Postgraduate research

The CCIG postgraduate group came into being in October 2010 with the intention to make the postgraduate students more visible and active within the centre and to provide a platform for collaboration between students and members at large.  

In a world where insecurities and fears are increasingly enacted and circulated in order to sustain the status quo, we ask ourselves what we, as postgraduate researchers, can do to move beyond the politics of insecurity. How do we rethink citizenship, identities and governance in non-exclusionary ways? And how can we challenge contemporary discourses and practices that categorize and divide people and places along various lines and yield multiple discriminating effects?  

Our aim is to think, debate and develop new approaches to politics collaboratively and, hopefully, stimulate new thinking and public discussion on these key topics of our time.  

If you are interested in knowing more about the CCIG Postgraduate Research Programme, joining in or just coming along to one of our meetings or seminars, do please contact either of the coordinators - Christine.Ruschak, Christine.Ruschak@open.ac.uk, or Maayan.Geva, Maayan.Geva@open.ac.uk

What we do  

In the list below you can get a glimpse of what we have been up to over the past two years.

This year we are working closer with the CCIG Enactments Programme to organize workshops/surgeries in which PhD students will have the possibility to present how their own work relate to the concept of enactment. Also, we have started a conversation with the Open Space postgraduates with the aim to possibly merge our activities together. 

Last year we organised a very successful CCIG Forum together with the Publics Programme on the theme of the recent UK riots. It sparked an exciting and provocative debate. We also strengthened our collaboration with the International Political Sociology Group at King’s College (London) and with the CCIG Enactments Programme through a variety of seminars and reading groups. In our first year we worked closely with the IPS Group at King’s as we met on a regular basis and discuss around the theme of Power and Resistance. In addition to this collaboration we work closely with the Oecumene Project and hosted for instance an ‘Act of Citizenship’ seminar together with Prof Engin Isin in April, 2011. We also helped organize a joint workshop together with the CCIG Securities Programme on the theme of ‘Resisting (In)security, Securing Resistance’, in July, 2011.

In between these collaborations, seminars and workshops we meet to discuss and focus in more closely on our own research which has proved to be an invaluable opportunity to give each other feedback and support.  

Meetings, seminars and events 2012/2013 

TBA: PhD workshops/surgeries organized in collaboration with the Enactments Programme 

TBA: PhD workshops/surgeries organized in collaboration with the Enactments Programme 

TBA: PhD workshops/surgeries organized in collaboration with the Enactments Programme 

TBA: PhD workshops/surgeries organized in collaboration with the Enactments Programme  

Past events 2011/2012 

28-29 June: 10.00-16.30, Library, The Open University Writing Skills Workshop with consultant Angela Duthie (by invitation only) 

26-27 May: 10.00-16.30, Library, The Open University Presentation Skills Workshop with consultant Angela Duthie (by invitation only) 

16 May: 17.00-19.00, British Library Café, London ‘Enactment’ reading group (Law&Urry) 

7 May: 16.00-18.00, British Library Café, London ‘Power and Resistance’ reading group  

16 April: 16.00-18.00, British Library Café, London ‘Power and Resistance’ reading group (Bourdieu) 

12 April: 17.00-19.00, British Library Café, London ‘Enactment’ reading group (Mol) 

8 March: 17.00-19.00, British Library Café, London ‘Enactment’ reading group (Ware, Derrida) 

5 March: 16.00-18.00, British Library Café, London ‘Power and Resistance’ reading group (Rancière) 

29 February: 17.00-19.00, British Library Café, London ‘Enactment’ reading group (Arendt, Edie) 

23 February: 10.00-17.00, The Open University, Milton Keynes CCIG Forum on the UK Riots in 2011, organized together with the CCIG Publics Programme 

30 January: 16.00-18.00, British Library Café, London ‘Power and Resistance’ reading group (Butler) 

23 January: 17.00-19.00, British Library Café, London ‘Enactment’ reading group (Butler, Hollywood) 

11 January: 17.00-19.00, British Library Café, London ‘Enactment’ reading group (Austin) 

7 December: 16.00-18.00, British Library Café, London Planning meeting for the CCIG Forum on the UK Riots 

5 December: 16.00-18.00, British Library Café, London ‘Power and Resistance’ reading group (Spivak) 

8 November: 16.00-18.00, British Library Café, London Seminar by Michiel Besters, PhD Candidate at Tilburg University (NL), ‘Towards a reflexive concept of security’ 

7 November: 16.00-18.00, British Library Café, London ‘Power and Resistance’ reading group (Balibar) 

3 October: 16.00-18.00, British Library Café, London ‘Power and Resistance’ reading group (de Certeau) 

16 September: 16.00-18.00, British Library Café, London ‘Power and Resistance’ reading group (Foucault)  

Past events 2010/2011 

12 July, OU Camden, London A postgraduate workshop with Olga Jubany as part of the day long workshop on ‘Resisting (In)security, Securing Resistance’ organized together with CCIG Securities Programme 

11 July, King’s College, London A postgraduate workshop with Mitchell Dean 

23 June, 11.00-17.30, Charles Pinfold Building, Pinfold Level 4, OU A workshop on ‘Embodied Methods and Acts of Power’ with Erene Kaptani 

8 June, 14.30-16.00, Library Seminar Room 1, OU Joint session together with the Oecumene project. Zaki Nahaboo will share his work on ‘Rethinking British histories of difference management: writing beyond periodizations’ and Cinaed Decanntun will share his work on ‘Asylum seeking under the New Asylum Model’ 2

4 May, 14.30-16.00, Room 031 Briggs, OU Bruno Magalhaes will share his work on ‘Complexity and complexification in securitization studies’ and Stephan Scheel will share his work on ‘The Visa Information System: Biometric Re-Bordering and the Appropriation of Mobility’ 

28 April, 14.30-16.00, British Library Café, London Erene Kaptani will share her work on ‘Performance based knowledge inquiry: Let’s make a scene!’ 

13 April: 14.00-16.00, Central Meeting Room 1, OU CCIG and Oecumene ‘Acts of Citizenship’ seminar with Prof. Engin Isin 

25 March: 09.00-13.00, King’s College, London (venue to be announced) ‘Insecurities and Resistance’ seminar with Prof. Didier Bigo, Prof. Jef Huysmans and Dr Claudia Aradau 

15 March: 14.30-16.00, Room 031, Briggs, OU Helen Arfvidsson will share her work on ‘Acts of citizenship and youth burning cars in the banlieues’ and Lisa Pilgram will share her work on 'Law abiding citizen? Muslim legal practices in the UK' 

7 March: 17.15-18.30, British Library Café, London Reading group for ‘Insecurities and Resistance’ seminar 

2 March: 14.30-16.00, Room 006, Gardiner 1, OU ‘Securitized Sites’ seminar with Prof. Jef Huysmans, Dr Vicki Squire and Dr Claudia Aradau 

18 February: 10.30-12.30, British Library Café, London Reading group for ‘Insecurities and Resistance’ seminar 

10 February, 11.00-14.00, Christodoulou Meeting Room 11, OU Prof. Robyn Longhurst seminar for Postgraduate Students 

28 January: 13.00-15.00, British Library Café, London Yet another planning session 13 January: 14.30-16.00, Room 006, Gardiner 1, OU Planning session