CALL FOR PAPERS: ECREA Diaspora, migration and the media section
University of the Basque Country, Bilbao

“MIGRATION AND COMMUNICATION FLOWS: RETHINKING BORDERS, CONFLICT AND IDENTITY THROUGH THE DIGITAL”

“We are faced with a crisis of humanity, and the only exit from this crisis is to recognize our growing interdependence as a species and to find new ways to live together in solidarity and cooperation, amidst strangers who may hold opinions and preferences different from our own.”  Zygmunt Bauman, Strangers at our door (Polity, 2016)

ECREA’s ‘Diaspora, Migration and Media’ and ‘Intercultural and International Communication’ sections will organize a joint conference at the University of Basque Country in Bilbao on 2-3 November 2017 that will focus on how research on migration and communication flows can help rethinking key notions like ‘borders’, ‘conflict’, ‘solidarity’, ‘identity’ and ‘culture’.

RATIONALE: 

Migration, cultural diversity and the media are increasingly problematized. Europe appears to be crumbling down in the current moment as a result of the Brexit vote, the election of Donald Trump and the so-called ‘European Refugee Crisis’. This is illustrated by hoaxes and fake news messages on these themes that serve as popular clickbait on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. As media outlets seek to address these ‘post-Truth’ conditions, populist, xenophobic, Islamophobic, racist and neo-nationalist rhetoric and sentiments have grown excessively across social media. Meanwhile, the number of internal and external European borders proliferates, and digital data are used for surveillance and migration management. Therefore, mediated encounters with diversity, the humanitarianism-securitization nexus and the role of communication flows urgently deserve further academic exploration to advance understanding of some of the major societal challenges of our time.

The continuous re-appropriation of Anas Modamani’s selfie with the German chancellor Angela Merkel on Facebook is an illustrative case in point. He took his selfie in September 2015, when Merkel visited the Berlin shelter where he was then living. Modamani is a Syrian refugee who fled from Darayya. After posting the selfie online, he has repeatedly been falsely linked to terrorism. On the basis of physically resemblance, he was for example wrongly accused to be involved in the bombings in Brussel (March 2016) and the recent attack at a Berlin Christmas market (December 2016), see seehttp://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38599385.

The conference aims to cover a broad range of conflict-related themes such as media production and regulation of information on forced migrants in a ‘post-Truth’ era; fake news; the humanitarianism-securitization nexus, migration management, social and political conflicts related to migrant and diaspora communities, radicalization and online counter-terrorism, hate speech and racism, but also solidarities, activism and protest.

Digital technologies and innovations constantly offer new ways to approach these issues, both theoretically and methodologically. The organizers invite papers that explore the complexity of migration and communication flows through conceptual interventions as well as qualitative and quantitative studies.

PRELIMINARY PROGRAMME
The conference will include:

• Keynote lectures by Marie Gillespie and Pedro Oiarzabal.
*Marie Gillespie is Professor of Sociology, The Open University, coordinator of the Mapping Refuge Media Journey project (2016-2018).
“The “Mapping Refugee Media Journeys” project investigates the parallel tracks of the physical and digital journeys of Syrian and Iraqi refugees. It documents the media and informational resources that refugees use from the point of departure, during their journeys across different borders and states, and upon arrival (if they reach their desired destination)”. For more information, see http://www.open.ac.uk/ccig/research/projects/mapping-refugee-media-journeys
*Pedro Oiarzabal is an Internet and Basque studies scholar, and a migration and diaspora researcher. His research examines diaspora creation and diaspora interaction with information and communication technologies as well as the meaning of identity in both homeland and diaspora realities, with particular emphasis on the Basque case.

• A roundtable to establish bridges of dialogue between academics studying the coverage of migrants and journalists reporting on various conflicts in Europe, addressing methodological and ethical challenges.
• A YECREA event dedicated to young scholars (PhD and postdoc level): see below for more information.
• A joint panel organized with the ECREA ‘Intercultural and International Communication’ division to broaden the empirical, conceptual and methodological scope of the conference and to explore future collaborations.
• An elaborate social programme, including a conference dinner and boat tour, allowing participants to enjoy the city of Bilbao.
Call for panel and paper proposals

To explore the issue of migration and communication flows in an informal and stimulating atmosphere, we invite participants to submit paper and panel proposals to the 2017 ECREA Diaspora, Migration & Media conference.

