Dr Chris Gifford to Deliver Keynote Presentation on ‘Being or becoming citizens in late modernity?’ at the University of Huddersfield

Dr Chris Gifford, Head of Department of Behavioural and Social Sciences at the (University of Huddersfield) is one of the Keynote Speakers of the BSA Postgraduate Conference ‘Citizenship in the 21st Century: Sociological, Political and Cultural Perspectives’. This event will be held at the University of Huddersfield on 18 June 2014.

In his future presentation at Huddersfield, Dr Gifford will present the paper ‘Being or becoming citizens in late modernity?’. The central claim of this paper is that there is a powerful generational logic to citizenship development that is often overlooked. Conventional understandings of being a citizen imply integration into pre-existing collective identities and institutions that are the product of previous generations. This has been sustained and legitimated by the expectation of a progressive expansion of life-chances. The argument here is that such strategies are becoming exhausted as new generations face increasing restrictions on entry into adult citizenship. Moreover conventional social and educational policy responses aimed at integrating young people into work and nation perpetuate their precarious relationship to citizenship. The second part of the paper argues that we can identify an alternative dynamic to becoming a citizen that is intimately connected to cultural learning, and the creation of new civic virtues and sources of recognition. While such developments remain highly uncertain, the argument of the paper is that it is essential for sociologists to uncover new possibilities for the expansion of citizenship in late modernity.

Dr Nick Stevenson (University of Nottingham) and Dr Darren Langdridge (The Open University) are the other confirmed Keynotes Speakers of this conference.

Registration costs £10 for BSA members and £25 for non-members and is handled by the BSA events team http://portal.britsoc.co.uk/public/event/eventBooking.aspx?id=EVT10340; early registration is advised as there are a very limited amount of places.

For all informal enquiries please contact: PGRNetwork@hud.ac.uk

Dr Nick Stevenson to Deliver Keynote Presentation on ‘Human Rights, Post-Capitalism and the Right to Be Human’ at the University of Huddersfield

Dr Nick Stevenson, Reader at the University of Nottingham, will headline the Keynote Speakers of the BSA Postgraduate Conference ‘Citizenship in the 21st Century: Sociological, Political and Cultural Perspectives’. This event will be held at the University of Huddersfield on 18 June 2014.

In his future presentation at Huddersfield, Dr Stevenson will present the paper ‘Human Rights, Post-Capitalism and the Right to Be Human‘, document that seeks to explore  different ideas of ‘humanity’ that can be found within discussions of human rights and arguments more recently suggested by alterglobalisation movements. Critical of notions of post-humanism, Dr Stevenson will argue in his intervention that a qualified ‘humanism’ still has a  purchase within contemporary debates. He will look at Kantian ideas of human rights and the idea of anti-politics that developed within the context of the European revolutions of 1989.

He will link in his presentation these ideas to more contemporary debates in respect of post-capitalism. Ideas of human dignity that were originally linked to notions of human rights have taken on a new meaning within these contexts. Resisting more abstract notions of ‘humanity’ Dr Stevenson will look at different ideas that can be drawn from social movements and other post-industrial writers all of whom have sought to outline the damage done to our shared ability to be ‘human’. Finally he will connect these questions to more recent debates in respect of the idea of the struggle for the idea of a global commons and the implicit critique of normative neoliberalism. He will explore the argument that ideas related to ‘humanity’ are being redefined in the context of political and cultural struggle.

Dr Darren Langdridge (The Open University) and Dr Chris Gifford (The University of Huddersfield) are the other confirmed Keynotes Speakers of this conference.

Registration costs £10 for BSA members and £25 for non-members and is handled by the BSA events team http://portal.britsoc.co.uk/public/event/eventBooking.aspx?id=EVT10340; early registration is advised as there are a very limited amount of places.

