INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR 
“POST-STRUCTURALIST PERSPECTIVES ON SOCIAL INCLUSION”
Call for Papers

The Research Group on Post-Structuralism, Politics and Identity Construction
(UFPE/Fundaj/UFPB/UFAL) (Brazil) invites submissions for participation in
the International Seminar “Social Inclusion and Post-Structuralist
Perspectives in Social Analysis” to be held in Recife-PE, Brazil between the
28th and 30th of June 2005.

Since the 1990s the debate about the place of actors/agents in social and
political action has been prominent in social theory and politics. The
contingency, fluidity, and the relational and constructed character of the
collective subject has been emphasized and contrasted with the limitations
of interpretations of social reality based upon ideas of totality,
determination and ineluctable laws of history. The political as constitutive
of the social, marked by plurality, difference, antagonism and by hegemonic
disputes between different actors, has been seen as the central
characteristic of social arrangements in the contemporary world. Influences
from philosophy, social science, psychoanalysis, history, linguistics and
literature combine to highlight the processes of signification in the
construction and transformation of the identities of actors and social
projects. Central references in this debate are names such as Ernesto
Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, Stuart Hall, Alberto Melucci, Mike Featherstone,
Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Manuel Castells.

The emphasis on the plurality of spaces of expression of marginalized or
subaltern groups, which such focuses favour, has been little explored in
discussions about the broadening and deepening of citizenship and the
implementation of social and political projects centred on social inclusion.
The appreciation of difference tends to accommodate itself easily to
“recovery” of values and practices in a certain unified or homogenized image
of national identity. The difficulties of limiting and conciliating cultural
and social differences, which have multiplied in recent decades, are
recurrent experiences in the context of a democratic project of inclusion
and strengthening of citizenship in societies marked by inequality, by
violence and by non-recognition of the underprivileged. Little has been done
to renovate/innovate discourses and approaches regarding politics and social
struggles; it normally simply involves the adaptation of outmoded theories
without relation to the reality of “peripheral” countries and their specific
democratization trajectories. 

This encounter proposes to thematize questions of inclusion and citizenship
from the critical perspectives made available by the current languages of
social and political theory, testing their possibilities and limits for
substantive change to poverty, inequality, prejudice, in contexts where the
appreciation of democracy, of plurality and of difference are no longer
negotiable. This is a consolidated field, which provokes polemics deriving
from the post-structuralist (and other “post” approaches’) critique of
totalizing, rationalist and positivist models in the social sciences and
political practice, and that has gained an increasing number of
practitioners and sympathizers in Brazil. 

The objective of the seminar is to discuss the theme of social inclusion
and, by drawing upon the theoretical contribution, methodologies and
practices of post-structuralist (and other “post”) approaches of social
analysis, to amplify the horizons of the relationship between the state and
civil society. The emphasis of discussion, beyond the necessary debate about
ideas, is to identify leads for a renewal of the struggle against exclusion,
to broaden radical and plural democracy and to strengthen a citizenship
which combines adequately the demands for equality with the affirmation of
difference.  

The deepening of democratic practices in the struggles of new social
movements, the work of network groups, the politics of identity and the
claims of citizenship (and of the state itself in the last decade), all
acclaim the importance of the terms inclusion, participation, affirmative
action, networks, public spheres, social recognition, etc, of which
post-structuralist approaches intend to be translations in a theoretical
register. Despite the recognition of  this interface in international debate
there is as yet little understanding and visibility in Brazil whether in the
social sciences or in social and political action leading to incomprehension
and reformulation of academic and social discourse for which more consistent
and innovative responses have been given by intellectuals and activists
identified with post-structuralist ideas.  

Without intending to substitute or negate other approaches, we intend, by
the identification of social inclusion, to show the relevance and
contributions of post-structuralist and similar approaches, in critically
enriching our public and academic debate. We intend, in sum, to contribute
towards a definition of a critical agenda of social inclusion widening its
strategic and conceptual references about the role of civil society in the
public sphere and about the necessary transformations of the state and
public policy in order to assure a process of dynamic, plural and radically
democratic social inclusion.  

The International Seminar will have as a public researchers and students in
the areas of Sociology, Political Science, Anthropology, History, Literature
and Linguistics, who are studying democracy and questions related to social
inclusion and who have an affinity with post-structuralist approaches. It
will be of interest to social movement activists, those who participate in
non-governmental organizations and other organizations of civil society,
administrators dealing with public policies of social inclusion, journalists
and opinion formers.  

The following are details for submission of work proposals to Work Groups

Paper proposals can be submitted and delivered in Portuguese, Spanish and
English, with preference given to oral presentation in the former two. There
is no provision for funding of participants in Work Groups. However
registration will be communicated with sufficient anticipation to facilitate
those wishing to apply for financial assistance elsewhere. 

All those with papers accepted will be required to register by 15/04/05 for
inclusion of the printed programme (in CD-Rom) of the event and confirmation
of inclusion in the Program. Registration fee for non-residents of Brazil
will be US$ 50 for professionals and US$ 25 for students, payable when
collecting the registration materials on arrival.

a) Submission of proposals should be made by e-mail, directly to
coordinators (see list below) until 28/02/05
b) Information required for submission: name of candidate, institution,
position/function, e-mail, telephone and postal address, title and abstract
of presentation (15 lines or 200 words), in either Portuguese, Spanish or
English.
c) Selection and communication of papers accepted will take place until
15/03/05
d) Complete papers must be received for inclusion in the CD-Rom (including
title page with title, author, institution, name of Work Group and session)
until 06/05/05
The following are Work Groups with their proposed themes:

1. Social movements and citizenship in a changing global scenario
Coordinators:: Ilse Scherer-Warren ([log in to unmask]) and Remo
Mutzenberg ([log in to unmask])
The objective of the WG is to discuss papers which reflect the present
moment of social movements and search for new parameters for their analysis.
In this sense the WG will focus on the presentation of
theoretical-methodological research and discussion which incorporates new
perspectives of analysis (post-structuralism, Feminism, Post-Colonialism
etc.) and their relation to the theme of social inclusion.
Key Concepts: Collective actions, their many modes of presence and
articulation in movement networks; constitution of polycentric public
spaces, where citizenship, politics and forms of social struggle are
redefined; social movements in the face of the phenomenon of social
inclusion/exclusion. 

