[ecrea] Contested Truths: Re-Shaping and Positioning Politics of Knowledge

>CfP call for paper
>Conference
>Contested Truths: Re-Shaping and Positioning Politics of Knowledge
>16.06.11-18.06.11
>Berlin, Germany
>
>Aims of the conference
>The central topic of the conference is the 
>politics of knowledge and its entanglement with 
>issues of epistemics, power and gender. Focusing 
>on a deeper understanding of the knowledge-power 
>nexus, the conference particularly aims to 
>analyze social and epistemological orders, 
>configurations and hierarchies of knowledge. 
>Thereby, a wide range of issues dealing with 
>different sites of knowledge production, objects 
>of inquiry and fields of research will be 
>addressed. The conference seeks to contribute to 
>debates concerning the situatedness of 
>knowledge. This topic was first adressed in the 
>humanities, science and technology studies and 
>gender studies by Foucault, Bourdieu, Latour, 
>Haraway, Harding and Barad among others.
>
>The conference particularly engages with the 
>following questions from this vast and 
>heterogeneous field: How is knowledge socially 
>and epistemically formed and positioned? What 
>are the consequences of certain practices and 
>techniques of knowledge formation? Where and how 
>does knowledge legitimate power relations? How 
>can hegemonic politics of knowledge be 
>destabilized and re-shaped? Finally, what are 
>the 'conditions of possibility' for truths to be 
>contested? The three panels address these 
>central questions by (1) uncovering implicit 
>knowledge politics in the formation of 
>disciplines and the process of canonization, (2) 
>discussing the impact of classifications and 
>infrastructures and (3) questioning and 
>destabilizing universal and neutral knowledge.
>
>1. Forming disciplines and canonization
>This panel focuses on the political implications 
>of the formation of disciplines and the process 
>of canonization. Contributions might analyze, 
>for instance, how disciplines are defined by the 
>gendering of their methods and theoretical 
>foundations as demonstrated in computer science 
>and historiography. Other topics include the 
>function of efforts for integration (such as the 
>aim to position psychology as a life science) or 
>boundary work (such as distinguishing gender 
>studies from the knowledge of feminist 
>activists). Papers could identify and question 
>legitimating strategies or analyze 'regimes of 
>translation' (Latour). One example of this type 
>of analysis is the study of the migration of the 
>term 'system' from engineering to sociology. We 
>are also looking for presentations that point 
>out the mutual dependency between certified and 
>accepted knowledge and excluded and rejected 'non-knowledge'.
>
>2. Classification and infrastructure
>Classification systems arrange knowledge in a 
>proper order (e.g., the biological systematics 
>of Linné), help to find knowledge (e.g., library 
>classifications) or aim to support communication 
>by providing controlled vocabularies (e.g., in 
>knowledge management). However, classifications 
>are at the same time instruments of power. We 
>seek contributions, which investigate social and 
>epistemological exclusions that are intertwined 
>with particular classifications and 
>infrastructures. Participants might present case 
>studies that explore how classifications are 
>(co-)produced by those who are classified (such 
>as in virtual social networks). Presentations 
>about strategies to avoid knowledge 
>classification systems and those, which call 
>existing classifications or infrastructures into 
>question, are welcome. In addition, we also 
>encourage submissions on the subversive 
>potential of infrastructures (as in queer projects).
>
>3. Localizing and positioning knowledge
>By viewing knowledge as situated and located, 
>the panel raises questions about the position of 
>authorship, conflicts between legitimation and 
>marginalization, as well as differences between 
>global and local knowledge distribution. 
>Contributors could address some of these 
>problems within different theoretical 
>frameworks, e.g., by developing critical 
>perspectives or drawing on established concepts 
>such as -situated knowledge' (Haraway) from 
>fields such as gender or science studies. They 
>might also examine particular politics of 
>location, demarcation or transgression of 
>boundaries that are, e.g., inspired by notions 
>such as -travelling concepts' (Bal) or 
>-quasi-objects' (Latour) or 'travelling 
>theories' (Said) following postcolonial 
>theories. We are also interested in proposals 
>for anti-hegemonic positioning of knowledge or 
>the possibilities of decolonization in the production of knowledge.
>
>Important information
>We invite abstracts for twenty-minute papers. 
>Abstracts should be in English and may not 
>exceed 300 words. They should be accompanied by 
>a short biographical sketch of not more than 300 
>words and sent to (contestedtruths /at/ gmail.com) 
>until 1 December 2010. Please indicate the panel your paper relates to.
>
>The conference language will be English. Please 
>indicate your accessibility needs as well as any 
>other possible requirements (e.g., childcare) by 
>1 December 2010, we will do our best to meet 
>them or get back to you to figure out what we 
>can do. Please note that travel funds can only 
>be granted in exceptional cases. We ask 
>participants to apply in time for travel funding at their home institutions.
>
>Organizing committee
>-- PhD research programm "Gender as a category 
>of knowledge" (working group "knowledge": Dr. 
>des. Corinna Bath, Jens Borcherding M.A., Lukas 
>Engelmann M.A., Dipl.-Psych. Lisa Malich, Falko Schnicke M.A.)
>-- Charité Berlin (Prof. Dr. Volker Hess) and the
>-- Technical University of Braunschweig (Prof. Dr. Bettina Wahrig)
>
>Email: (contestedtruths /at/ gmail.com)
>

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