Call for posters

 

Poster session of the gd:c annual conference

‘All stories at least are not the same’: dis:connectivites in global knowledge production

 

Where & when?

The Käte Hamburger Research Centre global dis:connect invites submissions for a poster session (expected format: A1) to be held on 12 October 2023 from 16:30 to 17:30 at the global dis:connect annual conference, which runs from 11­­—13 October.

Our research centre is an independent institution affiliated with the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. We research questions of connectivity and disconnectivity in current and historical processes of globalisation. The annual interdisciplinary conference explores key questions of that research, expanding conceptual repertoires and methodological toolboxes, bringing artistic and scholarly forms of knowledge production into dialogue. For more information about our centre, its directors, the team and our fellows, please consult our website via www.globaldisconnect.org.

Modalities and submission of the poster session

The posters should refer to the topic of dis:connectivites in global knowledge production. Please submit a short abstract (<200 words) describing your idea of dis:connectivites in global knowledge production as well as a short CV. Please send these documents in a single PDF file to assistants.gdc@lmu.de by the 1^st of August 2023. In addition to presenting your project, you will have the opportunity to network with researchers from various fields. Besides covering the printing costs, we would like publish the finest work in our own outlets (static magazine / our blog)

We especially welcome multidisciplinary poster submissions from post-graduate and PhD students in the humanities and social sciences contributing their work from around the Munich area.

Theme

The creation, provision and application of knowledge depends on subjects, geographies, events and wider contexts. ‘All stories at least are not the same’, noted the writer Bernadette Meyer in 1968 in her volume Story, in which various novellas intertwine. Taking stories as diverse and non-hierarchical forms of producing and transferring knowledge, Meyer’s statement could be adapted as follows: knowledge as the totality of one’s abilities moves and is moved — between continents, regions, countries and societal contexts. Educational institutions, publishing houses, companies and state institutions, as well as social groups and individuals, organise and archive knowledge stocks, and they translate, convey and re-contextualise them in (global) transfers. These processes cannot be reduced to a linear narrative of boundless, irrevocable epistemic globalisation of permanently increased interconnectedness and universal availability. Rather, transnational and transcultural knowledge production is articulated precisely in dissonant registers as, for example, through interruption, absence and digression. Not least due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the realignment of geopolitical blocs, political think tanks, editorials and other opinion leaders have recently postulated increasing ‘deglobalisation’. However, instances of dis:connectivity that emerge through various forms of interruption, absence and detours can also be understood as foundational dynamics of historical and contemporary globalisation. Dis:connectivity means the coexistence of non-connection and connection as, for example, in constellations of local and global knowledge and of traditional/indigenous and futuristic/technological knowledge production. Our perspective on dis:connectivity thus necessarily includes hierarchies, power relations and inherent norms of global knowledge circulation.

The posters can refer to one or more of the following topics:

Topic 1: Invisibilities, interruptions and detours of global exchange processes in the production of knowledge.

Possible questions in this topic are for example: What forms of invisibility characterise the transnational pathways through which new bodies of knowledge and epistemologies are popularised? How do political ruptures relate to international scientific and artistic partnerships, the decline of trade relations and communication paths? How are disruptions embedded in the conditions of local knowledge production? What role do detours play in the spread of resistant knowledges on their way to recognition in their respective epistemic communities?

Topic 2: Bodies of knowledge in ephemeral forms of producing, documenting and mediating in global contexts.

In this practical topic we are interested in 'situated' forms of knowledge that emerge in the context of queer, migrant and indigenous realities, which challenge hegemonic knowledge formations and that may become resources for social activism.

Topic 3: Challenge in the global distribution and sharing of knowledge as a cause of practical limits like language, translation and mutual understanding as well as massive economic inequalities.

Particularly in academia, agenda-setting media and resources — such as specialist journals — are inaccessible in many places or are omitted as discussion platforms for financial reasons. This leads to limited accessibility and visibility of 'peripheral' knowledge, resulting in material hierarchies in the global circulation of knowledge. This section asks how knowledge producers (publishers, archives, associations, among others) reflect on these limits and which tactics and structures they are creating and using to overcome them. How can practical solidarity, crowd knowledge and global networks lead to the inclusion of marginalised institutions and agents without reproducing existing hierarchies?