*CALL FOR PAPERS*
Deadline for submissions is August 15, 2018.
____________________
World. Knowledge. Design
42nd Congress of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Volkskunde (dgv)
Hamburg | October 7-10, 2019
(pdf.-version: http://www.d-g-v.org/sites/default/files/cfp_english.pdf)
Global dynamics and fundamental processes of transformation are changing
European societies. There are diverse influencing forces at work which
contribute to this process, partly following their own logic, partly in an
interdependent and interwoven manner: migration, poverty and social
inequality, the decline of the nation-state along with the rise of new
nationalisms, technological development, the capitalist economy with its
permanent pressure for innovation, climate change, declining biodiversity.
European Ethnology / Empirical Cultural Studies / Cultural Anthropology /
Folklore Studies, with their historical and contemporary approaches and
specific research perspectives, can provide special expertise for studying
these dynamics.
The term “world” makes different scales between the local and the global
accessible and viable for research along the relations of “small life
worlds” to larger entities, to Europe, to other continents and the entire
world – as a globally interwoven habitat of humankind. The different manners
in which a “world” is created in academic-disciplinary contexts as well as
in media and popular culture, as a geographically and territorially
differentiated unit, as a symbolically created world of meaning, and as an
everyday lifeworld, and the manners in which it is modelled by simulation,
creativity, and play, are important points of reference and reflection. Yet,
the term world also comprises problematic dimensions in regard to the
history of science and society in the construction of self and other, not
least in the context of ethnological-ethnographic traditions of knowledge
and collection.
In an interconnected world, different ways in which the world is known clash
in these dynamics. Knowledge is not primarily understood in a cognitive mode
but also explicitly includes affective, habitual, and aesthetic forms. The
diversity of these forms contributes to the specific acquisition of
knowledge about the world, which enables its perception and guides its
design. World views condense into symbolic, material, and practical forms of
knowledge which, in turn, can be mediated, appropriated, and further
developed in manifold ways.
Knowledge materializes into objects, discourses, practices, social orders,
and ethical views as well as in institutions, conventions, norms,
regulations, terms and conditions, and laws. These materializations always
become particularly apparent and thus accessible for empirical research
where they collide, either in a creative or in a confrontational manner,
where they are exchanged, modified, and further developed between
generations and groups, or when kept in archives, museums, and libraries.
The design of the world based on knowledge and skill is a fundamental human
ability to which the discipline refers to as an object of research – for
instance in critical dealings with concepts of creativity – and also as a
demand on one’s own production of knowledge (for instance in an
“anthropology of the near future”). Humankind’s ability to conceptualize and
design significantly depends on the systems of symbols and media which we
have at our disposal. The scope of what can be thought has been set anew
with each media technology and is currently being comprehensively reformed
due to digitalization. Imaginations and imaginatives are significant drivers
of innovation. In current capitalist economies, however, they are also
systematic necessities, connected with (creative) destructions of the
traditional and increasingly discussed under new paradigms such as
sustainability and resilience.
The 42nd congress of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Volkskunde (dgv), titled
“World. Knowledge. Design”, calls for contributions which add to a better
understanding of the dynamics and problems of European societies in their
global interconnections – also in historical perspectivations of the topic
area. Furthermore, contributions may critically analyze the different
disciplinary orders of knowledge – especially since in many cases, it is
approaches from the natural and technical, legal or economic sciences which
dominate these problem areas.
Knowing the world
How the world is known is embedded into social and cultural orders. The
cultural can here itself be understood and analyzed as a specific,
historically evolved form of knowledge, for instance in regard to which
feelings are appropriate in which situations or what kind of interaction
with nature is practiced. Significances, values, and hierarchies of bodies
of knowledge come into conflict, are negotiated in discourse, and
materialize as orders of knowledge. Different forms of knowledge –
cognitive-theoretical, affective, or bodily-practical ones – are set in
relation to each other in this process. Ethics and moral orders are
significant guidelines along which world relationships are evaluated,
negotiated, rearranged, or also justified. Furthermore, the perceptions of
the world are significantly entangled with the knowledge about it.
They are led in cognitive, sensitive, and affective manners and are
complemented beyond the horizons of everyday experience by the imaginary and
the imaginative.
Designing the world
Processes of and approaches to design are a further central perspective in
the discipline which take center stage in the light of current discussions
about the Anthropocene, that is, the age of a world significantly shaped by
humankind (and increasingly regarded as endangered in terms of livelihoods).
