Call for Papers
Children and War: Past and Present
Second international multidisciplinary conference to be held at the University of Salzburg, Austria, on 10-12 July 2013
Organized by the University of Salzburg and the University of Wolverhampton, in association with the United Nations Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict.
This conference is planned as a follow-up to the first conference, which took place at the University of Salzburg in 2010. It will continue to build on areas previously investigated, and also open up new fields of academic enquiry.
All research proposals which focus on a topic and theme related to ‘Children and War’ are welcome, ranging from the experience of war, flight, displacement and resettlement, to relief, rehabilitation and reintegration work, gender issues, persecution, trafficking, sexual violence, trauma and amnesia, the trans-generational impact of persecution, individual and collective memory, educational issues, films and documentaries, artistic and literary approaches, remembrance and memorials, and questions of theory and methodology. Specific conference themes anticipated are:
– Children as victims, witnesses and participants in armed conflict
– Holocaust, genocide and forced labour
– Deportation and displacement, refugees and asylum seekers
– War crimes, trials and human rights
A special focus will be on the ‘Changing nature of armed conflict and its impact on children’. In the past two decades, UN reports, including the 1996 study by Graça Machel and its 10-year review, noted with concern that the character and tactics of armed conflict are changing, creating new and unprecedented threats to children. Characteristics of the changing nature of warfare include the blurring of lines between military and civilian targets, the use of new technologies and the absence of clear battlefields and identifiable opponents. Extensive research is needed to deal with challenges emerging from this context, including the use of children as suicide bombers, the deliberate targeting of traditional safe havens such as schools and hospitals, the detention and prosecution of children associated with armed groups, and terrorism and the use of counter-terrorism measures (for more information, please see the ‘Note by OSRSG-CAAC’ on our web site: http://wlv.ac.uk/childrenandwar2013).
Please send an abstract of 200-250 words, together with biographical background information of 50-100 words by 31 July 2012 to: J.D.Steinert@wlv.ac.uk. All proposals are subject to a review process. Successful candidates will be informed in October 2012 and will be asked to send in their papers by the end of April 2013 for distribution among conference participants on a CD. Further information will be made available in due time. The organizers intend to publish a selection of conference papers.
Conference language: English.
Fee for speakers: EUR 150. The fee includes admission to all panels, lunches, coffee and tea, and evening events.
Participants need to secure their own funding to participate in this conference. Depending on the outcome of applications, a limited number of grants to contribute to travel and accommodation costs will be made available for delegates unable to obtain own funding. As these grants will be on a refund-only basis after the conference, delegates are still required to pay the fee, travel and accommodation costs in the first instance.
The organising team: Wolfgang Aschauer (Salzburg), John Buckley (Wolverhampton), Helga Embacher (Salzburg), Darek Galasinski (Wolverhampton), Albert Lichtblau (Salzburg), Grazia Prontera (Salzburg), and Johannes-Dieter Steinert (Wolverhampton).
http://wlv.ac.uk/childrenandwar2013
