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Dear Colleagues,
Here a call for paper for a workshop we are convening at the EASA
conference in July 2012
http://www.nomadit.co.uk/easa/easa2012/panels.php5?PanelID=1177
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Call for papers - EASA 2012 - Paris (Nanterre
University), 10/07/2012 – 13/07/2012
WORKSHOP TITLE: "Living uncertainty: navigating
gray-zones of unreliable realities in the Middle East"
CONVENORS:
Karin Ahlberg (School of Oriental and African Studies)
Annika Rabo (University of Stockholm)
Carl Rommel (School of Oriental and African Studies)
SHORT ABSTRACT:
Ruled by unpredictable, oppressive regimes for
decades, people in the Middle East often lack reliable sources of information.
This workshop explores how people in the region navigate discursive gray-zones, constituting everyday realities, and what sort of subjectivities
such conditions craft.
LONG ABSTRACT:
The role of social media during the 'Arab Spring' and
the increased availability of 'free' information in media landscapes previously
dominated by 'state propaganda' and (more or less formal) censorship has
been a contested topic in recent months. Taking a different approach, this
workshop questions the applicability of concepts such as truth, information,
rumour, propaganda, lie or conspiracy in the Middle Eastern context. Ruled
by unpredictable, oppressive regimes for decades, people in the region are used
to a lack of reliable sources of information, to an extent where they
arguably know that no news and no information can be fully trusted. Everyday
media environments are in other words 'gray-zones' of partial, yet certainly
differently trustworthy information. To coin social media as a liberating
factor, is hence arguably slightly off the mark. Rather, Twitter and Facebook
have added another set of unreliable and contradicting voices to an already
uncertain debate.
This workshop aims to explore how people in past and
present Middle Eastern societies 'live uncertainty', and navigate and
understand realities that are always pre-assumed to be encircled with doubt. Inviting for contemporary as well as
historical perspectives, the workshop explicitly wants to shed light on how old
and new circulations of oppression and (dis)information are embedded in institutions,
governments and the daily life of ordinary people. Furthermore, we ask how
these gray-zone realities have shaped and continue to shape subjectivities and
attitudes, as people live their lives in milieus where distinctions between
known/unknown and allowed/prohibited are muddled and indeed arbitrary.
DEADLINE FOR PROPOSALS: 28th of NOVEMBER. You can
access the workshop through the EASA online platform:
http://www.nomadit.co.uk/easa/easa2012/panels.php5?PanelID=1177
Any questions you might have about this workshop
should be directed to the convenors:
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Information on how to submit an abstract can be found
here:
http://www.easaonline.org/conferences/easa2012/callforpapers.htm
Submission is only possible through the EASA 2012
online interface
Paper title should be shorter that 300 characters and
abstracts less than 250 words
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