[ecrea] Digital Crossroads: Media, Migration and Diaspora in a Transnational Perspective - Conference CFP

*CALL FOR PAPERS: Digital Crossroads: Media, Migration and Diaspora in a 
Transnational Perspective*

Conference website: http://www.digitalcrossroads.nl 
<http://www.digitalcrossroads.nl/>.

Deadline for abstract submission and panel proposals: January 10, 2012

Conference chair: Sandra Ponzanesi

Conference coordinator: Fadi Hirzalla

Because of the disjunctive and unstable interplay of commerce, media, 
national policies, and consumer fantasies, ethnicity, once a genie 
contained in the bottle of some sort of locality (however large), has 
now become a global force, forever slipping in and through the cracks 
between states and borders -- Appadurai 1996, p. 41, Modernity at Large

Keynote speakers:

*Shakuntala Banaji *

London School of Economics and Political Science, UK

*Kirsten Drotner *

University of Southern Denmark, Denmark

*Radhika Gajjala *

Bowling Green State University, USA

*Eva Lam *

University of Northwestern, USA

*Lisa Nakamura *

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA

*Liesbet van Zoonen *

Loughborough University, UK and Erasmus University Rotterdam, the 
Netherlands

The rapid development of digital technologies has radically transformed 
ways of keeping in touch with home cultures and diasporic networks. 
Moreover, the notion of migration has undergone significant shifts, 
coming to signify imaginaries on the move which are not necessarily 
linked to geographical displacement. The aim of this conference is to 
address the relationship between migration and digital technologies 
across national contexts and ethnic belonging. Migrancy embeds many of 
the local and global paradoxes that also pertain to digital media with 
their compression of space and time. However, the link between the two 
fields is still under-theorized and in need of more situated and 
comparative analysis. Drawing from approaches from the humanities and 
social sciences (media theory, communication studies, learning sciences, 
gender studies, cultural studies, postcolonial theory, migration and 
transnational studies, among others), the primary aim of this conference 
is to explore how the study of digitalization and migration challenges 
existing notions of diaspora, identity, nation, family, learning, 
literacy, social networks, youth, body, gender and ethnicity, asking for 
new approaches and a rethinking of traditional social and cultural 
categories.

The conference will consider the following questions, among others: How 
has the development of new digital technologies changed the experience 
of migration? Conversely, how has the reality of migration impacted on 
the use, development and distribution of new media technologies? How 
does the use of media differ among different migrant generations? How 
does media literacy impact on issues of integration and socialization in 
a hosting country? What are the differences in media access, diffusion 
and use among different migrant communities across the world? How are 
race, gender, age, class, ethnicity and other markers of identity 
recodified online? How are transnational relationships and resources 
arrayed in networks? How do ideas and practices move across these 
networks? How is the notion of home or community, which is no longer 
locatable with a "here" and "there" reconceptualised through digital 
diasporas? How do these developments impact on the spaces for learning 
and education, which are no longer limited to place-based classrooms and 
curricula? How can learning processes and networks be conceptualised 
when these networks expand larger geographical distances, and multiple 
communities are crossed? What resources of identity do migrants draw on 
and how are these resources hybridized in practice, and related to their 
learning and socialization processes? In short, how are digital 
crossroads created, distributed and experienced in the context of 
migration, diaspora and transnationalism?

The conference will explore three inter-related strands of the 
relationships between media and migration:

Identity and diaspora (Strand 1)

- identity and performativity

- gender, race, ethnicity, religion and online communities

- digital borders, digital diasporas

- imagined communities, transnationalism and mobility

- digital divides (generational, access, skills, user-generated content)

- cultural industry, participatory culture and social media

Migrant networks (Strand 2)

- mediated spatialities

- relations between online and offline worlds

- affinity networks and intimacy

- media literacy and migration

- comparative perspectives on digital media practices

Learning in a globalized world (Strand 3)

- informal learning in the digital space

- network approaches to learning

- immigrant learning

- globalization and learning

- learning & identity

- socialization in transnational families

Please send 300-word abstracts for papers or 500-word panel proposals 
for 3 to 4 presentations by 10 January 2012. Submission should be made 
online via http://www.digitalcrossroads.nl 
<http://www.digitalcrossroads.nl/>. See further submission instructions 
on the website.

Notification of acceptance will be given by 20 February, 2012.

For more information or questions please send an e-mail to 
(info /at/ digitalcrossroads.nl) <mailto:(info /at/ digitalcrossroads.nl)>.

The conference comes at the end of a five-year High Potential project, 
entitled "Wired Up: Digital media as innovative socialization practices 
for migrant youth", carried out by the Faculty of Humanities (project 
leader Dr. Sandra Ponzanesi) and the Faculty of Social Sciences (project 
leader Prof. Dr. Mariette de Haan) at Utrecht University in 
collaboration with Vanderbilt University, USA (Dr. Kevin Leander, 
Peabody College for Education). The project was funded by the Executive 
Board of Utrecht University to stimulate interdisciplinary research. See 
http://www.uu.nl/wiredup.

Organization Dr. Sandra Ponzanesi: conference chair

Dr. Fadi Hirzalla: conference coordinator

Prof. Dr. Mariette de Haan: scientific committee

Dr. Kevin Leander: scientific committee

Dr. Fleur Prinsen: conference committee

Dr. Lisa Schwartz: conference committe

Koen Leurs, MA: conference committee

Asli Ünlosoy, MSC: conference committee