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Life in Motion: Shifting Spaces, Transcending Times, Crossing Borders

Conference, held by Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic,
28th-30th June 2007

Life in Motion: Shifting Spaces, Transcending Times, Crossing Borders

Seventeen years after the onset of revolutionary changes in 1989, Central and Eastern European societies are still confronted with their histories. Memories and recollections of the past are contested and the past is painstakingly constituted through the interplay of collective construction, political bargains, reversals, rationalizing of refusals to come to terms with it as well as attempts to recognize the past and cope with it. Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have witnessed unprecedented spatial and population shifts and splits which marked the 20th century globally. Many minorities which were often local majorities or equal in number were left in the aftermath of wars as mere memories that quickly faded due to the rapid intrusion of communism. The process of building societies which are not just ethno-culturally heterogeneous but also open to all diverse groups has been contingent on coming to terms with the past. This process became the arena for opening ways to facing current challenges such as migration, borders dissolution and violation of local social and economic balances.

Since 1989 CEE societies have undergone unparalleled social change, however, the expected reforms in the spheres of law, public policy, culture, media, economy and social policies have been substantially delayed and compromised. The simultaneous emergence of free-market economies and pluralist politics led to situations in which the state quickly withdrew or collapsed, and distinctions between state, collective, and private domains became unclear. It has been in the interest of those actors that emerged in this initial phase of change to prolong a specifically post-socialist culture between socialism and the free market. This may have decisively contributed to the Eurosceptic backlash in the ranks of particular mainstream political forces and in specific cultural segments and sections of societies in some CEE countries. What is in this light the meaning of "the big European switch" of 2004 and its upcoming enlargement follow-up? How 'Central and Eastern European' have the CEE countries stayed and Western Europe become? What are the reconstituted boundaries?

See particularly section:

• Urban Spaces
• neo-tribalism in the post-socialist city; differentiation or ghettoization
• post-socialist urban politics and planning, post-socialist time and space; urban visions and life spaces in the era of 'laissez faire'
• everyday life in the city between socialism and free-market
• cities between memory, nostalgia and utopias; spaces and sites of memory after communism; symbolical representation of political change in urban environment

Held by Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic, 28th-30th June 2007 and organized in cooperation with the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, the conference presents a major opportunity for postgraduate students and young academics to discuss the events in Central and Eastern Europe also including but not limited to Eurasia, the Balkans, and the Baltic States. We invite submissions and participants from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives. Proposals should be sent, as email attachments, to: tomasekm@fss.muni.cz at the latest January 31, 2007.

Further details and particular themes: http://soc.fss.muni.cz/eng/lim_topics.php