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International Doctoral Summer School: Identity and Interculturality

International Doctoral Summer School: Identity and Interculturality

Publié le par Alexandre Gefen (Source : Fred Dervin)

*** FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT ***


Call for papers

International Doctoral Summer School

Identity and Interculturality: Research Methods


To be held at Roskilde University, Denmark on 4-8 July 2011


Invited guests

• Michael Byram, (Professor Emeritus, School of Education, University of

Durham),

• Claire Kramsch (University of California at Berkeley, USA),

• Alex Gillespie (University of Stirling, Scotland)

• Mike Baynham (University of Leeds, England).


The event is convened by Fred Dervin (University of Turku, Finland) and

Karen Risager (Roskilde University, Denmark). It is initiated by the

international research network Cultnet and is hosted by the doctoral

programme Intercultural Studies at Roskilde University.


Aims and Target Group of the Summer School

The aims of the Roskilde International Summer School are threefold:

• to help students grasp and critically engage with the notions of

identity and interculturality and see how they are related

• to get to know various research methods that can help students to work

within cultural and social complexity

• to discuss their own research topics and to get to test various research

tools that can help them to move on in/improve their research

The Summer School is meant to be transdisciplinary, and the target group

is PhD students from all disciplinary backgrounds who are especially

interested in methodologies related to this field of study.


Thematic Areas

Discussions at the Summer School are to be organised in four thematic areas:

Education: identity and interculturality in education and learning

Migration: identity and interculturality in migration and other kinds of

mobility

Literature: identity and interculturality in literary representation and

literary practice

Technologies: identity and interculturality developed via digital

technologies and media


Identity and Interculturality

The concept of identity is one of the pivotal concepts of our times – but

also one of the most controversial. It has been theorized from many

different disciplinary angles in the humanities and the social sciences,

and has been a central concept in the interdisciplinary field of Cultural

Studies. It covers a richness of perspectives such as identity and

experience, identity and the body, identity and politics, identity and

recognition, etc., and a wide range of sociocultural parametres have been

explored: identity and gender, age, profession, nationality, ethnicity,

race, language, religion, class, etc. In today's research there seems to

be an agreement on the fact that identity doesn't exist in itself but that

it is constructed and thus not a given.

Interculturality has come to be an umbrella term for a view of the world

that foregrounds complexity of meaning production and identity

construction at both micro and macro levels. Here as well, the terms are

legio to express these phenomena: cultural diversity, transculturality,

cultural complexity, cultural hybridity, etc. Researchers now emphasize

that these shouldn't be used interchangeably as they are not synonymous.

This means that researchers must position themselves clearly within the

terminology.

The study of identity and interculturality is also the study of a whole

array of social problems and power-issues like dominance, inequality,

subalternity, exclusion/inclusion, minority/majority, othering,

marginalization, discrimination, essentialization, ethnicism, racism,

linguicism, culturalism – and their consequences for the subject, both

the dominated and the dominator.


Focus on Research Methods

In the vast and fertile field of studies on identity and interculturality

the focus will be on research methods. For novice researchers the issue of

researching complexity is very challenging. They often work within

postmodern, post-structuralist or deconstructivist paradigms, which have

questioned solid understandings of basic concepts such as identity,

subjectivity and culture. But they may find it hard to identify analytical

tools that can allow working within complexity, plurality and instability.

The focus will primarily be on qualitative methods, such as ethnographic

studies, conversation analysis, dialogical studies, discourse and

narrative studies, biographical studies, action research, as well as

triangulations of these. However, we do not want to treat the

qualitative/quantitative divide too absolutely. In some research projects

on identities it may be highly relevant to supplement or contextualize by

means of quantitative methods.

In methodological reflections, the language aspect is often important,

both in the sense that much of the research process is indeed discursive,

and in the sense that all people involved in research, including

informants, speak one or more languages, and choose to communicate in one

or more language(s), perhaps mediated by an interpreter. In research on

interculturality, in particular, the question of what languages are

spoken and by whom, may be highly relevant, as the choice of languages is

neither culturally nor politically neutral.


Working Methods

The Summer School will be composed of:

• lectures by experts + discussants

• parallel workshops on the above-mentioned four thematic areas. In the

workshops students will present their work and get feedback from the

experts

• roundtables on specific issues related to methodology


Applying for the Summer School

The Summer School is open to anyone registered in a PhD programme in any

country and in any discipline related to the field of study in question.

Prospective participants should send an application including the

following information:

• contact details

• institution and year registered

• name of supervisor

• current situation and estimated date of completion of thesis

• thesis title

• abstract (<300 words + bibliography) describing the paper that will be

presented at the Summer School

• thematic area (education, migration, literature, technologies)


Duration of paper is 30 min. The working language of the Summer School is

English.


Please send your application to secretary Tinna Kryger: tkryger@ruc.dk


Deadline for submission of abstract: Monday 28 February 2011

Answers to applicants: Thursday 17 March 2011

Deadline for submission of full papers (4000 words): Monday 30 May 2011

Deadline for essays after Summer School (1000 words): Monday 15 August 2011


ECTS and Assessment

Participation in the Summer School equals 8 ECTS. The assessment comprizes

project excerpt focusing on methodology (= the above-mentioned full paper)

(33%), presentation and discussion (33%), and an essay containing further

reflections on methodology based on the Summer School (33%).


Participation Fee

50 EUR (the fee covers lunches and coffee breaks). Travel costs and

accommodation are the participants' responsibility. Information regarding

accommodation will be sent to participants.


For further information and / or to register, please contact Tinna Kryger:

tkryger@ruc.dk


See also the website of the Summer School:

http://magenta.ruc.dk/cuid/uddannelser/phd_interkulturelle_studier/summer_school_2011/