Österreichischer Fachverband für Volkskunde

Call for Papers, Posters & Filme für die 15. Arbeitstagung der Kommission „Arbeitskulturen“ in der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Volkskunde, 7.-9. April 2011, Zeppelin University, Friedrichshafen.

Wissen als Dispositiv
Kulturen und Regimes in der Kapitalisierung von Arbeit

Termin für die Einreichung des Proposal: 1. März 2010

Die Tagung knüpft an die aktuellen Themenschwerpunkte der Arbeitskulturenforschung (http://www.d-g-v.org/kommissionen/index.html) zu Virtualisierung (Passau 2005), Grenzziehungen und Entgrenzungen (Hamburg 2007), sowie zu Mobilität und Mobilisierung (München 2009) an.

In gegenwärtigen Gesellschaften gilt Wissen als wesentliche Ressource und als Voraussetzung für Wohlstand, Entwicklung und nachhaltig produktive Arbeit. Die Intensivierung von Bildung, die Förderung von Forschung und Entwicklung wie auch die Stärkung der Wissensökonomie werden als Gestaltungsansätze einer zukunftsgerichteten Entwicklung angesehen. Allerdings werden zunehmend kritische Stimmen an diesem Verständnis laut. Der inflationäre Gebrauch des Wissensbegriffs hat zudem zu dessen unspezifischer Verwendung sowie zu einer unhinterfragten Vervielfältigung der Grundannahmen der Wissensgesellschaft geführt. Dabei wäre eine kritische, kulturtheoretisch fundierte Analyse der Begriffe, Konzepte und Paradigmen der Wissensgesellschaft gerade im Hinblick auf die Entwicklung von Arbeit und von Arbeitskulturen notwendig.

Aus der Sicht der Arbeitssoziologie werden Strategien der Wissensökonomie als kognitiver Kapitalismus problematisiert. In kulturwissenschaftlicher Perspektive ist der Wissensbegriff breiter angelegt und damit auch die Analyse von Arbeit in der Wissensgesellschaft. Erfahrung und Praxis (Habitus) haben sich als wesentliche Dimensionen von Wissen erwiesen. Wissen, solchermaßen verstanden, wird in spezifischen sozialen, geografischen oder kulturellen Zusammenhängen erworben und angewendet. Es ist an diese Kontexte gebunden, häufig auch emotional konnotiert, und nur begrenzt in neue Umgebungen transferierbar. Wissen ist außerdem in seiner Verschränkung mit Machtverhältnissen und als eingebettet in spezifische Wissensordnungen (Diskurs, Archäologie des Wissens) thematisiert worden, welche im Zusammenwirken diverser sozialer und materieller Elemente (Assemblage) entstehen. Eine kulturanalytische Perspektive auf Arbeit in der Wissensgesellschaft wird also fragen: Wie wandelt sich Arbeit entlang der wissensökonomischen Paradigmen? Welche Bilder, Konzepte, Diskurse, Materialitäten und Regimes der Arbeit werden mit dem Dispositiv Wissen etabliert? Welche (widerständigen) Praktiken entwickeln die Akteure angesichts dieser Regimes?

Konkret bedeutet dies, Wissen als Ressource in Arbeitsprozessen – hier insbesondere die Bedeutung von Praxis, Erfahrung und Emotionalität sowie die (neuen) Modi der Kapitalisierung von Wissen – zu untersuchen. Es geht darum, unterschiedliche Dimensionen (kognitive, emotionale, subjektive, habituelle, kulturelle, professionelle, ökonomische usw.) des Wissens in Arbeitsprozessen, (Arbeits-)Biographien und auch unterschiedliche (visuelle, habituelle, rituelle, mediale) Repräsentationen von Wissen in Arbeitsprozessen zu erforschen. Wissensordnungen, also (Wissens-)Hierarchien und Machtverhältnisse, ebenso wie die Praktiken und Diskurse, in denen diese hergestellt und reproduziert werden, spielen dabei eine besondere Rolle.

