06.03.2024 Call for Panels International Conference "Historicities of Peace and Security", October 9 - 11, 2024

International Conference of the Collaborative Research Center “Dynamics of Security” and the Center for Conflict Studies

Venue: Philipps University Marburg (Germany)
Date: October 9–11, 2024
Deadline for submission: May 1, 2024

Historicities of Peace and Security

Peace and security are key concepts informing the conduct of politics on both the global level and in domestic and transnational dynamics across different epochs. Yet, concepts of peace and security have been contested throughout history and still cause controversy today. While peace is a fundamental human value and at the heart of the Charter of the United Nations, it has been instrumentalized by imperial powers as well as authoritarian regimes and subsumed under agendas of civilization, social control, development and conquest. At the same time, the very idea of peace, just like scholarship and movements dedicated to it, has faced scrutiny and outright rejection in situations of unprovoked aggression and terrorism. This can currently be seen in the light of the war of aggression against Ukraine and the Israel-Gaza war. In contrast, security research has been epistemically dominated by military, strategic and adjacent fields of scholarship and policy for a long time. Only in recent years, has it been reclaimed by critical and feminist perspectives challenging long-standing ideas and concepts. As both interpretation scheme and repertoire, security is employed to determine relevant threats as well as to shape reactions to them. Such interpretations and practices of security are often contested and change over time. The – at times paradoxical – affinity between peace and security (e.g. they are mentioned together in Art. 1 of the UN Charter), their contested character, their contextuality and, not least, their historicity connects both concepts.

This conference, jointly organized by the Collaborative Research Center “Dynamics of Security” and the Center for Conflict Studies at Philipps University Marburg, Germany, invites contributions that critically engage with the rich and complicated legacies, epistemic ecologies and practical repertoires of peace and security in either historical perspectives or with a view to present and future challenges and potentials.

We particularly welcome contributions addressing the following topics:

• the relationship of security and peace in a historical and/or historicizing perspective
• understandings of security and peace coexisting in mutually exclusive and contradictive facets of conflict processes (i.e., more security means less peace)
• conceptual understandings of peace and security in conflicts (i.e., first security then peace or vice versa)
• the performativity of peace and security (and their relationship)
• ideas, understandings and concepts of peace and security in varying or different political/social contexts (e.g. in democracies, in authoritarian regimes or between them)
• changing perceptions of global-historical or planetary security frameworks, such as environmental and geopolitical security
• methodological and disciplinary aspects of researching security, peace and order

Submission of Panel Proposals

Please send your panel abstracts of up to 250 words (including names, institutional affiliation and contacts of panel convenors) to sfbevent@uni-marburg.de

Full panel proposals are possible. However, a subsequent Call for Papers will follow, enabling convenors to select up to four papers to their respective panel. If desired, organizers will assist in this process. 

Selection Criteria

The selection of panels and the subsequent allocation of papers will be made in accordance with the following criteria while maintaining high academic standards:

• Interdisciplinary composition: bringing together of scholars and approaches from different disciplinary backgrounds
• Scientific contribution: drawing on and advancing of debates and efforts to conceptually capture and understand historical and present-day phenomena, with a particular emphasis on the core concept of historicity and historicization
• Diversity: bringing together scholars from various backgrounds and affiliations both globally (i.e. from the global South and East) and within the context of European academia.  

Funding

In order to enable as many presenters as possible to participate in the conference, there is (limited) funding available to scholars without their own funding. Funding will be granted upon prior request to the organizers and on a reimbursement of real costs basis.

Conference schedule

Download Call for Panels