International symposium "Dimensions of Cultural Security for Ethnic and Linguistic Minorities"
Around 20 researchers on Minority Studies from Europe, Canada, Asia, and Latin America will meet from 17 to 19 November in Bautzen/Budyšin for an international conference on cultural security issues. The focus will be on the social conditions and the institutional context allowing members of minorities to develop a sense of belonging to the state through political participation and simultaneously strengthen their autonomy in cultural spheres.
Cultural security is a polysemic notion in social sciences. It has been used to describe the foreign policy of nation-states seeking cultural exemption provisions in trade agreements to promote their cultural assets and secure it as well as to study international regulations against the looting of cultural artefacts during armed conflicts. The notion of cultural security has also been introduced on the level of domestic policy to analyse state measures aimed at protecting historical minorities, as in the specific cases of aboriginal peoples in Australia. In this sense cultural security of ethnic and linguistic minorities like the Lusatian Sorbs covers the social conditions and institutional context allowing their members to develop a sense of belonging to the state through political participation and simultaneously strengthen their autonomy in cultural spheres. Multinational states providing a form of cultural security to their historical minorities are likely to receive substantial benefits from it, insofar as it allows majority and minority groups to coexist on a more equal footing, which in turn ensures intercultural cohesiveness and thus contributes to political stability and state security.
The dimensions of cultural security are diverse and complex, and need more analysis both in terms of theory and practice. To this end, around 20 researchers from a variety of social science fields (political science, history, sociolinguistics, cultural studies, anthropology, geography) will meet from 17 to 19 November in Bautzen (Sorbisches Haus, Postplatz 2). In the course of this conference, participants were invited to present case studies from different parts of the world (Europe, Canada, Asia, Latin America) reflecting various dimensions of cultural security for ethnic and linguistic minorities: state stability, nation-building and state-building processes, minority rights, minority dilemmas between modernity and tradition in relation to cultural practices, territorial autonomy and the lost of homeland as well as revitalisation strategies of minority languages. This conference was made possible thanks to the financial support of the Free State of Saxony and is the outcome a close cooperation between the Sorbian Institute, the Canada Research Chair in Quebec and Canadian Studies (CRÉQC) and the Faculty of Social Development and Western China Development Studies at the University of Sichuan.
The lectures will be held in English or German and will be translated simultaneously.
Conference fee is 30/15 Euro.
Registration until 14-11-2016 to Dr. Ines Kellerowa +49/03591-497237 resp. keller@serbski-institut.de
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The Sorbian institute (Serbski institut), based in Bautzen and Cottbus, is a non-university institute, that conducts interdisciplinary as well as comparative research on language, history and culture of the Sorbs (Wends) in Lusatia.
Contact:
Sorbisches Institut – Serbski institut
Bahnhofstraße 6
02625 Bautzen
Germany
e-mail: jacobs@serbski-institut.de or keller@serbski-institut.de
Weitere Informationen:
http://www.serbski-institut.de/de/Aktuelles/3406/#q3406
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