1st Global Conference
Multiculturalism, Conflict and Belonging

Monday 3rd September - Wednesday 5th September 2007
Mansfield College, Oxford

Call for Papers
This inter- and multi-disciplinary project seeks to explore the new
and prominent place that the idea of culture has for the construction
of identity and the implications of this for social membership in
contemporary societies. In particular the project will also 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.

In this project, culture is primarily conceived in relation to the
dimension of the political and in interrelation with the politics of
social belonging. In this context, culture is understood as having
profound consequences over life, experience and behaviour, both
forming and informing political actions, positions and orientations.
Conflict and social belonging are grounded in this context.

Papers, workshops and presentations are invited on any of the
following themes:

1. Challenging Old Concepts of Self and Other
~ Who is self and who is other?
~ The new value of social diversity and cultural multiplicity;
breaking with homogeneity and sameness
~ What is the place of difference and alterity, of normality and
normalisation in defining identity and membership
~ How to account for social membership and cultural identity?
~ Making sense of transformations and their effects over culture,
identity and membership
~ Othering, excluding, stygmatising

2. Nations, Nationhood and Nationalisms
~ What does it mean, today, to belong to a nation?
~ New migrants, new migratory flows and massive movements from
peripheral to central countries
~ Resurgence of the local and the diminishing importance of the national
~ Are we living post-national realities?
~ What is the place of cultural claims in today's forms of social
membership?
~ Assimilation, integration, adaptation and other forms of placing the
responsibility of change on the Other

3. Institutions, Organizations and Social Movements
~ Evaluating the promises and institutions of post-national governing
~ Institutions and organisations that do more for money than for people
~ Political battles over globalization
~ Social movements, new rebellion and alternative globalizations
~ Trans-cultural connections that escape institutional and political
intentions or control
~ New forms of global exclusion

4. Persons, Personhood and the Inter-Personal
~ De-centering individuals and the making of persons; thinking and
acting with others in mind and interpersonally
~ Tensions, contradictions and conflicts of identity formations 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

5. Media and Artistic Representations
~ The role of new and old media in the construction of cultures and
identities, of nations and place
~ Production and reproduction of cultural typing and stereotyping
~ The contested space of representing culture, identity 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

6. Transnational Cultural Interlacing of Contemporary Life
~ What is shared from cultures? How are cultures shared? Who has
access to the sharing of cultures?
~ Cultural claims and human rights
~ Living in a context with the cultural markers of a different
context: Is that transculturalism?
~ Languages, idioms and new emerging forms of wanting to bridge the
'invisible' divide of cultures
~ Symbols and significations that connect people to places other than
'their own'
~ Culture, identity and belonging by choice

7. New Concepts, New Forms of Inclusion
~ Recognition and respect without exclusion
~ An ethics for social relations in a new millennium
~ What to do with historically old concepts like tolerance, acceptance
and hospitality?
~ Should not we all be strangers? Should not we all be foreigners?
~ Is there any use for cosmopolitanism these days?
~ Loving the other within the self; building fluid boundaries of
belonging and being

Papers will be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts
should be submitted by Friday 25h May 2007. If an abstract is accepted
for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday
24th August 2007.

300 word abstracts should be submitted to the Organising Chairs;
abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, PDF or RTF formats. We
acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If
you do not receive a reply from us, in a few days, 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
Research & Project Development,
Inter-Disciplinary.Net
Barcelona, Catalunya, Spain
E-Mail: acc_at_inter-disciplinary.net

Rob Fisher
Network Leader
Inter-Disciplinary.Net,
Freeland, Oxfordshire,
United Kingdom
E-Mail: mcb1_at_inter-disciplinary.net

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

For further details about the project please visit:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/ati/diversity/diversity.html

For further details about the conference please visit:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/ati/diversity/multiculturalism/mcb.html

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Received on Sun Apr 22 2007 - 15:35:05 EDT