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1st Global Conference
Sexual Citizenship

The project meeting has been postponed to 2019

Exploring the relationship between sexuality and personhood, this project seeks to understand how sex and sexuality shape citizenship, belonging, identity, and expression. Embracing an ethos of cultural humility, we wish to explore how sexual citizenship manifests organically within and across communities and cultures.

Sexual citizenship is often constructed in ways that enforce inequities in access, disparities in full social and political participation, and hierarchies of belonging and non-belonging. The concept of citizenship is fraught with complication. How does citizenship relate to, or reject, notions of nationalism, patriotism, and hyperpatriotism? What is the relationship between citizenship and belonging? Who has access to citizenship, and how can citizenship be conceived in ways that transcend counties, states, provinces, and nations? Does sexual citizenship equate to homonationalism, or can it deconstruct and complicate loyalties specific to place and state? If citizenship serves to perpetuate binaries of inclusion and exclusion, can sexual citizenship nevertheless be a useful framework? The project looks beyond sexuality as simple desire and seeks to explore how sexuality and sexual citizenship shape political, social, and cultural engagement and research across a wide variety of contexts and disciplines.

Our first interdisciplinary conference on Sexual Citizenship seeks to form connections across professions and communities to discuss and explore research and activity on this theme, to identify areas to be subsequently explored in further depth, and to generate collaborative action that will lead to change in the inequitable ways that sexual citizenship is constructed, enforced, and maintained. While we welcome traditional papers, we would also like to solicit applied and multimodal expressions of research and engagement with sexualities topics. To that end we are particularly interested in panels or roundtables, seminars, workshop proposals, performances, policy brainstorming sessions, art exhibits and other forms of expression – recognising that different disciplines express themselves in different mediums and that different cultures have different ways of knowing.

Key Topics

Key topics, themes and issues for discussion may include, but are definitely not limited to:

1. Community Activism and Grassroots Organising in Marginalised Sexuality Communities We are particularly interested in workshops on do-it-yourself activism, forming activist collectives, and case studies of successful and unsuccessful activist endeavours; activism promoting harm reduction; sexuality inclusive anti-racist practice; inequity, power relations, and sexual citizenship; homelessness and sexuality, particularly as it relates to citizenship and belonging; sexual freedom, personhood, resistance, and rebellion; sexual activism in an age of political apathy; activism, NGOs, and/or voluntary sector work addressing queer intimate partner violence; activism to rethink law and policy including:

  • laws governing sexuality at local, state/province, regional, and national levels; policies regulating sexuality within institutions and workplaces;
  • laws governing citizenship, immigration, and detention, and their relationships to sexuality

 2. Sexual Citizenship and Belonging Modern sexual ethics, including non-monogamous ethics; marriage and the sexual politics of assimilation/accommodation; immigration, migration, and sexual citizenship; intersex and transgender sexual citizenship; asexual citizenship in a predominantly sexual world; bi-erasure; sexual citizenship for religious figures/clergy; the heretical and the sacred and their place in desire; nameless, unlabellable sexualities and relationships; theories of sexuality such as queer, crip, affect, social constructionism, etc.; disability and sexuality; race, ethnicity, and sexuality; the politics of pride and queer visibility, particularly as a Western strategy of citizenship and belonging, and the rejection or critique of coming out; sexual expression in various global contexts; unnamed and unspoken sexualities and sexual encounters; citizenship within queer time and space; subcultural citizenship

3. Artistic, Narrative, and Performative Depictions of Sexuality We are particularly interested in projects that explore sexuality and sexual citizenship through art, artistic creation, and narratives. Potential mediums include:

  • narrative and/or oral history workshops focused on sexual storytelling (as sexual minority communities are frequently collectivists and collectivist communities often communicate through storytelling); theatrical or performative depictions of sexuality; narrative or poetry readings or performances; visual and aesthetic art; workshops on creating, or presentation of existing, zines or chapbooks

