CfA:CHANGING

PLACES, BORDERS, MEMORIES

1st international postgraduate conference
Hosted by the ZRC SAZU (Scientific research center SASA)
27- 29 November 2008
Ljubljana, Slovenia

Movements of people, transformation of places and changeable cultural 
memory are
all areas of study that have been continuously addressed by scholars of
different disciplines over the past two decades. The abundance of new 
research
material and crisscrossing the disciplines and research methods has, 
however,
partly blurred the role of researchers engaged in these areas of study 
and left
many younger researchers confused.

The conference will bring together postgraduate students and some 
established
scholars in exploring the space of contemporary interdisciplinary 
research in
studies of place, space, migration and cultural memory. We aim to attract
research students from diverse disciplinary backgrounds. We will examine the
‘spaces in-between’ the disciplines and methodologies, discuss the 
meanings and
transformations of physical and imaginative borders and explore the
implications of changing places, identities and historical narratives. 
We will
try to explain how processes of remembering and forgetting reflect the
politically-driven narratives of the past and how places and spaces help
shaping these processes. In what ways do individuals and collectivities
re-imagine and re-invent their pasts and how can we look at these issues
through tracing changes in social and/or cultural landscapes? How are the
meanings produced in spaces and places and how do places and spaces interact
with individual and/or collective identities?

This conference aims to cross the boundaries between disciplines as well as
methodologies. We especially welcome papers that deal with methodological
concerns, looking beyond the boundaries of traditional ethnographic 
research in
social sciences and humanities. We will organise roundtable discussions 
on the
nature and effectiveness of new methodologies and we will explore 
possibilities
for establishing a space for research that moves beyond methodological 
work we
are often presented with (and have to conform to) during our studies. We 
will
investigate the field between academia and art and discuss the possibilities
and constraints that new modes of conducting fieldwork research present us
with. Is the role of the researcher in this new complex research environment
changing? And if it is, what does this mean for the future of 
interdisciplinary
research? Which are the excitements and downsides that we encounter 
while we try
to reason our research methods? What does the innovative research mean 
for the
researcher and how does it influence the research outcomes?
We are particularly interested in papers that involve work-in progress, case
studies and comparative studies as well as theoretical and critical
contributions. Topics can address a number of areas, including:

- Place/Space and cultural memory
- Changing borders and the meaning of border- and boundary-making 
(especially
in the region of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe)
- Displacement and embodiment; performance and locating the ‘self’
- Place-making and migration
- Urban space, imaging, imagining and reimagining
- Cosmopolitanism, multiculturalism and human rights
- Crossing boundaries, crossing methodologies; innovative ways of 
engaging with
the ‘field’
- Music and literature as ethnographic methods
- Researching diversity and difference through image, sound, smell and taste
- Soundscapes and urban space...

We welcome proposals from students in all disciplines concerned with these
issues and themes including Anthropology, Architecture, Film, Fine Art,
History, Philosophy, Politics, and Sociology.

The conference will take place on the 27- 29 November 2008 in Ljubljana, 
Slovenia.
It will provide an opportunity for postgraduate students to establish 
networks
and to initiate discussions among each other as well as with some 
established
scholars and researchers.
300-word abstract, a short biographical note and contact details should 
be sent
electronically to Maša Mikola ([log in to unmask]) or Kaja Širok 
([log in to unmask]).

The deadline for abstracts/proposals is 20th September 2008.

No registration fee will be required.
This conference is organised by postgraduate students and lecturers of
Intercultural Studies – Comparative Studies of Ideas and Cultures at the
Scientific Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts 
and University of Nova Gorica, Slovenia
(http://isik.zrc-sazu.si/,http://www.p-ng.si/en/academic-
programmes/6400/).