Call for Papers: Mediterranean Research Meeting (Mersin, Turkey, 20-23 March 2013)

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Aug 23, 2012
[European University Institute logo. Image from eui.eu] [European University Institute logo. Image from eui.eu]

Call for Papers: Mediterranean Research Meeting (Mersin, Turkey, 20-23 March 2013)

By : Jadaliyya Reports

14th Mediterranean Research Meeting
20 - 23 March 2013
Mersin, Turkey

Goals

Reaching its Fourteenth Session, the Mediterranean Research Meeting (MRM) aims:

  • To foster theoretical and empirical research and dialogue among scholars from countries across the Mediterranean whose research focuses on the Mediterranean
  • To cover all Mediterranean areas as widely as possible, with topics relating to the Middle East, North Africa, Southern and South-Eastern Europe, their mutual relationships and their relations with Europe
  • To focus on legal, historical, economic and socio-political issues
  • To enable junior scholars to meet more senior scholars in an interactive environment, and to promote further research collaboration
  • To encourage publication and dissemination of this research in edited volumes, thematic issues of learned journals, and the Mediterranean Programme Working Papers

Structure:

The MRM 2013 consists of 17 closed workshops.  Each workshop is directed by 2 workshop directors and on average includes 12 participants. The participants of each workshop meet in four or five sessions for a total of approximately fifteen hours over two and a half days. They discuss papers, general topics, ways to publish the papers, and how to continue collaborative efforts.

Plenary and social events are organised during the  MRM. The preliminary programme is available on the MRM web page.

Workshops:

  1. Politics of Population Growth and Gender Rights in Middle East and South East Europe States directed by Umut Korkut, Glasgow Caledonian University, UK, and Emel Akçalı, Central European University, Hungary
  2. Military Engagement in Mobilizing Societies in the Middle East directed by Holger Albrecht, American University in Cairo, Egypt, and Dina Bishara, George Washington University, USA
  3. Guardians or Oppressors: the Military-Civil Relations and Democratization in the Mediterranean Littoral directed by Gülçin Balamir Coşkun, Istanbul Kemerburgaz University, Turkey, and Amany Soliman, Arab Academy for Science and Technology, Egypt
  4. Law and Corruption in Turbulent Times: Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives from the Mediterranean and South-Eastern Europe directed by Jessica Carlisle, Van Vollenhoven Institute, the Netherlands, and Maaike Voorhoeve, Institut de recherche sur le Maghreb contemporain, Tunis - Harvard University, USA
  5. The Arab Spring and the EU Democracy Promotion Efforts: Between Intentions and Perceptions directed by: Nesreen K. El Molla, Cairo University, Egypt, and Dario Cristiani, King`s College, United Kingdom – Global Governance Institute, Belgium
  6. The Informational Fabric of the Premodern Mediterranean, 1400-1800 directed by Wolfgang Kaiser, Université de Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne), France, and Daniel Hershenzon, University of Connecticut, USA 
  7. Truth Recovery for Missing Persons in Times of Transition directed by Iosif Kovras, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece, and Nikolas Kyriakou, European University Institute, Italy
  8. Sport, Cultures and Societies in Mediterranean directed by Monia Lachheb, Université La Manouba, Tunis - Institut de Recherche sur le Maghreb Contemporain – Tunis, and Michel Raspaud, Université Joseph Fourier, France  - Laboratoire Sport et environnement social (SENS)
  9. Social Media, Urban Movements and Grass-Roots Creativity in the Mediterranean during the Crisis directed by Lila (Triantafyllia) Leontidou, Hellenic Open University, Greece - London School of Economics and Political Science, UK, and Antònia Casellas Puigdemasa, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
  10. Women, Social Change and Development in the New Middle East directed by Beverly Dawn Metcalfe,University of Manchester, UK, and Anja Zorob, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany
  11. The Violence of Pluralism: Urban Transformations and New Political Subjectivities in the Rebellious Mediterranean directed by Daniel Monterescu, Central European University, Hungary, and Benoit Challand, New York University, USA
  12. Secularism and the Minority Question across the Mediterranean directed by Alexandre Caeiro, Qatar Foundation, Qatar, and Frank Peter, University of Bern, Switzerland
  13. Arab ‘Revolutions’ in Comparative Perspective, Contestation, Transformation and the Nature of the State directed by Nadine Sika, American University in Cairo, Egypt, and Eberhard Kienle, CNRS (PACTE), Grenoble
  14. Regulatory Implants and Local Legal Regimes in  the Mediterranean Region directed by Yane Svetiev, European University Institute, Italy, and Hans-Wolfgang Micklitz, European University Institute, Italy
  15. Spontaneity and Design in the Making of Mediterranean Port Cities directed by Tolga Ünlü, Mersin University, Turkey, and Jean François Perouse, Galatasaray University, Turkey
  16. Neoliberalism and Crises in the Mediterranean: Causes, Policy Responses, Forms of Resistance directed by Galip Yalman, Middle East Technical University, Turkey, and Alfredo Saad-Filho, University of London, UK
  17. De la compétitivité régionale  à  la compétitivité internationale: Quels défis pour les économies en transition? directed by Youcefi Rachid, Université de Mostaganem Algérie - POIDEX, and Lucreţia Mariana Constantinescu, Université VALAHIA, Roumanie

