**Apologies for cross-posting - please note that the deadline for abstracts is 21 December 2010!**
Call for papers: Annual RC21 Conference 2011, Amsterdam (The Netherlands), July 7-9 2011
Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research – Urban Studies
University of Amsterdam – The Netherlands
Session title: Living Together with Difference in Urban Europe
Session Description:
We are currently witnessing unprecedented levels of mobility (both within and beyond the European Union) and population change due to the forces of the global economy and global conflicts, and processes of individualisation. The interplay between different axes of identity and the melting, combining and mixing of elements, meanings and forms –indicated as processes of hybridization– facilitates the transgressive ‘(g)localization’ of cosmopolitans. As such, hybridization contains the ability to be ‘at home’ in different settings –or the Hegelian ‘Zuhausesein in der Welt’ – and offers spaces where ‘traditional’ ‘fixed’ identities and ‘essential’ concepts can be transformed and renegotiated.
How we develop the capacity to live with difference is a key question of the 21st century (cf. Stuart Hall 1993). In an attempt to address this question, this session invites papers from a range of disciplinary and national backgrounds that explore the extent and nature of everyday urban encounters with ‘difference’. In particular, papers will be welcomed that attempt to understand how, where, when and why positive and negative attitudes towards others are developed, transmitted or interrupted. Possible themes that might be explored in this session include (but are not limited to):
• Whether urban encounters with difference challenge or harden prejudices towards ‘others’.
• How the level of recognizing and acknowledging ‘differences’ relates to social cohesion in society.
• The extent to which generational, gendered, and class divisions affect opportunities for, and types of encounter with, difference.
• How processes of hybridization are discernable in urban settings (and how those processes might create the bases for new forms of belonging).
• How the intersectionality (Valentine 2007) of multiple identities impacts on experiences of difference.
• The usefulness of theories of cosmopolitanism and ‘new urban citizenship’ in explaining and understanding how people live with ‘difference’.
• Examples of urban encounter that constitute ‘meaningful contact’ (i.e. contact that generates a general positive respect for ‘others’).
Session Organisers:
Dr. Nichola Wood, University of Leeds, UK.
Dr. Els Vanderwaeren, University of Antwerp, Centre for Migration and Intercultural Studies, Belgium.
Prof. Dr. Christiane Timmerman, University of Antwerp, Centre for Migration and Intercultural Studies, Belgium.
Abstract proposals (max. 250 words) for this session should be submitted to [log in to unmask] AND the session organisers: Nichola Wood ([log in to unmask]), Els Vanderwaeren ([log in to unmask]) and Christiane Timmerman ([log in to unmask]). The deadline for abstract submissions is the 21st of December 2010.
For further details on the conference and the submission process please see:
http://www.rc21.org/conferences/amsterdam2011/
Kind regards,
Nichola Wood
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Dr. Nichola Wood
Lecturer in Critical Human Geography
School of Geography
University of Leeds
Woodhouse Lane
Leeds
LS2 9JT
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)113 343 3348
http://www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/projects/livedifference/
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