CFP” “Towards Ecocultural Ethics: Recent Trends and Future Directions”

Complete Call for Papers:

http://www.bits-goa.ac.in/EcocultralEthics/index.html

Every culture has its implications on land and the way land is being used in various ways. In fact, cultural appropriation is done through modifications and manipulations of land and environment. In that sense, culture and cultural studies are closely related to ecology (interrelationships) and ecological studies but seen as different disciplines. But the term “ecoculture” brings these two disciplines in a single platform. Ecocultural studies has become a rumble in many western and eastern Universities and other research institutions as an academic discipline and a sought after research area. The area that is intrinsically interdisciplinary / transdisciplinary is slowly and steadily developing into many disciplines in Indian academia as well.

The present conference strives to build a platform to initiate an ecocultural dialogue between theorists and practitioners belonging to various disciplines. It is here that ethics becomes a relevant and vital point of focus. As the methodologies of the fused disciplines are diverse, the perspectives on ethics can also be seen from various dimensions. The principal issue is how values about nature could be best described. Such a query may open up questions like: Does nature have any direct influence on humans? Does it have any moral influence on humans? Should one be apprehensive / inapprehensive about nature? How do we expand the existing ethical framework to encompass the interaction between human and non-human entities?

The following pointers could draw an outline of the ecocultural and ethical perspectives. Some of problems that you could discuss in your paper are: ethical issues in the fusion of disciplines, how scientific can the humanities be, how biocentric can science be, objects and subjects used in the study, the contexts of the subjects and objects in focus, the relationships between subjects and objects, socio-cultural-political and economic aspects of the subjects/objects, transparency and responsibility, science and technology for all life forms, science and technology for even non-living entities, secularity of research, a just methodology to analyse crisis, realism and relativism, animal rights, domestication of animals, vegetarianism and meatarianism, and analysing food and population explosion.

Though these pointers are cursory they could have implications in all disciplines. Moreover, the cultural implications of these pointers cannot be undermined because, if done so, an ethical study becomes partial and shallow outside a cultural context / cultural studies.

The conference will be a pioneering one in the area of ecocultural ethics in India. The conference will prepare the field for this discourse in all disciplines which will be a collective and collaborative effort. This discourse will encourage researchers and scholars to work in this upcoming and most relevant area and would help them launch courses and programmes. Apart from initiating such new ecocultural insights in Indian Academia, it will also promote healthy academic interactions between theorists and practitioners from the disciplines of sciences and social sciences.

Subthemes:

• Indian Philosophy and Ecoethics
• Society, Culture and Ecoethics
• Deep Ecology and Ethics
• Gender, Ecology and Ethics
• Climate Change and Ethics
• Ecological Justice and Ethics
• Ecology, Religions and Ethics
• Ecospirituality and Ethics
• Ecoethnicity and Ethics
• Ecoindigeneity and Ethics
• Econativism and Ethics
• Geography and Ethics
• Political Ecology and Ethics
• Business, Environment and Ethics
• Ecocriticism / Ecoliterature and Ethics
• Ecocinema / Ecoart and Ethics
• Zoocriticism / Geocriticism / Bioregionalism and Ethics
• tiNai criticism and Ethics

Abstracts not exceeding 300 words should be copied to the filled in registration form (only on M.S. word document) and emailed to ecoethicsconference@gmail.com   before 15 May 2014 for acceptance. The contributors will be informed of the acceptance of the abstract by 15 June 2014. Full papers, not exceeding twelve pages and typed in single space in A4 following MLA style sheet, should be submitted by 31 August 2014. Kindly note that a maximum of 100 papers will be selected for presentation. In case of papers written by more than one author, only the presenter (who is one of the authors) of the paper will be entitled to receive the certificate. Selected papers will be published in the form of a book, preferably with an International publisher.