Archive for 2019

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[Commlist] Call for paper - "Participation in a world of communication"

Tue Apr 09 14:07:54 GMT 2019



Call for papers:


International colloquium

" Participation in a world of communication"

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

New deadline for abstract submission: 30 April, 2019



Presentation of the theme

“Participate in citizen consultations”, “Participate in fundraising projects”, “Participate in idea tournaments”, “Participate!”,… The issues of participation overwhelm discourses and practices, while questioning at the same time the visions of communication that they involve. In this respect, they echo Dewey’s reflections, who sees in the concept of participation a criterion able to offer a hierarchy of the degree of communication (Quéré, 2014). Participation and communication encompass the idea of a universal link, of a “communitarian fusion” ideal (Mattelart, 1999) or of a “planetary communication” (Breton, 1992). The imaginaries of communication as a universal link or as a way of living together are intertwined with those of participation as an ideal of exchanging, sharing, debate and concertation. “Participative management or participative communication (…) are perhaps the illustration of a migrating concept which manifests itself whenever a need of ‘reliance’ (Bolle De Bal, 1996), in a functionalist perspective, is revealing itself between the sender and the receiver” (Monseigne, 2009: 32). To understand this transition, this conference will attempt to consider the active, multiple and ambivalent participation of the “public” as placed in the center of the continuously growing “mediatisation” of social relations.

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” (Star, 2010). 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. This approach, known under the name of “Communicative Constitution of Organization”, considers organization as emerging “from a communication layout, from a coordination of sense production allowing to identify, to describe and to make it evolve” (Hachour, 2011, p.196). In other words, organization results from “a significant layout which frames collective activities and qualifies their degree of accomplishment” (Hachour, 2011, p.201). 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, 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 (Bonaccorsi & Nonjon 2012, Gourgues 2016). 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 and “relationists” 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 (between 1000 and 3000 words) in a Word format, for April 30, 2019 at the latest. 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.

Calendar forecast:

•Proposals will be evaluated by a scientific comity.

•The authors will be informed of the decisions made by the scientific committee.

•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 Routlege editions (Taylor & Francis group) or in French in a scientific journal.

The proposals should be submitted on the website: https://participation19.sciencesconf.org

Important dates to remember:

April 30, 2019Deadline for the submission of proposals

May 30, 2019Notification of acceptations

September 12 – 13, 2019Conference at University Saint-Louis, in Brussels, Belgium

Head of organization

Marie Dufrasne (Université Saint-Louis)

Damien Renard (Université catholique de Louvain)

Sandrine Roginsky (Université catholique de Louvain)

Organizing comittee

Tiffany Andry (Université catholique de Louvain)

Andrea Catellani (Université catholique de Louvain)

Christel Christophe (Université catholique de Louvain)

Anne-Marie Cotton (Arteveldehogeschool)

Agnès D'Arripe (Université catholique de Lille)

Diana Jarnea (Université catholique de Louvain)

Joanne Jojczyk (Université catholique de Louvain)

Inès Kalaï (Université catholique de Louvain)

François Lambotte (Université catholique de Louvain)

Marie Dufrasne (Université Saint-Louis)

Tama Rchika (Université catholique de Louvain)

Sandrine Roginsky (Université catholique de Louvain)

Damien Renard(Université catholique de Louvain)

Christelle Sukadi(Université catholique de Louvain)

Youlia Vaskova (Université catholique de Louvain)

Scientific committee

Tiffany Andry (Université catholique de Louvain)

Dany Baillargeon (Université de Sherbrooke)

Nicolas Bencherki (Université de Montréal)

Julia Bonaccorsi ( Université Lumière Lyon 2)

Andrea Catellani (Université catholique de Louvain)

Anne-Marie Cotton (Arteveldehogeschool)

Christel Christophe (Université catholique de Louvain)

Agnès D'Arripe (Université catholique de Lille)

Marie Dufrasne (Université Saint-Louis)

Olivier Galibert (Université de Dijon)

Sophie Huys(Université catholique de Louvain)

Béatrice Jalenques-Vigouroux (INSA Toulouse)

Joanne Jojczyk (Université catholique de Louvain)

Inès Kalaï (Université catholique de Louvain)

François Lambotte (Université catholique de Louvain)

Annick Monseigne (Université Bordeaux Montaigne)

Magali Nonjon (Science Po Aix)

Françoise Paquienseguy (Science Po Lyon)

Nicolas Peirot (Université de Dijon)

Tama Rchika (Université catholique de Louvain)

Daniel Robichaud (Université de Montréal)

Sandrine Roginsky (Université catholique de Louvain)

Damien Renard(Université catholique de Louvain)

Youlia Vaskova (Université catholique de Louvain)

Stéphanie Wojcik (Université Paris-Est-Créteil)

Bibliography

Bolle de Bal, M. (1996), Voyages au cœur des sciences humaines: de la reliance ». L’Harmattan.

Bonaccorsi J. et Nonjon M. (2012), “La participation en kit”: l’horizon funèbre de l’idéal participatif », Quaderni, 79, p. 29-44.

Breton P. (1992), L’utopie de la communication-Le mythe du « village planétaire », Paris, Éditions La Découverte.

Cefaï D., Carrel M, Talpin J. et al., Ethnographies de la participation, Participations, 3 ( 4), p. 7-48.

Guillaume G. (2016),Les pilotes invisibles de la participation publique. Le « fichier des11000 » et la démocratie participative en région Rhône-Alpes, Gouvernement et action publique, 2, p. 51-78.

Hachour H. (2011), Épistémologies socio-sémiotiques et communication organisante : la coproduction de sens comme moteur de l’organisation, Communication et organisation, (39), 195-210.

Mattelart A. (1999), Histoire de l'utopie planétaire : de la cité prophétique à la société globale, Paris, La Découverte.

Peeters H. et Charlier P. (1999). Contributions à une théorie du dispositif, Hermès, 25(3), 15-23.

Monseigne A. (2009), Participation, communication : un bain sémantique partagé», Communication et organisation, 35, 30-46.

Quéré, L. (2014), Le modèle esthétique de la communication de John Dewey, Colloque “Communication, culture et communauté. L’Ecole de Chicago en débat”,Universidade Lusofona do Porto (Portugal), 21 février 2014

Star Susan Leigh (2010). This is Not a Boundary Object: Reflections on the Origin of a Concept. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 35(5), 601–617.




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