Call for papers
Challenging Identity Normativity: Affirmative Social Identities, Empowerment Policies and Social Cohesion
Place of publication: Ljubljana, Slovenia
Type of publication: print/book
Publication date: June 2012
Published by/ edited by: Faculty fir Social Work, University of Ljubljana
Topics: The focus of
this call is to discuss those social identities which are devalued, ostracized
and stigmatized and to look at the empowerment policies towards social cohesion,
justice and inclusion. While identity politics has become an important topic in
social sciences in so-called Western countries already in the late 1960ies,
countries with state socialism, like former Yugoslavia, experienced a
pre-defined normative identity formations and the invisibility of the identity
politics from the perspective of the individual persons. During the collapse of
state socialism, from the beginning of the ethnic conflicts and wars in former
Yugoslavia, the issue of identity was primarily focused on the re/construction
of the collective identity such as national identity, heroic identity, the
mothers ‟ of war veterans identity, the victim of war identity and similar. In the
meantime, several others social identities became newly defined or visible for
the first time (people with disabilities who demanded independent living; the
“Erased” in Slovenia; people living in the same sex partnerships; parents who
adopt children from other countries, women experiencing violence, working poor,
unemployed workers from the mainstream society, migrant workers, illegal
immigrants etc.). Many of above mentioned social identities have in the course
of the transition from communism towards the neo-liberal global capitalism
became viewed as the source of societal disintegration, pathologised and
ostracized as the deviation from the normative identity of the collective
identity of the national body and its parts. This construction of the
internal»others« helped to construct seemingly ethnically, politically and
socially homogeneous new states. Coming from that, the proposed (but not
exclusive) topics of this call are: The particular contexts in which specific
social identities become source of discrimination and conflicts; The
manifestations of everyday hatred, including everyday racism; The common
structure of social inequality, which is manifested in variety of ways:
pathologisation, constructed invisibility, memory restrictions etc.; The
everyday life experiences of people from their own perspective; The examples of
the affirmative empowerment policies towards devalued and discriminated social
identities; The involvement in policy work in order to change the oppressive
environments. Proposed research questions include: What are some of the
important new social identities and how are they defined in regard to the
normative identity formations in the particular contexts? What are the normative
forms of social exclusion and stigma related to particular social identities?
What are the ways of developing the affirmative identities, what are the
empowerment policies and inclusionary practices that are going to affect social
cohesion?
Deadline: December 1, 2011
Contact: Ana M. Sobočan, Faculty for Social Work, University of Ljubljana; Topniška 31, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
E-mail: ana.sobocan@fsd.uni-lj.si
Internet: www.eesrassw.net/aso2011
(source: e-mail from the organizers) |