Die im Zentrum der volkskundlichen, empirisch-kulturwissenschaftlichen, europäisch-ethnologischen und kulturanthropologischen Arbeitskulturenforschung untersuchten Themen sind hierbei in vielfältiger Weise angesprochen. Die Bedeutung von intellektuellem bzw. sozialem und kulturellem Kapital, Erwartungen an die Lern- und Bildungsfähigkeiten, an Persönlichkeit und den Habitus sind im Zusammenhang der neuen Konzepte und Anforderungen an die Arbeitskraft, also im Kontext von Subjektivierung, Self-Entrepreneurship, Arbeitkraftunternehmertum und zeitlicher Entgrenzung der Arbeit, von Belang. Selbst für (re-)produktive Tätigkeiten in Industrie, Haushalt und Landwirtschaft ist dies zunehmend der Fall. Es geht um die individuelle Realisierung von (z.B. migrationsbedingten oder genderspezifischen) Wissensunterschieden, insbesondere aber um die Analyse von neuen Formen des Zugreifens auf die intellektuellen Arbeitskapazitäten, etwa in der Kreativ- und Wissensarbeit. Auch die ökonomische Nutzung von kollektiven Wissensbeständen und Open Source Wissen sind von Interesse. Formen, Bedingungen und Strategien der Verwertung von diversen Wissensformen (Kompetenzen, Erfahrung, Wissensobjekte, etc.) rücken in den Blick. Die Ausrichtung der Arbeitswelt auf die Sicherstellung von Lernprozessen, auf Wissensaktualisierung, Vernetzung, dichte Kommunikationsinfrastrukturen und Virtualisierung werfen Fragen nach einhergehenden Veränderungen auch in Schul- und Berufsbildung, Studium oder im Übergang in das Rentenalter auf. Auch die wissensökonomische Überformung und Klassifizierung von Städten und Regionen als Wirtschaftsstandorte und Arbeitsorte (Forschungsstandorte, Creative Cities und Industries, Hospitality Industries in Tourismus, Pflege usw.) werden hier bedeutsam. 

Im Sinne dieser Profilierung sind Tagungsbeiträge aus der Volkskunde / Kulturanthropologie / Europäische Ethnologie / Empirischen Kulturwissenschaft und benachbarten Fächern erbeten, die sich einem der folgenden Schwerpunkte widmen:

1. Immobilitäten: Bindung von Wissen in spezifischen Arbeits- und Lebenszusammenhängen; Strukturen, die Flexibilisierung und Mobilität erst ermöglichen; Schwierigkeiten und Bedingungen für die Transferierung von sozialen und kulturellen Kapitalien;
2. Wirtschaftskrise: Wissen und Nicht-Wissen, Krisenerfahrungen und Krisenwissen;
3. Wissen als Ressource und Ware: Strategien, Formen, Probleme und Grenzen der Kapitalisierung von Wissen in Arbeitszusammenhängen; Zugriffe auf kollektives Wissen, Kundenarbeit und Open Source; Schutz von Wissen; Eigenarbeit und Ehrenamt
4. Arbeitsbiographien: Individuelle Positionen und Strategien im Umgang mit lebenslangem Lernen, (De-)Qualifizierung, Jobabbau, wachsendem Niedriglohnsektor usw.;
5. Vielfalt der Wissensformen im Spannungsfeld zwischen Wissenswerkern und Wissensarbeitern; Wissensordnungen und -hierarchien in Arbeitszusammenhängen;
6. Organisationsformen der Wissensarbeit in diversen Bereichen wie Creative Industries, Forschung und Entwicklung usw.;
7. Wissenstransfer, Anwendungs- und Verwertungskontexte der Arbeitskulturenforschung;
8. Wissensrepräsentation und -vermittlung in (Arbeits-)Museen sowie
9. weitere Themen innerhalb der Arbeitskulturenforschung und angrenzenden Gebieten.

Erwünscht sind Vorschläge für Vorträge, Poster und Filme. Skizzen im Umfang von ca. 4000 Zeichen mit kurzen Angaben zur wissenschaftlichen Vita werden bis zum 1. März 2010 erbeten. Bitte richten Sie diese an: arbeitskulturen@zeppelin-university.de

11th EASA Biennial Conference, Maynooth/Ireland, 24-27 August 2010

“Crisis and Imagination”
http://www.easaonline.org/conferences/easa2010/index.htm

 CfP: The imagined Europe under siege (W011)

 Convenors
Alexandra Schwell (University of Vienna), alexandra.schwell@univie.ac.at
Anna Horolets (Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities), anna.horolets@swps.edu.pl
Aleksandra Galasinska (University of Wolverhampton), A.Galasinska@wlv.ac.uk

Abstract

Who defines what Europe is and what it is not? How is this categorisation produced, reproduced and institutionalised? And how do the “excluded” react towards, deal with and even subvert this categorisation?

