Թբիլիսիում կայանալիք կոնֆերանսի համար զեկույցների ներկայացման բաց կանչ (անգլերեն)

November 3-4, 2022 Tbilisi State University (TBC) Tbilisi, Georgia

 

The conference is organized within the framework of the research project entitled, “Resilience in the South Caucasus: prospects and challenges of a new EU foreign policy concept” (JENA-CAUC), funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The goal of the conference is to advance the understanding of the resilience concept and its practical application within the context of the South Caucasus. A Keynote Speaker will open the conference, and it will end with a Round Table discussion on regional resilience in the South Caucasus.

 

The conference includes five panels:

 

1. Resilience as a concept

2. Resilience, Stability, and Adaptation

3. Resilience and Sustainability

4. Resilience, Preservation, and Resourcefulness

5. Resilience and Recovery

 

To apply to participate, please send your abstracts of 300-500 words to [email protected] with “JENA-CAUC Conference” in the email subject line. Please also indicate your panel preference, and include a short author biography. Deadline for abstracts: 15.04.2022. We will respond by 10.05.2022.

 

 

Panel 1: Resilience as a concept

Conceptual issues; ontology; methodology; epistemology; operationalisation

 

Resilience is considered to be an essentially contested concept. While the literature on resilience has recently skyrocketed, this has also contributed to overusing the concept, thus limiting its analytical capacity, empirical applicability, and conceptual parsimony. This panel is aimed at unpacking conceptual ambiguities around the concept and the applicability of resilience, and invites academically inclined papers that seek to answer either of these three questions: What does it mean to support resilience in the South Caucasus (ontologies of resilience)? How can we study resilience in the South Caucasus (epistemologies of resilience)? How can we measure resilience in the South Caucasus (methodologies of resilience)?

 

 

Panel 2: Resilience, Stability, and Adaptation

Crisis prevention and management; diplomacy; authoritarianism; social clash; border security; hybrid threats; cyber/digital resilience

 

Whether internal clashes or external threats, a society’s capacity to stabilize, recover, and/or adapt during and post-conflict depends on the available policies, response mechanisms, and anticipatory governance practices, as well as societal and economic fortitude. There are a myriad of historical examples as well as contemporary cases through which to examine how the aim towards resilience has impacted our understanding of stability and adaptation in times of conflict. As such, for this panel we welcome contributions from across disciplines on the role of resilience building or resilience as a concept in how societies in South Caucasus countries mitigate conflicts, crises, and security challenges at the global, regional, national, or local levels.

 

 

Panel 3: Resilience and Sustainability

Creative approaches towards sustainable, long-term resilience building concerning environmental issues and climate change; urban resilience; education; languages; cultures; arts; histories

 

We understand sustainability and resilience as different but complementary concepts with their own characteristics. In this panel we welcome contributions on integrative approaches that consider environmental issues as well as economic and broader societal developments from the perspective of being able to “sustain themselves” over time. Possible topics can include but are not limited to changes, adaptation, and recovery of ecological, social, cultural, economic, and other complex systems in the South Caucasus countries. We are interested in examples of local sustainable practices, pilot projects, and resilience-building measures, as well as critical discussions about the policies in this broad area.

 

 

Panel 4: Resilience, Preservation, and Resourcefulness

Preservation and rediscovery of inherent resilience potentials in social, cultural, religious, ecological, and other complex adaptive systems

 

While resilience is mostly about change and transformation, it also includes a preservation function. Non-material complex adaptive systems such as histories, languages, arts, and cultures are constantly evolving, but also facing risks coming from various sources - including globalization, disenfranchisement, digitalisation, commodification, migration, and urbanization. In order to adapt to changing circumstances and to mitigate risks, these systems require a constant innovation capacity and inherent resourcefulness. This panel will look into concrete empirical examples of how such complex systems in the South Caucasus countries utilize their resourcefulness and innovation potential to reinvent themselves and adapt to changing dynamics in time and space. While contributions from all disciplines are welcome, in this panel we especially look forward to having papers from the humanities including but not limited to languages, history, arts, and culture.

 

 

Panel 5: Resilience and Recovery

Economic progress and challenges; health and society; the impact of COVID; social cohesion; housing policies; labour policies and reforms

 

Across the various ecosystems from economy to ecology, and from healthcare to labour markets, resilience and recovery are closely connected - both as concepts and empirical phenomena. Resilient ecosystems presuppose the existence of multiple pathways of recovery from systemic shocks and crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the global financial crisis, ecological disaster, or a major military conflict. But, how does bouncing back from severe shocks by resilient ecosystems work in practice? And, what factors account for the ability of community-, society-, and state-level ecosystems to recover from shocks and crises? By focusing on the resilience-recovery nexus, this panel welcomes papers that aim to unpack and problematise a self-healing capacity or a bouncing-back ability of various ecosystems in different policy areas including healthcare, labour market, civil society, ecology and climate policies, disaster and pandemic management, as well as security and defence policy.