Call for Papers: Living together 'in' diversity. National societies in the multicultural age

The conference about „living together in diversity“ tries to capture the experience of the European societies and the diversity within – how it is imagined, narrated, organized, justified, and practiced within contemporary national societies.

Some of the essentials questions to be tackled are as follows:

• What makes multicultural societies circumscribed by state borders cohere together?
• What are the ways in which the nation becomes re-signified to accommodate the ethno-cultural diversity of its population?
• How do migrants position themselves in national narratives and political structures?
• What alternative modes and models of belonging are at work within present national societies?
• In which ways does the national continue to feature as a site of attachment?
• Is it necessary to have some form of common identification at the national scale to have functioning states in the first place?

The University prefers empirically-informed work. The privileged level of analysis is on the national scale, but papers focusing on sub-national and supra-national scales can also be welcomed inasmuch as they can offer insights regarding how living together in diversity works at the national scale. Regionally, the conference will focus on Europe, but contributions discussing other geographical contexts are also welcomed. Selected papers from the conference will be published.

The closing date for abstracts (250-300 words) is December 31st, 2011 and are to be sent to Tatiana Matejskova (MatejskovaT@ceu.hu).