[Air-L] CfP: Borders, bordering and sovereignty in digital space // Online symposium // 2nd+3rd Sept

[Morris,CJ (pgr)]

Dear all,

Please find a CfP for an online symposium/workshop Chenchen Zhang and I are organising. The symposium builds on the three panels we had planned for the now postponed RGS conference and includes many of the original participants. The theme is broad, and we encourage interdisciplinary contributions from around the world.

General details:

  *   Date: September 2nd/3rd

  *   CfP Deadline: June 30th

  *   Flexible time slots for flexible time zones, though centred around GMT day

  *   Pre-recorded videos acceptable

  *   Ideally less intense and more time to talk, so two-day schedule

  *   Open to public viewing

  *   Main aim is to engage in a conversation on these topics

  *   Additional aim is a special issue on the conference theme

  *   Hosted by Dr Chenchen Zhang and Dr Carwyn Morris

Please submit your abstract through this Google Form: https://forms.gle/Pgs1vh7iJY8EaX7u8 (if you have issues, please email c.j.morris at lse.ac.uk<mailto:c.j.morris at lse.ac.uk>)

CFP:

National borders continue to operate in the digital space despite predictions otherwise. Scholars have argued that the global communication space and the nation state are both oppositional and co-constituting forces in internet governance. Digital (cyber) borders are produced through, for instance, regulatory systems, jurisdictional assertions, censorship regimes, and discourses of digital sovereignty and digital security. While governments draw on concepts of sovereignty and national security to assert control over a digital space that seems essentially borderless, civil society actors have also sought to put forward ideas of digital sovereignty along the lines of freedom and self-determination.

This online workshop aims to address theoretical and empirical questions regarding processes of (de)bordering, (de)territorialization and sovereignty in digital space. How are the concepts of sovereignty, territory, and borders reproduced and transformed in the context of the digital? What are the emerging patterns of power and contestation with regard to the control over data and information flows? How is the national border - digital or physical - being (re)produced or contested in digital space? How do digital borders, territory and sovereignty affect contentious politics? And how are spatial inequalities in knowledge production impacting our understanding of evolving socio-spatial relations?

We especially welcome contributions that engage with critical perspectives on the concepts of sovereignty, territory, and borders such as those focused on performance, discourse/practice, and governmentality.

Papers might explore the following themes:

  *   The production of digital territories and borders through legal, technological, and other means

  *   Firewalls, censorship regimes, internet disruptions

  *   The territorialization of services, infrastructure and populations

  *   Concepts and discourses of digital, cyber and data sovereignty

  *   The geopolitics of data and internet control

  *   Digital borders and data protection law

  *   How borders and practices of territorialization in digital space are contested

  *   The impact of territorialization and bordering on populations

  *   Conceptual and theoretical contributions

  *   Contributions beyond methodological nationalism

Please submit an abstract of no more than 250 words through the Google Form by the end of June 30th: https://forms.gle/Pgs1vh7iJY8EaX7u8

We encourage submissions by early career researchers and PhDs near completion (Chenchen and Carwyn tick those boxes) wherever in the world they are based.

We also encourage people to submit in advance of the deadline so that we do not have a huge number of submissions all coming on one day.

Best,

Chenchen and Carwyn

__
Carwyn Morris
PhD Human Geography and Urban Studies
Department of Geography and Environment
London School of Economics
Tweeting @carwyn<https://twitter.com/carwyn>

Viva passed and looking for a job!