The concept of Europe has always been most concise where it was not defined out of itself, but in contrast to something else. The Cold War had frozen the antagonisms in Europe; after the end of the Cold War the clear-cut antagonism of East (evil) and West (good) has outlived its usefulness and has been replaced by a number of diffuse threats, all of which target the micro-security of individual citizens, and a diffuse and ubiquitous insecurity that encompasses every part of social life. Immigration, organized crime, and imported terrorism as well as social, ecological and economic threats in this sense are external phenomena, and their intrusion into the community has to be prevented. The EU enlargement process and its aftermath have made the matter even more challenging. But who defines what Europe is and what it is not? How is this categorisation produced, reproduced and institutionalised? And how do the “excluded” react towards, handle and maybe even subvert this categorisation?

We would welcome proposals for papers on any of the following areas:
logics and mechanisms of exclusion in Europe, definitions of “external” and “internal” “threatening” actors and phenomena by institutions and individuals, exclusion and mobility (migration, displacement, leisure travel), the instrumentalisation of “culture” in the construction of threats and exclusion, the imaginaries of threats produced by institutions and bureaucracies, political and state actors, civil society, NGOs as well as of ordinary people, lived, experienced and material culture of exclusion and life under threat.

Deadline: 1 March 2010

Papers have to be submitted via the website; if you are interested in proposing a paper, follow this link:

http://www.nomadit.co.uk/easa/easa2010/panels.php5?PanelID=588

Nachtrag zum Call for Papers der dgv-Hochschultagung 2010 “Umbruchszeiten”: Einrichtung eines Forschungspanels zu ‘Web-Culture / Digitale Medien’

Wir bitten um Vorschläge für eine Kurzpräsentation von laufenden Dissertations- und Drittmittelprojekten aus dem Themenfeld ‘Web-Culture / Digitale Medien’. Im Rahmen der nächsten dgv-Hochschultagung “Umbruchszeiten” (24.-26 September 2010 in Marburg) wird ein Forschungspanel stattfinden, in dem Projektgruppen und Nachwuchswissenschaftlern die Möglichkeit eingeräumt werden soll, laufende Forschungsarbeiten vorzustellen, um so eine bessere Vernetzung der bestehenden Forschungen in diesem Bereich und eine Etablierung der Thematik in der dgv zu erzielen.

Auf den Call for Papers für die dgv-Hochschultagung erreichten das Organisatorenteam einige Abstracts, deren Verfasser inhaltlich auf das Themenfeld ?Internet-Kulturforschung? eingegangen sind. Der Themenkomplex scheint gegenwärtig eine enorme Dynamik zu erfahren: 

Viele dieser Vorhaben befinden sich offensichtlich in der Projektierungs- oder Durchführungsphase, so dass ein Blick auf laufende Arbeiten reizvoll erscheint. Da das Programm nur eine begrenzte Kapazität an Einzelvorträgen zulässt, möchten wir eine alternative Möglichkeit bieten, solche Arbeiten zu präsentieren und mit interessierten Kolleginnen und Kollegen in Kontakt zu treten.

 Um auch denjenigen Forscherinnen und Forschern die Gelegenheit zur Teilnahme zu bieten, die sich durch den allgemein formulierten ursprünglichen CfP nicht angesprochen fühlten, möchten wir als Nachtrag noch einmal um einschlägige Zusendungen zu diesem Themenschwerpunkt bitten.

