The conference about „living together in diversity“ tries to
capture the experience of the European societies and the diversity within – how
it is imagined, narrated, organized, justified, and practiced within
contemporary national societies.
Some of the essentials questions to be tackled are as
follows:
- What makes
multicultural societies circumscribed by state borders cohere together?
- What are
the ways in which the nation becomes re-signified to accommodate the
ethno-cultural diversity of its population?
- How do
migrants position themselves in national narratives and political structures?
- What
alternative modes and models of belonging are at work within present national
societies?
- In which
ways does the national continue to feature as a site of attachment?
- Is it
necessary to have some form of common identification at the national scale to
have functioning states in the first place?
The University prefers empirically-informed work. The
privileged level of analysis is on the national scale, but papers focusing on
sub-national and supra-national scales can also be welcomed inasmuch as they
can offer insights regarding how living together in diversity works at the
national scale. Regionally, the conference will focus on Europe, but
contributions discussing other geographical contexts are also welcomed.
Selected papers from the conference will be published.
The closing date for abstracts (250-300 words) is December
31st, 2011 and are to be sent to Tatiana Matejskova (MatejskovaT@ceu.hu).