Memory, Conflict and Space

Conflict is a staple of human experience, but remembrance of it takes many different forms. The concept of space is integral to understanding the enactment and representation of conflict and helps to explain conflicting practices of commemoration across the world.
The Archbishop Desmond Tutu Centre for War and Peace Studies is proud to host an international conference on Memory, Conflict and Space. We invite papers from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, including International Relations, History, Geography, Peace and Conflict Studies, Literature, Performing Arts, Politics, Media Studies and related disciplines.

The conference will take place at Liverpool Hope University from 10 to 12 July 2013.

Papers can address the real, virtual, imaginary, performed and lived spaces in which conflict unfolds as well as the role memorialisation plays therein. We particularly encourage submissions related to the following topics:

- The creation and contestation of historical memory
- Empirical case studies in relation to space, conflict and commemoration
- Representations of conflict in public and private spaces, including literary and artistic representations
- The instrumentalisation and manipulation of space
- Discourses of resistance for and against community spatial narratives
- Processes of transforming space through acts of remembrance
- Peacebuilding and changing historical narratives

Please submit abstracts of up to 300 words or full panel abstracts (4 papers max) to tutu@hope.ac.uk before 31 December 2012. Successful applicants will be notified by 15 February 2013.

We will consider successful submissions for the Archbishop Desmond Tutu Centre for War and Peace Studies working paper series. It is also expected that the best papers presented will be included in a special edition in an academic journal.

In addition, the conference organisers will guide a field trip to selected spaces of commemoration in Liverpool. There will also be an opportunity to engage in a site-specific workshop led by performance artist Lena Simic.

The organising team:
Dr Stefanie Kappler, kapples@hope.ac.uk
Dr Bryce Evans, evansb1@hope.ac.uk
Dr Terry Phillips, phillim@hope.ac.uk
Dr Duncan Light, lightd@hope.ac.uk

http://www.hope.ac.uk/warandpeace/
http://www.hope.ac.uk/media/liverpoolhope/contentassets/documents/desmondtutucentre/