We particularly welcome proposals on the following topics:
• Rethinking the category of the migrant: forced migrants, guest-laborers, postsocialist, postcolonial, expatriates
• ‘Bottom-up’ digitally mediated processes, such as transnational and local networking and connectivity, diaspora organizations, identity construction, urban communications
• ‘Top down’ digitally mediated processes of migrant management: border control, surveillance & control systems for population movements, migrant detention centres, express flights, arrests at the street, lack of public information
• The humanitarianism-securitization nexus, human/communication rights, border management, express flights, street arrests, surveillance and political economy
• Migrants, media and language: the impact of migrants on linguistic dynamics (particularly in the context of natively bilingual societies), building resilience for new and local minority media structures
• Intersectional analyses of migration and communication flows: how do axes of difference, including race, gender, sexuality, nation, location, generation religion, class together co-constitute subordination and identity
• Methodological considerations in media and migration studies, including, but not limited to digital migration studies

We encourage scholars whose abstracts have been accepted, to submit full papers by 1 October 2017 in order to compete for the first ECREA Diaspora, Migration & Media Paper Awards. There will be one award for junior scholars and one for senior scholars.

TIMELINE:
Abstract deadline: April 16, 2017
Notification of acceptance: May 16, 2017
Full-paper submission: October 1, 2017
Registration deadline: October 1, 2017

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:
Please send 200-300 word abstracts by 31 March 2017.
Please include a short biography (max 100 words)

Indicate in your submission whether you are interested:

-in the YECREA event
-sessions jointly organized with ICC
-being considered for the special issue “Migration and communication flows: rethinking borders, conflict and identity through the digital”

Submit your abstract + bio to ecreadmm@gmail.com, indicate in your email header
[Submission last name + paper title]

ORGANIZING TEAM:


Irati Agirreazkuenaga, PhD
ECREA Diaspora, Migration and the Media Vice Chair
Assistant professor information genres, radio speech & corporate communication
Graduate Social Communication Programme, Department of Journalism
University of the Basque Country, Bilbao, Spain

Koen Leurs, PhD
ECREA Diaspora, Migration and the Media Chair
Assistant professor gender & postcolonial studies
Graduate Gender Programme, Department of Media & Culture
Utrecht University, the Netherlands

Kevin Smets, PhD
ECREA Diaspora, Migration and the Media Vice Chair
Assistant professor in media and culture
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium 
Postdoctoral fellow, Research Foundation Flanders, University of Antwerp, Belgium

Melis Mevsimler, MA
ECREA Diaspora, Migration and the Media Young Scholar Representative
PhD student Digital Crossings in Europe. Gender, Diaspora and Belonging 
Utrecht University, the Netherlands

Call for papers ‘Deportation as friction’

Panel at the Second Transmobilities & Development Conference: Friction in a mobile world, Radboud University, Nijmegen, 8-9 June, 2017

Panel organizers: Nauja Kleist, Danish Institute for International Studies, nkl@diis.dk & Heike Drotbohm, Department of Anthropology and African Studies, University of Mainz, Drotbohm@uni-mainz.de

Deportation has become an increasingly utilized migration management instrument, aiming at deterring migration, expelling unwanted aliens and signaling a given state’s tough stand on immigration to domestic constituencies. This panel has its objective to examine the implications of deportation for deportees and the institutions and states engaged in deportation, with particular focus on the interactions and connections occurring between them. We thereby wish to study deportation as friction, understood as precarious and disrupted interconnections (Tsing 2005) in a situation characterized by stratified globalization, a diversification of migration industries (Gammeltoft-Hansen and Sørensen 2013) and restrictive mobility regimes.

To illuminate these perspectives, we call for papers focusing on how different actors practice, govern and perceive deportation at different moments and locations along the so-called ‘deportation corridor’ (Drotbohm & Hasselberg 2015), which covers different places, actors and institution. We are particularly interested in presentations that tackle the diverse and conflicting social interactions between deportees and their social networks, institutions, entrepreneurs, laws and technologies that are part and parcel of the forceful route of involuntary return. These include:

• Deportability: How do authorities govern, practice and stage deportability (Peutz and Genova 2010)
• the constant but not necessarily realized threat of deportation ? Which impact has the condition of deportability on migrants and their perception of (im-)mobility and (potential) transnational life worlds? How do they respond to institutional requirements and constraints?
• Detention: what migration industries emerge and are involved in detention? Which technologies do they employ and what kinds of subjects do they (attempt to) create? How do detainees interact and differentiate themselves under this condition of institutional constraint?
• Removal: What types of institutions and migration industries are involved in different types of removal processes? What materialities and technologies of constraint, escort, communication and transportation do they employ? What are the interactions between deporting agents and deportees?
• Post-deportation: Which institutional interactions and frameworks do deportees face or approach after their deportation? How is their deportation perceived and managed by authorities and national or local institutions? What is the role of transnational practices and networks after deportation?

Practicalities

Please send a maximum 200 word abstract to both of us by April 7 at Drotbohm@uni-mainz.de and nkl@diis.dk. We will select abstracts no later than April 24.

Please note that participation in the workshop is free but participants have to cover their own expenses.