 Einsendungen bitte bis zum 15. Januar an goerge[at]staff.uni-marburg.de

10th SIEF International Congress, Lisbon, April 17-21, 2011

 Congress Announcement: Theme, Sub-themes, and Call for Panels

 [The most up-to-date Call for Panels can be found on: http:// www.siefhome.org/sief2011/ , where you will find the online application forms]

‘People Make Places: Ways of Feeling the World’

The ways in which people construct their views, opinions, values and practices are constantly being re-negotiated and re-interpreted in various creative forms. The 10th  SIEF International Congress intends to elucidate and develop perspectives on this topic by focusing on the making of places, and invites colleagues and other scholars to present new perspectives on how people’s lives, memories, emotions and values interact with places and localities. The Congress will be structured around three themes: Shaping Lives; Creativity & Emotions; and Ecology & Ethics. In each of the themes, case studies as well as inquiries into theory are welcome.  The Congress aims to encourage in particular boundary-crossing explorations of ontological, epistemological and ethical issues that arise from a greater emphasis on a sensitive and even sensuous approach to knowledge and understanding.

The question of how people make the places they inhabit remains wide open. We invite proposals that deal with the role of cultural practices in the creation of locality: how a space turns into a particular place; how people relate to, construct, and are constructed by, the places they live in; and what the practices are that shape those places. Other questions to be posed include: What new approaches for the study of the emotional links between people and the places they inhabit are being developed? What theoretical tools can be used by ethnologists to understand a sense of belonging?

What is the role of expressive culture linked to daily life in the shaping of the places? How do we combine ecological and ethical issues with ethnographic data, especially in cases where there seems to be a clash between what people do with their places and general ecological and ethic concerns?

The variety of places that could be explored in this process include, among many others: work and home places, places for vacation, places for the dead, places to pray, places to create, places to destroy and to be destroyed, places to memorialize, places to arrive and to leave, as well as places that disappear and reappear, inside places, and non-places. Notions of multi-belonging, shared places, and generational differences all show how making places is a process that is not univocal, and people make places as much as places make people. New ways of making places – through the virtual space and internet – should also be taken into consideration.

Each day of the Congress, a specific theme will be introduced by two invited keynote speakers, leading international scholars, and discussed further in a series of panel sessions, some of which will run in parallel. Workshops, intended to open to practice-based research, and poster sessions, will also take place. We invite colleagues to participate and propose panels directed at the general theme and the three daily sub themes.

 
Shaping Lives [Day 1]

Our disciplines have from their early beginnings contributed to the understanding of how people are shaping lives. The study of narratives and beliefs, of material culture and practice still belong to the core of our analytical enterprises. However, new perspectives and new analytical horizons suggest new questions to both old and new material. Shaping lives is also about creating and sustaining memory.

Memory in its turn makes places predictable and readable to cultural practices, to lived experience. But memory is also changeable and the object of additive interpretation. Both in past and in present people have moved between places, within sets of narratives and practices.

Contemporary culture interpreted as global and de-territorialized can be challenged by past experiences and new dimensions of culture of the past can be detected when being confronted by today’s practices.  Reflecting on such perspectives several topics and questions can be addressed: By which means and strategies do people shape their lives?

The relevance of media and mediation is obvious, as is the relationship between memory and practice. Everyday practices, symbols, rituals and religious values might be taken into consideration. And how are similarities and differences between human beings, nature and ‘society’ constructed and objectified? How are lives shaped as seen from the individual, from the group or from policy makers? The implications of memory as an important element of shaping lives also include the construction and use of history, without which human conditions can hardly be conceived. Is de- territorialization a way of neutralizing memory and history or is it only a strategy for making memory and history cosmopolitan?

 Creativity & Emotions [Day 2]

Within our anthropological disciplines the knowledge of the influence of culture on creativity and emotions is still rather limited. This is due more to a lack of ethnography and under-theorizing than to their elusiveness. Emotions and creativity are major factors of change and continuity within all sorts of contexts and places; an ethnological engagement with them is therefore important. The idea of creativity as a basic element for personal existence may accentuate contemporary concerns with issues of agency, but it may also stimulate the refashioning of classical themes of social and cultural identity. To what extent, then, are emotions and creativity idiosyncratic, and to what extent can general cultural principles be detected that affect them? How are emotions and creativity perceived by individuals and groups and in what ways do they influence daily life and the making of places? What is the role of emotions in the construction of a sense of belonging in a globalized world? What is the role of creativity in dealing with increasing contacts of people and cultural forms and ideas under current globalization?

