[ALBSA-Info] Fwd: [balkans] CfA: How to Think about the Balkans: Culture, Region, Identities

[Agron Alibali]

 Denitsa Lozanova wrote:From Denitsa Lozanova Tue Jul 23 04:21:04 2002
To: balkans at yahoogroups.com
From: Denitsa Lozanova 
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 04:21:04 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [balkans] CfA: How to Think about the Balkans: Culture, Region, Identities

CENTRE FOR ADVANCED STUDY IN SOFIA

NEXUS ASSOCIATE FELLOWSHIP PROGRAMME

“HOW TO THINK ABOUT THE BALKANS: CULTURE, REGION,
IDENTITIES”



CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

Academic 2002-2003 Year


The Centre for Advanced Study in Sofia (CAS) invites
applicants from the Southeast European region for the
international NEXUS research project “HOW TO THINK
ABOUT THE BALKANS: CULTURE, REGION, IDENTITIES”,
academic 2002-2003 year. 

NEXUS research group is developed within the framework
of the three-year long project "Agenda for Civil
Society in SEE" /Blue Bird/. This project is
coordinated by CEU Budapest and involves the New
Europe College in Bucharest, the Centre for Liberal
Strategies in Sofia, Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin and
other institutions. For more information about the
Blue Bird project, please visit the following
web-site: www.blue-bird.hu

- Duration and financial conditions of the research

The selected Associate Fellows will join the NEXUS
project that was initiated in November 2000. The
Associate Fellows Team for the academic 2002-2003 year
will consist of six members: four Bulgarian fellows
(each for the duration of 10 months) and two
non-Bulgarian regional fellows (one for the duration
of 10 months and one for 6 months) who will be
residing permanently or on a part-time basis in Sofia
(negotiable in each individual case). 

The selected associate fellows will receive a stipend
of 400 Euro per month and a total of 1000 Euro for
research trips. Accommodation and running costs for
the non-Bulgarian fellows will be covered. The Centre
for Advanced Study, Sofia is responsible for providing
the organizational support of the research. The
fellows will be able to use all the technical
facilities of the Centre.

- Working language and language skills requirements

The working language of the research is English. The
applicants will work in an international research
team, where all discussions, workshops and lectures
are in English, as should be the final research paper
to be submitted for publication. Therefore the
applicants should be fluent in oral and written
English, a certificate of which is highly recommended.
Knowledge of one or more of the SEE languages is a
serious advantage. 
- Selection procedure

The applications will be submitted to an International
Selection Committee composed of representatives of
other Institutes for Advanced Study in Europe. The
final results will be announced on October 1st, 2002
at the following web page: www.cas.bg

- Eligibility 

- Scholars with doctoral degree in the social sciences
or in the humanities;
- Excellent knowledge of English – fluent oral and
written English (certificate of English language
proficiency is highly recommended);
- Junior researchers and university professors not
older than 40 years of age are the preferred eligible
group.

The application-package (to be submitted by e-mail or
post) consists of:

- Research proposal: 1500 – 2000 words.
(Please note, that the research proposal should be in
accordance with the following 2 documents, enclosed
below): 
- “New Guidelines of the Research Project” ;
- “Research Project Format” .

- Copies of diplomas and university degree
certificates;
- CV and list of publications;
- Two recommendation letters from
distinguished scholars; 
- Declaration that the applicant is not
supported by another research fellowship.


Deadline for applications: September 1st, 2002

Information on the Centre for Advanced Study in Sofia
and NEXUS can be obtained at the following web-site:
http://www.cas.bg

For more details, please contact:

Denitza Lozanova 
Project Coordinator
Centre for Advanced Study Foundation
4 Alexander Battenberg Str.
Sofia 1000, Bulgaria
tel.: ++359 2 9803704
fax: ++359 2 9803662
e-mail: d_lozanova at cas-nexus.org


-----------------------------------------------------

NEW GUIDELINES OF THE NEXUS PROJECT



Part 1 – Methodological considerations

· The concepts of “identity”, “collective identities”
and “acts of identification”
Problems to be considered
- Differentiation of various types - logical identity,
numerical identity, personal identity, collective
(political) identity. 
- The dialectical play between various forms of
identity. 
- Techniques of social and institutional stabilization
of identity. 
- Political uses and misuses of the concept.

