Call for Papers
Exeter Centre for Ethno-Political Studies’ (EXCEPS) 2012 Conference
‘The Construction(s) of Conflict and Peace’
9-10 July 2012
University of Exeter, Streatham Campus
Conference Convenor: Professor Gareth Stansfield
Organizing Committee: Dr Mary-Alice Clancy, Mrs Zoё Jennings, Dr Klejda Mulaj and Dr
Clémence Scalbert-Yücel
The manner in which conflicts are analyzed and represented are intimately linked to
conflicts’ various stages, including efforts to mitigate and/or abate their violent effects,
be it through military intervention, humanitarian aid and/or the creation of new political
dispensations. The shared understandings that provide the bases for these representations
and analyses, however, are the products of various discursive practices within governments,
NGOs, academia, journalism and manifold cultural productions (e.g., literature, visual arts,
museums, etc.). These practices are contingent and messy, and often deeply contested.
The conference will investigate these practices from a multidisciplinary perspective,
incorporating insights from both practitioners and academics. It seeks to uncover how the
interplay of economic incentives, organizational cultures, political and social climates and
personal and collective beliefs lead to the production and privileging of particular types
of knowledge vis-à-vis conflict and peace. It also seeks to explore how these processes
vary across occupations, disciplines, time and space. For instance, how do donor and NGO
priorities affect the production of ‘local’ knowledge within a conflict site? Are certain
stakeholders accorded greater legitimacy vis-à-vis knowledge production? How does
access to conflict areas and privileged informants, language and translation, as well as the
processes of data collection and representation inform specific conflict interpretations and
mitigation efforts? Similarly, if a conflict is located within the ’academic periphery’, how do
the practices and priorities of the ‘core’ (e.g., US academia) shape knowledge production? In
terms of time, how does knowledge change as conflicts transition away from violence, thus
becoming ripe for ‘lesson’ extraction and exportation?
Beyond governments, NGOs, the media and academia, the conference also seeks to
investigate how cultural productions create, affirm and/or challenge knowledge of
peace and conflict. Specifically, how is knowledge of conflict and peace encoded through
architecture and space planning, the visual arts, literature, museums, etc.? Do the different
organizational cultures and intended audiences governing the production of these
cultural artefacts create different types of knowledge? How are these types of knowledge
incorporated and/or challenged by other knowledge producers within conflicts and peace
processes?
The conference committee welcomes abstracts and panel proposals on any aspect of this
theme. To submit a proposal for a paper or panel, please send an abstract of a maximum of
500 words to exceps-conference@exeter.ac.uk by 15 January 2012. Successful applicants
will be notified by 15 February 2012. As a limited student travel fund will be available,
please indicate in your abstract if you wish to be considered for this fund. For further
information, please visit the conference website at http://centres.exeter.ac.uk/exceps/
events/conference.html