Call for papers ‘Deportation as friction’

Panel at the Second Transmobilities & Development Conference: Friction in a mobile world, Radboud University, Nijmegen, 8-9 June, 2017

Panel organizers: Nauja Kleist, Danish Institute for International Studies, nkl@diis.dk & Heike Drotbohm, Department of Anthropology and African Studies, University of Mainz, Drotbohm@uni-mainz.de

Deportation has become an increasingly utilized migration management instrument, aiming at deterring migration, expelling unwanted aliens and signaling a given state’s tough stand on immigration to domestic constituencies. This panel has its objective to examine the implications of deportation for deportees and the institutions and states engaged in deportation, with particular focus on the interactions and connections occurring between them. We thereby wish to study deportation as friction, understood as precarious and disrupted interconnections (Tsing 2005) in a situation characterized by stratified globalization, a diversification of migration industries (Gammeltoft-Hansen and Sørensen 2013) and restrictive mobility regimes.

To illuminate these perspectives, we call for papers focusing on how different actors practice, govern and perceive deportation at different moments and locations along the so-called ‘deportation corridor’ (Drotbohm & Hasselberg 2015), which covers different places, actors and institution. We are particularly interested in presentations that tackle the diverse and conflicting social interactions between deportees and their social networks, institutions, entrepreneurs, laws and technologies that are part and parcel of the forceful route of involuntary return. These include:

• Deportability: How do authorities govern, practice and stage deportability (Peutz and Genova 2010)
• the constant but not necessarily realized threat of deportation ? Which impact has the condition of deportability on migrants and their perception of (im-)mobility and (potential) transnational life worlds? How do they respond to institutional requirements and constraints?
• Detention: what migration industries emerge and are involved in detention? Which technologies do they employ and what kinds of subjects do they (attempt to) create? How do detainees interact and differentiate themselves under this condition of institutional constraint?
• Removal: What types of institutions and migration industries are involved in different types of removal processes? What materialities and technologies of constraint, escort, communication and transportation do they employ? What are the interactions between deporting agents and deportees?
• Post-deportation: Which institutional interactions and frameworks do deportees face or approach after their deportation? How is their deportation perceived and managed by authorities and national or local institutions? What is the role of transnational practices and networks after deportation?

Practicalities

Please send a maximum 200 word abstract to both of us by April 7 at Drotbohm@uni-mainz.de and nkl@diis.dk. We will select abstracts no later than April 24.

Please note that participation in the workshop is free but participants have to cover their own expenses.

Religious Feminism and Feminist Spirituality

Call for contributions for the colloquium on the 28th of November 2017 and for NQF 38/1

Coordination: Irene Becci, Helene Fueger, Catherine Fussinger et Amel Mahfoud

Denounced as fundamentally oppressive systems for women, monotheistic religions have been the subject of strong criticism from feminist movements in the West. The traditions most targeted by these criticisms were first those from which most Western feminists had come from, namely Christianity and Judaism (especially in North America). As for the theme of Islam and feminism, it is a particularly complex question today because the issue of the place of women within Islam was very quickly instrumentalized in the colonial context. If the three monotheistic traditions have been criticized for promoting social organization and discriminatory values against women in civil society, their internal functioning has also been called into question (difficulty or even impossibility for women to occupy positions of authority within religious institutions, but also to access texts and places of worship, as well as certain rites).

From these criticisms – but in a much broader context of putting religion into question – the following idea imposed itself: real advances in feminism required renouncing all forms of religious or spiritual beliefs and practices, which were considered to be necessarily alienating. From this point of view, women’s struggle could not be advanced without a strong retreat, even a disappearance, of all religions. For many, Western feminism appears to have had secularization as both a condition of possibility and as a result. In other words, Western feminism is connected to the loss of social influence of religion within modern institutions and a significant decrease in religious affiliation and practice. The relationships between feminism, spirituality and religion, however, deserve to be considered from another perspective today for two reasons.

First, while in the West modernity seemed for a time to imply the disappearance of religion, sociologists and politicians are reconsidering this vision since the end of the 20th century and thematize the “reconfigurations” and / or the “return” of religions within Western societies. Their analyzes are not, however, univocal. Some insist on the radical manifestations of such a return into public space, in the form of fundamentalist movements, particularly within Christianity and Islam. Other research underlines the individualization of the relationship with religion, or highlights the emergence of “new religious movements”, of New Age spiritualities, or other spiritual practices – which interest many more women than men – of various exotic inspirations. Within the academic field, therefore, approaches to religion and spirituality attempt to take account of the complexity of what the term “religion” and “secular” encompass at a sociological level. It is in this context that the historian and gender studies specialist Joan Scott (2009) recently considered it necessary to question the relationship between secularization and emancipation of women, which, according to her, has no historical linearity. The second reason which justifies approaching the relationship between religions, spiritualities and feminisms from a different perspective lies in the existence, often little known in Francophone circles, of the structuring of a feminist critique “from the inside” carried out by women who hold to both their feminist posture and their religious or spiritual commitment. Such a phenomenon was first observed in Christianity and Judaism in the 1960s and 1970s, then a clear feminist dimension emerged in various new religious movements (Wicca, the cult of the great goddess, etc.), and later certain Muslim feminisms emerged and became diffused.

