For the first time, the Doctoral Schools of Political Science, Public Policy and International Relations, Sociology and Social Anthropology, and Gender Studies are coming together to host an interdisciplinary Doctoral Conference. Power and its manifestations in social and political relations are shared preoccupations and focus of analysis across multiple disciplines and fields of research. From the individual to the social, from the classroom to the conflict zone, from autocrats to AI, power defines our daily lives and research. We welcome projects that problematize the idea of power in the broadest sense.
Various issues that will be discussed include, but are not limited to: How does the history of colonial power manifest today? How do academics practice our embodied power? How has the neoliberal paradigm shaped (re)production of (labour) power? How has algorithmic power reoriented the normative? What factors are influencing responses concerning the climate crisis? What are the causes and effects of Power and how can they be measured?
Research Areas and Disciplines
- Gender Studies
- Political Behaviour
- Critical Theories (Including Queer and Crip Theory, Critical Race Theory)
- International Relations
- Sociology
- Anthropology
- Comparative and International Political Economy
- Public Policy (Including Education, Technology, Health, Climate, Energy)
- Political and Social Movements
- Nationalism
- Political Theory
- Decolonial and post-colonial studies
Methods
- Ethnographic and Autoethnographic Approaches
- Experimental and quasi-experimental methods
- Interviews and Surveys
- Historiography and Genealogy
- Analytical Philosophy
- Activist, Collective and Participatory Research
- Game Theory and Structural Modelling
- Interpretivist Research
- Process Tracing
- Econometrics
- Qualitative and Quantitative Content Analysis
- Discourse and Frame Analysis
- Comparative methods
- Case Studies and QCA
- Network Sciences
Submission of papers
Applicants whose abstracts are accepted for presentation need to submit full conference papers. Paper submissions should be around 6000–8000 words, including a working title; the author’s full name, position, and institutional affiliation; a 400-word summary followed by five keywords; and the main text.
All abstracts and conference papers must follow a standard file name format (SURNAME_Given Name_Institution_ADC2024) and be rendered in .docx or .pdf.
Paper submission deadline: April 1, 2024
Accessibility
We are working to make this conference as open and accessible as possible to all graduate students. Student parents and their children are welcome at the conference - there are nursing and changing facilities on campus and we are exploring childcare options. Prospective participants can indicate their access requirements when applying, or these can be discussed directly with the equality and diversity team. Please indicate if you require childcare (and ages of children) when applying.
About the conference
The Annual Doctoral Conference provides a professional, supportive, and international environment for PhD students and early career researchers in various fields of the humanities and social sciences to discuss their works in progress, establish formal or informal networks, and initiate future collaborative research. The aim is to share our understanding of power through different disciplinary perspectives and methodologies by discussing research and practice in terms of institutional, colonial, racialized, gendered, economic, behavioural, or biopolitical power, amongst others.
