elena Tzelepis, Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, University of London
  • Violetta Zentai, Central European University, Budapest

ELIGIBILITY

Applicants should be postdoc and post/graduate students (MA or PhD students) and/or younger researchers interested in exploring the issues of migration, Roma and minority studies, gender, cultural studies, political sciences and related areas. However, outstanding BA students are also considered and have the chance to enroll. Applications from the civil society activists bringing particular insights to the school’s content are also higly welcome. 

Applicants from all countries are eligible to apply, but we particularly welcome those coming from SEE.

APPLICATION

  • All applicants should send their CV and one-page motivation letter to cas@cas.uniri.hr before 1st August 2016.
  • Paper abstract is optional. If you wish to deliver a presentation, post your abstract in 500 words max. for a presentation not exceeding 15 mins.
  • Maximum number of participants: 50
  • Maximum number of students delivering presentation: 20 (maximum 4 presentations per afternoon session).
  • Participation fee is 100 EUR but it doesn’t cover accommodation expenses.

Participants will receive a certificate of participation describing the activities in which they have participated during the summer school.

INFORMATION

Organizers will facilitate arranging accommodation in the student dormitory of the University of Rijeka for those who want to stay there and participants are kindly asked to emphasize if they opt for this option in their application.

Alternatively, it is possible to book rooms in one of Rijeka’s hostels:

http://www.visitrijeka.eu/Where_To_Stay/Hostels_and_Hostelry

Source: uniri

 

Geographical focus
  • Western Balkans
Scientifc field / Thematic focus
  • Social Sciences
Event type
  • Other

Entry created by Anna Sirocco on June 23, 2016
Modified on June 23, 2016