[spectre] CFP: visual sociology conf. eyes on the city, urbino/it 2006

[Pelin Tan]

Eyes on the City

2006 Conference of the International Visual Sociology Association
July 3, 4, 5
University of Urbino “Carlo Bo”
Urbino, Italy

IVSA 2006 SESSION PROPOSALS
Papers can be submitted from February 15, 2006 to March 31, 2006
<http://www.visualsociology.org/proposals.html>http://www.visualsociology.org/proposals.html

TOPIC RELATED SESSIONS

The following sessions are related to the conference theme.
• Urban Cinematic Landscapes – Renegotiating the Image of the City
Chairs: Stavros Alifragkis (UK) and Ben Baruch Blich (IL)

The purpose of the session is to examine the city as a metaphor in 
the cinema. What were the reasons for recruiting the city in the 
cinema, were there ideological reasons for incorporating the city to 
the cinema, or were there only entertaining reasons for the use of 
urban environments in the cinema. Filmmakers have directly or 
indirectly composed visual poems representing the dynamics of an 
emerging new era in urban environments. These productions 
renegotiated the age-old mythology of cities in the novel context of 
modernity. An illustrative example of such celebrated urban cinematic 
symphony would be Dziga Vertov's film Man with the Movie Camera 
(USSR, 1929), which provided an understanding of life in five Russian 
cities, while simultaneously projecting the cinematic image of the 
ideal socialist city of the future. Similar films might include 
Ruttmann's Berlin symphony of a great city 1927; Lang's Metropolis 
1927; Cooper & Schoedsack's King Kong 1933), Akerman's News from home 
1970; Scott's Blade Runner 1982; Besson's Fifth element 1997). The 
aim of this session is to examine the transformations that the urban 
imaginary has undergone in its various cinematic reconstructions.
For further information or to send abstracts or completed papers 
please contact: <mailto:sa346 at cam.ac.uk>Stavros Alifragkis, Digital 
Studio, University of Cambridge or <mailto:baruchbl at 013.net.il>Ben 
Baruch Blich , Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem

• Visualizing Urban Living, Leisure and Consumption
Chairs: Roberta Bartoletti (IT) and Giovanni Boccia Artieri (IT)

This session focuses on research methodologies aimed at visualizing 
practices and everyday life in urban scapes (sociology with images) 
with a specific focus on leisure and consumption. In general terms, 
visualization is considered to be a useful technique in the 
self-observation of the meaning of everyday life practices, in 
particular with vernacular image making like snapshots or photovoice 
projects. This technique can also be utilized for photo elicitation 
during individual interviews or focus groups. The aim of this panel 
is to solicit papers reporting on research employing these methods in 
studies of consumption and leisure practices to assess both the 
adequacy of the method and the issues investigated.
For further information or to send abstracts or completed papers 
please contact: <mailto:r.bartoletti at soc.uniurb.it>Roberta Bartoletti 
and <mailto:gboccia at racine.ra.it>Giovanni Boccia-Artieri Facoltà di 
Sociologia, Università di Urbino

• The Cultural Consecration of Urban Places
Chairs: Michael Borer (US) and Dee Britton (US)

People are drawn to urban spaces where cultural narratives play an 
important role in defining a city’s character and identity. Such 
“consecrated places” can help remind people not only who they are, 
but why who they are is important. Acts of cultural consecration vary 
as much as the places people care about and revere, ranging from 
traditional religious sites (e.g., churches, synagogues, mosques) and 
civic religious monuments to sports arenas and local taverns. 
Similarly, public art memorials purport to represent a consensual 
understanding of historical ruptures. Many societies’ memorial 
landscapes reflect significant war achievements and victories. 
Typically, the victors create war memorials; as a result, the status 
quo is invariably supported in war memorials. Moreover, the majority 
of public art projects are determined and funded by those 
representing the status quo. There are emerging demands of the 
creation of public memorials that arise from positions of 
victimization. Papers for this panel should show, through analysis 
and visual support, both consecrated urban places, and how societies 
cope with demands from those representing “victims.”
For further information or to send abstracts or completed papers 
please contact: <mailto:dbritton at mail.colgate.edu>Dee Britton, 
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Colgate University. or 
<mailto:michael.borer at furman.edu>Michael Borer, Department of 
Sociology, Furman University