For all informal enquiries please contact: PGRNetwork@hud.ac.uk

Call for papers deadline extension

Postgraduate Conference ‘Citizenship in the 21st Century: Sociological, Political and Cultural Perspectives’

The University of Huddersfield 18th of June 2014

Call for papers deadline extension

We would like to thank a number of excellent contributors for sending us a selection of very high quality abstracts. Having now seen the broad themes that have emerged from our reading of these submissions, we have decided to reformulate our original panel structure to best accommodate our speakers. As a result of these changes to the original structure we have chosen to extend the deadline for the submission of abstracts until the 12^th of May to allow the opportunity for more participants to present their work at this conference.

The new deadline is Monday 12^th of May

Confirmed speakers – Dr Nick Stevenson (University of Nottingham) Dr Darren Langdridge (The Open University) and Dr Chris Gifford (University of Huddersfield).

We are calling for postgraduate students and early career researchers interested in and researching a broad range of issues related to the academic field of citizenship. We are happy to receive abstracts from those who can best demonstrate a critical engagement with these following key themes from a citizenship perspective:

– Race and ethnicity

– Gender and sexuality

– Communication, Democracy and Recognition

– Disability and Health Rights

Students are invited to submit abstracts of no more than 250 words to: PGRNetwork@hud.ac.uk by Monday the 12^th of May

The long term aim of this conference is to collate work that will collectively contribute to an edited volume on the theme of 21^st Century citizenship.

For all informal enquiries please contact: PGRNetwork@hud.ac.uk

Call for Papers

Conference ‘Citizenship in the 21^st Century: Sociological, Political and Cultural Perspectives’

BSA Sponsored Postgraduate Conference

Hosted by the Postgraduate Research Forum (PGR) at the School of Human and Health Sciences of the University of Huddersfield

On Wednesday the 18^th of June 2014

Citizenship Studies has developed exponentially since the emergence of the two traditional models of citizenship, which emphasized either civil or legal rights, political rights and social rights (following Marshall) or the participation of citizens in civil society (the ‘town hall’ model). More recently, terms such as ‘global citizenship’, ‘media citizenship’, ‘cultural citizenship’, ‘intimate citizenship’, ‘cosmopolitan citizenship’, ‘ecological citizenship’ or ‘transnational citizenship’ have provided contemporary examples of new forms and dimensions of individual and collective citizenship experiences. In this context, a new set of rights, duties and responsibilities have emerged within social, political and cultural communities. Phenomena like migration, new technologies of communication, globalization and transnational experiences have an enormous impact in the creation of these new social categories. This conference seeks to explore some of the key aspects of these new developments in both applied and theoretical citizenship.

Keynote Speakers:

Dr Nick Stevenson (University of Nottingham).

Dr Darren Langdridge (The Open University).

Dr Chris Gifford (University of Huddersfield).

Call for Papers

We are calling for postgraduate students and early career researchers interested in and researching a broad range of issues related to the academic field of citizenship. We are happy to receive abstracts from those who can best demonstrate a critical engagement with these following key themes from a citizenship perspective:

• Race and ethnicity
• Gender and sexuality
• Communication, Democracy and Recognition
• Disability and Health Rights

Abstracts should be no longer than 250 words. We invite papers in the form of 20 minute oral presentations or a poster presentation (the format should be clearly stated in the abstract).  All submissions must include the author/speaker(s) name, title of paper, university or organizational affiliation, and contact information.

The deadline for submission of abstract is Wednesday 23^rd of April 2014. Please email your abstract to the conference organizers at: PGRNetwork@hud.ac.uk with ‘conference abstract’ in the subject line.

There will be two Best Paper Awards to those who show the highest level of excellence in their work. It is intended that this conference may be used as a basis for the development of an edited collection to be published by the University of Huddersfield Press.

You will be notified about whether your paper has been accepted soon after Thursday 1^st of May 2014.

For all informal enquiries please contact: PGRNetwork@hud.ac.uk

Registration costs £10 for BSA members and £25 for non-members and is handled by the BSA events team http://portal.britsoc.co.uk/public/event/eventBooking.aspx?id=EVT10340; early registration is advised as there are a very limited amount of places.