[ecrea] Joint conference of 'Diaspora, migration and the media' and 'International and Intercultural Communication' sections of ECREA

Joint conference of 'Diaspora, migration and the media' and 
'International and Intercultural Communication' sections of ECREA


Joint conference of 'Diaspora, migration and the media' and
'International and Intercultural Communication' sections of ECREA

*MIGRATION AND COMMUNICATION FLOWS: RETHINKING BORDERS, CONFLICT AND 
IDENTITY THROUGH THE DIGITAL*

2-3 November 2017, University of Basque Country, Bilbao (Spain)


*CALL FOR PAPERS*

/"We are faced with a crisis of humanity, and the only exit from this 
crisis is to recognize our growing interdependence as a species and to 
find new ways to live together in solidarity and cooperation, amidst 
strangers who may hold opinions and preferences different from our own." 
/Zygmunt Bauman, _Strangers at our door_ (Polity, 2016)

Migration, cultural diversity and the media are increasingly
problematized. Europe appears to be crumbling down in the current moment 
as a result of the Brexit vote, the election of Donald Trump and the 
so-called 'European Refugee Crisis'. This is illustrated by hoaxes and 
fake news messages on these themes that serve as popular clickbait on 
Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. As media outlets seek to address these 
'post-Truth' conditions, populist, xenophobic, Islamophobic, racist and 
neo-nationalist rhetoric and sentiments have grown excessively across 
social media. Meanwhile, the number of internal and external European 
borders proliferates, and digital data are used for surveillance and 
migration management. Therefore, mediated encounters with diversity, the 
humanitarianism-securitization nexus and the role of communication flows 
urgently deserve further academic exploration to advance understanding 
of some of the major societal challenges of our time. The continuous 
re-appropriation of Anas Modamani's selfie with the German chancellor 
Angela Merkel on Facebook is an illustrative case in point. He took his 
selfie in September 2015, when Merkel visited the Berlin shelter where 
he was then living. Modamani is a Syrian refugee who fled from Darayya. 
After posting the selfie online, he has repeatedly been falsely linked 
to terrorism. On the basis of physically resemblance, he was for example 
wrongly accused to be involved in the bombings in Brussel (March 2016) 
and the recent attack at a Berlin Christmas market (December 2016).

The conference aims to cover a broad range of conflict-related themes 
such as media production and regulation of information on forced 
migrants in a 'post-Truth' era; fake news; the 
humanitarianism-securitization nexus, migration management, social and 
political conflicts related to migrant and diaspora communities, 
radicalization and online counter-terrorism, hate speech and racism, but 
also solidarities, activism and protest. Digital technologies and 
innovations constantly offer new ways to approach these issues, both 
theoretically and methodologically. The organizers invite papers that 
explore the complexity of migration and communication flows through 
conceptual interventions as well as qualitative and quantitative studies.

*PRELIMINARY PROGRAMME*
The conference will include:
-  keynote lectures by Marie Gillespie
(Professor of Sociology, The Open University) and Pedro Oiarzabal 
(expert on Internet and Basque studies, migration and diaspora);
- a roundtable to establish bridges of dialogue between academics 
studying the coverage of migrants and journalists reporting on various 
conflicts in Europe, addressing methodological and ethical challenges;
- a YECREA event dedicated to young scholars (PhD and postdoc level);
- a joint panel to broaden the empirical, conceptual and methodological 
scope of the conference and to explore future collaborations; and
- an elaborate social programme, including a conference dinner and boat 
tour, allowing participants to enjoy the city of Bilbao.

*CALL FOR PANEL AND PAPER PROPOSALS*
To explore the issue of migration and communication flows in an informal 
and stimulating atmosphere, we invite participants to submit paper and 
panel proposals. We particularly welcome proposals on the following topics:

   - International news coverage of migration, refugees, diaspora, …
   - Rethinking the category of the migrant: forced migrants, 
guest-laborers, postsocialist, postcolonial, expatriates
   - Bottom-up digitally mediated processes, such as transnational and
local networking and connectivity, diaspora organizations, identity
construction, urban communications
   - Top down digitally mediated processes of migrant management: 
border control, surveillance & control systems for population movements, 
migrant detention centres, express flights, arrests at the street, lack 
of public information
   - The humanitarianism-securitization nexus, human/communication 
rights, political economy of NGOs, humanitarian communication on 
suffering related to migration
   - Migrants, media and language: the impact of migrants on linguistic
dynamics (particularly in the context of natively bilingual societies),
building resilience for new and local minority media structures
   - Intersectional analyses of migration and communication flows: how 
do axes of difference, including race, gender, sexuality, nation, 
location, generation religion, class together co-constitute 
subordination and identity
   - Methodological considerations in international and intercultural
media and migration studies

*TIMELINE*

Abstract deadline: April 16, 2017

Notification of acceptance: May 16, 2017

Full-paper submission: October 1, 2017

Registration deadline: October 1, 2017

*SUBMISSION GUIDELINES*

Please send 200-300 word abstracts and a short biography (max 100 words) 
by 16 April 2017.

Submit your abstract + bio to (ecreadmm /at/ gmail.com), indicate in your email 
header: [Submission last name + paper title].

Please make sure to clearly mention in your abstract whether your paper 
should be part of the panels by the 'International and intercultural 
communication' or the 'Diaspora, migration and the media' section.



---------------
The COMMLIST
---------------
This mailing list is a free service offered by Nico Carpentier. Please
use it responsibly and wisely.
--
To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit http://commlist.org/
--
Before sending a posting request, please always read the guidelines at
http://commlist.org/
--
To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
URL: http://nicocarpentier.net
---------------