· The concept of “region”
Problems to be considered
- Who constructs the concept of “region” and for what
purpose
- Types of regions
- Regions, scales, overlappings
- “Natural” borders and political borders 
- Regions, mapping and re-mapping 
- The stigmatized regions


Part 2 – Research guidelines within the self-reflexive
policy agenda of the NEXUS-Project

· Current critical interpretations of “identity
politics” as a form of social control and
mobilization, repression and marginalisation: 
intellectual and political objections to it. 
· The politics of the NEXUS-project in the contexts
of:
- current critiques of “identity politics”; 
- contemporary variety of politics of
self-perception; 
- politics of perception of the images of the Other
and construction of differences in the post-postmodern
context of rapid “globalization”
· Political goal of NEXUS (connections to Blue Bird,
the utopian vision of Blue Bird) Mutual heuristic
relationships between research perspective and
political agenda (the need for positive vision of the
“negative” Balkan region).
· Critical distance of the NEXUS-project from “easy
utopianism” – is SEE identity a hypothesis, a
normative goal of the project or a normative research
perspective?
· How should NEXUS avoid regional essentialisation?
· Is it possible to construct and "give reality" to
a new positive SEE identity and what are the estimated
“cultural costs” of such projects?

The final political implication of NEXUS then would
not just amount to acts of deconstruction or
rehabilitation (which are ultimately acts of power),
but would rather be one of hard work of shifting,
negotiating and re-defining identifications accounting
for their heavily burdened functional and historical
contexts. The NEXUS approach should not be one of a
simple mirror reversal of the negative and stigmatized
“Balkan identity” imagery (the “West” has perceived
the region in the negative categories of stigma,
isolation and stability; we, on the contrary, will
perceive it in positive visions and projects for a
regional future). This would be just a “new”
counter-power political strategy in the same “old”
game. Instead, the NEXUS approach will try to step out
of the “negative-positive opposition” and propose
cognitive paths to other possible identifications (in
the ambivalent context of world’s globalization) that
resist isolation and marginalisation as much as they
do one-dimensional self-glorifying regionalism, old
nationalisms or irrelevant local patriotism. 


Why do we need didactical and operational
re-formulation of the guidelines 

During our discussions, many important critical
remarks have been made, which can be summarized as
follows:
· Major concepts (identity, region) need both
methodological and political re-formulation;
· The previous guidelines are not clear and
“didactical’ enough;
· They are too complex and vague and do not follow
clear taxonomy;
· The project is not sufficiently focused;
· There is no clear distinction between similarities
(as identified by an external observer) and identities
(experienced as “belonging”, “self-mirroring” and
“self-denominating” by members of a certain group).
In re-formulating the guidelines, the two
hinge-members of the Senior team, Alexander Kiossev
and Diana Mishkova, have attempted to take into
account these remarks and incorporate the main
corrections/additions made.

The discussions and the critical comments demonstrated
clearly that the previous research guidelines had
described (sometimes in a vague and not sufficiently
self-reflexive way) complex, multilevel and relational
phenomena (we and Europe, the problem of stigma and
the “dark Balkans” - the “we” which is not “we”, the
split between “anthropological” and “high” cultures,
etc.). Apart from the critical remarks and
explications which had been considered, it became
clear that the research team needed simple tools for
orientation and effective practical instruments. Hence
the necessity for abstraction of simple elements from
the complex relational phenomena (to the extent that
such abstraction was possible) and their
classification into relatively simple and logically
consistent scheme. It should serve as a rational
cartography of the whole problem field, provide
individual researches with clear and consensual
general concepts and shared analytical tools and
locate the individual projects into a well-articulated
whole of the collective project. It should thus also
facilitate the process and criteria for the selection
of future Associate researchers.

