The Historicities of Securities and Peace

deadline for submissions: 
June 16, 2024
full name / name of organization: 
Centre for Studies of Conflict, Philipps University Marburg (Germany)
contact email: 

Zentrumstage 2024

The Historicities of Security and Peace

Philipps University Marburg (Germany)

October 9-11, 2024

Deadline for paper submission is June 16, 2024

Conference Topic

Peace and security are key concepts informing the conduct of politics on both the global level and in domestic and transnational dynamics across different epochs. Yet, concepts of peace and security have been contested throughout history and still cause controversy today. While peace is a fundamental human value and at the heart of the Charter of the United Nations, it has been instrumentalized by imperial powers as well as authoritarian regimes and subsumed under agendas of civilization, social control, development and conquest. At the same time, the very idea of peace, just like scholarship and movements dedicated to it, has faced scrutiny and outright rejection in situations of unprovoked aggression and terrorism. This can currently be seen in the light of the war of aggression against Ukraine and the Israel-Gaza war. In contrast, security research has been epistemically dominated by military, strategic and adjacent fields of scholarship and policy for a long time. Only in recent years has it been reclaimed by critical and feminist perspectives challenging long-standing ideas and concepts. As both interpretation scheme and repertoire, security is employed to determine relevant threats as well as to shape reactions to them. Such interpretations and practices of security are often contested and change over time. The - at times paradoxical - affinity between peace and security, their contested character, their contextuality and, not least, their historicity connects both concepts.

This conference is jointly organized by the Collaborative Research Center "Dynamics of Security', the Center for Conflict Studies as their biennial Center Conference (Zentrumstage) and the European University for Peace, Justice, and Inclusive Societies (EUPeace). It invites contributions that critically engage with the rich and complicated legacies, epistemic ecologies and practical repertoires of peace and security in either historical perspectives or with a view to present and future challenges and potentials.

We welcome paper submissions to the following panels.

Panel Overview

A Conceptualizing peace and security

Exploring territorial imaginations and infrastructures of peace and security

State, Militarization and Geopolitics: Hyper-nationalist Conflict Zones in South and South East Asia

Understanding the social context of peace and security in authoritarian regimes in Africa

Lin i i E hni Div r i rn E r

High-risk Transitional Justice: the „(in)security turn" in contexts of accountability and redress for victims of human rights violations

Reclaiming peace epistemologies

B Historicizing security, peace and conflict

Remembering peace

Transformations of security and securitisation in discourse and practice: The Bundeswehr after 1990

Securitys Achilles' Heel: How Abductions and Hijackings Changed Global Security Dynamics in the 20th Century

The historicity of environmental conflicts

Conflict, Peace and the environment

Building a Safe Environment - The Role of Architecture in Modern Security Discourses

Disinformation as a Security Challenge in the Era of New Technologies

Performing Peace and Security in the Balkans: A Historical Perspective (19th-20th Centuries)

Ontological Security, Trauma, and Global Politics

A hybrid approach to peacebuilding

Submission of paper proposals

Abstract proposals of up to 250 words, accompanied by titles, names, author bios of up to 100 words, and affiliation and contact details of authors should be sent to sfbevent@uni by June 16, 2024. We expect to notify the selected participants by July 15, 2024.

Selection criteria

The selection of papers will be made in accordance with the following criteria while maintaining high academic standards:

• Clear reference to the topic of one specific panel

• Scientific contribution: strong theoretical and/or empirical foundation, linking to relevant existing research

• Diversity: bringing together scholars from various backgrounds and affiliations both globally (i.e. from the global South and East) and within the context of European academia.

Funding

We also remind you that (limited) funding will be available to precarious scholars on a reimbursement of real costs basis. Also, for scholars from the Global South in need of a visa, the organizers can issue letters of invitation.

 

Conference schedule

 May 1, 2024 Submission Deadline for Panel Proposals

 May 15, 2024 Notification of Selected Panels

 May 27, 2024 Launch Call for Papers (including announcements of selected panels)

 June 16, 2024 Submission Deadline Call for Papers

July 1, 2024 Notification of Paper Selection (based on selection by panel convenors, coordinated by organizing team)

 July 15, 2024 Confirmation of participation

 

 

State, Militarization and Geopolitics: Hyper-nationalist Conflict Zones in South and South East Asia

(Convenors: Mimasha Pandit, Manas Dutta)

Abstract

The proposed panel seeks to lay stress on the conflict zones of South and Southeast Asia that has been converted into a war zone since the end of the second world war. The trajectory of independence of these geographical landmasses have seldom found an adequate space in the discussions of conflict and peace studies. As the newly independent nations in South Asia have entered the race of global politics to secure its position of power it has been converted into hybrid zones of conflict either for the partisan interests of the Cold War era or for securing the interest of the emergent hyper-masculine nationalism that they represent. A new kind of Leviathan is on the prowl that has transformed security into a charmed armour for protecting a distorted form of nationalism. This is another aspect of conflict studies that the panel wishes to highlight shifting the focus of conflict and peace studies from border conflict and security to internal conflicts and peace-making processes. Civil society of South and Southeast Asia has undergone several such instances of conflict situations in the form of riots, genocide, pogroms, civil protest. Time is ripe to include these conflicts and the suppression process adopted by the State in the name of security in the framework of peace and conflict studies. The third aspect that the panel proposes to interrogate is the displacement, dislocation, and crime against gender as an eventual outcome of the process. The Rohingya crisis in Myanmar, hate crimes and problems of lynching faced in the name of security against terror activities and nationalism and the display of sectarian or nationalist power over a gendered body needs to be engaged with by peace and conflict studies stakeholders to bring the underrepresented zones of conflict of South and Southeast Asia into focus.

Philipps Universität

Marburg