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International Conference "Internationalizing Security - Securitizing the International"

International Conference 2023 of the Collaborative Research Center "Dynamics of Security"

Veranstaltungsdaten

Conference theme

With the Russian war against Ukraine, the discussion about what we understand by international security has flared up again. While for many years, scholars have criticized state-centric understandings of security, the tides seem to change. We see for instance a return of geopolitics, territorial conception of security, and invocations of sovereignty. Attempts of achieving security through liberal modes of global governance and transnational formats recede into the background in favor of a new discourse on international security, as are individual-centered understandings of security such as human security. With the conference we aim to address this momentum by a shift in perspective. Instead of presupposing the international as a given and fixed entity, we want to investigate how it takes shape in practices of security: How do concepts and repertoires of security articulate the international? With this question, we seek to elaborate the multiple ways in which security becomes internationalized and the international securitized. We invite contributions that explore the topic with a focus on (a) the historicity, (b) the procedures and devices, and (c) the exclusions of international security.

(a) It is the basic premise of the CRC's research program that concepts and repertoires of security are historically situated. Accordingly, we seek to historically trace how the international came into being as an emergent level of political order through problematizations and techniques of security. The historical approach allows us to identify multiple settings in which configurations of international security materialized and faded, reappeared and transformed. An apt historical example is the struggle for national self-determination in the context of decolonization, which in turn related to certain notions of international security, such as foreign rule being a threat to international peace and security.

(b) As an analytical strategy, we propose to zoom in on the procedures and devices of security that play a key role in installing the international. We want to look at the performativity of administrative forms and legal mechanisms that configure international processes, the arenas and scenes in which the international is enacted, and also at the visualizations and artifacts through which it appears.

(c) In order to critically engage with the current liaison between security and the international, we suggest to inquire its blind spots and exclusions: What phenomena cannot be accommodated within the frame of international security? What problems are pushed to the margins? What are the limitations in addressing matters of concern that evade the spatial and temporal scales of the international? At the CRC/TRR annual conference 2023, we are interested in analyses focusing on the dynamics of doing and undoing international security in specific historical or contemporary contexts: How is the international constituted in situational practices of security? We welcome contributions that deal with the pragmatics of international security, its symbols and meanings as well as its affects and infrastructures. The contributions can approach the topic from different disciplinary perspectives, for instance history (from early modern times to contemporary history including global history), sociology, political science, legal studies, geography, anthropology, cultural studies, or art history.

A high resolution copy of the conference poster can be downloaded here.

We look forward to seeing you in Gießen!

Conference Program

In addition to two keynote lectures by Anna Leander (Geneva Graduate Institute) and Toni Haastrup (University of Manchester), the program of the CRC International Conference 2023 offers a variety of different panels from political science, sociology, law and history as well as a film screening of the documentary "20 Days in Mariupol". A high resolution program can be downloaded via the link below.

Download Program

• More information on panels and presentations

Logistics

Registration

We kindly ask all participants interested in the conference to register for the event by October 31 2023. For later registrations, members of the organizing team will be available at the registration desk in the foyer of the venue (Ludwigstraße 23, Gießen) from the beginning of the conference.

Please register here

Conference locations

All plenary sessions will be held at the auditorium (Ludwigstraße 23). Most of the panels will take place in the same building, either in the Senate room or the Gustav-Krüger-Saal (GKS, floor, room number). The other panel location is Goethe-Straße-58, Room 201. Both locations are just a 3-minutes-walk away from each other.