DSEI London: Conference at the Gates
Call for paper/activities/participants
Hopefully, you like what you have read about Conference at the Gates 2015, and you are excited to join us for our event on the 8th of September 2017
This year we want to do something similar, but bigger, and with a bit more emphasis on collaboration. Last time we ran it as a fairly standard academic conference, with themed panels and talks, interspersed with workshops by activists from for example Bahrain Watch and ForcesWatch.
To increase participation and generate wider engagement, this time we will host a series of themed workshops throughout the day, each focusing on a different issue connected with militarism, including colonialism, gender, policing and security, universities and youth, popular culture, and radical theory.
Rather than presume the panel format or organise everything ourselves, the plan is to bring together small groups of activists and academics working on some aspect of each theme and get them to design the workshop together. Some ideas of what the workshop sessions could be based around are:
A talk,
A discussion,
A performance
Manifesto-writing, letter writing
Practical skills sharing
Planning an action/how to work together in the future
Any other unusual and creative ideas you have depending on each group’s preferences and interests
Your involvement could range from taking an organisational role to delivering a talk to leading an activity. You could just get in touch and say you want to be kept in the loop on what happens with a particular theme, and then decide later on whether you will have something to contribute for that theme. Each workshop will be coordinated by one of the conference organisers, who will put participants in touch with one another and provide as much practical support as is needed. The idea would be to collectively design a 90 minute session to deliver to activists, academics and anyone else at the site.
Contact us with your ideas or interest to participate:
LucasDonna Hedlund, lucasdonna.h@gmail.com for anything on:
Feminism, queerness and militarism
Borders and militarism
Chris Rossdale, c.rossdale lse.ac.uk for anything on:
Militarisation of policing
Militarisation of universities
Youth recruitment
Jess Poyner, jess caat.org.uk anything on:
Imperialism, colonialism and militarism
Cities as militarised spaces
Aggie Hirst, aggie.hirst city.ac.uk for anything on
The purpose of radical theory
Popular Culture and militarism
For anything else including suggestions of other themes/ideas that fall outside of these areas, e-mail conferenceatthegates gmail.com
We look forward to hearing from you and creating something exciting together!