[14 January 2010] Maastricht University in the Netherlands welcomes papers for its conference on "Critical Perspectives on Security" taking place from 27-28 May 2010. The deadline has been extended to 1 March 2010.

Since 9/11, national security has been high on political agendas. An increasing number of issues these days is framed in terms of national and international security. The aim of this conference on “Critical perspectives on security” is to bring together a range of insights on security, with the aim to offer intellectual checks and balances on the ‘securitization’ of various domains of life. It is especially targeted to scholars from development and migration studies, science and technology studies (STS) and risk research.

The conference will be organized around four major themes:

1.    Security-related concepts, such as risk, vulnerability, safety and uncertainty: How are these concepts defined and theorized? How is the notion of security understood in different disciplines? To what social ends?

2.    How are issues related to security empirically studied?  What questions are asked? What are the drivers and effects of “securitization”? What methods are followed in each discipline to empirically study security? How can different empirical evidences be comparatively brought together?

3.    Comparative perspectives: What do studies on security in the global south and north have in common? What have they mutually to learn from each other? Similarly, how can interdisciplinary cross-fertilisation on security bring out newer insights?  In what way, for instance, could studies on technological risks be useful for finding newer ways of approaching migration and developmentalism?

4.    Ways to rethink security: What commonalities and differences exist across disciplines and across geo-political regions? In what way can comprehensively critical perspectives on security be developed? What aspects of security have not been yet studied and why? Which aspects need newer understandings?

Details concerning abstract submission

We hereby would like to invite papers that can address any of the issues and questions mentioned above from any of the disciplinary background.

Prospective contributors are invited to submit abstracts of 300 words in length. The abstract should cover main objective of the paper and also should include some details on the important sources and geographical area studied by the author(s). The abstract should also specify the way in which the paper proposes to contribute to the interdisciplinary dialogue on security. Please also include a cover page specifying the name of the author(s), academic affiliation and contact information. Please submit abstracts electronically as an attachment in .doc or .rtf format to Lidwien Hollanders ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )

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