Call for Papers - "Lost in transition - citizens’ engagement with transitional changes in Western Balkan societies"

Conference venue: Skopje, Macedonia
Period: July 6th and 7th, 2013
Deadline for submitting abstracts: June 10th, 2013
Deadline for submitting full papers:the submission of
completed papers is welcomed, but not obligatory

The Centre for Empirical Cultural Studies of South-East Europe (Serbia), the Institute for Democracy “Societas Civilis” Skopje (Macedonia), Social Research Kosova (Kosovo) and Centre for Social Research “Analitika” (Bosnia-Herzegovina) in cooperation with the Department of Political Science of the Iustinianus Primus Faculty of Law, Ss “Cyril and Methodius” University in Skopje announce a call for papers for the international conference "Lost in transition - citizens’ engagement with transitional changes in Western Balkan societies".

Transitional change in the past two decades is only part of an unending sequence of socio-politicoeconomic changes through which the countries of the Balkan region have gone in the past 100 years. Older members of these communities have often, without a change to their place of residence, been citizens of five or six different states and experienced multiple changes of political systems, ideologies, constitutions, legal systems, and accompanying institutions, and they have borne witness to the creation of new entire social classes and strata and the destruction of old ones. This continuous vortex of transformation, which prevents the stabilization of social structure, and which makes official institutions particularly fragile and thwarts strategic action, has been accompanied by an almost incredible inability of Balkan societies to change and a surprising stability of social practices. It is as if wars, revolutions, and the dissolution of entire world-orders create waves on the surface of the practices of these societies, which then quickly revert to their established course.

The conference welcomes analysis of social, political, economic, legal, cultural, religious, familial, demographic, educational, media changes in the societies of the Western Balkans and the attitude of citizens towards them. Particular attention will be given to researches on change in citizens’ everyday lives in these societies, much more so than in schematic accounts of “system” changes which abound in the “transitiological” literature.

Those interested in taking part should send an abstract no longer than 300 words to the e-mail address of the organizers (conference@idscs.org.mk or cesk2010@gmail.com) with “conference” as a  subject line. Abstracts should include key words, the names, contact details and short biographies of all authors. The working language of the conference will be English. The deadline for abstract submission is June 10th, 2013. Authors will be notified of acceptance by June 17th, 2013

Institute for Democracy “Societas Civilis”
Kragujevačka 2, 1000 Skopje, Macedonia
tel: +389 2 3094 760
fax: +389 2 3094 760

Centre for Empirical Cultural Studies of South-East Europe
Strahinjica Bana 3, 1st floor, office 41, 18000 Niš, Srbija
tel: +381 18 246 833
fax: +381 18 246 833

e-mail: conference@idscs.org.mk or cesk2010@gmail.com