• The Public-Private Debate in the Visual City
Chairs: Diane Soles (US) and Berry Brent (CAN)

Visual technology from films to cell phone cameras have challenged 
and blurred the divide between the private world of the home and 
public world of the street. Yet sociological theories of civil 
society remain predicated on the solidity of the public-private 
dichotomy. On one hand, critical theories, such as Habermas’s public 
sphere, place civil society in the private realm. On the other hand, 
feminist scholars conceive of civil society as part of the public 
realm. This glaring disparity remains unresolved in contemporary 
sociological theory. How can the use of visual data inform this 
debate?
Signage is an important component of urban spaces reflecting the 
desire and ability of actors at all levels of society to communicate 
their interests. The visual economy of signage is sociologically 
insightful not just because it suggests how various interests, from 
graffiti writers to community groups or multinational corporations, 
compete for visual attention, but also for what it suggests about 
priorities for how we use our time and money. This session welcomes 
all projects about the visual order of public spaces. In what ways do 
advertising billboards, photographs and personal videos, or even 
feature films or documentaries of city life reinforce, subvert or 
re-shape our understandings of the public and private? Further, how 
does the meaning of the data change with the setting (public/private) 
in which it is viewed? This session seeks to introduce visual data 
into this theoretical impasse. Studies of public billboard 
advertising, photographs, films and other images are welcome.
For further information or to send abstracts or completed papers 
please contact: <mailto:solesd at uww.edu>Diane Soles, Department of 
Sociology, Anthropology and Criminal Justice University of Wisconsin 
and <mailto:bberry at chass.utoronto.ca>Berry Brent, Department of 
Sociology, University of Toronto.

• Representing Urban Space in the Print Media
Chair: Marco Capovilla (IT) Yannis Scarpelos (GR) Pelin Tan (TR) and 
Ozlem Unsal (UK)

Urban marketing and the way it manufactures 'new urban imaginaries' for
places is a vital trans-local issue. Contemporary times are witnessing the
commodification of urban spaces through their social and physical
deconstruction, which in the end give way to their 'beautification',
labelling, marketing and consumption. Our visual knowledge of most cities
and places is based on printed images. The rules upon which urban
representations are based are at best, taken-for-granted and at worst,
overlooked. This is achieved, sometimes, by activating a double procedure
of de-contextualization of existing city images (to the extend of even
forgeting the existence of the photographer) and re-contextualization in a
quite different, nostalgic tone, concurent with political and ideological
shifts.
While architectural and specialized publications tend to follow precise
rules on how buildings should be depicted, other printed media are more
casual on which principles to adopt, leading to less standardized
representations.
This session solicits contributions on the sociological, anthropological,
cultural and cognitive understanding of city images as part of the
culture-led urban regeneration, marketing and gentrification strategies;
seeking in the same time the a potential for "unorthodox" views of the
buildings and the city, along with its connection to social, political and
ideological trends.
For further information or to send abstracts or completed papers 
please contact:
<mailto:marco at capovilla.it>Marco Capovilla, 
<mailto:gskarp at panteion.gr>Yannis Scarpelos, Dept. of Communication, 
Media and Culture, Panteion University; <mailto:peltn at yahoo.com>Pelin 
Tan, Dept. of Art History , Institute of Social Sciences, Istanbul 
Technical University; <mailto:ozlemunsal at gmail.com>Ozlem Unsal, Dept. 
of Sociology, City University -London

• Urban Identity and the Challenge of Globalisation: Landscapes and Identities
Chairs: Patrizia Faccioli (IT) and Giuseppe Losacco (IT)

The flow of images in the urban space and in the mediasystem 
represents elements of the interaction between two dimensions: the 
global and the local. The purpose of the session is to identify how 
the two dimensions interact in the construction of cultural identity. 
Papers are solicited to examine how the flow of global culture and 
the counteractive aspects and specificities of local cultures 
conflict, contradict, or blend, both in personal and social 
dimensions.
For further information or to send abstracts or completed papers 
please contact: <mailto:faccioli at spbo.unibo.it>Patrizia Faccioli, 
<mailto:losacco at spbo.unibo.it>Giuseppe Losacco, Institute of 
Sociology, University of Bologna, Italy.

