[Bilimsel Haber] Conference: "Agents of Change in the Mediterranean", Oxford, 18 - 19 June 2009

[Onur Inal]

Conference: "Agents of Change in the Mediterranean", Oxford, 18 - 19 June
2009

The conference convened by St Antony's College and Maison Francaise d'Oxford
under the aegis of RAMSES2, a Network of Excellence on Mediterranean
Studies,  moves away from the Brussels-based view on Euro-Med relations and
the recurrent anxieties about the effectiveness of the EU's toolbox. Instead
it looks into the dynamics within and among the countries of the region. The
conference redirects the analytical lens from states and intergovernmental
institutions towards the societies across the Mediterranean.  Our hypothesis
is that behind the facade of perceived stability economic and social forces
and actors are at work, which redefine existing roles, structures and power
relations.

The conference's goal is to revisit the idea of change through pinning down,
mapping out and understanding agents which call into question and may
transform the established norms, rules and behavioural patterns at the
domestic level as well as in the international politics of the littoral
regions (EU, South East Europe including Turkey, Middle East and North
Africa).  In doing so, it seeks to distance itself from the liberal bias
portraying change as inherently positive and acknowledges that
transformative paths lead in multiple directions, some of which might be
more desirable than others when seen from a Western or European perspective.

Some of the questions we intend to tackle are as follows:

- How is globalisation -and of course the current turmoil in the world
economy - affecting society and economic actors? Do emerging economic elites
pose a challenge or are they accommodated into the political status quo?
- What difference do social movements operating within individual countries
but also across national borders and across the North-South divide, make in
politics?
- What is the role played by increasingly transnational and globalised media
in spreading ideas and expectations of change among societies?
- How does the transnationalisation of political Islam redefine relations
amongst states as well as between societies in the EU member states and in
Turkey, Middle East and North Africa?
- Do social and economic changes empower women, youth, minorities or other
marginalised groups on the southern coasts of the Mediterranean?
- What is the impact of cross-Mediterranean migration, as well as the
reassertion of state power on societies through stricter border controls, a
policy actively promoted by the EU and its members?
- Are shifting forms and modes of cultural production indicative of or even
catalysing changes in social life and the nature of political participation?

Academic coordinators:  Dimitar Bechev, Luc Borot, Julio Crespo Maclennan,
Raffaella Del Sarto, Kalypso NicolaÏdis, Kerem Öktem, Leila Vignal, Michael
Willis. For further information contact Dimitar.bechev at sant.ox.ac.uk.