 

How to apply: 

 Candidates apply online by submitting:

  • The filled out online application form, including the paper proposal of 500 – 1000 words, in English.
  • A Curriculum vitae of max 5 pages.

It is possible to apply for more than one workshop. In that case an applicant should submit the online application form for each workshop separately. However, if an applicant is selected for more than one workshop, s/he should choose only one, as all the workshops are held simultaneously. 

Co-authored papers can be proposed, but the Mediterranean Programme is only able to financially support one of the authors. The Mediterranean Programme can agree that additional co-authors participate in the MRM but they have to pay their own travel and accommodation. 

Selection: 

Workshop directors select the paper proposals, and  the results of the selection process will be communicated to all applicants by 1 October 2012.

The full final paper should be submitted by 15 February 2013. By submitting a paper for the MRM, a participant is agreeing to MRM Participation and Copyright Agreement. 

All selected candidates need to confirm their participation by e-mail to academic.medmeet@eui.eu within 10 days of the receipt of an invitation to participate. Participants should guarantee their participation in all sessions of their workshop. 

Working Languages: 

A good working knowledge of English is required. There will be no translation or interpretation services available.

Papers should be written and presented in either English or French.

All abstracts accompanying the final version of the paper should be written in English.

Accommodation and Travel Costs: 

Participants receive a travel allowance based on their country of residence (independent of their nationality). This is a flat amount no matter what  the actual travel costs are.  Please see Information for Participants before applying.

If you are receiving money from another institution to cover your travel costs you will not be granted the travel allowance from the MRM. 

Participants pay for their own accommodation costs. However, they will benefit from a special discount rate that hotels offer to the MRM.

Click here to visit the conference website.   
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Feb 16, 2011 Lebanon
Jadaliyya Reports By :
Jadaliyya Reports

Past is Present: Settler Colonialism Matters!

On 5-6 March 2011, the Palestine Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London will hold its seventh annual conference, "Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine." This year`s conference aims to understand Zionism as a settler colonial project which has, for more than a century, subjected Palestine and Palestinians to a structural and violent form of destruction, dispossession, land appropriation and erasure in the pursuit of a new Jewish Israeli society. By organizing this conference, we hope to reclaim and revive the settler colonial paradigm and to outline its potential to inform and guide political strategy and mobilization.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often described as unique and exceptional with little resemblance to other historical or ongoing colonial conflicts. Yet, for Zionism, like other settler colonial projects such as the British colonization of Ireland or European settlement of North America, South Africa or Australia, the imperative is to control the land and its resources -- and to displace the original inhabitants. Indeed, as conference keynote speaker Patrick Wolfe, one of the foremost scholars on settler colonialism and professor at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia, argues, "the logic of this project, a sustained institutional tendency to eliminate the Indigenous population, informs a range of historical practices that might otherwise appear distinct--invasion is a structure not an event."[i]

