***CALL FOR PAPERS***



ISA RC21 2020 annual conference “Shaping & Sensing the city. Power, people,
place”

Antwerp (Belgium). July 6-8 2020

https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/conferences/rc21-sensing-the-city



*SESSION N. 52*

*Love in the diverse city*



ORGANIZER

Lidia Manzo

Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Milan (Italy)

[log in to unmask]





*Abstract*

One of the most profound effects of globalization is that people from
everywhere are falling in love with people from everywhere else. Increasing
migration worldwide has facilitated the unions of people from different
countries, religions, ethnicities and, presumably, cultural backgrounds.
Such unions are often celebrated as a sign of integration; however, the
classic assimilation theory no longer suffice in tackling the growth of
large cities, which are witnessing unprecedented levels of diversity.

Thus, mixed unions may do more than reflect the nature of social
boundaries. In urban areas of super-diversity, there is a growing
likelihood that multiple and overlapping forms of mixedness will
characterize many romantic relationships and it may be that while some
ethnic and racial boundaries will remain persistent, others will become
more blurred and of diminishing social significance. However, despite the
centrality of sexuality to the conduct and continuation of urban life,
investigations of intercultural love remain curiously absent from urban
studies.

Cities can be seen as roiling maelstroms of affect, love styles and
spatially contextualized romantic emotions. Mixed couples and their
intimate lives are the focal point at which the different aspects of the
globalized world literally become embodied. They define resistance against
the state’s biopolitical power to control people and become a space of
intimate citizenship. At the same time, these relationships may represent a
‘quiet revolution’ that holds for re-envisioning people’s idea of ‘us and
them’, challenging what it means to inhabit multiculturalism in our
everyday lives. But how are people inside a family to withstand, negotiate
and survive pressures that separate whole worlds from one another?

This session examines how romantic relationships between native majorities
and immigrant minorities are experienced and performed at the urban scale
by inviting papers that address some of the following:

*  first, in order for an intercultural couple to love one another, the two
individuals need to meet. Which are their “places of the heart”? Where do
they meet in the diverse city? Are these spaces permeable, opened, and
available to the dating and mating between natives and migrants? We want to
explore these emotional geographies of *mixité* by revealing the ways in
which different kinds of places can elicit specific feelings of
intercultural love;

*  in romantic love, individuals are apt to encounter inequality within
their relationships. Yet, how are these disparities experienced? What is
the role of local communities? We point to the enduring inequities inherent
in the experience of love and difference in our societies and the
opportunities or the obstacles that may arise in the urban milieu;

*  from a social network perspective, support or opposition from one’s
social surrounding affect the course of love over its various developmental
stages, including its initiation, maintenance, and termination. Thinking
about young people, parental approval to an intercultural romantic
relationship remains controversial and deserves more attention;

*  what the political consequences of thinking more explicitly about these
topics might be?



*Keywords*

Intercultural Love, Urban Diversity, Emotional Geographies of M*ixité*,
Spatialities of Love, Everyday Multiculturalism



*References*

Alba, Richard, and Nancy Foner. 2015. ‘Mixed Unions and Immigrant- Group
Integration in North America and Western Europe’. *The ANNALS of the
American Academy of Political and Social Sciencehe ANNALS of the American
Academy of Political and Social Science* 662 (1): 38–56.

Beck, Ulrich, and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim. 2013. *Distant Love*.
Cambridge: Polity press.

Parisi, Rosa. 2015. ‘Practices and Rhetoric of Migrants’ Social Exclusion
in Italy: Intermarriage , Work and Citizenship as Devices for the
Production of Social Inequalities’. *Identities: Global Studies in Culture
and Power* 22 (6): 739–56.

Root, Maria P. 2001. *Love’s Revolution: Interracial Marriage*.
Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Song, Miri. 2016. ‘Multiracial People and Their Partners in Britain:
Extending the Link between Intermarriage and Integration?’ *Ethnicities* 16
(4): 631–48.

Song, Miri, and David Parker. 1995. ‘Commonality, Difference and the
Dynamics of Disclosure in in- Depth Interviewing’. *Sociology* 29 (2):
241–56.

Stets, Jan E., and Jonathan H. Turner, eds. n.d. *Handbook of the Sociology
of Emotions*. New York: Sp.

Thrift, Nigel. 2008. *Non-Representational Theory: Space, Politics, Affect*.
*The Dictionary Of Human Geography*. New York: Routledge.




HOW TO PRESENT A PAPER FOR *SESSION 52*:

Abstracts *(**maximum 250 words)* need to be submitted through the
conference website via the following weblink:
www.uantwerpen.be/en/conferences/rc21-sensing-the-city/call-for-papers/submit-your-abstract/
. Abstracts which were not submitted through our website cannot be selected
for presentation at the conference.



*DEADLINE*

*15 March 2020 *



General inquiries can also be directed to Lidia Manzo at
[log in to unmask]

Notification of abstract approval is expected to take place around 15 April
2020

-- 
Dr. Lidia Katia C. Manzo
Alsos Research Fellow
Contract Professor of Sociology
[log in to unmask]  <[log in to unmask]>

Università degli Studi di Milano
Department of Social and Political Sciences (SPS)

Via Conservatorio, 7 | 20122 | Milano (Italy)

Visit my website <https://lidiakcmanzo.com/blog/> and follow me on twitter
<https://twitter.com/wildslope>
MU SSI, Maynooth University Social Sciences Institute
<https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/social-sciences-institute/mussi-membership>:
Member
Supporting Women in Geography (SWIG) Ireland
<http://www.geographicalsocietyireland.ie/supporting-women-in-geography.html>:
Member

*************************************************************
*           Anthropology-Matters Mailing List
*  http://www.anthropologymatters.com            *
* A postgraduate project comprising online journal,    *
* online discussions, teaching and research resources  *
* and international contacts directory.               *
* To join this list or to look at the archived previous       *
* messages visit:                                             *
* https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/Anthropology-Matters   *
* If you have ALREADY subscribed: to send a message to all    *
* those currently subscribed to the list,just send mail to:   *
*        [log in to unmask]                  *
*                                                             *
*       Enjoyed the mailing list? Why not join the new        *
*       CONTACTS SECTION @ www.anthropologymatters.com        *
*    an international directory of anthropology researchers *




To unsubscribe please click here:
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=ANTHROPOLOGY-MATTERS&A=1

***************************************************************