CONFERENCE. Empire, Labour, Citizenship. Current research on Globalization.

poster

Brussels, 18-20 November 2015

Since the second half of the 19th century, accelerations in the processes of globalization profoundly transformed human communities throughout the world.

This event aims at highlighting current research in human sciences around concepts of empire, labour and citizenship and their connections with the long-term history of mankind. During three days, researchers in history, anthropology and political sciences are invited to reflect together on how political superstructures, workforce management and the making of collective identities contributed to shape today’s globalized societies.

The conference will be closed by a lecture of Pr. Frederick Cooper (New York University), a leading scholar in the History of (post)colonial Africa, and a major contributor to academic debates on these topics.

Day 1. 18 November.

Venue: Vrije Universiteit Brussel, room to be confirmed.

12h-13h. Welcoming and registration.

13h-13h15. Welcome speech: Benoît Henriet (PhD candidate, Université Saint-Louis – Bruxelles), Romain Tiquet (PhD Candidate – Humboldt University – Berlin).

Panel 1. Empires and the making of global societies.

Discussant/chair : Pr. Kenneth Bertrams (Université Libre de Bruxelles).

13h15-14h45 KEYNOTE : Pr. Eric Vanhaute (Ghent University): ‘Frontiers of Empire. About Land, Labour and Commodities’.

14h45-15h. Coffee break.

15h-15h30. Pr. Paul Fontaine (Université Saint-Louis – Bruxelles) : ‘De Lyon à Rome – Africains et Syriens en Europe de l’Ouest sous l’Empire romain’.

15h30-16h. Fabienne Chamelot (PhD candidate – University of Portsmouth) – Romain Tiquet (PhD Candidate – Humboldt University – Berlin) : ‘Layers of Colonial Archives, Levels of Imperial Rule: Administrative Tensions between the Federal and the Local Power in AOF, 1936-1939’.

16h-16h30 Clothilde Houot (PhD Candidate – Université Paris 1-Sorbonne): ‘Building National Armies in the Middle Eastern Mandates. The Iraqi and Transjordanian Case’.

16h30-17h. Zaib Un Nisa Aziz (Teaching Fellow. Lahore University of Management Sciences): Passages from India. India anti colonial activism in exile, 1905-1920.

17h-17h30. Concluding remarks and final round of questions.

Day 2. 19 November.

Venue: Université Libre de Bruxelles, local AW.1.121.

8h30-9h30. Welcoming and registration.

Panel 2. The African experience of Labour.

Discussant/Chair: Pr. Benjamin Rubbers (Université de Liège – Université Libre de Bruxelles).

9h30-11h00. KEYNOTE : Dr. Sara Geenen (Antwerp University) : “Artisanal frontier mining of gold In Africa: Labour transformation in Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo”.

11h-11h15. Coffee break

11h15-11h45. Pascaline Le Polain (PhD candidate, Université Saint-Louis – Bruxelles): Punishing the Resisters. Forced Agricultural Labour in Belgian Congo (1940-1945).

11h45-12h15. Adane Kassie Bezabih (PhD Candidate, Addis Ababa University): African Labour and Foreign Capital: The Case of Wonji-Shewa Sugar Estate in Ethiopia, 1951-1974.

12h-15-12h45: Kerstin Stubenvoll (PhD Candidate, Humboldt University – Berlin): ‘Applied sciences’: (Mis)readings and Scopes of Action in Constructing ‘the African Worker’ during decolonization (French Cameroon, 1940s-50s).

12h45-13h15: Benoît Henriet (PhD candidate, Université Saint-Louis – Bruxelles): ‘Deglobalizing the postcolony? The Changing Faces of Palm oil labour around Kikwit (Democratic Republic of the Congo), 1911-2015’.

12h45-13h45. Lunch break

Panel 3. Citizenship in a (post)colonial world.

Discussant / chair : Pr. Amandine Lauro (Université Libre de Bruxelles)

13h45-15h15. KEYNOTE : Pr. Emma Hunter (University of Edinburgh) : ‘Citizenship in Post-Colonial Africa: Dialogues between Past and Present’.

15h15-15h30. Coffee Break.

15h30-16h. Edenz Maurice (PhD candidate, Centre d’Histoire – Sciences Po Paris): ‘Amerindians, Creoles and Maroons. Schools as laboratories of (post-)colonial citizenship in French Guiana, 1930s to 1960s ‘.

16h-16h30. Marie Fierens (Postdoctoral Fellow – Université Libre de Bruxelles) – Ornella Rovetta (Postdoctoral Fellow – Université Libre de Bruxelles) : ‘Citizenship at a Crossroads: Transitions and Elites in Congo and Rwanda c.1950-1962’.

16h30-17h. Alexander Knoth (PhD candidate, University of Potsdam): ‘The Social Construction of the Citizen. Patterns of political membership and belonging in the EU (1945-2011)’.

17h-17h30. Sarah Demart (Researcher, Université de Liège): ‘Postcolonial citizenship in Belgium: the case of the Belgian-Congolese in the era of globalisation’.

17h30-18h. Concluding remarks and final round of questions.

Day 3. 20 November.

Venue: Université Saint-Louis – Bruxelles, local P-61

9h-9h45. Welcoming and registration.

