International Bielefeld Conference on Conflict and Violence,
Section:
Remembering Political Violence: Commemorative peace building activities of social movements since the 19th century

Call for Papers
Research on Social Movements has long been dominated by structurally biased approaches. It is only recently that research has left behind its abstract perspectives and has become conceptually more open, especially towards cultural perspectives. This cultural turn found its expression not only in studies on gendered aspects but also in a growing body of research on the role of stories, symbols, history, music and patterns of communication in social movements. Moreover, the question how activities on the local level interact with global problems has found much attention.

The section seeks to contribute to this cultural turn by inviting international scholars from a wide range of scholarly disciplines (from history, psychology, sociology, anthropology, to political sciences and media studies.

Papers (length of oral presentation: 15 minutes) should be focused on commemorative activities of social movements in peace building processes which are related to political violence (from civil war, to left and right terrorism to state induced violence).

In order to foster a fruitful collective debate the geographical range of the contributions should be focused on Europe and on Latin America.

Putting at least one of the following seven aspects/questions of peace building activities of social movements into culturally informed (incl. gender aspects), locally sensitive and globally oriented perspectives is highly recommended. Papers which address comparative, transnational or entangled aspects will be given high priority:

- Group building processes, identity formation, images of threat

- The (changing) role of labor movement activists since the 19th century

- The influence of urban spaces and settings on commemorative activities

- A comparison of peace building activities of victims of terrorist attacks on the one hand with the actions of victims of state induced terror on the other hand

- Close reading of collective actions processes (ranging from street gatherings, mourning ceremonies to neighborhood initiatives) on the local as well as on the transnational level

- Could cultures of memory mainly be constructed around heroes, martyrs and victims?

- Which role did the end of the cold war and of related colonial regimes play for successful peace building through social movements?

Please email abstracts (max 2 pages) any time but not later than 15 November 2014 to:

klaus.weinhauer@uni-bielefeld.de

Letters of acceptance/rejection will be sent out by late November 2014.

As the funding of the conference is not secured yet we cannot guarantee to cover the costs for travel and accommodation.