• The School and the City
Chair: Eric Margolis (US)

Following Plutarch, who argued that the city not the school was the 
best teacher, this session welcomes papers that examine the city as 
an educational space. Schools, of course, operate within the urban 
space and play an important part in creating metropolitan people; 
learning visibly takes place both in cities and in city schools. 
Researchable questions include but are not limited to: What does 
urban education look like in and out of school? What are the visual 
educational lessons of urban life: creative and cultural, civic, 
political, and economic, sport and recreation? How does the city 
function as archive and as a repertoire of bodily performances? How 
does architecture, and urban artifice school the body? How does one 
learn and what does it look like to be city folk: cosmopolitan, 
metropolitan, urbane, or tough, slick, and dangerous? How have people 
schooled in the ways of the city been portrayed in the past and how 
are they seen today?
Presentations ranging from standard paper (powerpoint) presentations 
to posters, videos, animations OR?
For further information or to send abstracts or completed papers 
please contact: <mailto:margolis at imap2.asu.edu>Eric Margolis, 
Division of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, Arizona State 
University.

• Contemporary Cities on the Margins of Modernity: Privatised 
Urbanism and Social Exclusion
Chairs: Anne Pitcher and Martin Murray (US)

This session addresses the relationship between evolving urban forms 
and social inequalities in contemporary cities in developing and 
transitional countries. In many cities on the margins of modernity, 
spatial restructuring of the urban landscape has resulted in new 
kinds of division, separation, and fragmentation. The global trend 
toward what has been called “privatised urbanism” has coincided with 
new modes of urban governance. Private solutions to public challenges 
and spatial partitioning of urban landscapes have produced the 
proliferation of such enclosed sites of luxury as citadel office 
complexes, upscale shopping malls, gated residential estates, and the 
growing consumption of late model SUVs and luxury cars. Paralleling 
this shift has been the steady expansion of such spaces of 
confinement for the urban poor as shantytowns, squatter camps, and 
informal settlements. As the anxious rich retreat behind walls, 
barriers, and fences, or within the relative comfort of their luxury 
cars, the urban poor are pushed out of the mainstream of urban life 
and compelled to fend for themselves in the dwindling, and 
under-resourced public places of the city. The session will examine 
the simultaneous and inter-dependent expression of conspicuous 
consumption and gentrification; social exclusion and displacement.
For further information or to send abstracts or completed papers 
please contact: <mailto:Apitcher at mail.colgate.edu>Anne Pitcher or 
Murray Martin, Colgate University, NY.

• Comparative Contexts in Visual Sociology
Chair: Vivian Price (US)

Sociologists often use comparisons across cultures, between 
geographical settings, political economies, and urban spaces, as part 
of an analysis of social processes. How do cities play an explicit or 
implicit role in representing the context of difference or similarity 
in comparative studies? When does the city stand for the nation, and 
when does it stand for something unique against the field of other 
urban settings? How does the city produce meaningful context in which 
to place social phenomena?
For further information or to send abstracts or completed papers 
please contact: <mailto:vprice at csudh.edu>Vivian Price, California 
State University, Dominguez Hills.

