Session call for Abstracts, please distribute widely:

Central and East European, Baltic and Balkan Geographies of Sexualities: it’s time to speak up!

Organized as part of the: 
IV European Geographies of Sexualities Conference

13 – 15 September 2017   |   Barcelona, Spain

https://egsc2017.wordpress.com/

Deadline April, 10th

ORGANIZER: Michal Pitoňák, Charles University in Prague; National Institute of Mental Health, [log in to unmask]

CFA: Geographies of sexualities have become established fields of enquiry over the past three decades within especially British and American scholarly traditions (Bell and Valentine 1995; Browne, Lim, and Brown 2007). Researchers from other Anglo-Saxon, Mediterranean and Ibero-American regions have also, at least partially, succeeded in establishing local fields of enquiry (Sibalis 2004; Johnston and Longhurst 2008; Johnston and Longhurst 2009; Ferreira and Salvador 2014; Silva and Vieira 2014), however, it is safe to say that sexuality research has remained, largely “Western-oriented”, both methodologically and discursively. Up to date, only scant attention has focused on Central and Eastern European geographies of sexualities, whereas authors have repeatedly warned us about potential risks connected with uncritical repro- or introduction of foreign discourses (D. R. Kulpa and Mizielinska 2011; Stella 2013; R. Kulpa 2014; Navickaitė 2014). However, these and several other authors from outside of the ‘West’ have already begun uncovering various geographies of sexualities within this particularly diverse region. This session is intended to facilitate and empower knowledge exchange between the ‘rest’ and the ‘West’, and perhaps more importantly among the ‘rest’. Existing language diversity within the region should fuel curiosity and not function as a barrier. Various knowledges contained ‘beyond translation’, need to be explored, whereas various ‘methodological nationalisms’, that permeate the process of knowledge production, here and there, need to be ‘queered’. There is no one ‘Central’, ‘East’ or ‘Eastern Europe’, but a diverse and rich region containing much unexplored knowledge which lacks appreciation. In reaction to this situation, the proposed session invites scholars to participate from Central Europe, various parts of Balkans, from Baltic region, as well those coming from Eastern and other regions that are so far being excluded, disempowered, evened-out or simply ignored within the loosely defined field of geographies of sexualities.

Abstracts of papers in, but not restricted to, the following topics are invited for consideration:

• Destabilizing ‘the West’ and ‘the Rest’ binaries; Critique of “Western developmental” discourses, non-linear developments;
• Non-commercial and non-capitalist histories and spatialities of sexualities, non-capitalist emancipatory pathways;
• Public displays of sexualities in post-socialist and post-soviet contexts;
• Queer beyond the ‘Western’ contexts;
• Transnational activism, social networks and EU;
• Globalization, Westernization, Europeanization of sexualities;
• Central and Eastern European geographies of sexualities and their historical contexts;
• Effects of English dominance within the field of sexuality studies;
• Porn-industry, othering, exoticization of Slavs or other ethnic groups;
• Sexual tourism and sex-work;
• Regional traditions of naturism, nudism;
• Non-heterosexual stigma and health related issues, queering HIV.

Plese send all your submissions, abstracts of max. 250 words, directly to the organizer of this session: Dr. Michal Pitoňák [log in to unmask] 

Thank you for your submissions! Please distribute widely. 

With my best regards, 

Michal Pitoňák