Mobile Boundaries / Rigid Worlds : The Contemporary Paradox
Second Annual Conference of the Centre for Research on Social Inclusion
Macquarie University

‘Mobile Boundaries/Rigid Worlds’ is a two-day conference dedicated to the examination of our mobile world, and how it intersects with new and continuing forms of inclusion/exclusion. Presenters will address this theme from a variety of disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives, covering topics such as global and local media, new economies and global exchange, transnationality and identity, postcolony, biotechnics and bodies.

We live in a world of change and movement. People, money and things are in a constant state of flux. There is movement from place to place. Our identities are ever-changing. Nothing seems fixed. As Manuel Castells has observed, we live in a ‘space of flows’. Despite the fluidity of things, the world order is marked by segregations and forms of exclusion, both new and old, global and local. The contemporary condition is one of paradox, torn between and general trend towards increased fluidity and the disappearance of boundaries, and the opposing trend that sees the thriving of old orders and the emergence of new boundaries of containment and exclusion.

Plenary presenters

• Dr Annie Potts (American Studies, Gender Studies and Cultural Studies Programs, University of Canterbury, Christchurch NZ). `Viagra Cyborgs and the New Retro Sex'.

• Marge Reitsma-Street (Professor in Studies in Policy and Practice in Health and Social Services, University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada) ‘Foundations of Campaigns against Poverty Amid Affluence’

• Dr. Ned Rossiter (Digital Media Studies, Centre for Media Research, University of Ulster, Northern Ireland) ‘Organised Networks as New Civil Society Movements’

• Bevan Cassady (Warawara, Department of Indigenous Studies, Macquarie University) ‘The Chains Just Get Longer’

Parallel sessions
Parallel presentations are arranged into the following streams:

• Changing Bodies, Changing Worlds
• Identities: Race, Community, Citizenship
• Poverty Amid Affluence
• Social Justice and Spaces of Containment
• Imagining Globalisation: Media, Culture, Information and Exchange
• Biotechnics, Bodies and Belonging

Registration $100 (waged), $50 (student, includes lunch), $10 (student, excludes lunch)
Registration form and further info at the web address below.