• Ethnicity, Transnational Space and Urban Life
Chairs: Laksmi and Tulasi Srinivas (US)

In an era of increasing global flows, cities face the challenge of 
growing cultural and ethnic restructuring with spatial, social and 
cultural consequences. Urban areas and urban social life are being 
reshaped as a result of transnationalism. This session is interested 
in examining the intersection of ethnicity, transnationalism, space 
and culture in urban localities and the relationship between 
transnational spaces and the cities they are embedded in. Papers are 
invited that examine visible evidence of the articulation and 
expression of ethnicity and cultural diversity in cities, the 
reproduction, reinvention and interrogation of ethnicity and culture 
in various urban contexts, and the relevance of transnational spaces 
to the city and to everyday life for its residents.
For further information or to send abstracts or completed papers 
please contact: <mailto:srinivasl at earthlink.net>Laksmi Srinivas, 
Wellesley College or <mailto:tsrinivas at comcast.net>Tulasi Srinivas, 
Wheaton College.

• Crime, War, Disaster and Terror in Cities
Chair: Mary Romero (US) Aurora Wallace (US)

These past few years have been particularly hard on cities; from the 
terrorist attack on the New York and Washington, to the "Shock and 
Awe" attack on Bagdad; from the Tsunami that struck Banda Ache to 
Hurricane Katrina that struck New Orleans, man made and natural 
disasters have turned some of the most densely populated places on 
earth into piles of rubble. These horrific events have also been 
among the most widely photographed of our time and the photographs 
circulated throughout the world via the Internet. How have images 
been used to support or resist particular political agendas? How have 
they contributed meaning to these events? How have they led to 
action? This session on Crime, Disaster and Terror in Cities seeks to 
contribute sociological understanding these and other questions. 
Studies of photographs, video, editorial cartoons, graffiti, and 
other images are welcome.
This session will also address the technologies of visualization. 
From the ubiquitous red-pinned map in police bureaus to more recent 
Google mash-ups combining online maps with crime or disaster data. 
This panel will investigate the space between virtual representations 
and real city places, including all manner of professional, amateur, 
ethnographic, fictional and mass-mediated representations, as tools 
used both to document and navigate the built environment of the city.
For further information or to send abstracts or completed papers 
please contact: <mailto:Mary.Romero at ASU.EDU>Mary Romero, School of 
Justice & Social Inquiry, Arizona State University. or 
<mailto:aurora.wallace at nyu.edu>Aurora Wallace, NYU, New York City

• Imaging the City after Humanism
Chairs Stephen Read and Alexander Vollebregt (NL)

This session deals with Urban Futures. While it is undeniable that 
human action shapes the city, it is by no means clear that the city 
is built in man's (or woman's) humanistically conceived measure or 
even that people recognize the object ostensibly our hand. Papers are 
invited which discuss images of the contemporary city from two 
perspectives: 1) that of the human social subject and her/his life 
world - how (s)he) engages the city in creative and potentially 
positive ways, and; 2) that of the socially engaged urban 
practitioner or theorist attempting to find ways to humanly and 
socially enabling post-humanist futures.
For further information or to send abstracts or completed papers 
please contact: <mailto:S.A.Read at bk.tudelft.nl>Stephen Read and 
Alexander Vollebregt, Spacelab Research Laboratory of the 
Contemporary City, Delft University of Technology, NL.

NON TOPIC RELATED PROPOSALS

• Theoretical and Methodological Issues of Visual Research
Chair: Luc Pauwels (BE) and Marco Rangone (IT)

