Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
The Belgrade Security Forum (BSF) organisers are pleased to invite you to submit papers for this year’s Academic Event. The Academic Event will traditionally take place on the first day of the Belgrade Security Forum (October 26-28, 2021).
How to build ‘resilience’
The events such as the Al-Qaeda attack of World Trade Centre in New York on 9/11 2001, the rise of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, Paris attack in 2015 or attacks in Nice and Brussels in 2016 have propelled the issue of violent extremism at the top of the policy and academic agendas. Similarly, the rise of Far-Right extremism across the world, including attacks in Norway in 2011, Mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand in 2019 and most recent attacks in the United States of America such as Charlottesville riots or storming at the Capitol in Washington DC, have shown the other side of the violent extremism coin – the side that shows similar patterns of radicalisation in the Western world as in some parts of the Global South.
So far, concepts such as preventing or countering violent extremism have mainly proven unsuccessful in eradicating this problem. Recent academic literature has suggested that a change of focus and the way this problem is approached should be welcomed.
Accordingly, this conference tackles violent extremism by looking at the concept of resilience that has transgressed to International Relations and, more specifically, to peace and security studies via material sciences, where it signifies the capacity of materials to absorb (and released) a large amount of energy without breaking. In terms of violent extremism, resilience is understood as the capacity of individuals, communities and formal and informal institutions to positively or successfully adapt to external problems or threats.
Topics
In line with this notion of resilience, we welcome proposals with a general focus on the nexus between resilience and violent extremism, but we are particularly keen to receive proposals that are addressing the following topics:
– Factors of individual, community and state-level of resilience
– Resilience and religious institutions
– Resilience and (in)formal institutions
– Different forms of extremism and resilience
– Resilience to Far-Right and Islamist extremism
– Mainstreaming of Far-Right and resilience to extremism
– Resilience in a comparative perspective (MENA, the Balkans, Sahel, Western Europe, USA)
– Migration and resilience to extremism
– The role of social media in promoting resilience
– COVID-19 pandemic and resilience to radicalisation
Academic Chair
Nemanja Džuverović (University of Belgrade)
Application process
– Participants will be selected based on the quality of their paper proposal. All submissions are required to include the applicant’s short bio (up to 400 words) attached to his/her paper proposal (up to 250 words). Submissions should be made electronically to academic@belgradeforum.org with the subject line: “CfP BSF 2021” by the deadline of 30 June 2021.
– All successful candidates will be contacted by the end of July 2021. Incomplete applications will be excluded from our review.
Conference format
– The Academic Event of the Belgrade Security Forum will be held in hybrid format with in-person participation of panellists, discussants and moderators and online streaming for the audience. If the participants are not able to travel to Belgrade the BSF will organise an online presentation of their papers.
– The BSF organisers reserve a possibility of going fully online depending on the epidemiological situation in Serbia.
Why to apply?
– The organizers will cover the travel and accommodation expenses of selected participants for the entire duration of the BSF (October 26-28, 2021).
– Selected participants are required to send their papers to conference organisers 10 days before the Academic Event.
– After the BSF, all selected papers will be peer-reviewed for a special issue of Journal of Regional Security edited by Nemanja Džuverović (University of Belgrade) and Filip Ejdus (University of Belgrade).
For any inquiries, please send an e-mail to: academic@belgradeforum.org
