[csaa-forum] FW: [ccr-list] CCR Seminar Series 2007: MARCH 21, John Eade and Ben O'Loughlin

Gregory Noble G.Noble at uws.edu.au
Thu Mar 15 14:26:43 CST 2007


Dear all, 
 
This is advance notice of the next CCR seminar for 2007. The speakers
are Professor John Eade (Roehampton University, UK) and Dr Ben
O'Loughlin (Royal Holloway, University of London) whose seminar titles
and abstracts are included below: 
 
Date: Wednesday 21 March
Time: 12-2pm
 
Venue: Gallery, Female Orphan School, Bldg EZ, Parramatta Campus, UWS
 
All welcome, including postgraduates.
 
RSVP:  by 19 March 2007 to  a.ajiri at uws.edu.au

Afternoon tea will be available
 
   
-------------------------------------------------------
 
Prof John Eade, 'Reaping the whirlwind: Identity Politics, Minorities
and the State'

 

This presentation will explore the move from anti-racism to identity
politics and ethnicity in Britain during the last 30 years. Drawing on
research undertaken on identity politics among British Bangladeshis in
London's East End I will discuss the tensions between secular and
Islamist activists in the context of multicultural events such as the
Bengali New Year festival (Baishakhi mela) and the role played by the
local and central state and global flows of people, information and
capital in this rapidly gentrifying area of the 'global city'.   
 
John Eade is Professor of Sociology and Anthropology, Centre for
Research on Nationalism, Ethnicity and Multiculturalism, Roehampton
University, UK.  He has published widely on Bangladeshi identiy politics
in London and urban studies, with recent books including Placing London
(2000), Global Ethics and Civil Society (2005), and Understanding the
City (2002).

 
Dr Ben O' Loughlin, 'Convincing claims? Democracy, representation, and
security threats in contemporary Britain'

This paper charts the responses of British citizens to their
politicians' representations of objects and identities in the 'war on
terror'. Drawing on ethnographic-style data, it is argued that despite
the existence of shared matters of concern such as Iraq and terrorism,
the representations offered by the British government have often been
too certain, fixed, and direct, making it difficult for citizens to
comprehend or connect to these representations as meaningful and
negotiable. This mode of representation veers towards what Latour calls
'fundamentalist', in contrast with a 'constructivist' mode of more
contingent representations that enable politicians and citizens to take
into account and be taken into account. The analysis suggests citizens
respond to more fundamentalist claims in several ways. For some, the
response has been antagonism, alienation and a lack of belief in the
ability of democratic politics to arrive at responsible decisions on
shared problems and conc!
 erns. For others, however, inadequate representative claims generate a
hunger for more nuanced, complex representations, even acting as a spur
for some to contest the claims through political engagement.
 
Ben O'Loughlin is Lecturer in International Relations, Royal Holloway
College, University of London, UK. He is a researcher on the Shifting
Securities project, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council
(ESRC), investigating news cultures in Britain after the 2003 Iraq war.
He is the co-author of Television and Terror: Conflicting Times and the
Crisis of News Discourse (Palgrave, 2007). 

 
Greg Noble

CCR, UWS




More information about the csaa-forum mailing list