1 april 2010

Workshop ‘Politics of belonging’
plaats: Meertens Instituut
tijd: 9.00 – 17.30u

Engaging citizenship, community, and the body
A workshop organized by participants in the research programs ‘Culturalization of Citizenship’ and ‘Heritage Dynamics’

Recent years have been marked by dramatic manifestations of multiple politics of belonging. Cultural heritage is mobilized to define who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’, and to give meaning to people’s lives. The contours of what constitutes good and moral citizenship have become increasingly ‘culturalized’. In a multicultural arena and a globalizing world, new boundaries between communities seem to be constantly ‘in the making’. How are these developments to be understood? What tools do we have, as social scientists and cultural analysts, to study and interpret these important shifts in society and culture?

This seminar brings together Amsterdam scholars researching the intersections of citizenship, cultural heritage, and questions of belonging, nostalgia, and the sensuous in the Netherlands and beyond. The objective is to evoke dialog and debate on the interaction of citizenship and the body, the imagined and the material, ethics and aesthetics, social construction and authenticity.

The program of the seminar is comprised of three parts. In the morning session PhD-students and post-docs affiliated with the two projects will present their research plans. The focus of these presentations will be on the theoretical ideas researchers work with in their projects.

In the session after lunch professor Birgit Meyer and professor Jan Willem Duyvendak will kick off a debate: ‘Engaging citizenship, community, and the body’, after which there is room for a plenary discussion.

The seminar will be closed by a lecture by renowned scholar Annemarie Mol, in which she will offer her ideas on the research projects and the importance of engaging the body and citizenship in social research and cultural analysis.

(If you want to participate in the workshop and join in the discussions, you are very welcome. Please let us know before March 10 at r.vanreekum@uva.nl. We organize a small lunch for participants.)

Program:

09.00 – 09.15	Opening by Peter Geschiere
09.15 – 10.00	Presentations by Bregje Termeer and Marleen de Witte
10.00 – 10.15	Discussant: Irene Stengs
10.15 – 10.45	Plenary discussion
10.45 – 11.00	Coffee
11.00 – 11.45	Presentations by Markus Balkenhol, Paul Mepschen, Francio Guadeloupe
11.45 – 12.00	Discussant: Oskar Verkaaik
12.00 – 12.30	Plenary discussion
12.30 – 13.30	Lunch
13.30 – 14.10	‘Engaging citizenship, community, and the body’ – a debate with Birgit Meyer and Jan Willem Duyvendak
14.10 – 15.00	Plenary discussion
15.00 – 15.30	Coffee
15.30 – 16.30	Closing lecture – Annemarie Mol