This event will be held on Friday 21 - Saturday 22 November 2014

The Global Insecurities Centre, at the University of Bristol, is delighted to invite you to a two day conference in November to explore the nexus between networks and remoteness in the second decade of the 21^st century. The conference will facilitate interaction between scholars, particularly postgraduate students, academics and policy makers, with the aim of encouraging the formation of a new and exciting research stream on global insecurities.

Opening Keynote from Prof Mark Duffield:
Becoming Remote: Exploring the Digital Development-Security Nexus
As aid workers retreat into gated-complexes, new international no-go areas are opening and spreading across the global-South. Increasing remoteness from the world, however, is being compensated and surpassed by the digital recoupment of distance. At a time of inhibition and defensiveness on the ground, the atmosphere, or at least, the electronic atmosphere, is emerging as the last strategic global medium where one-sided, even piratical, political action is still possible. During the 1990s, the claim that you cannot have security without development nor development without security became a political cliché.  At the time, this ruinous assertion gave encouragement to the terrestrial relations and forces responsible for the foreign policy disasters of Afghanistan and Iraq. Emerging unscathed from the rubble, the presentation outlines the irrepressible urge of the development-security nexus to stage a rematch, this time from the airwaves.

Call for papers

The first Global Securities International Conference will be held at the University of Bristol, UK, bringing together sophisticated theoretically-informed analysis with empirically-engaged research to address the overall theme of “Emerging security challenges in a nexus between networks and remoteness”. This interdisciplinary conference invites academics and practitioners at all career stages and particularly encourages applications from postgraduate research students. Panels will be chaired by leading academics and practitioners. There will also be a series of training workshops available for postgraduate students.

After a Welcome Address from Prof Timothy Edmunds, the Opening Keynote will be delivered by Prof Mark Duffield, with further Keynote Addresses from three internationally-experienced scholar-practitioners Dr Lara Montesinos Coleman(University of Sussex), Dr Brad Evans (University of Bristol) and IAS Benjamin Meaker Visiting Professor Jake Lynch (University of Sydney). There will be a host of other leading academics and practitioners present, including:

• Ms Clare Algar, Reprieve
• Prof Terrell Carver, University of Bristol
• Ms Mana Farooghi, International Alert
• Dr Eric Herring, University of Bristol
• Dr Simon Mabon, Lancaster University
• Mr Alex Neads, Maplecroft
• Prof Jutta Weldes, University of Bristol
• Mr Paul Whiteway, Independent Diplomat

Please apply by 30 September 2014 using the application form available at http://www.globalinsecurities.com/apply/speaker/. Panel submissions are encouraged, and for those considering this option, we recommend panels of up to five participants. Panel submissions should be emailed directly to Mr Gilberto Algar-Faria at gic-conference@bristol.ac.uk. Panel submissions should include a panel rationale of 250 words in addition to the details requested on the application form for each paper.

Full details of this conference can be found on the Global Insecurities website.