CfP: International Conference "The Informal and the Formal in Times of Crisis: Ethnographic Insights", 7-9 July 2017, Corinth, Greece

Giuliana B. Prato Announcement
Location
Greece
Subject Fields
Anthropology, Humanities, Social Sciences, Sociology, Urban History / Studies

International Interdisciplinary Conference 

The Informal and the Formal in Times of Crisis: Ethnographic Insights 

7-9 July 2017, Corinth, Greece

This Conference aims at understanding the roles and meanings of informal practices in the context of the current political and economic crisis. Using a notion of informality that encompasses the economic, the social and the political realms, this conference seeks to explore the importance of informal practices in cities and asks the key question Is the informal a panacea in times of crisis?

Anthropologists have addressed in-depth the significance of the informal in people’s managing existence:

  • In the economic field they have addressed informal practices that develop beyond official employment and unemployment.
  • In the social and political fields they have studied in depth cronyism, clientelism, obscure awards of public contracts and various forms of collusion that turn citizens’ rights into privileges.
  • On the other hand, they have addressed informal exchanges of services, help, information, knowledge, and so on, that take place at the grassroots in response to ever-shrinking — sometimes factually inexistent — social welfare systems. Gradations of these grassroots informal activities draw on access to community resources beyond official allocation.

In the above outlined scenario, informal activities and modes of exchange — economic and non-economic — have often grown and they may have contributed to people survival; in other cases, long-established informal economic activities have disappeared alongside informal exchanges, while secure formal employment has become a chimera for many and zero-hour contracts, unpaid “internships” and similar, variously named cons, have multiplied. At the same time, new forms of informality are emerging — particularly but not only in the “on-line world” — that appear to be acquiring the status of resource as they raise new challenges to the bullies and “roughshod riders”.

This Conference will bring together high-quality ethnographic studies of these processes with the three-pronged aim of:

  1. Clarifying grassroots dynamics;
  2. Contributing to a comparative analysis of the present situation;
  3. Developing a theoretically viable discussion of potential way-outs.

The Conference welcomes contributions and panels from anthropologists and scholars from other social sciences and the humanities, and encourages participation of research students.

Abstracts (300 words maximum) should be emailed by the 27th of February 2017 to: Dr Giuliana B. Prato (g.b.prato@kent.ac.uk), Dr Italo Pardo (I.Pardo@kent.ac.uk) and Dr Manos Spyridakis (maspy@uop.gr). Selected papers and panels will be announced by the 13th March 2017.

A selection of revised papers that speak to each other will be brought together for publication in a Special Issue of Urbanities. Revised papers not included in this Special Issue will be considered individually for publication in Urbanities.

Further details and updates are available at: http://www.internationalurbansymposium.com/events/events-2017/

Contact Information

Abstracts (300 words maximum) should be emailed by the 27th of February 2017 to:  Dr  Giuliana B. Prato (g.b.prato@kent.ac.uk),  Dr  Italo Pardo (I.Pardo@kent.ac.uk) and  Dr  Manos Spyridakis (maspy@uop.gr). Selected papers and panels will be announced by the 13th March 2017

Contact Email
g.b.prato@kent.ac.uk