Furthermore, how does the organization of the world and the construction of places reflect itself on the ways of feeling the world?

Emotions remain a collective and powerful social engine. Some of today’s collective performances (such as theatre, music or art) are related to place belonging and indigenous identity claims. How can emotions help us to question the transmission between the performers and their audience? How do emotions, like nostalgia, suffering or joy, deal with traditional patterns (either inherited or invented) and regenerate or transform feeling about one’s place? Those questions should open vast queries, not only about the classical artistic fields of anthropology, but also heritage places, local festivals, web arena, cultural and tourism market, war and nation- building propaganda, diaspora communities, globalized religions, which are all linked with aesthetic values, human capacity of creativity and emotional background of social life. And, as a subsidiary problem, what is the place of the researcher himself in those processes touching or affecting us? How do these circumstances influence our disciplines and their academic output, thinking that scholars, like artists, are supposed to be creative and bring elements of originality and appropriateness to their research?

Ecology & Ethics [Day 3]

Culture takes place. We need to reflect on what that simple fact means, in general and for our disciplines in particular. People rarely take a place as they find it, but do they actually make – in the constructivist sense – the places they live in, or are they rather co-creators shaping the places that they are shaped by? On the third day of the Congress, we want to put a spotlight on the ecological relationships with both human and non-human makers of places through which culture is lived, and on the responsibilities that we as researchers face when we are dealing with them, both “in the field” and afterwards, in our ethnography and beyond.

Intellectually, most of us are aware that we are part of “the field” which is also part of us – but are we actually addressing that issue concretely in our work, and if so: how? What are our responsibilities as researchers, and who are we responsible to? What can we learn from neighbouring disciplines, such as cultural geography or human ecology? To what extent does our ecological connectedness with the people we study in their various places provide a justification for engaged ethnology/anthropology, or is it rather the reason why we ought to maintain our objective distance? Whose call is this, in the first instance – that of our institutional ethics review boards or promotions committees; the local ecosphere with the past, present and future generations of its constituents; or a generalised moral conscience? Who are the peers by whose standards our work should be judged, and why they? These and other questions will be addressed on the third day of the Congress.

Call for Panels

We invite colleagues and scholars to propose panels and workshops that relate to the above described theme and subthemes of the Congress. The Call for Panels and Workshops is now open at www.siefhome.org/sief2011 , and will run from 1st December 2009 to 15 February 2010. The call for papers will follow in May 2010. All proposals must be submitted using our online form. Full information is given on the website.

Format and Timetable

Following the opening event the programme will run over three full days, each day under a specific sub-theme. Each day of the Congress, the specific daily theme will be introduced by two invited keynote speakers, leading international scholars, and discussed further in a series of panel sessions, some of which will run in parallel. The Congress will comprise sessions with different formats, from the panel sessions with paper presentations, to workshops, intended to open to practice-based research, and poster sessions. There will also be open-topic panels, to accommodate papers that may not fit into the proposed panels. We invite colleagues to participate and propose panels directed at the general theme and the three daily sub themes.

The Commissions and Working Groups of SIEF are especially invited to organise panels and workshops on their respective research topics.

All proposals for panels and workshops will be reviewed by the Congress Scientific Committee, which will act as a peer review college and will make the selection. All panels must be proposed by two persons; individual proposals will not be accepted, as we aim at collaborative work from all the colleagues. Once the panels and workshops have been selected there will be a call for papers, which will be addressed to the panel convenors, who will then be responsible for the selection and organization of their panels/ workshops. Convenors forward the programme for their session(s) to the Programme Committee which reviews the composition of panels and workshops, and may move contributions between panels or create additional panels as appropriate.

The call for panels goes online form the 1st December 2009. By mid February 2010 the call for panels will close and the review and selection process will take place until the end of April. In the beginning of May 2010 the call for papers, workshop participation, posters and film festival participation will be open. Only one paper per contributor will normally be accepted, but individual paper presenters may, within the constraints of the time-table, also play other roles in the Congress, for example, as chair of a session, discussant, or contributor to the workshop programme. The Programme Committee draws up a final Congress Programme to be ready by September 2010.

