CALL FOR PAPERS: Deadline 30 October 2009
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
An alternative self-representation? Ethnic
minority media, between hegemony and resistances.
18-19 March 2010
MSHS, Poitiers ? France
Call available on <http://www.minoritymedia.eu>www.minoritymedia.eu
An international conference organised by the EU
Excellence Team MINORITYMEDIA (University of
Poitiers) together with the research centre MIGRINTER (CNRS-UMR 6588).
The conference will be held in English, with a
possible simultaneous translation into French, depending on funding.
Keynote speakers:
Prof. Sirma BILGE (CEETUM, University of Montréal)
Prof. Robin COHEN (IMI, University of Oxford)
Prof. Daya THUSSU (University of Westminster)
Why study ethnic minority media, a subject with
such little legitimacy? If English literature
has devoted several books and many seminars, it
remains rarely studied in the academic field
because it suffers some kind of dual domination:
on the one hand, these media are generally not
visible, with an often limited lifetime, an
uncertain economic viability and situated on the
periphery of the journalism field; on the other
hand, these groups are frequently minorised, and
/ or poorly represented in mainstream media
(amongst journalists as well as in media
content) and more widely in political and union
bodies. However, this subject seems rather
interesting because it is at a crossroads of
several disciplines and allows to combine and
discuss the contributions of several research fields.
This conference, above all, is in the field of
cultural studies, subaltern studies and the
sociology of mobilisation by both the choice of
the subject ? the minoritised cultural media
practices ? and its ambition to show and analyse
resistances but also the various forms of
adherence of individuals and minority groups to
the hegemonic ideology. It draws on
anthropology and sociology of migration and
interethnic relations, by its interest in the
process of identification and othering at work
in the permanent construction of ethnicity and
its borders. It also leans towards sociology of
journalism, through its attention focused on the
process of information production,
organisational constraints (from the press,
editorials) that shape the media practices. In
addition, it touches on geography, for its
interest in the physical and symbolic exchanges
in various areas. Finally, it appeals to
political science, with its objective to compare
many very different fieldworks in terms of both
management policies for cultural diversity as well as communication policies.
Globalisation is reflected not only by an
increase but also by a diversification of
material and immaterial flows. Trade and the
movement of ideas were first allowed by the
physical movement of people across national and
regional borders. Nowadays, globalisation has
taken a new turn since the popularisation of new
technologies, especially in information and
communication. The movement is not only physical
but virtual, information and communication
technologies (ICTs) helping to redefine the
notion of space. Thus, alongside new
?circulatory territories? appear new spatial
logics. One of the direct consequences of these
upheavals is a questioning of national
frameworks and construction, induced by the
reorganisation and renegotiation of individuals
and the various groups that form our multicultural societies.
The reference to media is overwhelmingly in
relation to mainstream media. Beside them, a
multitude of ethnic minority media do coexist,
created by and for people living in a context of
ethnic minorisation. To what extent do they
contribute, both in their existence and by their
positions, in redefining majority and minority
identifications? Products of global migration
and proliferation of minority cultures, ethnic
minority media are both producers and containers
of identity. A number of influential theorists
have argued in favour of ethnic media as an
important tool in furthering and supporting
democracy and participation in the public
sphere. To what extent, by increasing
opportunities for participation in the
journalistic field and offering new ways to
contribute in the public sphere, has the advent
of Web 2.0 amplified the abilities, methods and
types of expression of cultural and religious
actors? Among the issues that this conference
wishes to address, will be to question the
effects of these developments by attempting to
see past the enchanted vision of accessibility
to ICTs for all as well as the pessimistic
visions of atomisation / communitising the
public sphere that would lead to not being able
to speak even of a public space.
This international conference focuses on people
who experience deterritorialisation and
reterritorialisation and who develop or sustain
distinct identities and social relations within
and across nation-states, through ethnic
minority media. The purpose is to understand the
growing role of mediated communication in
defining meanings, uses and appropriations of
cultural, religious and social space. It aims to
analyse, within the framework of ethnic minority
media, the perception of the feeling of
belonging, the collective (re)presentation of
the Self, as well as the cultural and religious
practices. The central question is: what role
the ethnic minority media play in imagining and
mobilising new communities of belonging, or
transforming them in the context of globalisation and cultural diversity?
Proposals of communication based on extensive
field surveys will be particularly appreciated,
as well as those offering a theoretical reading
fed by a previous empirical work. All
disciplines of humanities and social sciences
are encouraged to participate, especially
sociology, anthropology, geography, history,
information and communication sciences and
political science. Proposals for papers must fit
into one of the following sessions:
1. Re-presentation, production, identity construction
The ethnic minority media feed on and reinvent
alternately identification with a ?community?
(readers, listeners) who revive the feeling of
having an identity and of belonging to a common
history. They are one of the privileged places
of unification and identity construction. The
social sciences have shown how the identities
and affiliations - religious, political, ethnic,
national, linguistic - are intertwined and
blended. How media actors adapt to the possible
contradictory nature of various identity
?mobilisers?? What are the strategies of
representation and visibility? How do the
minority and the majority feed off one another?
