24-25 January 2024, 09:00AM-06:00PM | Room 1, CES | Alta | Coimbra
Keynote sessions are free and open to the public, with no requirement for pre-registration.
The detailed calendar will be made available at a later stage on the event page.
The UNPOP international colloquium focuses on the role that emotions (and/or affects, passions, sentiments, feelings, moods, dispositions, and attitudes) and narratives (and/or discourses, framings, storytelling) play in forging socio-political identities and the impact that they have on political behaviour and democracy. The aim of the colloquium is to deepen our understanding of how emotions, narratives and identities are articulated within political regimes, how they are being deployed in populism (i.e. leaders, parties, movements, attitudes), and what is the outcome for political and democratic systems and societies. Populism powerfully mobilises social identities and emotions and will be a special focus of the colloquium. The colloquium has an interdisciplinary nature that includes political science, sociology, philosophy, psychology, communication, and anthropology, amongst other disciplines. We invite PhD candidates and researchers at an early or advanced stage of their careers to contribute by submitting an abstract – of a theoretical or empirical (qualitative, quantitative, or mixed) nature – that investigates issues related to, but not restricted to, the following:
- Effects of emotions, narratives, and identities on populism (incl. mobilisation, form, strategy, style, and ideas) and vice versa;
- Effects of emotions, narratives, and identities on political behaviour;
- Intersection of emotions, narratives, identities, populism and their relation to current forms of political polarisation and extremism;
- Relationship between emotions and narratives on identity formation and socio-political signification;
- Impact of beliefs, values, traditions, utopias, social symbolisms, and political mythologies on social signification and political action;
- Effect of (mis/dis-)information and (post-)truth on political emotions, narratives, and identities;
- Consequence of (digital) communication on the changing nature of emotion, narrative, and identity formation processes;
- Inference of intergroup relations and emotions on politics and democracy;
- Interplay between supply and demand side politics in shaping political emotions, narratives, and socio-political identities;
- Building political (mis-)trust and its consequences in relation to political affection and participation;
- Opportunities and challenges of narratives enhancing the role of diversity, intercultural dialogue, and progress towards democracy;
- Interplay between racism, xenophobia, islamophobia, misogyny, and other forms of discrimination and oppression with emotions, narratives, identities, and populism;
- Role of emotions, narratives, identities, and populism in the mainstreaming of anti-gender ideology and white supremacy;
- Challenges to the form and substance of traditional politics by populist phenomena, political adaptation, and its consequences;
- Implications and consequences of right-wing extremist mobilisation of emotions, narratives, and identity formation on democracy;
- Methodological reflections to identify and overcome the limits in the study of emotion, narrative, and identity formation processes;
- Role of emotions, narratives, identities, and populism in the emergence, development and consolidation of protest and social movements;
- Emerging scenarios for democratic theory in light of a renewed focus on narratives, emotions, and identities.
The UNPOP internactional colloquium is a fully on-site (neither virtual nor hybrid) event in English (no simultaneous interpretation) aimed to stimulate a creative space of reflection, research advancement, and networking in a critical and safe environment. The keynote sessions are open to the public and no registration is needed., Video recordings will be made available on the UNPOP website after the event. The paper discussion sessions are restricted to a limited number of presenters, who are selected to present work that they are developing or finalising. Paper presenters are requested to send a statement of interest and an abstract (both max 1,500 characters; ~250 words) upon application, and a draft version of their paper (max 4,000 words from title to last reference) ahead of the conference. Paper presenters act as discussants for other papers and are requested to actively participate throughout the event programme. The colloquium includes a round table open to the public and organised in a public space of Coimbra during the evening of the second day.
After the colloquium, paper givers may be invited to send their reviewed and improved papers to be considered as part of a collective publication. This publication may take the form of an edited book with an international academic publisher or a scientific journal special issue.
For updated information about the UNPOP colloquium, please visit https://unpop.ces.uc.pt/en/coloquio-unpop/