Workshops

Workshops are conceptualised as practical events, guided discussions and free-format exchanges leading to specific public outputs.  They may include elements of performance, exhibition materials, or interactive media displays. Further details will be posted on the website during 2009/2010.

Poster Sessions

The poster sessions are meant to provide everyone with the opportunity of presenting their work, without overburdening the program, and include those who do not wish to present orally. Posters must confirm to the same basic requirements as outlined for the panel sessions. Sessions will run throughout the Congress, with dedicated slots when poster presenters will be available at their respective display to discuss their topic with the colleagues.

Film Festival

Film submissions are also invited. Films that are not in English should have English subtitles. A call for film presentation will go out with the call for papers, later on in 2010. Other films will be selected by the Scientific Committee to take part in the Film festival.

SIEF Young Scholar Prize

The winner of the SIEF Young Scholar Prize 2011 will present his/her work in a special session during the Congress.

Book Fair

There will be a book fair throughout the four days of the Congress, with representation of the main publishers in the field. Further details will be posted later on the Congress website.

Congress Dinner

The Congress dinner and party will take place on evening of the 20th of April, following the closing session. Further details will be posted on the Congress website, and instructions will be given as to how one should proceed to register for the event.

Excursions

A number of half-day and full day excursions will be available for Thursday, 21 April, the day after the closure of the Congress. The excursions will visit sites not far from Lisbon, ranging from 1 to 2 hour drive. Further details will be posted on the Congress website, and instructions will be given as to how one should proceed to enroll in these activities.

Time schedule

Sunday 17 April             Arrival and Opening Congress

Monday 18 April            Congress, theme: Shaping Lives

Tuesday 19 April             Congress, theme: Creativity & Emotions

Wednesday 20 April           Congress, theme: Ecology & Ethics

Thursday 21 April            Excursions

Local organizer

CRIA-Centro em Rede de Investigação em Antropologia (Center for Research in Anthropology- Portugal). CRIA is an inter-institutional centre for research in anthropology organized in four locations based on Portuguese universities (ISCTE, FCSH-UNL, FCT-UC, UM). CRIA is assisted by NomadIT, the nomadic company for organizing (scientific) conferences and membership administration (www.nomadit.co.uk/).

Organization and Congress Venue

The congress will take place at the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Av. de Berna 26 Lisbon, in central Lisbon. The keynote speeches will take place (in

principle) at the Gulbenkian Foundation, 5 minutes walk and on the same street as the congress’ main venue. The hotels will be within a 15 minutes walk from the venue.

Email: congress[at]siefhome.org

CALL FOR PAPERS One-day-workshop

 URBAN PUBLIC SPACE IN THE CONTEXT OF MOBILITY AND AESTHETICIZATION: FACING CONTEMPORARY CHALLENGES

Friday. 23 April 2010
Institute for European Ethnology, Humboldt University, Berlin

Urban public space continues to be the focus of debate regarding its conceptualization and how it is designed, (re)produced and managed. Over recent decades urban public space has increasingly been considered as, on the one hand, productive of a new set of exclusions, but also, on the other hand, as offering a range of possibilities for the co-existence of strangers in the city. Nowadays public spaces are facing new challenges conceptually and practically. In recent years social scientists have identified two new tendencies with a strong spatial dimension: /mobility/ and /aestheticization/. These two characteristics shape the transformation of space in the late-modern or post-modern era. An important question is, therefore, how do these trends affect public space? This seminar will address theoretical and empirical aspects of this issue.

 The relations between space, place and mobility have been considered as problematic since the 1970s (see Relph 1976). Mobility and flows are considered to be a key characteristic of the post-modern era (Harvey 1989, Gupta & Fergusson 1992, Appaduraj 1996,Urry 2007). While for some scholars it means the end of place (for instance, Relph 1976, Augé 1995), for others it results in a new meaning of place in post-modernity. The latter speak with enthusiasm about a “cosmopolitan existence” (Chambers 1990) and a “place of flows” (Castells & Nyíri, 2004). Some scholars are trying to re-conceptualize place by bringing together notions of place, mobility and identity (Massey 1997, Sennet 2008). Though much attention is paid to the issue of place and its relations to mobility, surprisingly few authors address the concept of public space in this concern.

