As a part of the ‘Imagined Sovereignties: Frontiers of Statehood and Globalization’ project, PRIO is commissioning research papers on ‘Basque Nationhood in a Globalizing World’ to be published either as an edited volume or a special issue of an international peer-reviewed scholarly journal.
About the project
The Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) has been funded by the Research Council of Norway (RCN) to conduct a project entitled ‘Imagined Sovereignties: Frontiers of Statehood and Globalization’. This project studies three empirical cases of contemporary sovereignty contestation: Northeast India, Cyprus and the Basque country. The project investigates the changing conditions and spaces for exercising and demanding sovereignty in the contemporary world, and how sovereignty is imagined under these conditions. Drawing on anthropological perspectives, sovereignty is here understood as imagined in similar ways as the ‘imagined communities’ that make up the ‘people’ of sovereignty demands. The project highlights how sovereignty is context-dependent and historically constructed, asking the following key questions:
- How do changing practices of governance and new means of contestation affect the claims made by states and their contenders in conflicts over sovereignty?
- How is the evolving global or transnational order reflected in everyday contestations and struggles over sovereignty?
- How do sovereignty practices affect the course of conflict, including negotiations to end conflict?
The project explores how sovereignty is imagined and debated within particular socio-cultural and political contexts, and how key actors and their constituencies draw on culturally-shaped notions of identity (e.g. indigeneity, ethnicity and/or nationhood), territoriality and legitimacy as they imagine different ‘sovereign’ futures. The project thus aims to shed new light on the changing nature of conflicts over the issues of public authority, political representation, citizenship rights, and territoriality in a globalizing world.
Commissioning of papers on the Basque case
As a part of the ‘Imagined Sovereignties’ project, PRIO is commissioning research papers on ‘Basque Nationhood in a Globalizing World’. Our aim is to publish either an edited volume or a special issue of an international peer-reviewed scholarly journal such as Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power; Nations and nationalism; Ethnic and racial studies; Nationalism and ethnic politics or Social identities.
We are seeking contributions on Basque identity and politics in Spain, France and the diaspora. Eligible candidates have a doctoral degree or enrollment in a relevant PhD program in the humanities or social sciences, have published at least one peer-reviewed journal article, and have research experience on Basque identity and an academic interest in contemporary discourses and practices of Basque nationhood, sovereignty, political authority and legitimacy.
Expressions of interest should include:
A curriculum vitae with contact details.
An outline of the research paper, written in English, including
a) an abstract of 200-300 words, b) main research questions, c) methodology and research techniques, d) literature and debate addressed, and e) main argument(s) made.
Successful candidates will be asked to present their paper at an international conference to be organized in Bilbao in May 2014. Travel costs for the conference will be covered. The deadline for finalizing the revised paper will be 15 September 2014. Remuneration for the work will be EUR 3,500.
Expressions of Interest should be submitted by 1 November 2013 to the project leader, PRIO Research Professor Åshild Kolås (ashild@prio.no), with a copy to the principal researcher on the Basque case, Professor Pedro Ibarra Güell (p.ibarraguell@gmail.com) and PRIO Department Manager Bertrand Lescher-Nuland (bertrand.lescher-nuland@prio.no).
For more information about PRIO’s ongoing research, see http://www.prio.no.
