Traveling Norms and the Politics of Contention

Convenors

Prof. Dr. David Chiavacci (Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies)
Prof. Dr. Benedikt Korf (Department of Geography)
Prof. Dr. Fabian Schäfer (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg)
Prof. Dr. Andrea Büchler (Institute of Law)
Prof. Dr. Bettina Dennerlein (Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies)
Prof. Dr. Katharina Michaelowa (Department of Political Science)
Prof. Dr. Shalini Randeria (The Graduate Institute, Geneva)
Dr. Ralph Weber (URPP Asia and Europe)

Locations

• Thursday, October 24: Room KO2 F-152, Karl Schmid-Strasse 4, 8001 Zurich
• Friday, October 25: Room KOL G-217, Rämistrasse 71, 8006 Zurich
• Saturday, October 26: Room KO2 F-152, Karl Schmid-Strasse 4, 8001 Zurich

Description

The URPP Asia and Europe’s Research Field 3 Norms and Social Order(s), which is responsible for the organization of this year’s annual conference, studies the frameworks of normative beliefs and ordering systems that are established on various levels supportive of the exchange of ideas, goods, persons and global interdependence. Specific subjects to be addressed include questions of economic and political interdependencies, the transnationalization of law, the interaction of individuals, local communities, national, and international organizations, as well as global discourses on statehood and development.

Within this theoretical framework, this year’s conference will look into the actors, mechanisms and processes through which different norms and ideas (of citizenship, equality, human rights, etc.) are negotiated in spaces of contentious politics, and how norms and ideas travel from and to different places and contexts, what happens to them when they travel, and how they gain legitimacy and credibility in specific settings (or not). The conference will bring together scholars working on three empirical spaces of contentious politics: the Arab spring, the anti-nuclear movement and protests against special economic zones, with a particular focus on human rights and their circulation, media mechanisms for the diffusion of ideas and the power struggles in different spheres (political, legal, social) to make specific norms legitimate.

The aim of this international conference is to strengthen and expand international cooperation with scholars and global institutions working on similar subjects. Moreover, it will provide URPP Asia and Europe’s doctoral candidates with the opportunity to present their research to an audience of renowned international scholars within the framework of two “young scholar’s panels.” The conference will be comprised of one keynote, the screening of the film “The Green Wave” with subsequent discussion, five panels with distinguished speakers from all over the world and two young scholar’s panels (with 2 doctoral candidate’s presentations per panel).

Program