Call for Papers
Making visible the invisibles: Research on inequalities and injustices in cities and urban environments
What does it mean to be invisible in the city? Who and what might we think of as being invisible? And how can we tackle the forces/structures at play in the distribution of (in)visibility in cities and the injustices and inequalities bound-up with them? This international conference looks at how certain groups, issues and species are marginalised in urban life and larger territories, and considers the role researchers can play in creating and tackling these invisibilities.
This conference will gather contributions from researchers who have sought, in different ways and in different thematic areas (nature and environment, politics and governance, society and public services, technologies and change, architecture and urban planning etc.), to make the invisible visible, to make the implicit explicit.
The conference is structured around the following research questions, to which contributors are invited to link their interventions:
- What are the blindspots in current urban and territorial research and how can they be identified? What (and where) are the unheard voices, the unresearched phenomena and challenges? What are the implications of these invisibilities?
- Which empirical methodologies or conceptual approaches can be used to explore hidden or discrete phenomena in urban and territorial areas?
- What is the potential of participatory research to build bridges between research and activism and explore under-investigated fields and unheard voices?
- How can the results of research on the invisible (communication and ethical issues) be best visualised, mapped, and disseminated?
Here are some indicative topics. Submissions that go beyond the following suggestions but contribute to answering the previous questions are welcomed. The different panels of the conference will be established depending on the submissions.
- Topic 1 - Discover hidden urban nature
- Topic 2 - Unveil partial visions in research
- Topic 3 - Make visible and tangible equity in spaces
- Topic 4 - Uncovering social invisibility and marginalization
- Topic 5 - Governance, innovations, and digital transformations
Submissions
Contributions are open to junior and senior academics, public administration, private companies, and other stakeholders interested in challenges in urban environments.
Contributions can take one of the following three formats:
- Classical presentation (15 min) with visual support (e.g. slides)
- A1 poster with a pitching session
- Short stand-up pitch: 3 minutes (possibly illustrated by a visual) to present a topic, summarize a result, ask a question to the audience, etc.
Abstract submissions must be 300 to 500 words long, written in English, and methodological and/or theoretical approaches, main objectives, and preliminary results must be highlighted.
Proposals must be submitted by 1 June 2023 via this form.
Accepted applicants will be contacted by 30 June.
Sharing Knowledge in the Middle Ages
For several decades, research on the forms and the dynamics of knowledge in the Middle Ages has been based on a binary logic, aiming both at the accumulation of positive knowledge and at the changes in the field of knowledge which invite to the critical revision of the previous conceptions and which end up attributing a particular identity to each stage of medieval cultural history. From this point of view, modern studies resume the landmarks of the thought of medieval intellectuals, such as the 13th century efforts to classify and to order, in a time when the culture of the cloisters was followed by the culture of the universities.
Since the objective of this conference is to facilitate exchanges between specialists from different academic fields, possible topics include:
- Contents and codifications of knowledge
- Networks and contexts for the dissemination of knowledge
- Forms and avatars of the dissemination of knowledge
- Knowledge and critical thinking
Submission of proposals :
Proposals (maximum 300 words) accompanied by a brief bio-bibliographic presentation are to be sent to the following addresses:
- corina.anton@lls.unibuc.ro
- mianda.cioba@lls.unibuc.ro
- luminita.diaconu@lls.unibuc.ro
- ecaterina.lung@istorie.unibuc.ro
Please specify in the body of the message the title of the communication, the name of the author(s) and the host institution(s). If the proposal is submitted before the deadline, colleagues who need time to obtain funding will be answered sooner after evaluation by the Scientific Committee.
Acceptance of proposals: contributors will be notified no later than 15 October 2023.
Expected length of presentations: 20 minutes (followed by 10 minutes of discussions).
Languages: French, English, Spanish, Italian.
Place : University of Bucharest. The conference will take place in a hybrid format. Travel and accommodation costs are in charge of the participants. The selected papers will be published in 2024, after the evaluation of the final texts by the scientific committee.
Participation fee:
- Academics, researchers: 50 euros (face-to-face participation) / 35 euros (online participation).
- PhD candidates, students pursuing a master’s degree: 30 euros (face-to-face participation) / 20 euros (online participation).