University of Bergen and Uni Rokkan Centre: The Ida Blom Conference

Venue: Bergen
Time: 14-15 October 2013
Deadline: 1st of March 2013; Conference Fee

Norway was a pioneer state in Europe introducing the general vote for both men and women in 1913. As part of the 100-year celebration, The University of Bergen and Uni Rokkan Centre will organize an international conference on gendered citizenship. The conference is named after Professor Emerita Ida Blom from the University of Bergen, recently appointed an honorary member of the American Historical Society. Her groundbreaking work on citizenship, women’s suffrage and women’s health issues has inspired academics in Norway and abroad and has also had great public impact.

As we have entered the new millennium, women’s right to vote is almost taken for granted. Yet many issues are still to be solved. The rights, privileges, and duties of citizens are not equally distributed – neither within nation states nor across the globe. The concept of citizenship is a way to reflect on that distribution, highlighting right’s claims, participation, entitlements and voice, as well as political, economic and cultural processes of inclusion and exclusion. The notion of citizenship also evokes questions of belonging, language, identity and the body, calling for a thorough rethinking of what it means to be a human being and a member of society in the world today.

We want to ask how gender issues both influence and challenge the meaning of citizenship. The conference embraces an interdisciplinary and broadly framed approach to historical and contemporary questions concerning gender equality and democracy, both in the political and in the cultural sphere. We aim to gather a diverse group of academics whose work on gendered citizenship address democratic possibilities, rights and political participation of past, present and future citizens. The conference will be global in scope and gendered citizenship will be problematized in a transnational perspective. The global focus is crucial to our conference, not the least because participation and democratic representation is unequally distributed around the world.

Keynotes

• Professor Emerita Ida Blom, University of Bergen, Norway
• Associate Professor of Sociology Mounira Maya Charrad, University of Texas at Austin, USA
• Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies Jasbir Puar, Rutgers University, USA
• Professor in Gender Studies Birthe Siim, University of Ålborg, Denmark
• University Professor Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Columbia University, USA
• Professor of Communication and Media Studies Liesbet van Zoonen, Loughborough University and Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands.

Call for Panels and Papers
In accordance with the broad scope of the conference we welcome panels and papers on topics that include and exceed those that are ultimately tied to participation in the formal political system. Citizens exercise their rights in several ways on a plethora of arenas and we therefore encourage contributions that explore gendered citizenship in various societal contexts. We invite you to take an explorative approach to key concepts such as citizenship, politics and democracy, and emphasise changing theoretical and historical understandings of gender. We hope this expanded understanding of political participation will generate new ideas and knowledge on how citizenship is practiced, debated and negotiated in past and current societies.

The panel sessions are divided into three thematic strands: Representation, Democracy and Freedom; Sexual Citizenship; and Gender and the Public Sphere. These themes reflect our goal of creating an arena for young and senior scholars across disciplines, like history, political science, gender studies, media studies, literature and the arts, anthropology, economy, law and sociology, to mention some.

Representation, Democracy and Freedom
This thematic strand addresses a variety of issues concerning gender and political representation, democracy and freedom, both historically and in regard to contemporary struggles. Historically feminism has been a struggle both for inclusion and for liberation, calling into question the relationship between representation and freedom. This strand opens for an exploration of the struggle for political power as well as of the effects of the increase of women in politics, especially as they concern theories and practices of freedom and democracy.

Topics include but are not limited to:

• Global/local institutions and equality
• The history of the struggle for the vote
• Gendered notions of freedom and democracy
• Representation and gender balance
• Migration and political inclusion
• Economic challenges

Sexual Citizenship
Sexual citizenship signals interest in sexuality, intimacy, erotics and bodypolitics, calling into question the public/private as well as the culture/nature divide. Issues include state regulation of sexuality and reproduction, sexual rights and entitlements, group recognition and questions of intersectionality, both relating to and exceeding the binary gender frame. We welcome panels and papers that explore various aspects of such issues as well as the rise of the concept of sexual citizenship itself.

Topics include but are not limited to:

• The production and regulation of bodies
• The politics of intimacy and everyday life
• Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex issues and rights
• Sexual and gender based violence
• Family Law, Marriage and partnership contracts
• Parenthood, reproduction and reproductive technologies
• Pornography and prostitution

Gender and the Public Sphere
This thematic strand concerns a variety of issues concerning gender and citizenship in the public sphere, historically and today. Gendered citizenship is constructed and represented in the cultural and political public sphere, finding diverse expressions in mainstream publics, sub-publics and counterpublics, through different forms of participation and activism, and in popular culture, art, literature and in the media. This thematic strand invites scholars to explore the cultural and social conditions of democracy and freedom in various public spheres and to investigate the ongoing debate on what should be private and what should be public.

Topics include but are not limited to:

• Gendered representations in art, literature, media and popular culture
• Gender, politics and power in public debate
• Media use, identity and cultural citizenship
• Social media, democracy and participatory culture
• Activism, Social movements, counter-publics and sub-publics

Roundtable Discussions:
There will be two roundtable discussions, one on the vote and representation and one on theory, equality and democracy. Confirmed panelists for these two debates are:
Senior Researcher Cathrine Holst, Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo, Norway
Professor Emerita of history June Purvis, University of Portsmouth, Great Britain
Associate Professor in Political Science and Senior Lecturer in Gender Studies Malin Rönnblom, Umeå University, Sweden.

Practical Information:
You are invited to suggest both coordinated panels and individual papers. We welcome contributions in the range from scholars and Ph.D. candidates to professors. Abstracts should have maximum 300 words and coordinated panels/workshops should have 3 to 4 participants. The conference will have three thematic strands reflected in three parallel sessions running throughout the conference. You should specify which of the following strands your proposal is directed at.
The deadline for submission of abstracts or suggestions for panels/papers is 1st of March 2013. Final registration day for the conference is 1st of June 2013. Conference Fee including meals and banquet: 200 US Dollars. Reduced fee for Ph.D. Students: 150 US Dollar.
The abstracts are submitted at the website for the Ida Blom Conference at: www.uib.no/idablom2013/en. If you have any questions about the submission of abstracts or the conference, please send an e-mail to gencit2012@uib.no, or contact:
Senior Researcher Hilde Danielsen, E-mail: Hilde.Danielsen@uni.no, Phone: (+47) 55 58 89 27
Adviser Bente Krossøy, E-mail: Bente.Krossoy@adm.uib.no, Phone: (+47) 55 58 20 23

Sorce: International Federation for Research in Women’s History/Federation Internationale pour la Recherche en Histoire des Femmes NEWSLETTER