Access to Justice and Security - Non-State Actors and the Local Dynamics of OrderingInternational Conference, Copenhagen, Denmark, 1-3 November, 2010CALL FOR PAPERS On behalf of the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), with support from The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, we are delighted to invite scholars and doctoral candidates from all relevant disciplines to submit paper abstracts to the conference: 'Non-State Actors and the Local Dynamics of Ordering'. It is taking place in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 1-3 November 2010. The first two days of the conference will include participation from academia, international development agencies, NGOs and policy-makers that engage with justice and security provision in the Global South. One core objective of the event will be to bridge the divide that often exists between academia on the one hand, and policy-makers and practitioners on the other hand. The third day will be a closed workshop for academics to discuss the focus of a book publication that will include a selection of papers presented at the conference. The conference takes as its point of departure that non-state actors provide justice and security to the vast majority of people in the Global South. This is equally the case in countries that are experiencing conflict, such as Afghanistan, in fragile contexts such as Sierra Leone and Yemen, and in stable democracies such as Ghana. There is great variety among the kinds of non-state providers of justice and security that exist, and the way they operate depends on a range of historical, socio-cultural and political factors. In none of these cases are there short-cuts to understanding how local dynamics in any one given country impacts on the provision of security and justice. We believe that any policy on local security and justice provision, programmes and academic studies must be based on empirical evidence and take into account the specific political dynamics of a given context. We therefore encourage empirically grounded papers that explore the role of non-state actors from the perspective of everyday practices across Africa, Asia and Latin America, and across contexts of fragility, conflict and development. The focus should be on how non-state providers are organised, how they assert authority and in turn what forms of ordering they constitute, independently from, in collaboration with or under pressure from state institutions. Papers that address links between local and national political dynamics as they play out in the provision of justice and security are also encouraged, as are case-studies of internationally supported programs that engage with non-state providers. Given the conference’s focus on the political dynamics of justice and security provision we will prioritise empirically-based papers that specifically explore theoretical questions of authority, power, and/or competing forms of ordering and punishment. The conference is built up around eight themes, which the paper should address. Paper abstracts that bridge these themes or bring new dimensions to the fore are also most welcome:
Please ) and Peter Albrecht (paa@diis.dk) |
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