(Im)mobility: Dialectics of Movement, Power and Resistance

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(Im)mobility: Dialectics of Movement, Power and Resistance

Call for Papers

LAHP Student-led Interdisciplinary Conference 2017 Keynote speaker: Dr Alexander Samson, UCL

The London Arts and Humanities Partnership is pleased to announce the cross-disciplinary student-led conference (Im)mobility: Dialectics of Movement, Power and Resistance, which will be hosted by The London School of Economics (28 November 2017).

We live in a time in which global mobility is one of the central themes of several political agendas. It is subject to contestation, resistance and attempts of redefinition, in debates that are often shaped around the narrative of ʻidentities under threatʼ. Building on the ‘mobility turn’ theorized by sociologist John Urry (2007), Stephen Greenblatt, in his manifesto on Cultural Mobility (2009), began to explore the ʻtension between individual agency and structural constraintʼ, in both the present and the past. This cross-disciplinary conference aims to investigate the dynamics of mobility and immobility in relation to structures of power. How does (or did) power regulate the mobility and immobility of people, objects and ideas across time and space? Inversely, in which ways have matters of movement resisted and altered injunctions placed upon individuals, groups and/or objects by those in power? What effects do such dialectics of movement have in reshaping the cultural and social realms?

We invite PhD students and early career researchers from any department within the Arts & Humanities and Social Sciences to contribute with 20-minutes papers that address, but are not necessarily limited to, the following issues:

● (Im)mobility and construction of social and cultural identities

● (Im)mobility, law and freedom

● Migration

● Translation, language mobility and power

● Bodily (im)mobilities and disability

● Maps, travelogues and postcolonialism

● Movements of people in urban and rural environments

● Hidden or concealed mobilities of people, objects, ideas (e.g., smuggling, trafficking, resistance to censorship)

● Mobility of academics and intellectuals

● Digital technologies, social media, flow of information and politics

● Artistic, literary and musical interpretations of mobility-power dynamics

To submit a paper, please send a presentation title and an abstract of approximately 300 words, along with your CV and contact details, to lahp.mobilities@gmail.com by 30 July 2017. Applicants will be notified of the outcome by the end of August 2017.

Some small bursaries are available for presenting attendees travelling from outside of London.

Enquiries should be directed to lahp.mobilities@gmail.com.