Invitation and Call for Papers to the conference
“Whither Europe? Borders, boundaries, frontiers in a changing world”
Göteborg University 16-17 January 2003
Since the end of the Cold War the situation in Europe may be described as a
state of flux characterised by contradictory processes. The process of
political and economic integration is partially followed by social and
political disintegration. Old political borders are losing their
traditional importance, which opens up for the creation of new communities
as well as the disruption within old. The enlargement of the European Union
will cross old frontiers, but also result in a new internal European
borderline between insiders and outsiders. To what extent this new line of
demarcation will be excluding to its character remains to be seen.
As a normative civil system, Europe pretends to move its frontiers towards
east and south, a process that takes place in a framework of globalisation.
As a peace project, the European Union has put an end to interstate wars
between the Member States. However, intrastate conflicts and social and
political violence has not disappeared in Europe, and could also within
Member States even be on the increase.
A conference with the above-mentioned theme will address the contemporary
and future Europe in discussions regarding the implications of new regional
identities due to the changes raised in this brief introduction.
The conference will be held at the School of Economics and Commercial Law
at Göteborg University 16-17 January 2003. The first day of the conference
will offer plenary talks and panel discussions, while the second day will
be dominated by a variety of workshops.
The conference is organised by:
Jean Monnet European Centre of Excellence at Göteborg University
Centre for European Research at Göteborg University (CERGU)
The organising Committee is:
Professor Per Cramér, Jean Monnet Chairholder, Department of Law,
Professor Rutger Lindahl, Jean Monnet Chairholder, Department of Political
Science
Professor Ulla Björnberg, Department of Sociology
Professor Björn Hettne, Department of Peace and Development Research
Associate Professor Per Månson, Department of Sociology
Associate Professor Mats Andrén, Department of History of Ideas and Theory
of Science
CALL FOR PAPERS
We welcome paper proposal in anthropology, business, economics, government,
law, modern history, politics, sociology, and other fields that investigate
relevant aspects. So far three workshops are proposed:
“Human rights”
This workshop will address issues on human rights connected to 1.
Minorities and citizenship rights. New kinds of boarders is likely to
sharpen and complicate minority tensions. 2. Refugees and migrants. How are
living conditions and asylum status granted to different kinds of migrants
and refugees? 3. Family ties across boarders problems regarding marriage,
care of dependant relatives (old parents and children) 4. Trafficing and
prostitution, women and children - questions concerning human rights in
the treatment of the persons concerned within the country to which they
have been brought and also in the country to which they are sent when
discovered. We welcome papers dealing with the mentioned and other aspects
of human rights.
“Migration, citizenship and identity”
The second workshop deals with the wide range of topics that has to do with
migration, citizenship and identity in relation to changing frontiers and
new borders in post communist Europe. In Eastern Europe the independence
has brought statelessness for parts of the populations. In Western Europe
the migration of the last decades has in a number of ways questioned the
established cultural boundaries and thus has become a key factor for recent
discussions political as well as within the social and human sciences on
citizenship and identity. The coming membership in the Union for Central
European states presents new aspects on the theme. The workshop welcomes
papers on historical and up to date aspects of the theme.
“The development of a new European Security architecture”
Since the early 1990's we find a diffuse European political landscape in
which there exist neither a classical balance of power structure nor a
functioning effective all-European peace order based on mutual
trust. Furthermore, the agenda of Security Policy has been given a
somewhat new character where the risks for interstate conflicts to a large
extent has been substituted for less concrete threats such as imploding
state structures, ethnically motivated strives within states, terrorism,
environmental catastrophes etc.
The structures for Security Policy co-operation that were established
during the Cold War have successively been reformed and developed with the
objective to answer up to these new threat perceptions as well as to
further a process whereby the idea of balance of power in Europe is
transcended.
The objective of the workshop is to address questions relating to the
construction of a new European security architecture beyond the classical
logic of balance of power.
-----------------------------
The deadline for papers is Friday, November 1, 2002. Send or email the
paper to:
Mats Andrén
Associate Professor
CERGU
Box 711
SE-405 30 Göteborg
SWEDEN
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Rene Bekkers
-----------------------------------------------
ICS/Department of Sociology
Heidelberglaan 1
3584 CS Utrecht
The Netherlands
Phone: +31 30 253 3213
Fax: +31 30 2534405
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
personal URL: http://www.fss.uu.nl/soc/homes/bekkers
URL Department of Sociology: http://www.fss.uu.nl/soc
Visiting address: Martinus Langeveld gebouw (former CGZ), room H086
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