CFP: Multiculturalism, Conflict and Belonging

This multi-disciplinary project seeks to explore the new and
prominent place that the idea of culture has for the construction of
identity and the implications of this for social membership in
contemporary societies. In particular, the project will assess the
context of major world transformations, for example, new forms of
migration and the massive movements of people across the globe, as
well as the impact of globalisation on tensions, conflicts and on the
sense of rootedness and belonging. Looking to encourage innovative
trans-disciplinary dialogues, we warmly welcome papers from all
disciplines, professions and vocations which struggle to understand
what it means for people, the world over, to forge identities in
rapidly changing national, social and cultural contexts.

Proposals, workshops and presentations are invited on any of the
following themes:

1. State borders and mobility
- State’s obligation in admitting migrants
- State security and border control
- Immigration policy and political ideology of nation-state
- Permeability of state boundaries under globalization
- Redefining borders under globalized world

2. Irregular migration
- Illegal migration or irregular migration?
- Irregular migration: whose account?
- Irregular migration and transnational mobility
- Irregular migration, exploitation and human rights violation
- Rights and protection of irregular migrants

3. Religion and gender
- Gender differences in migration
- Religious practices and gender equality under migration
- Migrants and freedom of religion
- Religious and ethnic minorities under multiculturalism
- Religious extremism and the challenge on pluralism

4. Human rights and citizenship
- Universality of human rights
- Citizenship and rights entitlement
- Caste system in the contemporary world
- Human rights protection for non-citizens
- Conflicting rights

5. Identity formation and belongingness
- Identity formation and transnational migration
- Integration and preservation of minority cultures
- Intergenerational differences on identity formation of migrants
- Value conflict and belongingness
- Recognition or redistribution under contemporary economic
  development

6. Redefining multiculturalism
- Changing concepts in the study of ethnicity and multiculturalism
- Researching multiculturalism
- Multiculturalism: the East-West discourse
- States commitment towards multicultural practices
- Multiculturalism versus nationalism
- Historical construction of multiculturalism and its application in
  the contemporary world

Proposals will be considered on any related theme.

In order to support and encourage interdisciplinarity engagement, it
is our intention to create the possibility of starting dialogues
between the parallel events running during this conference. Delegates
are welcome to attend up to two sessions in each of the concurrent
conferences. We also propose to produce cross-over sessions between
these groups – and we welcome proposals which deal with the
relationship between Fear, Horror and Terror and Multiculturalism.

What to Send
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 4th April 2014. If
an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should
be submitted by Friday 11th July 2014. Abstracts should be submitted
simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word or
RTF formats with the following information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation as you would like it to appear in
programme, c) email address, d) title of proposal, e) body of
proposal, f) up to 10 keywords. E-mails should be entitled:
Multiculturalism 8 Abstract Submission

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using any
special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or
underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals
submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should
assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in
cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic
route or resend.

Organising Chairs
Raees Baig: [email protected]
Rob Fisher and Ram Vemuri: [email protected]

The conference is part of the Diversity and Recognition research
projects, which in turn belong to the At the Interface programmes of
Inter-Disciplinary.Net. It aims to bring together people from
different areas and interests to share ideas and explore discussions
which are innovative and challenging. All proposals accepted for and
presented at the conference must be in English and will be eligible
for publication in an ISBN eBook.  Selected proposals may be
developed for publication in a themed hard copy volume(s). All
publications from the conference will require editors, to be chosen
from interested delegates from the conference.

Inter-Disciplinary.Net believes it is a mark of personal courtesy and
professional respect to your colleagues that all delegates should
attend for the full duration of the meeting. If you are unable to
make this commitment, please do not submit an abstract for
presentation.

Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and
we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel
or subsistence.

Conference website: