ESF Conference „Territory, Tension & Taboo“

Join the 21st Conference of the Emerging Scholars Forum of the Association for Canadian Studies in German-Speaking Countries! The CfP for the conference on the topic „Territory, Tension, and Taboo: Canada in Crisis“ is now open. 

Territory as a historical, legal, geographical, or cultural concept has become an essential interdisciplinary nexus within the field of Canadian Studies. Depending on the context, territory has been described as vast, empty, conquered, annexed, unexplored, constructed, claimed, or imagined, among many other adjectives. This conference aims to explore different aspects of territory through the prism of tension and taboo. This includes territorial tensions which have erupted into public conflicts that dominate(d) popular Canadian discourse (e.g. Oka Crisis, 2022 Freedom Convoy, etc.), or territorial confrontations treated as taboo, concealed, or otherwise obscured by Canada’s international reputation as a welcoming and multicultural nation (e.g. Chinese head tax, history of slavery in Canada, etc.). The conference will feature thematic panels for more advanced projects as well as an open forum for ongoing research projects. We therefore welcome emerging scholars at all levels to share their work on the multifaceted territorial crises occurring within and between many overlapping and contested territories that make up the place now known as Canada. 

The conference will take place in person at the University of Bremen on October 10 and 11. Please submit your abstracts by April 30, 2024. More information here.

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Afterlife of colonialism

“Contradiction comes in many different forms. None is so debilitating than when the coloniser transitions, textually not politically, to decoloniality without taking the responsibility for the afterlife of colonialism, which they continue to benefit from. Self-examination and self-interrogation of the relations of coloniality, a necessity, seem nearly impossible for the coloniser who continues to act as beneficiary, masked in the new-found language of White fragility, devoid of an ethical responsibility of the very system of White domination they claim to be against.” (Black Consciousness and the Politics of the Flesh)

Rozena Maart
Bhabha zu Aufklärung und Kolonialität

„Homi Bhabha sagt über den Widerspruch zwischen den Idealen der Aufklärung, dem Anspruch auf Demokratie und Solidarität und der gleichzeitigen Kolonisierung und andauernden Kolonialität: ‚Diese ideologische Spannung, die in der Geschichte des Westens als despotische Macht im Moment der Geburt von Demokratie und Moderne sichtbar wurde, ist noch nicht angemessen in einer widersprüchlichen und kontrapunktischen Diskurstradition beschrieben worden.‘“

Kerstin Knopf
Erdung

„Die fachwissenschaftliche Geographie steht für eine gewisse Erdung der Widerspruchsthematik sowohl in theoretischer als auch in praktischer Hinsicht.“

Julia Lossau
Macht und Widerstand

„Michel Foucault sagt: „Wo es Macht gibt, gibt es Widerstand. Und doch […] liegt dieser Widerstand niemals außerhalb der Macht“ (Geschichte der Sexualität I, Der Wille zum Wissen, 1983 [1976], S. 96)“

Gisela Febel
Normhierarchie

„Wenn sich gesellschaftliche Widersprüche im Recht widerspiegeln, kann das Recht keine widerspruchsfreie Normhierarchie ausbilden.“

Andreas Fischer-Lescano