Aside from questions regarding the malleability of developments in science
and technology, it is particularly politics and the economy with their
processes of planning and development, with their specific perspectives on
creativity and design, which become relevant fields of research. In this,
the discipline itself in its history has done research on fields of action
of societal formation in manifold ways and has been collecting sound
experience in regard to design oriented approaches; these, in turn, are
today in part ‘re-thought’ in design anthropology and design agencies on the
collaborative generation of inter- and transdisciplinary research questions.
The aestheticization of all areas of life is to be seen as a further
tendency of contemporary societies in the sense of a formation of the
senses.
Forms and formats
As has been the case in the past, the Hamburg congress is also to be held in
the form of plenary and section presentations as well as panels.
Plenary contributions are selected from the submitted abstracts respectively
called for directly. Sections are compiled from the selected individual
contributions based on consistency in topic. Panels are given the same
two-hour scope as sections. The head of a panel conceptualizes the topic and
suggests this to the dgv as an abstract; the contributors are nominated with
a brief abstract of each contribution (maximum of four to five individual
contributions). The responsibility for the specific design of the panel
(structure, order, format of the contributions) rests with the individual
organizers.
Panels and lectures may be suggested which can also be given as
presentations in dialogue, for instance in the sense of Ignite! or Pecha
Kucha. This should be outlined accordingly in the proposal. Furthermore,
suggestions for visual and auditory formats such as films, soundscapes,
etc., are desirable. These should, wherever possible, be included in a
future documentation of the congress in the shape of written accompanying
texts and corresponding links.
The student panel offers a forum for research training projects respectively
research-based teaching as it is anchored in the curriculum of many higher
education settings or in project seminars led by students. These may diverge
from the topic of the congress. MA and BA theses respectively student
research which take up the topic of the congress can be presented as poster
presentations. In these, the presentation of one’s own research results and
empirical findings is particularly desirable. In consultation with the dgv’s
student representatives, students are also invited to develop their own
formats for reporting on the congress, for instance via audiovisual or
social media.
The dgv also wishes to explicitly invite both freelance cultural scientists
and those who work in institutions outside of university contexts to respond
to this call for papers.
We also invite suggestions for pre-conference workshops on topics connected
with research practice, such as research data management, research ethics,
or also working with software programs for qualitative data analysis.
Organizational matters
When submitting your abstract, please adhere to the following guidelines:
• In addition to a brief content summary, the abstracts must include details
on the research question and the empirical basis respectively inform on the
context from which the work originates, where applicable with details on
already available publications, the state of one’s own research respectively
initial results.
• It goes without saying that research presented must be new and
unpublished. Readiness to publish the contribution after the congress is
implied.
• Contributions may be made and published in German or English.
• Please provide your current contact details; for panel suggestions both of
the responsible organizers as well as of all contributors!
Please notify us of any changes.
• The abstracts must not exceed 2,500 characters (including spaces) for
individual presentations and 5,000 for panels.
• Submissions can only be made via the designated form on the dgv
website:
http://www.d-g-v.org/sites/default/files/bewerbungsformular_dgv-kongress_201
9_1.pdf
(Should this form not download automatically, please save and then reopen
it!) • Please send the completed from as an e-mail attachment to:
<mailto:[log in to unmask]> [log in to unmask]
<mailto:[log in to unmask]> • Deadline for submissions is August 15,
2018.
In order to facilitate the selection process and make it more transparent,
all submitters are asked to adhere to these guidelines. The board and the
main committee will select contributions at their joint session with
representatives of the local host in the fall of 2018 and decide on the
program.
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dgv - Deutsche Gesellschaft für Volkskunde e.V.
Claus-Marco Dieterich | Geschäftsführer
c/o Institut für Europäische Ethnologie / Kulturwissenschaft Deutschhausstr.
3 | D-35037 Marburg <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> |
<http://www.d-g-v.de> www.d-g-v.de <http://www.d-g-v.de>
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Lara Hansen, M.A.
Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin | Research Fellow and PhD Candidate
Universität Hamburg
Fachbereich Kulturwissenschaften | Department of Studies in Culture and Arts
Institut für Volkskunde/Kulturanthropologie | Institute of European
Ethnology/Cultural Anthropology
Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1 (West) – Raum | Room 211 | 20146 Hamburg
+49 40 42838-4681
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