4. Negotiating Sexuality in Different Contexts (sexual code-switching) Identity, desire and lived experience; negotiating multiple citizenships; altering expression in different cultural contexts; sexual embodiment and disability, intersex, or trans identity; dislocated, homeless, disassociated, uprooted sex and desire; disability and/or crip sexualities; sexual identity versus sexual expression; race, ethnicity, and sexuality; fat studies and sexual embodiment; asexual affectionality and romanticism; mapping desire; public sex and the politics of public versus private sexuality; sex games and sexual play that make people uncomfortable; situational sexuality

 5. Sex Workers and the Sex Economy We are particularly interested in hearing from sex workers and the volunteer sector or NGO workers who support their autonomy. Topics may include:

  • sex workers’ rights, autonomy, and lived experiences; sex work and safety; sex workers’ access to citizenship; sex as economic, social, and symbolic capital; bodily autonomy and sexual agency; sex work and the barter economy; trading sex and engaging in sex work; sex tourism; sexual consumption and consumerism; purchasing sex, sex toys, and sexual images; commoditization of sexuality; sex as currency; sex as labour

6. Workshopping Professional Practice, Training, or Policy Embracing the ethos “nothing about us without us,” we seek proposals from professionals that focus on work-shopping or soliciting feedback on improving practices, training, or policies related to sexuality in your field. What are promising practices for practitioners in your field? Where is your field heading? Presentations in this category must be understandable by a non-specialised or lay audience. We are especially interested in submissions from fields such as:

  • medicine and healthcare, mental healthcare, education, business and finance, law and law enforcement, immigration and detention, research, social services, sex work, activism, trades, hospitality and tourism, science, etc.

What to Send

The aim of this interdisciplinary conference and collaborative networking event is to bring together academics, professionals, practitioners, NGO’s, voluntary sector workers, in the context of a variety of formats: papers, seminars, workshops, panels, q&a’s, performances etc.

300 word reviews of your proposed contribution (abstracts, proposals for workshops, collaborative works, round tables, overviews of artistic projects or any other relevant forms of participation you are interested in) should be submitted by Friday 23rd February 2018.

All submissions will be minimally double reviewed, under anonymous (blind) conditions, by a global panel drawn from members of the Project Advisory Team and the Advisory Board. In practice our procedures usually entail that by the time a proposal is accepted, it will have been triple and quadruple reviewed.

You will be notified of the panel’s decision by Friday 9th March 2018.

If your submission is accepted for the conference, a full draft of your contribution should be submitted by Friday 22nd June 2018.

Proposals may be in Word, PDF, RTF or Notepad formats with the following information and in this order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation as you would like it to appear in the programme, c) email address, d) title of proposal, e) body of proposal, f) up to 10 keywords.

E-mails should be entitled:  Sexual Citizenship

Where to Send

Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to the Organising Chair and the Project Administrator:

Kristopher Shultz: shultzk2@seattleu.edu
Project Administrator: praguecitizenship@www.progressiveconnexions.net

Conference Outcomes and Outputs

The events we organise form a continual stream of conversations, activities and projects which grow and evolve in different directions. The outcomes and ‘outputs’ which can productively flow from these is a dynamic response to the gatherings themselves. As our meetings are attended by people from different backgrounds, professions and vocations, the range of desirable outcomes are potentially diverse, fluid and appropriate to what took place.

We anticipate that some papers and contributions from the conference might contribute to a themed volume to be considered by the At The Interface/Probing the Boundaries series published by Brill, for whom Progressive Connexions director Dr Robert Fisher is Series Editor. Potential editors will be chosen from interested conference delegates.

Additional possible outputs include: open volume on-line annuals; online toolboxes and repositories; collaboration platforms; reviews; reports; policy statements; position papers; declarations of principles; petitions, subsequent meetings for in depth exploration of specific issues, workshops, courses and schools; proposals for personal and professional development opportunities; other options you would like us to consider.

