Fourth Critical European Studies Workshop, Goethe-University Frankfurt, 23-24 June 2017

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This is the fourth edition of a successful series of workshops put together by European scholars, students and activists with the support of CPERN, the Arbeitskreis kritische Europaforschung (AkE/AkG) and the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung.

This year the CES workshop continues to challenge inconsistencies and blind spots that permeate European Studies and push the boundaries of the critical in the analyses of the area’s problematic. The themes discussed will include the political crisis of the EU and authoritarian modes of politics, the uprise of the new right, questions of climate, and problems of resistance and strategy in production and reproduction as well as in politics and on the streets.

The workshop provides a forum for scholars and activists to meet and discuss critical theoretical and empirical perspectives on the configuration of European capitalism, the EU and political resistance. Previous editions were held at the University of Greenwich in London 2017,at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona (2015), and at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (2014).

In order to foster a constructive debate the workshop will avoid the ‘usual’ conference structure with individual paper presentations and foregrounds collective discussions instead. We will proceed on the basis of thematic block sessions, with each tabling a core text that all participants will have read beforehand. Each of the sessions in the workshop starts with a brief introduction, and 6 participants (to be announced) discussing and enhancing the perspectives developed in that session’s core text from the angle of their own research/activism. This is followed by a mumble where all participants share their ideas in small groups, after which the floor is opened for a plenary discussion.

Confirmed Discussants include Sonja Buckel, Daniela Caterina, Ian Bruff, Daniel Mullis, Carina Book, Manuela Boatca, Sigfrido Ramirez, Tamas Gerocs, Stefanie Hürtgen, Daniela Tepe-Belfrage, Andreas Bieler, Nikolai Huke, Thomas Sablowski, Yuliya Yurchenko, Agnes Gagyi, Daniel Keil, Tibor Meszmann, Theodorus Rakopoulos and more to be announced soon.

The workshop is open to all scholars and activists interested in critical perspectives on European issues. It is free of charge but registration is required. See the full programme below.

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CPERN Call for Papers – IIPPE/CPERN/IPE Conference

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IIPPE/CPERN/IPE Conference
September 13-15, 2017
Berlin School of Economics and and Law
 
In the context of the IIPPE/CPERN/IPE conference, the ESA Critical Political Economy Research Network CPERN invites paper and panel suggestions on the suggested streams below, but also welcomes suggestions that fit with the conference themes more broadly, which are ‘inequality’ and ‘instability’.
 
To contribute to the conference’s overall themes, CPERN calls for papers and panels that seek to destabilise perceptions in political economy that breed closed talking shops and echo chambers. We aim to talk about how the urgencies of rampant inequality and instability bring us to query how and why they have become so widespread in the global  capitalist economy; to critically discuss how social and structural imbalances are fueled by extremely unbalanced power relations; and, importantly, to consider how we can tackle these issues, whether by challenging  stagnant ideas in political economy and theories, or disputing the conditions under which instability and inequality have been emerging.
 
The following reflect desired CPERN contributions based on suggestions from CPERN members and the Executive Board: Monica Clua Losada, Angela Wigger, Phoebe Moore and Caroline Metz. However, feel free to submit papers/panel proposals that may not precisely fit with the below, but fit with the conference themes instability and inequality.
 
 
Paper/panel suggestions submitted here: http://iippe.org/wp/?page_id=2928
Make sure to select ‘CPERN’ in the category of Working Groups when you submit!
 
The extended deadline is April 8 2017 23:59 CET. Please email Phoebe Moore for questions: p.moore at mdx.ac.uk
 
Themes (in alphabetical order)
 
Confronting (inherently unstable) capitalism  
This stream will critically analyse (global) anti-capitalist, anarchist, feminist, cooperative and other movements that both destabilise capitalist tendencies and represent moments that disrupt relations of domination and exploitation, but also remain unsure about how to develop into more substantial anti-capitalist movements. Panels seek contributions about how social movements have met transformations in capitalism, or new left convergences are being coopted by political parties, e.g. in Brazil, Rojava, Chile, the Czech Republic, Spain, landless workers movement, and the radical left in Africa and more.
 
Debt and financialised capitalism
This stream speaks to the interrelated workings of ‘states’ and ‘markets’ in the reproduction of (financialised) capitalism. To what extent are public and private actors cooperating in the creation, expansion and reshaping of markets? How are state-market interactions evolving in an economy reliant on and fuelled by household and student debt? How does financialised capitalism impact inequality in terms of gender, class and race? What are the current or potential forms of resistance to markets and the commodification of debt, and to financialised capitalism overall?
 
