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*The Politics of Inequality and Difference:
Critical Approaches in Anthropology and Sociology
*Central European University, Budapest,
Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology
12-13 June 2009


The main purpose of the present graduate conference is to initiate a
critical discussion of the ways in which the acute problems of inequality
and difference are currently theorized and methodologically engaged both
inter-disciplinarily, in the fields of sociology and anthropology, and
extra-disciplinarily, in relation to policy and decision-making. The scope
of the conference is thus wide-ranging inviting theoretically informed,
methodologically reflexive and politically aware contributions that engage
one or both of these major topics. Given the broad research interests of
both faculty and students special attention will be devoted to a number of
topics clustered in the following four panels:

*Ethnicization of poverty *(*Conveyor: Kristóf Szombati,
[log in to unmask]*)
The aim of this panel is to bring sociological and anthropological
perspectives on the poverty/ethnicity nexus together by asking how cultural
differentiation and ethnic competition are linked to class dynamics and the
rise of social inequalities. Our questions derive from an understanding of
the ethnicization of poverty primarily as a political project (involving a
range of actors, social scientists included) aimed at producing a new social
theodicy, that is entrenching a normative answer to one of modernity's most
pertinent and structurally under (though not un-) determined questions: 'who
is poor and why'?
The panel invites written and visual materials engaging with:

•   the production and circulation of denigrating discourses and images of
the 'Poor Other'
•   the memories and everyday experiences of this symbolic production
•   the political debates in which representations of and arguments about
the ethnic features of poverty are evoked
•   the material and symbolic role of state and market in clothing poverty
in an ethnic guise
•   stigmatized groups' attempts to evade, counter or strategically employ
the ethnicization of their social predicament
•   the implication of sociological and anthropological knowledge production
in the entrenchment or countering of the new social theodicy.

*Nationalism and its others *(*Conveyor: Florin Faje,
[log in to unmask]*)
Focusing on the appropriation and use of nationalism by various social
groups this panel invites reflection on its historical transformation from a
joint anthropological and sociological perspective. Acknowledging
nationalism’s complex historical development and contemporary manifestations
we wish to inquire about its past and present political, social and cultural
deployment. Aware of the relations of power in which the national emerges
and gains potency we wish to initiate a discussion of nationalism and its
others. Thus, we call for papers that directly or indirectly address one or
more of the following topics:

•   Nationalism’s political force and relevance
•   When, how and why is the nationalist discourse appropriated? How is it
used and transformed?
•   Nationalism as a class-based phenomenon
•   Everyday expressions of the national
•   Gendered views of nationalism
•   National identity: caught between the local and the global?

*The politics of space and the ‘right to the city’ *(*Conveyor: Judit Veres,
[log in to unmask]*)
In this panel we invite papers that take up the challenge posed by the
exhaustion of the imagination of what the city as a body politic entails
against the backdrop of a general decline in urban collective action. We
want to move beyond an understanding of the city as a tabula rasa to be
designed and reorganized according to hegemonic functional or aesthetic
criteria, and call for a complex cultural, political and economic
understanding of urban space and place with an increased sensitivity to
history. We wish to inquire the links between space, the securing of rights,
and class formation and to pose the simple questions: "Whose cities?" and
"Whose rights?" Tentative themes to be addressed:

•   Spatializing the public sphere
•   Urban design and its lateral sidings with power
•   Controlling the public space
•   Social production and social construction of space
•   The relational connectivity between public, quasi-public and private
space
•   How the "(feeling of) community" emerges and is enacted
•   The chances and challenge of  "small places"

*Governance of inequality* (*Conveyor: Gábor Scheiring,
[log in to unmask]*)
Processes of spatial rescaling, decentralization, the emergence of new
non-governmental political actors, the rise of transnational networks and
supranational political and economic forces have all redrawn the boundaries
of the state. Traditional measures to tackle inequalities are becoming
increasingly difficult to enact. Although admitting its changing shape, many
maintain that the role of the state in governing inequalities remains
central. The aim of the panel is to bring together sociological and
anthropological studies on the changing nature of the governance of
inequalities. The panel welcomes materials within this broad topic with a
special (but not exclusionary) focus on the following questions:

•   Who governs inequalities? What are the key actors and mechanisms
influencing policies on inequalities?
•   How do new symbolic representations and changing discourses of
inequality, class and citizenship influence the governance of inequality?
•   How is the public-private boundary redrawn in the new structures of
governance?
•   What is the material and symbolic role of the state, institutions and
the market in the governance of inequality today?
•   How does the global impinge upon the local in governance and what is the
answer of the local?
•   How are the interests of marginal groups channeled into politics?
•   What is the practical relevance of sociological and anthropological
knowledge in the debate on inequality?


*300 words abstracts* should be submitted *by Tuesday 31st of March*. If an
abstract is accepted for the conference a *full paper *should be
submmited*by Friday 15th of May
*.
Please note that the *abstracts should be sent directly to the conveyors of
each panel*.
Limited funding for travel and accomodation is available.

-- 
Mariya P. Ivancheva
Phd Candidate (currently in the field)
Dept of Sociology& Social Anthropology
Central European University
+58-426-6087262 (mobile - Venezuela)
[log in to unmask]

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