[Commlist] Call for papers: International colloquium "Participation in a world of communication"

*Call for papers:*

International colloquium "Participation in a world of communication"

September 12 & 13, 2019 – UCLouvain Saint-Louis, Brussels (Belgium)

The issues of participation overwhelm discourses and practices, while 
questioning at the same time the visions of communication that they 
involve. Participation remains nevertheless a polysemic concept, 
reinterpreted by different disciplines, as it can be employed by 
multiple and diverse lines of activities: politic, social, economic, 
cultural, etc. As a scientific concept, it is used in different fields 
of research such as political sciences and management sciences, but also 
in sociology, cultural studies… and information and communication 
sciences. During this conference, we wish to revisit and question the 
concept of participation, while making these different approaches 
interact with each other. Exploring the concept of participation with a 
communicative approach, beyond disciplinary differences, is making us 
question peripherical concepts such as collaboration, debate, 
mobilization and even engagement. During this conference, we acknowledge 
participation as a boundary object. It can be defined as a “rhizome” in 
which different points of views encounter each other and cooperate. 
Participation can indeed emerge in a spontaneous way. At the opposite, 
participation can be “calculated” and planned. However, this doesn’t 
mean that its social scope would be reduced to the creation of an 
simulacrum, whose purpose is to legitimize or reinforce the domination 
of an organization or collective for example. Furthermore, we want to 
explore this underlying tension between process of participation and 
rhetorical instrumentalization of participation, but also discuss about 
the implications that this dynamic and flexible object can entail. The 
proposals for communication will be articulated around four axis:

**Axis 1 – Participation and organization**

This axis explores participation with a constitutive communicative 
approach. Through this communicative approach, the objective is to 
better understand the contemporary organizational phenomenon which 
relates itself to the concept of participation. How can the tensions 
between the roles and discourses which emerge from participation be 
analyzed, may it be spontaneous or calculated? How does a participative 
project get built and what does the coordination of the project on 
organizational dynamic teach us? Which performative value do the 
discourses on participation have in the organizations? How can we decode 
and understand the practices of participation with a communicative approach?

**Axis 2 – A communicative and participative apparatus**

First, we will question the apparatus of participation, as an 
“assemblage” of elements – may them be discourses, procedures or a 
combination of technical objects. How are the mechanisms of 
participation built? How do they organize participation? How have they 
evolved in recent years with the deployment of social media, platforms, 
etc.? What place is reserved to the participants by the mechanism and by 
the implemented procedures? How can the place given to the participants 
in the discourses around the participative mechanism be analyzed? 
Second, questioning the mechanism in the context of participation 
entails questioning its purpose, from the point of view of both 
developers and promoters. The implementation and the usage of the 
mechanism can lead to an undesired result, even contrary to the initial 
aim. What happens then? How do developers and promoters of the 
participative mechanism react?

**Axis 3 – Professions of communication and participation**

This axis questions the construction of careers and professional 
profiles related to the creation, management and “capture” of 
participation. It is about understanding how and in what manner 
communication professionals are sometimes called to “manage” and 
intercept the forms and movements of participation. Communicators can 
thus become specialists of participation. The profession of community 
manager is only one example among others. How and to what extent do 
communicators integrate the skills of creating and managing 
participation within their already existing ones? How can this 
phenomenon be analyzed? What are the impacts on their skills and on the 
ethical dimension of their activity? Finally, what tensions arise?

**Axis 4 – Reception and appropriation of communication and participation**

This axis focuses on the appropriation of the mechanisms and the process 
of participation, which may involve diversions and crafts, from the 
point of view of the public. This brings us to explore the 
representation that the public has of participative mechanisms and 
processes, the way they perceive them and the motivations that animate 
them. What objectives do they have? What kind of interactions are 
included in this context? Is there a certain ideal of participation 
included in the configuration of relations? Thus, this axis interrogates 
how the participants perceive and appropriate a mechanism, more 
specifically a participative process. What “directory of actions” do 
they use? How is participation received, appropriated, and even 
diverted, reinvented, transformed or exported? How do they give 
themselves room for maneuver to improvise other forms of participation, 
to imagine other types of engagement?

**Submission procedures**

The proposal can convey theoretical reflections and/or empirical 
studies. Selection will be made from the intentions of proposals. First, 
we invite you to submit an abstract in a document of 3 pages maximum 
(3000 words) in a Word format, for April 15, 2019 at the latest. The 
proposals should be submitted on the platform: 
https://participation19.sciencesconf.org

After the selection made by the scientific committee, the abstract will 
be able to be proposed for publication in a collective publication in 
English and as a thematic number of a scientific journal. The authors 
that have been chosen will be invited to submit an article of 5 000 to 7 
000 words, to be published in English in a publication to the Routledge 
editions (Taylor & Francis group) or in French in a scientific journal

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