Association Conference “Belonging: Affective, moral, and political
practices in an interconnected world” 4-7 October 2017, Freie Universität
Berlin)
*Convenors: Andreas Streinzer (Vienna) and Jelena Tosic (Vienna/Bern)*
The social landscapes of inequalities in Europe (and elsewhere) are in
turmoil. At the same time and in spite of the on-going diversification of
societies, inequalities along class, gender, and ethnic categories seem to
stay relatively stable. Ethnographic fieldwork in contemporary Europe,
suggests that these dynamics is often manifested as a moral debate and
sometimes even panic.
In this panel we want to take up and explore the notion of “deservingness”
which represents a common emic and policy-related expression of moralizing
society and social justice. Asylum seekers are categorised into “deserving”
refugees and “undeserving” economic migrants. Unemployed are subject to
punitive activation policies in a general suspicion that they are not
deserving support. Access to health insurance and other social transfers is
moralised through notions of deservingness. By focusing on "senses” of
deservingness we aim at capturing the every-day affective, moral,
ideological and practice dimensions of how different people/ groups
conceive themselves and “others” as (un)equal, and (non) belonging to
(segments of) society under specific arrangements of power. It allows for
taking into account how social difference is continuously “sensed”, without
necessarily being accountably argued.
We invite scholars working on (forced) migration, socio-economic, and
political transformations in Europe to think through the intersections and
mutual constitution of inequalities in their research field and the
implications of such an analysis of for exploring contemporary Europe. We
further invite them to reflect upon the common “compartmentalization” and
“culturalization” of socio-economic inequalities and their relation to
neoliberal ideology. Finally, we invite ethnographic accounts of ways
different people/groups interpret and act upon present inequalities by
engaging with the past.
Please send your *abstract of max. 1.200 characters (incl. spaces) and also
a short version of max. 300 characters (incl. spaces)* directly to the
workshop convenors at:
*andreas.streinzer@univie.ac.at
*Deadline for the submission of abstracts: 15 February 2017*
Mag. Dr. Jelena Tosic
*Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Vienna*,
Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Vienna
https://ksa.univie.ac.at/institut/personen/wissenschaftlich/tosic
*Department of Social Anthropology, University of Bern*, Lerchenweg 36, CH
3012 Bern