Details and Information

 
Fees
Key Dates
Venue
Outcomes
Payment

Registration Fees

The cost for attending the conference is £285.
(Please note: in exceptional circumstances this may fluctuate depending on the £ - € exchange rate).
This includes:

~ conference registration fee
~ Monday coffee/tea on arrival
~ Monday morning coffee and biscuits
~ Monday lunch
~ Monday afternoon tea and biscuits
~ Monday evening wine and drinks reception
~ drinks in the conference room
~ Tuesday morning coffee and biscuits
~ Tuesday lunch
~ Tuesday afternoon tea and biscuits
~ drinks in the conference room

Calendar of time-lines and deadlines

Friday 23rd February 2018
Proposal Submission deadline

Friday 9th March 2018
Acceptance/Rejection notification

Friday 30th March 2018
Booking Form Submissions

by Friday 13th April 2018
Invoices issued
w/b Monday 16th April 2018
Circulation of Draft Programme

Sunday 16th May 2018
Final date for payment

Friday 1st June 2018
Circulation of Revised Programme

Friday 15th June 2018
Final programme to website and to printing.

Friday 22nd June 2018
Full draft of presentation to be submitted.

The conference is being held at the Grand Majestic Plaza Hotel, Prague.

Truhlářská 1117/16, 110 00 Nové Město, Prague, Czech Republic,
Phone: +420 211 159 100 Fax: +420 211 159 159

We have reserved rooms for delegates at the conference hotel on favourable terms and conditions. On having a proposal accepted for presentation at the conference, and on the completion and submission of a booking form, a special booking form will be sent to you along with instructions on how to use it in order to access these terms.Standard Room - Singe Occupancy €115 per night including breakfast and all taxes
Standard Room - Double/Twin Person Occupancy €115 per night including breakfast and all taxes
Details will be sent to delegates on how to access these rates once receipt of the booking form has been confirmed.
Accommodation bookings are made directly with the hotel, not Progressive Connexions. All payments for accommodation are made directly to the hotel as well. A credit card will be required on booking.
You are free to find alternative accommodation. We are offering these arrangements as a convenience to folks who would like to be at the conference venue.

The conferences, meetings and events we organise are not single ‘one-off’ events. They are part of a continual stream of conversations, activities and projects which grow and evolve in different directions. At the conclusion of every meeting, the question needs to be considered: What happens next? After all, there is little personal, educational or professional benefit in gathering people together from around the world and sharing all sorts of fascinating conversations if nothing further is going to happen as a result!

The possible ranges of ‘outputs’ which can productively flow from our meetings is a dynamic response to the dialogues, issues and engagements that take place during the events themselves. And as our meetings are attended by folks who come from different backgrounds, contexts, professions and vocations, what people would like to see developed as a result of our time spent together will always be potentially diverse, fluid and appropriate to what took place.

One range of possible outputs involves publication as a way of continuing the work of a project. Where publishing is a possibility, it is directly referenced in the Call for Papers, Presentations and Participation. Other possible outputs may include, but are not limited to:
~ social media platforms such as Facebook pages and groups, blogs, wikis, Twitter, as vehicles for continuing dialogues, disseminating knowledge and information and bringing new people into the work of the project
~ reviews; reports; policy statements; position papers/statements; declarations of principles
~ proposals for meetings, workshops, courses, schools
~ collaboration gateways, platforms and media
~ personal and professional development opportunities: faculty development; mentoring programmes; cultural cruises; consultancies; summer schools; personal enrichment programmes

The range of outputs is dependent on how little or how much you would like to become involved. Don’t let the end of the meeting signal the end of your involvement with the project. Please get involved, bounce ideas around, think out loud – we’d love to hear about what you’d like to do and are always happy to talk about what is possible.

Payment Process
Participants must complete the online booking form by Friday 30th March 2018 at the latest.
After the deadline has expired, an invoice will be drawn up and sent to you; the invoice will contain all the necessary information for you to pay by bank transfer, cheque, Paypal or credit card.
The invoice must be settled by Sunday 16th May 2018.

