CFP Extended Deadline: Special Issue on Science, Technology and the Nation, Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism (SEN) Journal

With apologies for cross-posting.

Science and technology have become closely interwoven within the larger processes of national development, nation-building and citizenship. Scientific and technological innovation is often seen as the benchmark through which nation states enact claims of modernisation and progress, by asserting their competitive status in larger geopolitical hierarchies differentiating ‘developed’ from ‘developing’ states. Nuclear power is one such example, which provides both an advantage in warfare as well as in the ready availability of clean energy. Similarly, large hydroelectric power plants are able to sustain an extensive irrigated agriculture system, in addition to providing a strategic geopolitical advantage to the country in which they are located. Biomedical innovation and the development of new medical technologies in recent decades have come to constitute an important means through which many countries seek to establish national, scientific and entrepreneurial prestige.

Recent research has focused on how technology (Adria 2010), megaprojects (Sangvai 1994) and the seemingly borderless space of the Internet are likewise imbued with national sentiment, especially within diaspora populations (Miller and Slater 2000; Bernal 2006; Eriksen 2007). However, the 'soft effects’ of technological advancement are not the only avenues for critical examination. Particularly in light of the changing geopolitical and ethical landscape within these domains, current scholarship (Jasanoff 2005; Gottweis, Salter and Waldby 2009; Ong and Chen 2010) is moving beyond more normative analyses to examine processes around the co-production of science and society.

The proposed special issue seeks to examine the domain of science and technology through the analysis of underexplored discursive constructions, forms of citizenship, national belonging and scientific cultures. Contingent on this is an exploration of how latest or ongoing scientific or technological projects and transnational networks (large infrastructures, digital platforms, scientific collaborations, and international regulatory frameworks) modify prevalent understandings of the interrelation between science, technology and the nation. Specifically, we hope to address the following questions:

· What is the correlation between scientific and technological progress and the citizen’s perceived sense of patriotism and belonging to the nation?

· How are innovative projects portrayed by the ruling elites and in what way does this help them legitimise existing power structures?

· To what extent do current scientific and technological cultures either reproduce or undermine the nation through new emphases on transnational collaboration and networks?

· In what ways does this impact on the construction of a national identity?

We invite the submission of high-quality interdisciplinary articles to further our understanding of these topics. Possible themes include:

• Science, citizenship and sovereignty

• Bionationalism and “biotech nationalism”

• Megaprojects (such as nuclear plants, large hydroelectric stations, and bridges) and nationalism

•International harmonization projects, regulation and local contexts

• Governmentality and science

• Transnational/ diaspora mediascapes literature/ virtual citizenship

The editors welcome submissions of contributions from established scholars, research students, post-doctoral fellows and lecturers in the early stages of their career.

For submissions to be considered for publication in the special issue, please ensure your paper reaches us by 21 December 2014.

We request you limit your submission to 8,000 words, excluding bibliography and references. All papers must be submitted online via http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/sena.

All inquiries can be addressed to Filippo Menga at filippomenga[at]gmail.com.

For author guidelines and additional information, please visit the journal’s home page: http://www.wiley.com/bw/submit.asp?ref=1473-8481&site=1

Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism (SEN) is a fully peer-reviewed journal, published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the Association of Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism (ASEN).

SEN publishes three issues per year on the themes of ethnicity, nationalism and identity, and encourages innovative submissions from a broad range of disciplines and regions.

References

Adria, Marco. Technology and Nationalism. McGill-Queen's University Press, 2010.

Bernal, Victoria. "Diaspora, cyberspace and political imagination: the Eritrean diaspora online." Global Networks 6.2 (2006): 161-179.

Eriksen, Thomas Hylland. "Nationalism and the Internet*." Nations and Nationalism 13.1 (2007): 1-17.

Gottweiss, Herbert, Brian Salter and Catherine Waldby. 2009. The Global Politics of Human Embryonic Stem Cell Science: Regenerative Medicine in Transition. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Jasannoff, Sheila. 2005. Designs by Nature. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Miller, Daniel, and Don Slater. The Internet. Oxford: Berg, 2000.

Ong, Aihwa and Nancy Chen (eds). 2010. Asian Biotech: Ethics and Communities of Fate. Durham: Duke University Press.

Sangvai, Sanjay. “‘Nation', 'Nationalism' and Mega Projects.” Economic and Political Weekly 29.10 (1994): 537-540.