This session provides a forum for the in-depth discussion of a 
variety of critical aspects with respect to the theoretical and 
methodological underpinning of visual research in the social 
sciences. The focus of the presentations should lie on 
methodological, typological, theoretical, ethical, or technological 
aspects in a more generic sense. This does not rule out papers that 
also have an applied focus but it does mean that the presentation and 
discussion of visual methodology or theoretical issues, and their 
potential for applying them to different themes and fields should be 
highlighted. The aim of this session is to contribute to the 
construction of a more solid and explicit theoretical and 
methodological basis for the use of visuals in social scientific 
endeavours. These efforts may help to solidify visual research as a 
viable and credible alternative or complement to other types of 
social and cultural research.
Topics may include: Refined typologies or taxonomies of visual 
research; Presentation/discussion of new modes of visual research; 
visual sampling and shooting strategies; discussion of best practices 
within a particular visual approach; theoretical, technological or 
ethical issues; dilemma’s and opportunities in the 
collection/production; processing or presentation and use of visual 
data; the impact of new technologies on visual research; discussion 
of ‘useful’ theories for addressing the visual aspects of society.
Unlike other social sciences, economics has seldom made use of visual 
methods to further economic knowledge of reality. This is largely due 
to the epistemic nature of the dominant paradigm, which is primarily 
quantitative and deductive. Regional economics is one of the fields 
of inquiry open to visual methods. The session also invites regional 
economists to discuss how their work may include visual methods.
For further information or to send abstracts or completed papers 
please contact: <mailto:Luc.Pauwels at ua.ac.be>Luc Pauwels, Department 
of Communication, University of Antwerp or 
<mailto:marco.rangone at unipd.it>Marco Rangone, Department of 
Sociology, University of Padova.

• Visual Methods: New Approaches and Possibilities
Chairs: Tracy X. Karner (US) or Giovanni Boccia-Artieri (IT)

This session invites papers focused on the logistical aspects of 
conducting image-based research. Challenging case studies or creative 
approaches to addressing various aspects of doing visual work are 
especially welcome -- including innovative use of new technologies 
(podcasting, blogging, all sorts of communication on the Internet), 
new possibilities for the use of “old” technologies (photography, 
videography, archives, etc), as well as visual means to address 
standard ethnographic steps (gaining entrée, ensuring human subjects 
approval, data collection, analysis, and presentation). This paper 
session, therefore, will provide an intellectual space to discuss the 
following aspects related to the new opportunity: (1) Theoretical and 
conceptual considerations; (2) Methodological contributions; (3) 
Empirical studies.
For further information or to send abstracts or completed papers 
please contact: <mailto:TXKarner at UH.EDU>Tracy X. Karner University of 
Houston, Texas. or <mailto:gboccia at racine.ra.it>Giovanni 
Boccia-Artieri Facoltà di Sociologia, Università di Urbino
Papers not covered by any of the above sessions may be sent for 
consideration to Yuri Kazepov or Erica Barbiani at 
<mailto:ivsa-urbino at uniurb.it>ivsa-urbino at uniurb.it

ROUND TABLES, POSTERS AND VIDEO

• Visual Pedagogies
Chair: Jerry Krase (US)
This session invites presenters who teach visual sociology or 
anthropology at the undergraduate and graduate levels or who take a 
visual approach to their field of specialization such as The Family, 
Criminology, Sociology of Community, etc. Presenters should provide 
syllabi and/or assignments and then critically reflect on student 
work; for example papers, exhibitions, web sites etc. It would be 
ideal if the students themselves could present their won work. We 
would then discuss what does and does not "work" in various settings.
For further information or to send abstracts or completed papers 
please contact: <mailto:JerryKrase at aol.com>Jerome Krase, Sociology 
Department, Brooklyn College of The City University of New York.
• The city exhibited: between theory, methodology and art
Chair: Erica Barbiani (IT)
In addition to paper presentations, there would be a specific space 
at the conference for a few photo exhibits, and a time slot for 
screening videos and documentaries. Besides keeping the city as a 
core theme, the submitted work should be based on theoretical and/or 
methodological considerations, which could be briefly discussed with 
the audience at a specific session, or after the screening.
For submitting your works please send:

An abstract of 500 words that sets your visual work in the context of 
sociological studies and that explains its qualities and relevance.
A sample of your work: 5 .jpg pictures for a photo exhibit, a DVD 
(PAL) copy of your video or documentary.
A list of the technical equipment necessary to show or screen your 
work: number and size of the prints, format and length of the video.
Please send your submission to <mailto:e-barbiani at uniurb.it>Erica Barbiani.


peltn at yahoo.com,tanp at itu.edu.tr
phone: 212-2431970, 212-2433181(ext.31)
ITU-Institute of Social Sciences
Architecture Faculty - Taskisla
34437-Istanbul



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