2. Public policy discourse and societal projects 
Coordinators:: Silke Weber ([log in to unmask]) and José Jorge de Carvalho
([log in to unmask])
The objective of the WG is to debate research conducted in the field of
public policy concerning disputes and demands for meaning and recognition as
part of the struggles in the public sphere. The complexity of the relation
between local and global questions will be raised, along with the relation
between civil society and government and between the search for unity in a
plural situation and recognition of difference. 
Key Concepts: Search for totalizing unity and obstacles to confronting the
complexity of local and global questions in public policy; struggles for
meaning and recognition as part of disputes and demands in public space;
interfaces between civil society and state in the design and implementation
of public policies. 

3. Religion and Politics 
Coordinators: Joanildo Burity ([log in to unmask]) and Josadac Santos
([log in to unmask])
The aim of the WG is to discuss different forms of public presence of
religions in the contemporary scenario and the types of articulations which
these produce involving governmental and civil society actors, both
religious and lay. It aims to evaluate the interface between religion and
public spaces with emphasis upon the plurality of social spheres and logics
in which such relations occur and the impact of these processes for
confronting issues of social exclusion and inclusion.
Key Concepts: The global and local emergence of religion as a political and
cultural force in the context of the crisis of rationalism; the worsening of
living conditions and the intensification and mobilization of many social
sectors in contemporary democracies; debates about pluralism; generation of
social capital; religion and post-modernity. 

4. Ethnicity, production of diversity and containment of difference in
contemporary societies 
Coordinators: João Pacheco de Oliveira ([log in to unmask]) and Marcondes
Secundino ([log in to unmask])
The WG aims to open a space of discussion between researchers in social
science and similar areas on the basis of research in progress which
contemplates the emergence of ethnic identities in the contemporary context
and the problematic of their recognition vis-à-vis nation states. In other
words, to problematize the historical process of construction of new
collective identities from a relational and contingent perspective having
with reference to democratic and pluralist principles in a public space of
negotiation between collective identities, allies and representatives of the
state. Such space is, as a consequence, constitutive of frontiers in which
social relations of power are dynamized, creating mechanisms for the
production of diversity and contention of difference between ethnic groups
and the state. 
Key Concepts: Emergence of new ethnic identities and their relation with the
state; how to consolidate the politics of identity as a form of social
inclusion, thereby creating a fully democratic and plural society.

5. Technology and post-humanism 
Coordinators:: Jonatas Ferreira ([log in to unmask]), Aécio Amaral Jr.
([log in to unmask]) and Terry Mulhall ([log in to unmask])
At present we are witness to speculations of the most varied types which
point to the emergence of a zone of non-differentiation in which the
frontiers between the human, the animal and technological are blurred. The
human is being displaced from the centre of Western culture by phenomena
such as the technological acceleration, information excess which paralyses
reflection, the molecular appropriation of the organic world, and the
vertiginous development of technologies of genetic manipulation. Such
displacement brings with it a series of unknown ethical cultural and
political  dilemmas which challenge the intrinsically humanistic logic on
which the social sciences are structured. The WG will review the
emancipatory limits and possibilities which, in the context of recent
technological developments, the notion of post-humanism suggests.
Key Concepts: Humanism and the normative content of modernity; post-organic
humanity and the limits of the distinction nature/culture; biotechnologies
and bio-power; electronic memory and the politics of the archive;
reproductive technologies and life politics; risk and transgenetic
technologies; information technologies and public sphere; digital inclusion.

6. Gender and feminist theory 
Coordinators:: Cristina Buarque ([log in to unmask]) and Céli Regina
Jardim Pinto ([log in to unmask])
The WG aims at opening up a space for discussion on the perspectives of
feminist action in the construction of Brazilian democracy, focusing on its
relations with other socio-political movements and with the state; analysis
of feminist theoretical production in Brazil and its applicability in the
field of social science, identifying the meanings attributed to the concept
of gender.
Key Concepts: Feminist perspectives of action in the construction of
Brazilian democracy, with reference to its relations with other
socio-political movements and with the state; analysis of feminist
theoretical production in Brazil in the field of social science identifying
the meanings attributed to the concept of gender.

7. Violence and intolerance 
Coordinators:: Ruth Vasconcelos Lopes Ferreira ([log in to unmask])
and Rita Segatto ([log in to unmask])
The WG  will discuss the different interfaces between processes of social
inclusion and exclusion and the questions of tolerance and intolerance which
has increasingly accompanied the sociability of contemporary societies on a
local, national and global level, as a consequence of the profound social
and economic changes, the worsening of the life conditions of millions, the
intensification of interaction and conflicts between differences, between
social groups and the state.  
Key Concepts: multiplicity of forms of expression of violence in
contemporary society; violence and social exclusion; civil society and state
responses to violence; media and culture of violence.

For further enquires please contact the Seminar Coordinator:
Prof. Joanildo Burity
Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, Recife, Brazil
Tel. (+55) 81 3441 5900 ext. 298
Fax (+55) 81 3441 3228; 81 3441 4201
e-mail: [log in to unmask]