[DEBATE] : (Fwd) Social movements conference in Nottingham, late June

[Patrick Bond]

Dear all - please find attached the second call for papers for the 
conference "Social Movements and/in the Postcolonial: Dispossession, 
Development and Resistance", which will be hosted by the Centre for the 
Study of Social and Global Justice at the School of Politics and 
International Relations, University of Nottingham, June 23-25 2008 (note 
the extended deadline for abstracts). The call is also pasted below

Please help us in the distribution of the call by forwarding to 
colleagues that might be interested and by disseminating through 
relevant mailing lists.

best wishes,

Alf Nilsen


CALL FOR PAPERS:



SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND/IN THE POSTCOLONIAL:

DISPOSSESSION, DEVELOPMENT AND RESISTANCE IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH



A conference hosted by the Centre for the Study of Social and Global 
Justice, School of Politics and International Relations, University of 
Nottingham



June 23 – 25 2008



The popular classes of the global South are up in arms. From Soweto to 
Caracas to Nandigram, social movements are making demands for social 
justice and human dignity against the multiple processes of 
dispossession that are the hallmark of neoliberalism. In and through 
these practices of resistance the direction and meaning of the process 
and project of postcolonial development are transformed. Such struggles, 
with their challenges to the hegemony of liberal democracy and 
questioning of state-centric strategies of social change, suggest the 
need for the development of new categories of political analysis and a 
critical interrogation of the progressive potential of state-centric 
theoretical frameworks. They compel us as academics, committed to social 
justice, to critically interrogate whether it is both possible and/or 
desirable to resurrect the development state as part of a radical 
political project.



The Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice (CSSGJ) wishes to 
make a contribution to the development of empirically grounded, 
theoretically informed and politically enabling analyses of these 
processes and therefore invites proposals for papers for the conference 
Social Movements and/in the Postcolonial: Dispossession, Development and 
Resistance in the Global South. The two-day conference will be 
structured around the following two streams of discussion:



* Struggles over dispossession in the global South – in which we seek 
papers that offer theoretical and empirical analyses of:



(i) the nature of dispossession and its impact upon conceptions of 
social justice and democracy.

(ii) forms of opposition to processes of dispossession related to 
neoliberal restructuring.

(iii) the relationship of such struggles with the state and market



· Social movements and the politics of development - in which we seek 
theoretical, conceptual and empirically focused papers that deepen our 
understanding of:



(i) how and why social movements politicise development

(ii) the practices/conceptualisations of development that are a result 
of such politicisation

(iii) the relationship of such practices/conceptualisations with other 
transnational and national actors, institutions, and networks.





CSSGJ will actively seek to publish an edited volume on the basis of the 
conference proceedings.



Abstracts should be of a maximum of 200 words. Proposals for panels 
should offer a short overview of the panel and then up to a maximum of 
three abstracts. The deadline for proposals is March 1 2008. 
Notification of acceptance will be in late March. Please contact Dr Alf 
Nilsen (Alf.Nilsen at nottingham.ac.uk) and Dr Sara Motta 
(Sara.Motta at nottingham.ac.uk) for further information and/or with your 
proposal.

Dr. Alf Gunvald Nilsen
RCUK Fellow, Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice, School 
of Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/politics/research/research_CSSGJ.php

University Park, Nottingham, NG7 2RD, England, UK

Mobile: (0044) (0) 7973332219
Office: (0044) (0) 1159514032