The targets of these religious feminisms are diverse and their demands may take the path of cautious reformism or that of a radical confrontation (an appreciation that must always be contextualized according to the religious framework, some being more constraining than others). Thus, at the level of “work” within religious institutions, some have demanded a better recognition of the functions and activities predominantly occupied by women. Others, from the outset, have demanded access for women to central positions in the exercise of their religion, positions to which they were or are still excluded from (more recently the question also arose for homosexual persons). Regarding texts and considerations of the very conception of the divine and the sacred, the spectrum is equally broad. It may include highlighting the women that had been made invisible in sacred books and in the tradition, of extracting the fundamental texts from their patriarchal and homophobic interpretations, but also of promoting a feminine conception of the divine and of the divine word (for example, “the Goddess” of certain Christian feminists). According to their strategies and interests, these feminists with a religious commitment have therefore proposed alternative practices and rituals, but they have also created associations or academic journals. Through their actions, these feminists have sometimes invested themselves in the most liberal sections of existing institutions, sometimes they have worked at their margins, or they have broken with their official structure while still claiming a particular tradition. The desire to ally with others also led them to become involved in ecumenism or interfaith projects. Others yet have developed a commitment to new forms of spirituality, which are felt to be less fixed and better able to reconcile with their feminism.

Living with their century, these feminists with a religious or spiritual commitment have also had to position themselves in relation to feminist issues regarding civil society (divorce, abortion, sexuality, homosexuality, etc.) and often have had to distance themselves from the official positions of their religious authorities. In the present context, these feminists’ views on the positions and strategies of the fundamentalist wings of their tradition are of great interest.

Finally, when we examine their feminist commitment, we must consider the nature of the arguments underlying their criticisms and claims. Given the importance within the various religious traditions of a system based on a highly hierarchic “complementarity” between men and women, we can wonder how these feminists relate to differentialist conceptions, which assume an essential difference between the masculine and the feminine, accompanied by a strong revaluation of the later. Is this the mainstream or have other feminist postures also been favored in some cases?

By launching a call for scientific contributions devoted to “religious feminisms and feminist spiritualities,” NQF wishes to receive proposals analyzing the forms and stakes of a feminist commitment within the three monotheistic traditions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) as well as within new religious movements.

Considering the public of NQF, it is necessary that these contributions contextualize the stakes specific to the religious / spiritual tradition while analyzing the feminist stakes, not only as they are developed internally but also with regard to the positions feminists developed outside religious or spiritual frameworks. In this respect, it seems important to us to put into perspective the geographical diversity of these feminisms which have religious / spiritual roots. Indeed, the relations between feminism and Protestantism or between feminism and Judaism do not, for example, function in the same ways in Europe and the United States, a fact which undoubtedly owes as much to the different forms taken by feminist mobilizations as to the diversity of religious orientations in these two socio-geographical areas (in the USA, for example, conservative Protestant churches are more numerous and liberal Judaism is much more present than in Europe). There is also a particular geography of new feminist religious movements (for example, the political orientations or inspirations of certain neo-pagan movements, sometimes reactionary, sometimes progressive, may be opposed in the USA compared to Europe or in cities compared to the countryside). This also signifies that there is a circulation and acclimatization of religious feminisms and feminist spiritualities, as exemplified by the case of Muslim feminisms. In this context, analysis that adopt a comparative perspective either between geographical areas or between religious traditions seem likely to provide stimulating insights.

NQF organizes a colloquium on the theme “Religious feminisms and feminist spiritualities”, which will take place at the University of Lausanne on the 28th of November 2017 and will continue with the publication, at the beginning of 2019, of issue 38/1 of NQF devoted to this same topic. The present call therefore applies to both the colloquium and the issue 38/1 of NQF. We strongly encourage communications with an article proposal, however it is also possible to propose only a communication or an article.

The languages of the colloquium are French and English. The articles in issue 38/1 of NQF will be published in French. However, it is possible to carry out the evaluation and correction of the articles for texts written in English, German or even Italian. In this case, however, the translation and funding for the translation must be done by the author of the article.

Please send your proposals for communication and / or article (1-2 pages) by e-mail to Amel Mahfoud (amel.mahfoudh@hevs.ch) as a word document by 3 April 2017. The evaluation of the proposals will take place in April and a response will be given in early May 2017.

The acceptance of a proposed communication and / or article does not mean that the article will be accepted in the end. Indeed, each text is entrusted for evaluation to two reviewers. On this basis, it may be “accepted as is,” “accepted on condition of modifications” or “rejected”.