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(IN)SECURITY IN A GLOBAL AGE

Have the hopes of “alternative horizons” been dashed through a failure to turn crisis into social change?Following the success of the first Cambridge Graduate Conference in Sociology on Crisis and Social Change: Towards Alternative Horizons, this year’s edition will seek to explore in what way the defining issues of our time may be the longing for security and the fear of insecurity.A post-9/11 world has brought an increased focus on national security, surveillance and policing. Not to be undone, the forces of capitalism unleashed new contradictions expressed in growing inequality, welfare retrenchment, and unemployment in the wake of the Great Recession.Meanwhile, multivalent manifestations of in(security) continue unchecked where states and dominant groups treat black, Muslim, female, migrant, or other bodies as security threats.Hosted by the Graduate Conference Committee of Sociology at Cambridge University, this conference investigates the wide variety of ways in which security and insecurity emerge in our contemporary lives. We welcome submissions on any of the following panel topics, and in particular from graduate students and scholars who represent gender, race and class diversity.

• Securing a livelihood: Inequalities, class and socio-economics
  • This panel welcomes contributions that address the changing patterns of wealth distribution, employment, and social protection regimes, as well as orthodox and creative responses to growing existing or perceived economic insecurity

• Nationalism and Borders
  • Inviting papers on boundaries and identity in relation to issues of national security, surveillance and the post-9/11world.

• Violence against women and girls: Constructing and policing gendered bodies
  • Inviting papers from radical and liberal feminists about: sex trafficking, prostitution, female genital mutilation, honour based violence, reproductive rights, pornography, etc.

• Knowledge production and expertise in an age of insecurity
  • This panel welcomes papers examining the production of knowledge on issues of ‘insecurity’, exploring: media, public discussions, and scientific, political and economic expertise relating to representations of ‘insecurity’, ‘security’ and a wide range of contemporary issues in this age of uncertainty.

• Politics of Austerity: parties, movements and citizens
  • We accept papers on the political reactions to austerity and its impact on democratic life. Papers investigating changes in the party systems, the creation and participation in movements, and the perceptions of citizens about the changes taking place.

HOW TO SUBMIT:

Paper presentation: abstract (300 word max.) and biography (100 word max.)

Abstracts submission deadline: until 25th July
Notification of acceptance: until 30th July
Registration: until 30th August

FURTHER INFORMATION:

Please contact  conference@sociology.cam.ac.uk

We hope you will join us in what promises to be a memorably stimulating two-days in Cambridge!

Conference Organising Committee