What is the role of religion? Do the ethnic
minority media, especially electronic contribute
to what might be qualified as a transnational
identity unification movement? How are multiple
identities expressed on the Net at the time of
technological, political and social transformation in the globalised world?
2. Mobilisation and citizenship
This session will examine the role of ethnic
minority media in the public sphere. In the
tradition of cultural studies, which is
interested in cultural production as a form of
political participation, the communication
papers will try to analyse the relationship
between ethnic minority media and collective
mobilisation. The ethnic minority media may
first help to raise a debate on the public
sphere. They can provide an arena where
dominated social groups identify their problems,
express their demands and formalise their
interest on the public sphere. In sum, these
media are involved in transforming specific
concerns into public issues, to include them in
the policy agenda and to get answers in terms of
public policy. Secondly, the ethnic minority
media can promote activities that go beyond the
single media activities and enroll directly in
the register of social movements. This axis will
therefore clarify the contribution of ethnic
minority media in public debate and understand
how they fit in (which) public space.
3. Mobility, spaces, territories
Studies on transnational and translocal
mobilisation of migrants helped to illuminate
the links between areas of mobilisation and
areas of migration and movement. The social
sciences are traversed by a recent increase in
the qualifying words: circulatory, migratory,
transnational, translocal, glocal... Rather than
judge the respective relevance of these
qualifiers, the purpose is to recognise that
they all belong to the same paradigm of
mobility, whereby any movement in space is
accompanied by the crossing of social and
political spaces. Does the space represent a
material support to the media actors, a
strategic resource, a symbolic reference, or all
of these combined? Is the formation of migratory
territorialities accompanied by the emergence of
new militant territorialities? Can the ethnic
minority media be a factor of social mobility?
This session will explore the multiple linkages
between mobility (identity, social, economic,
political), space and territory, and the ways in
which the media actors experience them.
4. Ethnic minority media in the journalistic field
Ethnic minorities have invested the media space
by the margin ? whether in special pages or
dedicated sections in the mainstream media, or
in specific (ethnic) media ? as did the women in
the Anglo-Saxon press of the nineteenth century.
In this context, are minorities successful at
innovating editorials and at making
other/alternative subjects heard in the
journalistic and media sphere? Do the ethnic
minority media share a vision of the political,
cultural and social role of the minorities
different from that played in the mass media?
Have they led to new ways of doing journalism?
Is there an adversarial relationship between the
ethnic minority media and mainstream media? Or
rather, to what extent do the ethnic media
reproduce organisational forms, systems of
constraint, and divisions of labour, similar to
the hegemonic models in the more legitimate media?
5. Gender and interlocking systems of domination
This session focuses on ethnic minority media as
gendered organisations. As identified in the
mainstream media, does the trend towards
feminisation, not only in numerical terms, but
also in terms of the division of power, access
to high positions and prestigious informational
fields also hold true in the ethnic minority
media? Can we identify areas assigned to the
?feminine? and ?masculine?? What is the
contribution of minorised individuals and groups
in terms of gender to the recent developments in
journalism writing? Does a greater
representation of these people allow them to
offer a different image of themselves and to
promote different topics or to question
differently issues associated with them?
Compared to mainstream media, do the ethnic
minority media take more into account the
interlocking systems of domination (gender,
class, race) as explanatory factors of topical
phenomena or, more broadly, social relations?
What self-representation do women and men set up
on the public space and especially in the media
they initiated? Do these modes of representation
differ according to gender, ethnicity or class?
6. Local, national and supranational frameworks and dynamics
The development of ethnic minority media is
influenced by different state policies, both in
terms of communication as in terms of relation
to minority phenomenon and ethnic diversity.
Moreover, collective identity construction and
development of self-representation on public
space depend on dominant societal and legal
frameworks. In this context, and despite the
emergence of institutional Europe and
transnational practices, what signification do
the national frameworks have in political, legal
and institutional terms as well as in historical
and social contexts? How can the political
representation of minority groups in countries
with opposed patterns of diversity management be
compared? To what extent the existence ? or
nonexistence ? of means from the public sphere
affected to minority media, favour ? or not ?
the development of an area of confrontation of
political positions more or less loyal or otherwise radical?
7. The ethnic minority media in history
The ethnic minority media are a historically
rooted phenomenon, contemporary of the first
waves of migration ? internal and external ?
both in Europe and across the Atlantic. If the
Chicago School produced the first research on
this topic early in the twentieth century, the
scientific output on the historical period are
still lacking. What was the impact of ethnic
minority media in Europe still largely marked by
internal and regional migration? How have these
media been able to contribute to the development
and the strenghtening of the cohesive identity
of diaspora (Jews, Armenians...) or groups of
immigrants (Belgians, Italians, Poles...)?
