Hi there,
Not strictly geography, but as I know there are a lot of urban
scholars on the list I thought I'd share this call. We'd certainly
be happy with papers from all related disciplines. Deadline
January 14th.
CfP: Cities of the forking paths: intercommunal (dis)harmony and
the rhythms of everyday life
Panel Discussant: Eviatar Zerubavel
SIEF2015, Zagreb, 21-25 June 2015
Global cities are variously represented as utopian multiethnic,
interreligious celebrations of cosmopolitan difference, or
conversely as dark hives of ethnic and class conflict. Against
this split narrative, smaller cities that exhibit ethnic or
religious tensions are often portrayed as lacking, provincial or
backwards. In light of recent developments -- including the
supposed demise of multiculturalism in Europe's cities, the rise
of urban Hindu nationalism in India and a surge of violence in
towns across the Middle East -- we seek to complicate narratives
of communal disharmony with a specific focus on those
semi-peripheral smaller cities that are often overlooked by urban
scholars.
Thinking through these ideas rhythmically (temporally and
spatially) allows ethnographers and historians to explore the
everyday realities of how community is performed and circulated in
smaller cities. It is our contention that inhabitants of plural
cities exhibit creative marginality in the face of contrived
coexistence, that the heteronomous spaces and times of cities
produce contradictory logics that undermine ethnonationalist state
goals, and that the mundane cycles of everyday life can
destabilise seemingly hegemonic projects.
We welcome contributions from a range of geographic settings,
historical periods and methodological approaches that address the
problem of alterity and its discontents in unsettled urban times
and spaces.
Conveners: Ian M. Cook (Central European University) & Daniel
Monterescu (Central European University)
Discussant: Eviatar Zerubavel (Rutgers University)
Deadline January 14th 2015
Propose a paper here:
http://nomadit.co.uk/sief/sief2015/panels.php5?PanelID=3507
Informal questions or queries to panel conveners:
Ian Cook
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Daniel Monterescu
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***please distribute widely***