It is the responsibility of delegates to ensure that payment is made by this date. Failure to receive payment will result in your booking being cancelled.

Payment Methods
There are a number of ways payment can be made.

Cheque
Payment can be made by cheque, in GBP (£ sterling) only and must be drawn against a bank with headquarters in the United Kingdom. Cheque’s should be made payable to ‘Progressive Connexions’ and sent, with a copy of the booking form, to:

Dr Rob Fisher
Progressive Connexions
Priory House
149b Wroslyn Road
Freeland
Oxfordshire. OX29 8HR
United Kingdom

We cannot and will not accept cheques made payable in currencies other than GBP Sterling.

Bank Transfer Payment may be made using bank transfer. There will be an option to pay in either GBP (£ Sterling) or Euro (€). Full details to enable a bank transfer are made available on your conference invoice. If paying by this method, you must agree to pay all charges at the sending and receiving banks.

By Invoice
You may request that an invoice be sent to you which you may forward to your institution. It is your responsibility to ensure that the invoice is paid before the payment deadline.

Online
Your invoice will include a link to pay through a secure and encrypted online payment system. Please click the link to use this method.

Credit Card
Payment may also be made using credit card. We cannot accept American Express or Discovery as a form of payment.

Paypal
Payment may also be made using Paypal. If paying by this method please send us the email account connected with your Paypal account and we will forward you a request for payment.

IMPORTANT
We strongly recommend that all delegates take out some form of travel or other insurance in relation any and all travel arrangements or accommodation booked in regard to the conference. This should include cancellation insurance in the event of unforeseen or unexpected circumstances.

All fees are payable in advance. No delegate will be permitted entry to the conference if an invoice is still unpaid.

What’s so Special?

A fresh, friendly, dynamic format – at Progressive Connexions we are dedicated to breaking away from the stuffy, old-fashion conference formats, where endless presentations are read aloud off PowerPoints. We work to bring you an interactive format, where exchange of experience and information is alternated with captivating workshops, engaging debates and round tables, time set aside for getting to know each other and for discussing common future projects and initiatives, all in a warm, relaxed, egalitarian atmosphere.

 

A chance to network with international professionals – the beauty of our interdisciplinary events is that they bring together professionals from all over the world and from various fields of activity, all joined together by a shared passion. Not only will the exchange of experience, knowledge and stories be extremely valuable in itself, but we seek to create lasting, ever-growing communities around our projects, which will become a valuable resource for those belonging to them.

 

A chance to be part of constructing change – There is only one thing we love as much as promoting knowledge: promoting real, lasting social change by encouraging our participants to take collective action, under whichever form is most suited to their needs and expertise (policy proposals, measuring instruments, research projects, educational materials, etc.) We will support all such actions in the aftermath of the event as well, providing a platform for further discussions, advice from the experts on our Project Advisory Team and various other tools and intellectual resources, as needed.

 

An opportunity to discuss things that matter to you – Our events are not only about discussing how things work in the respective field, but also about how people work in that field – what are the struggles, problems and solutions professionals have found in their line of work, what are the areas where better communication among specialists is needed and how the interdisciplinary approach can help bridge those gaps and help provide answers to questions from specific areas of activity.

 

An unforgettable experience – When participating in a Progressive Connexions event, there is a good chance you will make some long-time friends. Our group sizes are intimate, our venues are comfortable and relaxing and our event locations are suited to the history and culture of the event.

Ethos

Progressive Connexions believes it is a mark of personal courtesy and professional respect to your colleagues that all delegates should attend for the full duration of the meeting. If you are unable to make this commitment, please do not submit an abstract or proposal for presentation.

 

Please note: Progressive Connexions is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence, nor can we offer discounts off published rates and fees.

Progressive Connexions is a not-for-profit network inspiring inclusive interdisciplinary research, publishing and collaboration