Call for papers, edited volume:
“North Africa and the Making of Europe: Governance, Institutions, and Culture”
We are seeking papers for an edited volume entitled “North Africa and the Making of Europe: Governance, Institutions, and Culture,” which is currently under contract with Bloomsbury Academic Publishing.
Overview:
The relationship between Europe and North Africa has often been described through the lens of conflict and violence. Yet the experience of empire and the institutional and cultural formations it introduced also provide multiple examples of interdependence and cooperation. This edited volume seeks to understand how this complicated relationship has influenced European institutions and conceptions of identity since World War II. This group of essays will therefore study North Africa not as a distant and foreign territory, but as a region that was integral to shaping modern Europe.
This interdisciplinary volume will put historical analysis and contemporary politics into conversation and provide a decentered approach to the current challenges faced by the EU and its member-states such as competing understandings of democracy, rising xenophobia, and persistent regional inequalities.
The proposed volume is based on a series of three workshops that were held at the European University Institute in Florence over the 2015-2016 academic year.
We welcome submissions that speak to the following chronological themes:
- Colonialism and the Shaping of Europe. During colonialism, universal discourses of equality often clashed with the violence and particularisms inherent in colonial rule. We thus seek submissions that explore how colonial North Africa was decisive for European conceptions and practices of claim-making, racial difference, and citizenship.
- Cooperation, Dependence and Interdependence. A new set of relationships between North Africa and Europe were fashioned in the post-colonial period, signaling notable ruptures and continuities. We invite submissions that investigate these logics, for example by analyzing the increasing politicization of immigration, or by studying how North African development strategies influenced European institutions. We are especially keen to include papers that address immigration to Europe in the 1960s and 1970s.
- After the Arab Spring: Europe and North Africa in Crisis. The past decade has raised pressing questions regarding the definition of Europe as a cultural, political and geographical unit. While the European Union (EU) presents itself as an “area of freedom, security and justice,” the vision from the periphery is far less sanguine. We therefore seek papers that study the aftermath of the so-called “Arab Springs,” the increased securitization of the region, or the ongoing refugee crisis - all of which have prompted new investigations of the Mediterranean space. Grassroots perspectives or those interested in states of exception are especially welcome.
Submission Information & Guidelines:
- Submissions should include a 300-500 word abstract and a brief CV with full contact information. They should be sent to muhdavis@ucsc.edu or Thomas.Serres@eui.eu before 1 September 2016. Authors selected for the volume will be notified by 7 September 2016.
- If selected, a completed article of 8,000 words will be requested by 1 December 2016.
- After a peer review, all finalized articles will be submitted to Bloomsbury Publishing by 1 March 2017.