The leading idea of this new
re-articulation/classification is that, as products of
the social and cultural existence of various groups,
identification acts and stable identities usually have
projections in space: they posses (clear or
problematic) spatial borders, they are in statics or
dynamics, in confrontation, fusions and/or
overlapping, projecting conflicts and negotiations
onto space. 
Accordingly, the re-formulation gave the project a new
spatial focus, expressed in the instrumental concepts
of “maps”, “mappings”, borders, overlappings, real or
imaginary territories, real or imaginary geographies.
The criterion of classification is simply the “scale”
of the map, which is a metonymy for various layers of
the complex and multileveled problems.

It is well known, that such “territorialising” is one
of the main forms of social control, social
mobilization and social identity-building – and that
they are at the same time necessary forms of the
social imagination and symbolic economy. 

>From the point of view of the research “didactics”,
these various “projections” allow their relatively
simple spatial classification, which fulfills
operational and didactic criteria.
But projections in space are at the same time
projections in time, so, the spatial classification
will always have a hidden or explicit temporal
dimension (history and current stage of “spatial
identities”, appropriation of spatially located pasts,
distribution of “legacies”, space homogenizing
politics of “invented traditions”, political
instrumentalisation of space and time as identity
signs, etc., utopian and non-utopian identity projects
and their territorial projections).


Types of social construction, uses and misuses of
space 
(theoretical context of the concept of "space" and
"projection onto space")
- Modernisation, rationalisation and space; space
as a palimpsest of projections – overlapping of
modern, pre-modern and post-modern geographies;
- Abstract space in science and space in mental maps.
>From "place" to "space" - universe, territory, modern
maps, globe.
- Social, economic, cultural exchanges and space –
corridors, centres, peripheries. Space and networks,
functional structures of space. Traffics and spatial
"economy";
- Modern uses, misuses and re-articulation of space -
"rationalisation" "neutralization", and "
homogenization" as major modern procedures in modern
constructions of territory and borders; 
- Space and nationalism - construction of "homelands",
"homeland" and "abroad". Projection of the opposition
"we" and "the Others" onto space;
- Space and power - teritorialisation, construction
and re-construction of borders, utopias, distopias,
heterotopias, homotopias. Dialectics between "real"
and "imaginary" space in the construction of
identities. State and borders - territory as
supra-institution. Centre and periphery, metropolis
and colony, colonial asymmetries in the modern world;
- Social conflicts, conflicting mappings and
re-articulations of space;
- Liminal, marginal, multicultural and
multidimensional projections in space - cities,
corridors, "regions", etc. Cultural and ethnic
"patchworks”, "mosaics”, etc.;
- Phantasmic spaces - utopian, exotic, erotic, etc.;
- Space and globalization, transgressing borders,
medialisation and the "end of space". Globalization
and glocalization, moving elites and ghetoised masses.



Re-formulated guidelines in metonymic spatial terms

1. Global (i.e., continental, geopolitical, racial,
linguistic, etc.) maps of identities 
(how “we” and the significant “Other”, “we” and the
Bigger Community - Mankind, Europe, America, Slavs,
Latin tradition, etc.) are projected on the Globe. 
- Social actors and/or institutions effecting this
projection;
- Cultural and ideological codes enabling this
projection; 
- Role of distant trans-regional and transnational
real or imaginary alliances and centres of power; 
- Asymmetric colonial relationships and the
construction of metropolises and colonies, “spheres of
influence”, etc;
- Various and alternative images of Europe, various
and alternative images of “centres” and “peripheries”.
Intellectual debates on power- and geopolitical
images; 
- West-East mapping – the shifting border;
- Implementation of “modern” and “civilized”
(“European”) models - territorial distribution.

2. Regional maps of identity
(various “we” and the construction of the “Balkans” –
past/historical and contemporary processes) 
- Social actors and/or institutions effecting this
projection;
- Cultural and ideological codes enabling this
projection; 
- Imaginary borders - geopolitical and cultural images
of the Balkans, long-term politics of
territorialisation of the “barbarian” and “infamous”
stigma; construction of the Balkans (“inventing
Eastern Europe” - Larry Wolff), “the dark Balkans”,
the Balkans as “indeterminate internal Other” (Maria
Todorova), “nesting orientalism” (M.Hayden-Bakic and
R. Hayden);
- Heuristic borders – the Balkans as “legacy in
process” (M. Todorova); the modernising Balkans -
“backward”, “small-state”, “semi-peripheral”,
“catching-up”, “compressed-history”, etc., maps;
- Maps and corridors of Balkan cooperation;
- Political and/or utopian projects of SEE
unification;
- Maps and corridors of Balkan contest, conflicts,
wars, etc. Stabilization and destabilization of
borders; 
- Borders, fusions and fissions in the Balkans. 