9h45-10h: Welcome speech: Pr. Nathalie Tousignant (Université Saint-Louis – Bruxelles).

10h-12h. Keynote Pr. Frederick Cooper (New York University) : “Empire and Beyond: Power and the State in the 20th Century”.

Discussants : Pr. Nathalie Tousignant (Université Saint-Louis – Bruxelles), Pr. Emma Hunter (University of Edinburgh), Pr. Véronique Dimier (Université Libre de Bruxelles).

12h-13h. Lunch Break.

13h-14h30. Concluding roundtable : with Pr. Frederick Cooper, Pr. Véronique Dimier, Pr. Nathalie Tousignant, Pr. Emma Hunter.

More information here

CFP: Proposals for Panels in ASA-UK, Cambridge 2016 Peace, Protest and Political Struggle Stream

Panels in this stream will look at different contexts, strategies and outcomes of political struggle, including violent and non-violent protest, strikes, demonstrations and rebellion. Topics may include the dynamics of urban and/or rural protests, environmental protest, the role of violence in political change, state and international responses to political struggles, the transnational politics of peace, conflict and protest. Proposals are welcome from historical and contemporary cases across Africa.

Contact: Devon Curtis (dc403@cam.ac.uk) and Marta Iniguez de Heredia (miniguez@ibei.org)

 

Panel 1. Conflict, State-Society Relations and the Role of the International

The understanding of conflicts as internal and intra-state has implied a view of the so-called international community as an independent even neutral peacebuilding actor. Although peacebuilding operations still work largely on the premise that they are external to the conflict they target, this view has been challenged academically. What has been problematised is the clear-cut line assumed between peace and conflict and between peacebuilding operations and the actors that impact on conflict. While these are important issues in the dynamics of conflict and conflict resolution, the panel would like to go further. States and state-society relations, particularly in Africa, are an important area of conflict and where peacebuilding mainly operates. Yet the particular configurations of states and state-society relations cannot be understood without an account of how international structures and actors condition them. Thus the panel would like to explore what role, if any, the international (understood as a structure, as concrete actors or otherwise) has in conditioning, interfering and even causing conflict. This could be linked to the role the international has played in structuring particular state-society relations that have turned into conflict, as well as how state-society relations have impacted in the way the international is structured. Panellists are encouraged to send contributions addressing questions such as: What or who is the international and how does it condition, interfere or cause conflict? To what extent is the international involved in structuring state-society relations that turn violent? How do state-society relations impact on the structure of the international, and what impact do these have when they turn violent?

 

Panel 2. Roots of violence and the politics of violence

Since the end of the Cold War there has been a shift in thinking about the roots of conflict in Africa and the developing world as a whole, and a widespread belief that conflicts do not follow ideological goals anymore. Three explanations have competed in accounting for the sources of conflict: an economic account focused of the gain-seeking goals of particular individuals; a geopolitical account, focused on the interest of powerful states in particular economic, security, or political goals; and an identity-based account, focused on culture, ancestral roots and religion, generally joined to land and belonging. These explanations, as well as the critiques and debates they have generated, have shed new light into the complexities of any particular conflict. However, what is surprising is that political protest and rebellion, as a political statement, have largely disappeared from the analyses of African conflicts. This panel would like to explore this absence, its rationale and, if there is any, the role of political protest, violence and ideology as an important vector affecting conflicts. Panellists are encouraged to ponder on the following themes: To what extent economic exploitation, identity and the struggle for land or particular recognition can be seen as separate from demands on distribution, political participation or politics writ large? Can/should conflicts in Africa be seen as a form of political rebellion or protest? If so, why has the language of protest disappeared from the explanations on the roots of conflicts?

 

Panel 3. The European response to conflicts: building peace or building power?

Peacebuilding debates have tended to be divided between a vision of peacebuilding as an instrument of world ordering, mainly at the hands of powerful actors, and a vision of peacebuilding as an increased commitment to normative and moral aims in world politics. The European Union with its new peacebuilding policy seems to portray itself as the latter. This normative peacebuilding ethos contrasts however with the militaristic approach that the EU and different European countries have taken in issues as varied as protecting fishing rights, protecting European borders, and several of its own peace operations. Several studies have already analysed the avenue the EU is taking regarding the maintenance or change of the status-quo in the internal and external politics of the societies it intervenes in. Other studies have focused on the EU’s internal dynamics, exploring whether it is possible to speak of a coherent peacebuilding approach and the links between those who lead the interventions and their interests abroad. This panel attempts to take stock of what is yet a new field of inquiry and explore critically the meaning of European peacebuilding. In particular, the panel would like to explore whether the EU can build a different kind of peace, or whether it is prone to reproduce power relations both within and without its borders. The panel also explores whether it is at all possible to speak of European peacebuilding as a distinct category and what that may mean for peacebuilding and International Relations more broadly.

The panel encourages contribution that would address these themes through a number of questions: Is it possible to speak of ‘European Peacebuilding’? If so, what does that mean theoretically and empirically? What kind of peace can the EU build? Is the EU prone to reproduce power relations both ‘home’ and ‘abroad’?

 

Please send your contributions in the form of a 200-word abstract and a short bio by the 25th of October to: miniguez@ibei.org. Panellists would be notified of acceptance by the 31st.