Publications

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

(source: e-mail from the organizers)