3. National maps of identity
- Social actors and/or institutions effecting this
projection;
- Cultural and ideological codes enabling this
projection; 
- National identity as homogenized cultural capital
(Gellner) – the problem of borders of circulation; 
- National identity as “imagined community” (Anderson)
– imaginary geography of the “native” land vs. the
“alien” one and borders of the symbolic economy;
- Maps of cultural institutions and cultural elites –
the borders of communication;
- The Neighbouring Nations – techniques of
differentiation and spatial projection of differences,
imaginary and/or real borders, discourses of “ours”
and “theirs”, of love and hatred.

4. Local maps of identity
- Social actors and/or institutions effecting this
projection;
- Cultural and ideological codes enabling this
projection; 
- Pre-modern communities, local traditional identities
and the patchwork of local anthropological cultures; 
- Spatial distribution of everyday practices and the
multiple acts of identification;
- Maps of “nationalization”, “Europeanisation” and
“modernisation” of everyday life;
- National identity vs. local identity – spatial
borders, spatial imaginations, aggressions,
repressions, homogenization.


5. Transterritorial and non-spatial “maps” of Identity
- Nomads; 
- Diasporas; 
- Network identities.


The spatial-temporal classification allows to address
implicitly or explicitly the following
complex/cross-level problems, mentioned in the
previous guidelines or in the discussions:
· Framework of social, economic, political processes
and their agents, spatial and temporal borders
(various maps of “objective” processes with indirect
connection to identity building processes – they both
condition and reflect the latter processes) 
· Spatial distribution of cultural forms, “life
styles”, everyday practices, consumer and economic
practices and their problematic borders and
problematic relation to acts of identification,
spatial projections and institutionalized identities
· Real and imaginary spaces: Representations, politics
of representation, identity models, emblems. 
· Identity-supporting and identity stabilizing social
agencies, actors, mediators, elites, techniques and
institutions: the processes of implementation of
models and their spatial and temporal definitions 
· Political use and misuse of identities and borders 
· Political and intellectual debates introducing in
the public culture spatial-temporal images of identity
· Resistance: conflicting, shifting, alternative
identities, alternative mappings, alternative
territories and spatial projections.



EXEMPLARY COMMON FORMAT FOR THE INDIVIDUAL RESEARCH
PROJECTS IN THE FRAMEWORK OF NEXUS

1. PROJECT ABSTRACT
( 150 - 250 words)
2. PROJECT OBJECTIVES 
(15 - 50 words)
3. MAIN METHODS AND RESEARCH TECHNIQUES
(50 - 100 words)
3.1. Disciplinary and scholarly contexts, debates,
contemporary trends and development of the
discipline(s). 
3.2. Reflection over the most important concepts and
categories
3.3. Methods
3.4. Techniques
3.5. Possible interdisciplinary connections
4. SOURCES AND RESEARCH FIELD 
(50 - 100 words)
4.1. Research field, limits and openings
4.2. Comparative perspective
4.3. Research focus - facts and phenomena to be
investigated, case studies
5. PROJECT HYPOTHESIS (what the project IS about)
(400 - 600 words)
6. HOW DOES THE PROJECT FIT INTO THE GUIDELINES OF
NEXUS
(50 - 100 words)
7. LINKS TO OTHER INDIVIDUAL PROJECTS developed in the
framework of NEXUS 
(15 - 100 words)
8. ACADEMIC/RESEARCH PARTNERS FROM OTHER SEE COUNTRIES
(IF ANY) ENABLING COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE
(15 - 50 words)
9. SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CONTEXT 
(50-100 words)
9.1. What social needs and expectations the project
addresses, where, in what circumstances
9.2. What is the link of the project to the Blue Bird
agenda
10. TIME TABLE, RESEARCH TRIPS
(15 - 50 words) 
11. EXPECTED RESULTS
(15 - 50 words)




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