[ecrea] CfP: Political Participation, Mass Disruptions and the New Fortresses

*Conjunctions: Transdisciplinary Journal of Cultural Participation *

*Call for Papers: Political Participation, Mass Disruptions, and the New 
Fortresses*

*Deadline: Papers must be submitted by November 25, 2016*

The outbreak of the war in Syria in 2011 along with continuous regional 
instability, the wars against terrorism, and the collapse in global 
economy has lead to a severe humanitarian crisis. Consequently, refugees 
and migrants are moving across continents to flee extreme violence, 
repression, and poverty. The nation-states are struggling to make 
adequate politics and refugees are to an increasing extent articulated 
as uncontrollable disruptive masses or crowds that threaten the economic 
and cultural coherence of nation-states. This is not least reflected in 
the proliferation of xenophobic politicians and political parties 
gaining governmental influence and in the establishment of new 
“fortresses”. The notion of “fortress Europe” (Carr 2015) has in this 
context been used to describe the highly symbolic and affective 
processes of guarding nations and continents, which paradoxically rely 
on migration in order to sustain and prevail. This situation is critical 
and it calls for the acute investigation of the processes that are at 
stake when movements subvert existing political systems of power and new 
fortresses – physical as well as imaginary – are set up (Bermajo 2009; 
Carr 2015; Hann 2014).

This special issue seeks papers that inquire into the ways in which the 
relationship between movements of people, new fortresses and new 
political subjectivities configures political participation. In 
particular we are interested in the ways in which fortresses restrict 
and control movement and access to participation within national 
communities, but also in how new forms of political participation and 
activism are enacted in response. The issue seeks papers that 1) qualify 
what a fortress is (i.e. imaginary constructs, borders, data-generated 
surveillance), 2) inquire into the ways in which fortresses imagine, 
mediate and invent movements of people as masses and crowds, 3) examines 
the intersections between fortresses and affective body-politics 
imbedded in interfaces and data-generated archiving, 4) explore new 
social movements and activism responding to the crisis and 5) examine 
the relationship between the individual, the mass, and the crowd and 
this configures or restricts political participation and the right to 
act, speak, and move.

Papers may also address topics such as:

/The premediation of mass disruptions./ While there is no denying that, 
for instance, the war in Syria is a mass disruption of the life of 
millions of people, mass disruptions are not always present. Rather, 
fortresses are often being established as a safeguard against a 
‘premediated’ (Grunsin 2010) mass. Potential asylum seekers are 
premediated as a mass about to burst the borders of the fortress. The 
question of concern is thus how premediation invents and dislocates the 
mass and how this impact access to participation.

/Crowds and revised social subjectivities/. A number of scholars have 
argued for the need to revitalize the crowd theory of Gabriele Tarde, 
Gustave Le Bon, Walter Benjamin, and Elias Canetti in order to 
understand how contemporary crowd formations are evolving in new ways 
due to digital media (Sampson 2012, Blackman 2012, Borch and Knudsen 
2013, Stage 2013). The question of concern is, in prolongation of this, 
is thus how we can understand the different social subjectivities and 
political and collective formations that inform not only the movement of 
people, but also the making of fortresses.

/Disrupting and forming of political participation/. The making of 
fortresses is certainly challenging the understanding of political 
participation, because the fortresses essentially concern access to 
participation in given societies and communities. It is necessary to 
understand the relations between fortresses and for instance the wave of 
activists, NGOs, and participatory art practices that are 
self-organizing for instance to welcome refugees and asylum seekers or 
to subvert conventional notions of mapmaking in order to actively 
promote social change (Baghat and Mogel 2008). A topic of concern is 
thus the relationship between fortresses and a wider mobilization of 
political and cultural participation.

Please visit http://www.conjunctions-tjcp.com 
<http://www.conjunctions-tjcp.com/>

All the best
Camilla


Camilla Møhring Reestorff
Associate Professor
School of Communication and Culture
Aarhus University
Jens Chr. Skous Vej 2, 1485/536
8000 Aarhus C
(norcmr /at/ dac.au.dk) <mailto:(norcmr /at/ dac.au.dk)>


---------------
ECREA-Mailing list
---------------
This mailing list is a free service offered by Nico Carpentier and ECREA.
--
To subscribe, post or unsubscribe, please visit
http://commlist.org/
--
To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
URL: http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~ncarpent/
--
ECREA - European Communication Research and Education Association
Chaussée de Waterloo 1151, 1180 Uccle, Belgium
Email: (info /at/ ecrea.eu)
URL: http://www.ecrea.eu
---------------