[ecrea] CFP: Spaces and tactics of politics: Transnational connections, neoliberalisation and the reshaping of civil society

CALL FOR PAPERS

Spaces and tactics of politics: Transnational connections, 
neoliberalisation and the reshaping of civil society

10-11 December 2015
University of Turku, Finland

Keynote speakers:

Gail Lewis, Birkbeck, University of London
Sandro Mezzadra, University of Bologna
Jemima Repo, University of Helsinki


Neoliberalisation has emerged as a powerful yet multifaceted and 
contextually specific force that re-draws the boundaries between state 
and economy, collective and individual, public and private. Although 
neoliberal ideologies have sought to depoliticise relationships of power 
and to present the political field as one of 'no alternatives', various 
parts of the world have simultaneously witnessed waves of politicisation 
and wide-ranging acts of protest that challenge such political trends. 
Questions of transnational migration, class inequality, gender and 
sexual identity, and contestations of new and rearticulated forms of 
racism have become key issues in current politics. The expansion of 
media technologies (social media, the Internet) has transformed 
political engagements in a far-reaching way. Many contemporary protests 
are cross-border in nature, drawing on and creating transnational 
networks and forms of solidarity. Recent political mobilisations 
include, for example, ma
!
 ss protests against austerity policies, asylum and refugee activism, 
the worldwide spread of Occupy movements and other forms of 
anti-capitalist mobilisation, anti-racist and anti-fascist group 
activities, feminist and queer activism, and the proliferation of groups 
politicising lifestyles and everyday life. On the other hand, we have 
also seen the rise of far-right and anti-immigration movements.

This conference maps this terrain of political struggles and, while 
acknowledging established forms of political action such as social 
movements and NGOs, seeks to unearth and make visible the spaces and 
tactics of political contestation that tend to escape the conventional 
purview of politics. In this way, the conference seeks to advance our 
understanding of the logics of political struggles and resistance in the 
current political conjuncture. How are these struggles organised? What 
kinds of social change do they envisage and how do they strive to 
achieve these? What tactics do they employ and what bonds of solidarity 
do they engender? How do people contest forms of power in their mundane, 
everyday practices and activities? How are diverse axes of inequality 
contested or reproduced in political engagements? Where do contemporary 
struggles of class, gender, race and ethnicity take place, and how are 
they articulated and organised?

We welcome empirical, theoretical and methodological papers engaging 
with these questions in diverse thematic and geographical contexts. The 
questions and themes addressed may include but are not limited to:

- Social movements and NGOs
- Political activism
- Post/neo-colonialism
- Migration, refugees and asylum seeking
- Politics of race and (anti-)racism
- Politics of class, labour and precarity
- Politics of gender and sexuality
- Feminist futures
- Urban change, neoliberalism and activism
- Politicisation of everyday life
- Politics of consumption and environment
- Challenges to and visions of democratic participation
- Affect and politics

Please email abstracts of 250 words for either 20-minute paper 
presentations or complete panels, together with a max. 150-word bio, 
including name, institutional affiliation and position, phone number and 
postal and email addresses, to: (spacesandtactics /at/ gmail.com)

Abstract deadline: 15 April, 2015. Participants will receive 
notifications of acceptance by 15 May 2015.

Conference fee: 80 EUR (40 EUR for PhD students), includes lunch and 
refreshments for the duration of the conference

For further information, please visit the conference website: 
www.utu.fi/satp

For general inquiries, please contact Suvi Keskinen ((suvkes /at/ utu.fi)) or 
Suvi Salmenniemi ((suvi.salmenniemi /at/ utu.fi)).

Organisers:

Turku Study Group for Political Sociology (TURPO)

Research project Post-ethnic Activism in the Neoliberal Era. Translocal 
Studies on Political Subjectivities, Social Imaginaries and 
Alliance-Building (Academy of Finland)

Research project The Puzzle of the Psyche: Therapeutic Knowledge and 
Selfhood in a Comparative Perspective (Kone foundation)



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