Violence and Catastrophe in the Age of Uncertainty

From violent military conflicts and anthropogenic climate change to weapons of mass destruction and existential risks posed by artificial intelligence, a chaotic transformation shapes our lives and the earth. The world has rapidly become an unsafe and perilous place. The increasing global insecurity endangers humankind, the planet, and our livelihoods while it abandons hope for a sustainable and prosperous future. In the age of uncertainty, it gains urgency to question what are the origins, dimensions, and destructive outcomes of global violence and catastrophe? How do the violent and unjust practices of governments and global corporations exploit natural resources and push the planet to the edge of a catastrophe? What are the global risks emerging from violent conflicts between states? To what extent the approaching global threats are camouflaged by conventional media? Why are protests and rebellions against the global insecurity policed, surrounded, and restrained? How do violence and the risk of catastrophe shape our collective behaviours in the age of great fear brought by this uncertainty? What kind of future projects or imaginations we hope to attain as we are appalled by the existential risks of destroying our planet?

The responses to these questions are vital to fully explore and contextualise the motives embraced by destructive political and social forces governing our world. In doing so, we have the opportunity of debating new shifts towards future alternatives to imagine the possibility of another world. This exploration also posits out policies to attain global sustainability and form strategies against violent practices and catastrophic risks. This online conference aims to theorise existential risks threatening humanity and our planet by centralising states, global corporations, and the established world system as responsible actors fostering the surge of global violence and the risks of catastrophe. This conference expects to stir up new intellectual exchanges on this topic, and we invite anthropologists, historians, sociologists, political scientists, and philosophers to participate in this event. We are particularly interested in receiving abstracts in the listed areas noted below. However, we are happy to consider all submissions revolving around the urgent issues covering global violence and catastrophe.

• Climate change and the destruction of the planet;
• Global existential risks in the Anthropocene;
• Military conflicts and weapons of mass destruction;
• Global risks posed by drones, artificial intelligence, and advanced technology;
• Inequality and injustice in the excessive access to resources and consumption of it;
• The role of media and propaganda in the concealment of catastrophic risks;
• Social protests and rebellions against global insecurity and the risks of catastrophe;
• Policies to defy global insecurity, violence, and catastrophe;
• Imperialist and colonialist projects/events that have increased the risk of extinction, global violence and catastrophe;
• The great fear for the catastrophic destruction and the sociology of emotions;
• Global responsibility in the face of existential risks;
• Imagining our future after the catastrophe;
• Experimental utopias to create a sustainable world order in the epoch of extinction.

The conference will result in an edited book to be published by a university press publisher. The authors interested in the subject need to submit their abstracts up to 300 words to Dr. Baris Cayli Messina(b.cayli@derby.ac.uk) by 1 December 2021. The authors will not pay for the presentation and the publication. All authors will be part of the future contract offered by the publisher. The online conference will be free and open to the public and it will be held over two days on 24 March and 25 March 2022 between 5:00 p.m and 8:00 p.m (Central European local time). Full paper submission is by 1 May 2022.

*The conference has a sexual harassment policy and practicing the AAA's Comprehensive Policy on Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault.