(Note: The French version of this call for papers was circulated 2 Nov.)



Call for Papers – International Conference in Social Sciences and

Humanities



Organised by: Centre de Recherches Politiques de la Sorbonne, Université

Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris I), France.

 Department of Politics and International Relations, University of

Southampton, United Kingdom.

Within the framework of activities of the Scientific Network TERRA

(Travaux, Etudes et Recherches sur les Réfugiés et l’Asile:

http://terra.rezo.net).





The Persecution of Women,

Social Mobilisation and the Right to Asylum



15 – 16 September 2006



_______________

Organisers:

Jane Freedman (Southampton University), Jérôme Valluy (Université

Panthéon-Sorbonne)



Scientific Committee:

Gill Allwood (Nottingham Trent University), Didier Fassin (EHESS /

Université Paris 13), Jane Freedman (Southampton University), Lilian

Mathieu (CNRS), Nouria Ouali (Université Libre de Bruxelles), Jérôme

Valluy (Université Panthéon-Sorbonne).



_____________

Call for Papers:



Forced marriages, pregnancies or abortions; genital mutilation; stoning,

acid attacks and other “crimes of honour” against adulterous women;

domestic slavery; political use of rape particularly during ethnic

conflicts; sexual slavery and forced prostitution; conjugal rape and

domestic violence with no form of protection; violence linked to

dowries; traditional and politically tolerated forms of deprivation of

basic human rights .... A large part of humanity is subject to

persecutions specific to women. And yet there seems to be a

disproportion between the demographic and geographic spread of this

phenomenon, and the little attention which is paid to it in multiple

social contexts (associational, political, academic, institutional etc).

A disproportion which indicates the existence of a vast problematic for

the social sciences.



More specifically, the relationships between these types of persecutions

and trajectories of exile have scarcely been explored both by social

actors and by researchers in social sciences. In the field of sociology

of immigration, the bibliography on women refugees and on persecutions

specific to women is very small. Anthropological and ethnological

studies on the social and cultural status of women also lack

conceptualisations of these persecutions linking them to trajectories of

exile. It is noteworthy that ever in the corpus of “gender studies”

there is little research examining persecutions specific to women in the

context of exile, migration and international protection. The few

studies published in this area are very recent and seem to indicate only

a small stirring of interest in this area from the associational and

scientific communities.



Moreover, although there is no legal reason for excluding these types of

persecutions from the field of application of the Geneva Convention of

1951, it is still difficult to have them recognised as legitimate

motives for exile and asylum. These persecutions and the women who

suffer them seem, on the contrary, to be affected by a triple

illegitimacy: that which is imposed on them by their societies of

origin, that which comes from the resistance of the host society to

refugees in general and to the recognition of these types of persecution

in particular, and that interiorised by the victims themselves who are

often afraid of expressing their real motives for fleeing and hide them

behind other motives which they perceive as more legitimate or more

easily expressed. This socially constructed triple illegitimacy suffices

to maintain a wall of silence around this long-standing and current

abuse of human rights.



In addition to the indignation which can legitimately be felt and

expressed at the gravity of these forms of persecution and the silence

which surrounds them, it is necessary to produce rigorous academic

knowledge of these phenomena and to provide reliable intellectual bases

for political actions which might follow. The object of this conference

is to produce such knowledge with respect to methodologies suitable to

the social sciences and humanities. Three areas of study will be

privileged, remembering that within each it is necessary to interrogate

the notion of “persecution” itself, and also the social construction of

political and analytical categories relating to this notion. What is a

“persecution” and how can such a notion be universalized? These will be

the questions common to all of the contributions, which will need to

distinguish “persecutions” from “discriminations”, “inequalities” and

various other forms of “domination”....



I  - ANTHROPOLOGIES OF PERSECUTIONS SPECIFIC TO WOMEN



In this domain, there are numerous studies coming from the social

sciences and humanities, but these works have usually not been produced

in relation to the problematic evoked above of exile and international

protection of refugees. Thus is it necessary not only to produce new

knowledge, but also to re-examine existing data in the light of these

specific and current contexts.



Proposals for papers in this section might relate to the social

foundations of persecution, the situation of the agent of the

persecution or of the victim in relation to their environment. Of

particular interest will be studies concerning the possible means for

the victims to escape from persecution other than by submission or

interiorisation of constraints. The question of the possibility of exile

abroad will notably be examined but also means of local resistance.



Social sciences and humanities can all contribute to the understanding

of the division between men and women which traverses human

civilisations, but we are particularly interested here in understanding

the current configurations of this divide, including historical analyses

which help to illuminate the present situation. In this respect the

analysis of cases of reduction or disappearance of certain types of

persecution in some societies can facilitate the analysis of more

contemporary processes. More generally, historical changes and

continuities of the phenomenon are to be studied.



Contemporary comparisons should concern not only diversity in current

societies – regional, national and local – but also differentiations

which appear with regard to various social factors such as class, age,

educational level, forms of urbanisation, as well as the economic,

political, religious and cultural factors which have an impact on the

persecutions specific to women. Case studies should be placed within a

more global context which will aid comparison and scientific exchange.



The simple description of these forms of persecution often takes the

form of a succession of hasty categorisations (such as that in the first

paragraph of this call for papers) and thus resembles a disordered and

incomplete inventory. In this respect, the establishment of some kind of

typologies which are clearly linked to scientific problematics or

paradigms (notably anthropological or sociological) appears necessary to

the analysis of a phenomenon rendered complex by the diversity of the

social configurations within which it exists.



Another privileged dimension of this conference will concern a global

mapping of persecutions specific to women. In this perspective, any

attempt at mapping by geographers, demographers or statisticians will

require the input of the other social sciences with regard to the value

and pertinence of the indicators chosen in the process of mapping. In

order to map this particular social phenomenon it is necessary to

understand both contemporary comparisons and historical evolutions.





II   - SOCIAL MOBILISATIONS IN FAVOUR OF PERSECUTED WOMEN



At the crossroads between research relative to social movements on one

hand and social relations of gender on the other, we will analyse

national and international social mobilisations in favour of persecuted

women, both in the countries of origin and the host countries of the

victims.



We will be interested in different forms of social mobilisation whether

they are contained within traditional community frameworks (family,

village, clan, ethnic group ...) or within NGOs and associational

movements of solidarity with the victims of persecutions specific to

women. The social conditions of an eventual “agenda denial” (Cobb/Ross)

will also be examined, as well as the resources mobilised in the

symbolic construction of these victims. Papers might also consider the

militant trajectories of individuals and collectives within the feminist

movement in relation to the recognition and protection of victims of

persecutions specific to women.



Studies of non-governmental or hybrid (public/private) campaigns of

information, mobilisation and protest relative to persecutions specific

to women will be welcome, as will studies of processes put in place to

help and assist women who have been victims of these persecutions. Such

studies should enable us to further the analysis of the functioning of

NGOs in relation to these types of questions as well as to examine the

factors favourable to and the obstacles to the emergence of the question

of persecutions specific to women in the local, national and

international arenas.



Finally, we will be particularly interested in the modes of

international extension of movements of mobilisation against

persecutions specific to women or in favour of the victims of these

persecutions. Whether it is a question of the passage from local to

national or transnational action, or of the observation of international

campaigns and supranational solidarity movements in favour of women

refugees, victims of these persecutions, the issue is to better discern

the links between local support actions and the construction of global

causes within the contemporary mutations of militancy.





III    - PUBLIC ACTIONS OF PREVENTION AND PROTECTION



Under pressure from social movements and from political and cultural

shifts, notably related to women’s rights on one hand and the defence of

the right to asylum on the other, national and international policies on

the prevention of persecutions specific to women have emerged during the

past ten or twenty years.



These public actions have taken diverse forms such as public information

campaigns, state education programmes on human rights, transformations

in civil and penal law etc. These types of measures have appeared in

some countries and are inexistent in others. In addition, the level of

legal and administrative constraints linked to these policies is

variable from one country to another. Over and above the analysis of the

emergence of international directives in this domain, it is necessary to

question the concrete conditions of their implementation and of the

effectiveness of public policy at the national level. In each case, it

is necessary to look beyond the rhetorical and diplomatic strategies in

order to examine the real transformations that have taken place within

any society, its state institutions and its traditional structures. It

is particularly important to use comparative studies to understand the

conditions which are favourable or unfavourable to a real efficacy of

action in state policy on persecutions specific to women.



This knowledge of the state of public policies on prevention of

persecution is linked, at least in part, to the protection which women

asylum seekers may receive when they flee to a foreign country to escape

these persecutions. The conditions under which asylum is granted under

the Geneva Convention on Refugees (1951) must also be studied in a

comparative context as the legal and administrative policies and

procedures for the implementation of this convention vary widely from

one country to another, notably regarding persecutions specific to

women. In this respect the divergences in jurisprudence are particularly

interesting, but also policies relating to the administration and

policing of asylum, and the procedures and conditions for the reception

and interviewing of women victims of persecution, including instances

where the state has sub-contracted responsibilities in this area to

private organisations whether commercial or associational.



________________

Organisers:

Jane Freedman (Southampton University), Jérôme Valluy (Université

Panthéon-Sorbonne)



Scientific Committee:

Gill Allwood (Nottingham Trent University), Didier Fassin (EHESS /

Université Paris 13), Jane Freedman (Southampton University), Lilian

Mathieu (CNRS), Nouria Ouali (Université Libre de Bruxelles), Jérôme

Valluy (Université Panthéon-Sorbonne).



__________________

Calendar:



Proposals to be submitted to the organisers by the 15th December 2005



Responses from the scientific committee by 15th February 2006



Full texts of papers to be sent in by 15th May 2006



_____________

Proposals:

Proposals in French or in English should be sent by 15th December 2005

to the two organisers: [log in to unmask]  and

[log in to unmask]

Proposals to include a 300 word abstract and a CV with the author’s

principal publications.



_______________

Papers:

The full text of the papers in French or in English should be sent by

email to the two organisers [log in to unmask]  and

[log in to unmask] by 15th May 2006.

Papers should be sent as an attachment in RTF and should be between

20,000 and 40,000 characters in length (including spaces).

The papers will be copied and distributed to all participants at the

conference.

They may then be re-worked prior to the publication of the conference

proceedings.



________________

Financial Support:

The organisers will seek to contribute towards the costs of attendance

of those who cannot be subsidised by their own institutions, in

particular those working in countries where there is little financial

support for research and also young researchers. However, we cannot

promise any financial help.



______

Place:

Université de Panthéon-Sorbonne,

12 Place du Panthéon, 75005 Paris, salle no. 1.







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