IAIS Postgraduate Conference 2017 - "Conflict, Borders and Contested Space"

We encourage papers that take up the theme in innovative ways, exploring not only conflict, borders and the contestation of space, but also how differing research approaches can stimulate new academic findings and contest the largely neoliberal dominance of studies in the field. We particularly welcome submissions that highlight the connections between the Middle East and North Africa, and other areas of the globe, and aim to foster dialogue and discussion between scholars from a wide array of backgrounds and disciplines. We especially encourage postgraduates and recent PhD graduates to apply.

Potential topics for papers include:

1.     Conflict

• Changing patterns of conflict, contestation and dissent in the 21st Century
• Post-colonialism, the modern state and contemporary settler-colonialism
• ‘Radicalisation’, counter-terrorism and critical terrorism studies
• Borders of identity and sectarianism
• Contentious activism, social movements and tactics of political protest

2.      Borders

• The historical development, and changing conceptualisations, of sovereignty, borders and boundaries
• Borders, the economy and the state in a ‘glocalised’ world
• Migration, securitisation and the ‘refugee crisis’
• Borderlands, ’non-space’ and ‘bare life’ in the age of liquid modernity

3.      Contested Space

• Securitisation and its spatial projections
• Gender-based, diasporic and minority-community articulations of identity
• Archaeology and geography in the making of contested space
• Spatial approaches to academic practice and their future implications
• Construction and reproduction of contested space(s)

The conference will include a key note speech by Dr. Bassel Salloukh, Associate Professor of Political Science at the Social Sciences Department at Lebanese American University, entitled ‘Demystifying Sectarian Narratives of the Middle East after the Popular Uprisings’.