Therefore, the classification of the Zionist movement as a settler colonial project, and the Israeli state as its manifestation, is not merely intended as a statement on the historical origins of Israel, nor as a rhetorical or polemical device. Rather, the aim is to highlight Zionism`s structural continuities and the ideology which informs Israeli policies and practices in Palestine and toward Palestinians everywhere. Thus, the Nakba -- whether viewed as a spontaneous, violent episode in war, or the implementation of a preconceived master plan -- should be understood as both the precondition for the creation of Israel and the logical outcome of Zionist settlement in Palestine.

Moreover, it is this same logic that sustains the continuation of the Nakba today. As remarked by Benny Morris, “had he [David Ben Gurion] carried out full expulsion--rather than partial--he would have stabilised the State of Israel for generations.”[ii] Yet, plagued by an “instability”--defined by the very existence of the Palestinian nation--Israel continues its daily state practices in its quest to fulfill Zionism’s logic to maximize the amount of land under its control with the minimum number of Palestinians on it. These practices take a painful array of manifestations: aerial and maritime bombardment, massacre and invasion, house demolitions, land theft, identity card confiscation, racist laws and loyalty tests, the wall, the siege on Gaza, cultural appropriation, and the dependence on willing (or unwilling) native collaboration and security arrangements, all with the continued support and backing of imperial power. 

Despite these enduring practices however, the settler colonial paradigm has largely fallen into disuse. As a paradigm, it once served as a primary ideological and political framework for all Palestinian political factions and trends, and informed the intellectual work of committed academics and revolutionary scholars, both Palestinians and Jews.

The conference thus asks where and why the settler colonial paradigm was lost, both in scholarship on Palestine and in politics; how do current analyses and theoretical trends that have arisen in its place address present and historical realities? While acknowledging the creativity of these new interpretations, we must nonetheless ask: when exactly did Palestinian natives find themselves in a "post-colonial" condition? When did the ongoing struggle over land become a "post-conflict" situation? When did Israel become a "post-Zionist" society? And when did the fortification of Palestinian ghettos and reservations become "state-building"?

In outlining settler colonialism as a central paradigm from which to understand Palestine, this conference re-invigorates it as a tool by which to analyze the present situation. In doing so, it contests solutions which accommodate Zionism, and more significantly, builds settler colonialism as a political analysis that can embolden and inform a strategy of active, mutual, and principled Palestinian alignment with the Arab struggle for self-determination, and indigenous struggles in the US, Latin America, Oceania, and elsewhere.

Such an alignment would expand the tools available to Palestinians and their solidarity movement, and reconnect the struggle to its own history of anti-colonial internationalism. At its core, this internationalism asserts that the Palestinian struggle against Zionist settler colonialism can only be won when it is embedded within, and empowered by, the broader Arab movement for emancipation and the indigenous, anti-racist and anti-colonial movement--from Arizona to Auckland.

SOAS Palestine Society invites everyone to join us at what promises to be a significant intervention in Palestine activism and scholarship.

For over 30 years, SOAS Palestine Society has heightened awareness and understanding of the Palestinian people, their rights, culture, and struggle for self-determination, amongst students, faculty, staff, and the broader public. SOAS Palestine society aims to continuously push the frontiers of discourse in an effort to make provocative arguments and to stimulate debate and organizing for justice in Palestine through relevant conferences, and events ranging from the intellectual and political impact of Edward Said`s life and work (2004), international law and the Palestine question (2005), the economy of Palestine and its occupation (2006), the one state (2007), 60 Years of Nakba, 60 Years of Resistance (2009), and most recently, the Left in Palestine (2010).

For more information on the SOAS Palestine Society 7th annual conference, Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine: www.soaspalsoc.org

SOAS Palestine Society Organizing Collective is a group of committed students that has undertaken to organize annual academic conferences on Palestine since 2003.

 

[i] Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event, Cassell, London, p. 163

[ii] Interview with Benny Morris, Survival of the Fittest, Haaretz, 9. January 2004, http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=5412