Destabilising labour processes: The machinery question
The machine question is back with a vengeance with the threat of automation, the algorithmic boss, gig economies and platform work. This stream looks at problems that the contemporary machine question poses for organising workers and resistance. To do so, we will look at extreme quantified workplaces with self-tracking and monitoring of all-of-life and affective digitalised labour, changing concepts of urban guerrillas and hacking, digital intermediation platforms and the human price of everyday rhetorics in the digital economy.
 
Regional destabilisation and uneven capitalist development
Regions have risen and fallen. This stream will look at areas of destabilisation of regional groupings and integration practices, from the much-heralded alternatives seen in the Pink Tide (and its fall), to questions of continuation and challenges to neoliberalism through regional disintegration. How has regional change impacted age-old inequalities of gender, class, race? Discussions may include the urgency of reviewing regional significance brought to the fore with Brexit, critical perspectives on the interface of EU investment politics with trade/trade agreements and on recarving  (virtual) accumulation spaces as mechanisms of capitalism’s transformativity.
 
Confirmed speakers and contributors: David Bailey, Adam Fishwick, Michael Goddard, Baruch Gottleib, Ted Huang, Athina Karatzogianni, Zoe Malone, Caroline Metz, Johnna Montgomerie, Phoebe Moore, Anitra Nelson, Alex Nunn, Sophie Price, Alex Prichard, Dani Tepe-Belfrage, Leo Uestebay, Wanda Vrasti, Angela Wigger, Owen Worth, Yuliya Yurchenko
 

CPERN (RN06) CfP at the 13th ESA conference

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Call for Papers – ‘Resisting Capitalism in, under and beyond Authoritarian Neoliberalism – Radical Praxis, Real democracy and (Prefigurative) Alternatives in the 21st Century’
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The Critical Political Economy Research Network (CPERN/ RN06) is inviting paper and panel submissions for its sessions at the 13th European Sociological Association (ESA) Conference in Athens, 29 August to 1 September 2017.
Capitalism has been resilient to various crises and contradictions, including the current global crisis. At the same time, ever more cracks are opening up, pointing to avenues of resistance and alternatives to capitalism. We interrogate the mechanisms and processes that facilitate the reproduction of the continued accumulation of capital: reproductive labour, inequalities of class, gender, race and ethnicity, capitalist competition and technological innovations, the ubiquitous role of debt, the disciplinary role of the judicial and administrative state apparatus and in particular, coercive state practices that suppress and marginalise anti-capitalist oppositional forces.
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We are keen to receive paper proposals which focus on the analysis and critique of features of capitalism and anti-capitalist resistance. Some of the topics we would like to invite abstracts in are:
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  • Capitalist spheres of production, trade and finance
  • Authoritarian neoliberalism, coercion and the disciplining of labour
  • The role of trade unions, social movements and new Left political parties/platforms
  • Anarchism, feminism, new materialism and Marxism – Building alternatives from horizontal escapes
  • The materialities of ecological challenges
– The political economy of migration and human trafficking
  • Damaged lives, intensified precarisation and the rise of inequalities

  • Reclaiming the Caliban and the Witch: social reproduction as a source of value-creation

We are interested in all of the above plus more, and wish for the conference to cover a wide range of topics. As such, we seek contributions from scholars and activists with an interest in political economy research, regardless of their disciplinary affiliation and whether they are in academia or not. We also hope to attract a diverse range of participants, from a variety of countries and backgrounds.

Notes for authors
Abstracts should not exceed 250 words. Abstracts must be submitted online to the submission platform, see below. Abstracts sent by email cannot be accepted. Abstracts will be peer-reviewed and selected for presentation by the Research Network; the letter of notification will be sent by the conference software system in April 2017.
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New Abstract submission deadline : 15 February 2017.
Conference website and abstract submission platform: http://www.europeansociology.org/conferences/13th-conference-2017/. 
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If you have further questions regarding this call, the conference or the Critical Political Economy Research Network, feel free to contact monica.clualosada@utrgv.edu or a.wigger@fm.ru.nl.
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Do not hesitate to share the call with colleagues and students who might not be part of the CPERN community yet!

CPERN & IIPPE Call for Papers and Activist Proposals: The Political Economy of Inequalities and Instabilities in the 21st Century

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7th Annual Conference in Political Economy – “The Political Economy of Inequalities and Instabilities in the 21st Century”

Berlin School of Economics and Law, Berlin, September 13-15, 2017.