8. Trajectories at the intersection of media, political and social spheres
This session will discuss the individual
trajectories of media actors. We are inspired
here by the paradigm of mobility according to
which any movement in space is accompanied by
the crossing of social and political
hierarchies. Does the popularisation of ICTs
allow the access to the media sphere by the most
minorised groups/persons? Does the use of ICTs
by ethnic minorities, with the boom of virtual
ethnic social networks in all countries of
immigration, constitute a bottom-up reappropriation of new types of media?
Scientific committee
Dr. William Berthomière (Geographer, MIGRINTER ? France)
Dr. Yvan
Gastaut
(Historian, URMIS-SOLIIS, University of Nice ? France)
Prof. Rainer
Geißler (Sociologist,
University of Siegen ? Germany)
Dr. Myria
Georgiou (Communication studies, LSE ? UK)
Prof. Marie
Gillespie (Sociologist, The Open University ? UK)
Prof. Danielle
Juteau (Sociologist, University of Montreal ? Canada)
Dr. Ayhan
Kaya (Politist, Bilgi University ? Turkey)
Prof. Emmanuel Ma Mung (Geographer, MIGRINTER ? France)
Prof. Marco
Martiniello (Sociologist &
politist, CEDEM, University of Liege ? Belgium)
Prof. Gema Martín
Muñoz (Sociologist,
Autonomous University of Madrid, Director General of Casa Arabe ? Spain)
Prof. Tristan
Mattelart (Communication
studies, University Paris 8 ? France)
Prof. Érik
Neveu
(Sociologist & politist, IEP Rennes ? France)
Dr. Antoine
Pécoud (Sociologist, UNESCO, Paris ? France)
Prof. Kevin
Robins
(Sociologist, City University London ? UK & Turkey)
Prof. Catherine Wihtol de Wenden (Politist, CERI-IEP, Paris ? France)
Organisation committee
MA. Françoise
Braud (Scientific
secretary of Minoritymedia, University of Poitiers - MIGRINTER ? France)
Ms. Alexandra
Brunaud (Administrative
secretary of Minoritymedia & MIGRINTER ? France)
Dr. Laurent
Chambon (Politist,
Minoritymedia research fellow, University of Poitiers ? France)
Dr. Claire
Cossée
(Sociologist, Minoritymedia research fellow,
University of Poitiers; GTM-CNRS, Paris ? France)
MA. Sirin
Dilli
(Communication studies & politist, Minoritymedia
research fellow, University of Poitiers ?
France; University Paris 3 ? France / Bilgi University, Istanbul ? Turkey)
Dr. Laura Navarro
Garcia (Communication
studies, Minoritymedia research fellow,
University of Poitiers ? France; University of Valencia ? Spain)
M. Maurad
Hamaïdi (Administrator of MIGRINTER ? France)
Dr. Souley
Hassane (Historian
& sociologist, Minoritymedia research fellow,
University of Poitiers; MIGRINTER ? France)
Dr. Isabelle
Rigoni
(Sociologist, Team leader of Minoritymedia
research fellow, University of Poitiers - MIGRINTER ? France)
Dr. Eugénie
Saitta (Politist,
Minoritymedia research fellow, University of Poitiers ? France)
Contacts
Isabelle Rigoni ?
<mailto:(isabelle.rigoni /at/ univ-poitiers.fr)>(isabelle.rigoni /at/ univ-poitiers.fr)
Françoise Braud ?
<mailto:(francoise.braud /at/ cegetel.net)>(francoise.braud /at/ cegetel.net)
Submission requirements
Communication proposals, in English, should include:
Page 1: Title
Author
Full contact information (including: name /
institutional affiliation / address / country of
residence / telephone / e-mail)
Page 2: Title of the communication
Title of the session
Abstract (500-750 words, single-spaced), for
publication in the conference program. The
abstract should provide a summary of the paper,
including conceptualisation, method, and major findings.
Panel sessions last 2:30 hours. The number of
discussants participating in the panel is
between four and six. Ample time will be
provided for engaging the audience (conference
participants) in the discussion.
Intending participants to the conference should
electronically submit their communication papers
proposals to both Isabelle Rigoni
(<mailto:(isabelle.rigoni /at/ univ-poitiers.fr)>(isabelle.rigoni /at/ univ-poitiers.fr))
and Françoise Braud
(<mailto:(francoise.braud /at/ cegetel.net)>(francoise.braud /at/ cegetel.net))
as well as to
<mailto:(conference /at/ minoritymedia.eu)>(conference /at/ minoritymedia.eu)
by the 30 October 2009 for consideration. All
submitted proposals will be peer-reviewed by the
scientific committee of the conference by the 30 November 2009.
Eligible participants should submit their full
papers (+/- 8000 words) by the 31 January 2010.
All submitted manuscripts must be original
papers of scientific quality in regard to
theoretical and methodological criteria.
Isabelle Rigoni
Chef d'équipe Minoritymedia / Minoritymedia Team Leader
MIGRINTER
99, avenue du Recteur Pineau
86000 Poitiers - France
Tel : +33 (0)6 21 71 64 05
<mailto:(isabelle.rigoni /at/ univ-poitiers.fr)>(isabelle.rigoni /at/ univ-poitiers.fr)
http://www.minoritymedia.eu
