[Bilimsel Haber] ‘Without Let or Hindrance’: Inclusion and its Subversion

[Sule Tarakcioglu]

Call for Papers:‘Without Let or Hindrance’: Inclusion and its
Subversion from the Medieval to the Modern

How have distinctions between inclusion and exclusion, between insider and
outsider, been articulated and subverted during the past millennium? 
Papers are
invited which interrogate the histories of impersonal social, political and
cultural regimes of recognition and differentiation and, crucially, 
consider the
material and symbolic subversion of those regimes. Imitation, mimicry and
forgery are integral considerations to any system which protects the 
integrity
of hierarchies, territories or social networks. In particular, 
therefore, this
conference will address the ways in which subversion, deliberate or 
otherwise,
forces systems of identification to be reformed and elaborated by those 
who seek
to secure them as viable means of exclusion. Such regimes can also be 
disrupted
from within, for example when the status of a claimant eclipses designated
proofs of entitlement, an eclipse which renders ‘some more equal than
others’. The conference deliberately embraces a broad 
chronological scope
with the aim of exploring historical continuities and disjunctures in the
negotiation of hopes and anxieties associated with mobility and the 
definition
of boundaries.

Original research papers are invited that will allow these questions to be
considered. Papers that address the following themes are particularly, 
though
not exclusively, invited:

• The material insignia and mediation of recognition in text, 
image and
artefact.
• Technologies of physical differentiation, from physiognomic 
description,
through photograph to biometric identification.
• Cultural and associational definitions of identity and their 
subversion.
• The bureaucratic mediation of rights of mobility, both across 
national
borders and within the space claimed by the state.
• The legislative qualification or compromise in practice of 
ostensibly
equalising signifiers of identity, for example passports or identity cards,
which create new distinctions on the basis of race, gender or religion.
• The regulation of pilgrimage.
• The mediation of provisions and economic supply in systems of
identification, for example ration cards and currency.
• Imperial histories of pass laws, passports and racial 
discrimination.
• Signifiers that secure the boundaries of cultural and social 
networks.
• Exceptional consideration and mobility – systems of coded
documentation that evolve to account for the evacuee, refugee and asylum.

Abstracts of 250-300 words should be sent by to Dr. Deborah Sutton, 
Department
of History, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YG, UK,
letorhindrance@lancaster.ac.uk, by the 14 February, 2006.

Dr. Deborah Sutton,
Department of History,
Lancaster University,
Lancaster,
LA1 4YG,
UK.

Phone: +44-1524-592506
Fax: +44-1524-846102
Email: letorhindrance@lancaster.ac.uk

Visit the website at http://www.lancs.ac.uk/depts/history/news/hindrance.htm