CALL FOR PAPERS: Eyes on the City
2006 Conference of the International Visual Sociology Association
July 3- 5, 2006, University of Urbino “Carlo Bo”
http://www.visualsociology.org/conference.html
The theme of the 2006 IVSA conference is the city in its multiple facets: how urban spaces are shaped by human action and at the same time shape our lives. The aim of the conference is to examine, de-construct and re-construct the layers of the city, observing how the social is embodied in the built environment and how the built environment influences contemporary human interaction.
Cities are visually rich. Urban space is filled with signs from the past and present: architecture, art, logos, advertisements, and warnings — all of which compete for attention. Visual sociology can aid in disentangling meanings and social processes woven into the urban context. Visual sociology includes useful tools for understanding and interpreting the complexity embodied in urban space; making visible intersections between the rural and the urban, between historical legacies and cross-cultural processes; depicting local communities and global society; and elucidating social cohesion and social conflict.
Visual researchers also construct their own images and interpretive narratives elucidating and questioning “the image” that cities project. We welcome a wide variety of formats including video, poster sessions, installations, performances, photo exhibits, and multimedia presentations as well as traditional papers.
Focusing on the city draws attention to the physical dimension of human interaction and to the spatial ground that gives rise to social phenomena. It also allows us to consider the dialectic between local communities and the global society. <!–In order to address these issues, papers and sessions may include, but are not limited to, the following topics:
1. Living in cities: housing and the built environment, markets and consumption, fleeing to and fleeing from, tourism
2. Denizens of the city: diversity and anonymity, race, gender, sexuality and class, children and the aged, migrants and immigrants
3. Intellectual qualities of urban life: creative and cultural life – music, art, theatre – the city as archive and as repertoire, experimentation and innovation, education in and out of school, opportunities and barriers
4. Place and space: public spaces/private spaces, sacred and profane spaces, the city by night
5. Global connections: urban, suburban, rural and international
6. The city as process: gentrification, urban renewal, deindustrialization and urban decay, transportation and communication, historical legacy
7. The urban imaginary: identity, utopias and distopias, virtual cities, ideal cities and planned cities
8. War, crime, conflict, disaster and terror in cities
9. Centres and margins: Ethnic neighbourhoods, ghettos, slums, silk-stocking districts and skid rows
10. The panoptical city: surveillance, discipline, police, prison, social work, mental health, public health, borders and social control
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Sessions, abstracts and deadlines
Scholars interested in organizing sessions on the topics listed above, or other related topics, should submit proposals to the conference committee at the following e-mail ivsa-urbino@uniurb.it. Deadline for submission of session proposals is January 31st, 2006. Please submit an abstract of about 50-100 words on the session’s theme to be used as guidelines for presenters.
The final selection of sessions will be published by February 15th 2006. Paper presenters will submit their abstracts to the sessions’ chairs and to the conference committee.
Papers can be submitted from February 15th to March 31st 2006
The final programme will be published by May 1st, 2006
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