[ecrea] CFP: Articulating Alternatives: agents, spaces and communication in/of a time of crisis

*CFP: Articulating alternatives: agents, spaces and communication in/of 
a time of crisis*

/A workshop for new scholars hosted by the Centre for the Study of 
Global Media and Democracy, Goldsmiths, University of London, *May 3^rd 
, 2012*./

This is a workshop which addresses a series of issues around the 
mediation of political life in a time of crisis. The last couple of 
decades have witnessed the intensification of the neoliberal logic, 
culminating in a profound crisis of capitalism. This has been 
accompanied by the widespread de-legitimisation of political 
institutions as citizens lose trust in the political process and 
confidence in the capacity of political elites to protect their 
interests. Concomitantly, recent years have seen the emergence of a 
myriad of actors (from indigenous people's movements to 
alter-globalisation movements to current mobilisations like the Arab 
Spring and the Occupy movement), which challenge the neoliberal hegemony 
and seek to construct alternatives. Such actors are engaged in various 
forms of knowledge production oriented towards the development of 
critiques of the current system as well as the elaboration of 
alternative forms of economic, social, and political organisation.

In the workshop, we wish to explore some of the complexities of the 
relationship between mediated communication and politics in a time of 
crisis. The intensive mobilisation of citizens around the world raises a 
number of questions in relation to how agents of transformation are 
constructing political vernaculars and actions at different scales and 
across different sites, both physical and virtual. The notion of a 
politics of crisis is set as a framework for the exploration of the 
agencies, spaces and communication practices of counter-capitalist voices.

Pertinent here is the addressing of the structures of both the 
nation-state and global economic actors where the use of digital 
communication channels ranges from information-spreading to organisation 
and mobilisation. Many recent protests have been distinctly invested in 
particular localities (squares, streets), but appear to also express a 
sense of globality (evident for example in the argued global reach of 
the Occupy movement). New communication technologies appear to be 
offering unprecedented opportunities for the dissemination and 
elaboration of ideas, potentially playing a significant role in social 
processes of knowledge production and the articulation of alternatives. 
At the same time, conventional media are arguably in a state of crisis, 
arising from tendencies of commercialisation and concentration of 
ownership. As the media lose the confidence of their publics and thus 
their privileged epistemic status, questions are raised about their 
capacity to foster democratic public spheres.


We are interested in addressing questions in relation to the discursive 
construction of alternatives, the agents involved in these processes, 
the spaces that are being opened up for articulation and action, as well 
as the modes of politics which characterise the current time of crisis. 
The themes we wish to explore include:

- /Agents/. Are there new actors emerging in the context of political, 
economic and social crises? What form do such actors take, and what 
kinds of politics do they engage in? What role do conventional media as 
well as new information and communication technologies play in the 
emergence and organisation of such actors? How might media contribute to 
the elaboration of alternatives and the construction of transnational 
solidarity across geopolitical boundaries?

- /Spaces/. How do the geography and spatiality of politics impact on 
the perspectives and claims arising in resistance to capitalism? What 
spatialities and scales are enacted through current modes of political 
praxis and forms of communication? What is the 'place of place' in 
contemporary political practices and discourses, and how does this 
relate to the 'national', 'transnational' or 'global'? What role do 
media play in the politics of place and scale? Where does the matter of 
politics exhibit itself both online and offline?

- /Communication/. How can we conceptualise the relationship between 
media and citizenship in the current climate of crisis? What role do the 
media play in the communication of a politics of crisis? How might media 
be implicated in the continued subalternisation, exclusion or 
incorporation of alternative/emergent knowledges and practices? Can the 
mainstream media be reformed to resume their (idealised?) democratic 
function as the guarantors of an open democratic public sphere? Or 
should we instead entrust our hopes to the burgeoning field of social 
and citizens' media?

In order to facilitate in-depth discussion and collective knowledge 
production, the workshop will be restricted to a limited number of 
participants. We welcome submissions of original work from early-career 
researchers from diverse disciplinary backgrounds including (but not 
limited to): media and communications, sociology, politics, 
anthropology, cultural studies, geography, and information studies. 
Interested participants should submit a 250 word abstract and brief 
biography *by March 15^th *, 2012 to Eleftheria Lekakis 
((e.lekakis /at/ gold.ac.uk) <mailto:(e.lekakis /at/ gold.ac.uk)>) and Hilde C. 
Stephansen ((h.stephansen /at/ gold.ac.uk) <mailto:(h.stephansen /at/ gold.ac.uk)>). 
The authors of accepted abstracts will be notified by March 22^nd , 2012 
and are invited to submit working papers of between 1500-3000 words in 
advance of the workshop.