Organised by International Initiative for Promoting Political Economy (IIPPE), Critical Political Economy Research Network (CPERN) & Berlin Institute for International Political Economy (IPE)

CPERN is co-organising this conference. If you have any questions about submitting panels or papers to a CPERN stream contact Phoebe Moore p.moore@mdx.ac.uk

IIPPE, CPERN and IPE call for general submissions for the Conference but particularly welcome those on its core themes of inequalities and instabilities, which will be the focus for the plenary sessions. Proposals for presentations will, however, be considered on all aspects of political economy. New participants committed to political economy, interdisciplinarity, history of economic thought, critique of mainstream economics, and/or their application to policy analysis and activism are encouraged to submit an abstract.

Submissions may be made as (a) proposals for individual papers (b) proposals for panels (c) proposals for streams of panels (d) proposals on activism. CPERN is looking particularly for papers and panels on the themes of inequality and instability in the areas of critical global political economy, as explained further in the Electronic Proposal Form.

To submit a proposal, please go to this Electronic Proposal Form, and follow the instructions carefully. (Copy and paste the link into your Internet browser if not working with a click:https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfvn0ZIEGLNtGtCck-WJvhLbTtm0kZkzAmKTNb9yxUjDrjtng/viewform)

The extended deadline for proposals is 8 April 2017 at 23.59. All other deadline dates are stated in the Electronic Proposal Form.

For general information about IIPPE, its Working Groups, and the Conference, click here. For general information about CPERN, click here. For general information about IPE, click here.

We look forward to an outstanding IIPPE/CPERN/IPE Conference in Berlin.

The Conference Organising Committee,

Al Campbell, Trevor Evans, Niels Hahn, Phoebe Moore, Alfredo Saad Filho

Third Critical European Studies (CES) workshop, University of Greenwich (UK), 18-19 June

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The workshop follows previous CES workshops held at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona (2015) and at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (2014), put together with the support of CPERN scholars. This year, additional support is generously provided by AkE/AkG,  BISA-IPEG and Greenwich University Business School. The workshop provides a forum for scholars and activists to meet and discuss critical theoretical and empirical perspectives on the configuration of European capitalism, the EU and political resistance. This year’s workshop will focus on Europe’s many crises (economic, social, political, ecological, geopolitical) and their consequences, as well as the potential and challenges for resistance, particularly through education and academia. The themes discussed will include forms of dispossession and punitive mechanisms under neoliberalism; challenges to class compromises and social reproduction; and the crises of Europe understood in relation to ‘the rest of the world’, for instance focusing on the migrants’ crisis.

The workshop is open to all scholars and activists interested in critical perspectives on European issues. It is free of charge but registration is required. See the full programme below.

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Call for Papers – Mid-term conference: (Conflicting) Political Ontologies and Implications for Transformative Action

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CPERN in collaboration with the Institute of Labour Studies, Ljubljana:  (Conflicting) Political Ontologies and Implications for Transformative Action  

27-28th of May 2016, Department of Sociology, University of Ljubljana

Ontology is often overlooked in discussions about political thought and action. Several emerging debates reflect different and conflicting positions that are often either assumed, invisible or intentionally opaque. Breaking down the apparent barriers between philosophy and theory and theory and action, we welcome discussions on ontologies of power and transformative action. Critical realists have long demanded that ontology be taken seriously and have encouraged discussions on how ‘reality’ conditions action. New materialist and anti- and post-capitalist debates tease out the assumptions across Marxism and poststructuralism, and demand new ways of thinking about specific thought formations, ethical and moral frameworks. The current crisis has forced us to think, explore, and practice multiple ways of organising, resisting and building prefigurative practices. Understanding ontology not only as a philosophical standpoint but also as a myriad of calls for action will allow us to understand how people organise and what motivates us to do so/prevents us from doing so, and to initiate new ways of communicating and reflecting on our own ontological praxis.

We are keen to receive paper proposals which focus on exploring political and social ontologies for transformative action. Some of the topics we would like to invite in particular are:

  • Ontologies of capitalist spheres of production, trade and finance
  • Ontologies of praxis in trade unions, social movements and new Left political parties/platforms
  • Anarchism, feminism, new materialism and Marxism – ontological friends or foes?
  • The materialities of ecological challenges
  • The political economy of migration and human trafficking
  • Building tomorrow’s future today (with yesterday’s historical conditions) – Prefigurative practice and its relationship to time, space and capitalism
  • Damaged lives, intensified precarisation and horizontalist escapes
  • Reclaiming the Caliban and the Witch: social reproduction as a source of value-creation  

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