 Therefore, for us the important questions are:
 - What happens to public space in an era characterized by mobility and flows? 
- Are we really witnessing the end of ‘public space’ in the contemporary city or are there still potentialities for its regeneration and revival in this new context? 
- Or, should we re-determine the concept of “public space” in relation to the realities of post-modernity? 

Another global trend — the aestheticization of all aspects of social life — is associated with the increased role of culture and the symbolic economy in post-industrial societies. “Creative” or “cultural” industries have become one the fastest growing segments of the global and national economies and can be a driver of urban development (Evans 2004, Harvey 1989, Kim & Short 2008, Zukin 1995, 1996). As Baudrillard put it, nowadays “Everything is sexual. Everything is political.

Everything is aesthetic”. Even counterculture and resistance have become aestheticized (Desmond et al. 2001, Friske 1989). Again, some scholars, especially those sharing the “traditional” notion of public realm (eg. based on the theories of Arendt and Habermas) would probably see this tendency as a continuing “fall of public man”. However, others rather see this aestheticization as a response to the realities of post-modernity. When applied to urban space this tendency can be manifested in the gentrification of urban areas by the so-called “creative class”, as well as in ideas surrounding the “cleansing” of public space”, of implementing order and purity of form into urban space. On the other hand, the aestheticization of urban space is expressed in public art and open-air performances, in carnivals and festivals. Thus, the main questions here are:
- What are the implications of this aestheticization for urban public space?
- What role does the aestheticization of social life play in the transformation of urban public space? 
- What threats and what potentials does aestheticization imply for city public space?

We are interested in sharing ideas about the demand for, and particular ways of re-determining the concept of, “public space” with regard to these two phenomena which could be argued to be characteristic of the late-C20th — early C21st. In addition, empirical evidence showing how urban public space experiences and answers these challenges must also be considered.

 The issue of urban public space involves the expertise of urban anthropologists, ethnographers, geographers and sociologists, and also urban designers and planners as well as artists, curators and civil society initiatives dealing with urban public space. Therefore, representatives of all these disciplines and realms of activities are welcome at our seminar.

 We are planning a /one day seminar/ consisting of: 1) presentations; 2) a “round table” and 3) an exhibition. /Case study based papers/ are especially welcome /for the presentation/ part, while /any kind of thoughts, theoretical implications and notes/ are welcome for the /round table/ discussion. The round table is planned as an interdisciplinary event where we are going to discuss examples of interdisciplinary collaborative projects aimed at producing, reproducing, protecting or re-defining urban public space, as well as methodological issues regarding such collaboration. We expect 3-4 short discussion/stimulating presentations at the round table, addressing the case studies and more general theoretical and methodological implications.

 The seminar will be concluded by a /photographic exhibition/ presenting the results of the international research project ‘/The Re-Imaging of Public Space in European Cities”/ realized in Manchester, Sofia, St.-Petersburg and Lviv in 2006-2008 (supported by INTAS). It will address the phenomenon of /city squares/ as urban public spaces, and in particular the transformation of their images and the roles they play in the lives of the current European cities (curator: Lilia Voronkova).

 The seminar and exhibition are possible thanks to the support of: the Institute for European Ethnology, Humboldt University, Berlin; Georg Simmel Zentrum, Humboldt University, Berlin; and the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung, Germany.

Interested applicants should send abstracts of up to 300 words by January 15^th 2010 to Oleg Pachenkov (pachenkov[at]yahoo.com) and Lilia Voronkova  (lilia.voron[at]gmail.com).

Please indicate if you expect your paper to be presented in the presentation part/ (15-20 min. presentations) or during the round table (a 5 min. speech stimulating discussion on a  particular issue).  Please also send a brief CV (1-2 pages). Accepted participants will be notified by 15^th February 2010.

 The organizers have a limited budget to cover travel and/or accommodation expenses; so, please, identify in your application (at the end of the abstract): 1) whether you might need such funding, 2) what type of funding is required (travel, accommodation or both), and 3) your travel costs (approximately). There is no participation fee. Organizers can assist with booking accommodation if required.

The seminar is planned as an international event, so the working  language is English.