Call for Papers: 'Security Beyond Borders?' - The Second Annual Graduate Conference in Security Studies‏

The Second Annual Graduate Conference in Security Studies
'Security beyond Borders?'
Department of Politics and International Studies
University of Warwick
11-12 June 2009
In no other discipline is the issue of borders more relevant than in International Relations, and particularly in the field of Security Studies. To consider security is to consider borders. Borders divide and unite. Borders reify boundaries and structures. They make men and women into insiders and outsiders, citizens and aliens. They create refugees, immigrants and 'The Other'. They provide protection to the vulnerable and to the powerful, creating 'safe havens' for the desperate yet conferring sovereignty upon despots. Borders shape individual and collective identities, conditioning those views of the world which come to analyse it, limiting the political imagination and creating 'fact' from contingency. Borders close and open, militarise and demilitarise, offer comfort and curtail hope. Borders turn the natural into the political, reflecting the art of cartography back upon the art of diplomacy, rationalising the spirit of discovery from which they were created. Borders not only shape the world as it is, but also shape the way we think about it. In recent years, Security Studies has had to come to terms with the borders it has itself been bound by, those borders of the mind which are now challenged by alternative approaches as bridgestowards a broader social theory are built. Traditional theories are besieged by critical ones, which have in turn created new bordered theories, consolidated into Welsh, Copenhagen and Paris 'Schools' of thought. Is it ever possible to move the thinking and practice of security beyond borders?We welcome papers from research students addressing, but not limited by, any of the following questions:* Do traditional conceptualisations of borders endure in the contemporary practice and theorisation of security?* Are new threats to security inter-linked with the construction of new types of borders?* Have critical approaches been successful in challenging the conventional nexus of state/territory/force?* Is it possible to transcend the state/border-centric worldview through which security is understood?* Is the idea of borderless globalisation a myth for theorists of security?* Does the categorisation of new approaches to security into separate schools of thought risk undermining the 'critical' project?Keynote speakers include:Dr. Tarak Barkawi - University of CambridgeDr. Nick Vaughan-Williams - University of ExeterPlease send an abstract of between 300 and 400 words to pgsecurityconf@warwick.ac.uk by no later than May 1st 2009.Further details about the conference can be found at: http://go.warwick.ac.uk/agcss