Call for papers

Workshop: Beyond identity: New venues for interdisciplinary research on identity

Wrocław, 8-9 November 2019
Organisers: Academia Europaea Wrocław Knowledge Hub and the Willy Brandt Center for German and European Studies, Wroclaw University.

Identity has been a contested concept in social sciences. On the one hand, there are some doubts whether the concept has much analytical value (Brubaker 2002), given its broad meaning between constructivism (dynamic nature) and essentialism (fixed nature). While some scholars proclaim radical social construction of individual identity (e.g. Bauman’s “liquid identity”), others point to fixed parameters of, for instance, national identity and the unparalleled power of identity-making entities such as states (Billig 1995).
Against this background, the workshop envisages an interdisciplinary dialogue in form of a workshop among representatives of various including sociology, anthropology, political sciences, philosophy or psychology. The main aim of the workshop is to discuss insights from various disciplines into how individual and collective identities are formed, negotiated and fixed. In particular, the fixed aspects of identity-making versus socially constructed factors (including xeno-formatting of identity, for instance, by states) will of interests in order to determine the degree of “constructability”. A further goal would be to debate the classical and the newest advancements in theory and empirical findings in various disciplines, also to better grasp possible changes of paradigms in exploring identity.
In addition, the scholars would engage into a dialogue on how to combine these various disciplinary insights into an analytical framework that could be used to explore the contemporary issues of identity, devise common approaches and find possible solutions to current identity problems including sectarianism, nationalism, ethnic violence, violent identity politics and identity-fueled wars (e.g. Juergensmeyer 2000).
The workshop has the goal of mapping out positions of compatibility and contradiction regarding identity in various disciplines allowing to sketch out the space for a possible dialogue among disciplines and thus deepen our understanding of identity-related processes.
The workshop is organized by the Wroclaw hub of the AE with the financial support of the AE Hubert Curien Initiatives Fund allowing us the cover the costs of travel and accommodation. As one of the outcomes, the organizers envisage a publication in the form of a Special Issue of the European Review.

The lead researchers are: prof. Ireneusz P. Karolewski, MAE, from the Willy Brandt Center for German and European Studies, Wroclaw University and prof. Virginie Mamadouh, MAE, from the University of Amsterdam.

References

Z. Bauman (2000) „Community“, in: Z. Bumann, Liquid Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press), 168-201.
M. Billig (1995), Banal Nationalism, Sage.
R. Brubaker (2002) „Beyond identity“, in: R. Brubaker, Ethnicity without groups (Cambridge: Harvard University Press).
M. Juergensmeyer (2000), Terror in the Mind of God: The global rise of religious violence (Berkley: University of California Press).
I.P. Karolewski/Suszycki (2011) Nation and nationalism in Europe (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press).




USEFUL INFORMATION

A selection of papers will be published. The aim of the workshop is to bring together established scholars with early career researchers, particularly from East Central Europe.

The workshop language is English.

Financial arrangements: The organizers cover the conference fee and provide accommodation (up to 2 nights), travel reimbursement (up to a maximum of 100 EUR) and insurance.

All correspondence must be addressed to: Katarzyna Majkowska (majkowska@acadeuro.wroclaw.pl).
The requirement is to submit a 300-word proposal, a curriculum vitae with a list of publications by 20 September, 2019.