Eurograd message

                *Dear Colleagues,*

I would like to share with you a call for papers on *Gossip, Rumours and
Conspiracy Theories at the time of crisis.*  All details are below but do
not hesitate to get in touch with me if you have any questions.

Best wishes,

ELa Drazkiewicz




*CFP: Gossip, Rumours and Conspiracy Theories at the time of crisis.  *

Since the beginning of the pandemic questions such as ‘what is really going
on?’ ‘what is the truth?’, ‘what is hidden?’ ‘whose information
can be
trusted?’ seem to be at the centre of many conversations and public
debates. At the time of crisis, gossip, rumour and conspiracy theories,
offer an opportunity to fill the gaps in the knowledge and gain vital
information to manage the emergency. When the illness hits a family, when
violence, insecurity and conflict enter communities, when planes crash,
when natural or man-made disasters take place, when a pandemic hits the
world, these speculative and investigative communicative strategies might
offer a chance to make sense of the crisis, to explain why bad things
happen.

For those who do not have access or control over information, gossiping or
speculating allows people to create their own narrative about the systems
which otherwise marginalise or disenfranchise them. It also offers a chance
to contest officially sanctioned knowledge. Conspiracy theories are
frequently used as a form of social and political critique. They not only
‘reveal the truth’ but also criticise the ways in which a particular
crisis
is handled, the social order that ‘allowed it’, and the ‘evil groups’
that
supposedly intentionally orchestrated it for their own gains. Questioning
the status quo conspiracy theories obviously provoke strong reactions. They
are muddying scientific waters, and when they merge with extremist and
populist movements they can generate conflicts, spread racism and prejudice.

Today, in the post-truth and the midst-pandemic world it is increasingly
clear that conflicts over truth have become central not only to those
people who spread gossip and endorse conspiracy theories, but also to those
who fear of their societal consequences and push back against the
‘post-truth’ era. For those reasons, seven years after first special
issue
dedicated to conspiracy theories ‘Slovak Ethnology’ returns to the topic
and invites contribution that concern papers analysing the role of gossip,
rumours and conspiracy theories in dealing with the crisis.

We are particularly (but not exclusively) interested in papers that address
the following themes:
- the social life of conspiracy theories, rumours and gossip at the time of
crisis;
- conspiracy theories, gossip and/or rumour as a social and political
weapon;
- regimes of truth vis-à-vis contested truths;
- conspiracy theories and popular culture;
- conspiracy theories as play;
- the cognitive worlds of conspiracy theories;
- conspiracy theories and religion (apocalyptic visions, occult features);
- social consequences of spreading rumours and conspiracy theories;
- the role of media (both traditional and digital) in spreading rumours and
conspiracy theories;

We welcome papers that cover all regions. We are particularly interested in
anthropological, ethnological and folklorist studies, but are also
interested in political, sociological, historical and cultural studies
approaches.

The special issue will be published in the Slovak Ethnology/Slovenský
národopis, volume 72, number 3/2022. The guest editors of the issue are
Elżbieta Drążkiewicz (Institute for Sociology of SAS) and Zuzana Panczová
(Institute of Ethnology and Social Anthropology of SAS).

Authors are kindly requested to submit their abstracts (300-500 words) and
keywords directly through the editorial system of Slovenský
národopis/Slovak Ethnology (CLICK HERE
)
no later than July 31, 2021.

The selected manuscripts are expected no later than December 31, 2021. The
text should not exceed 6,250 words or 45,000 characters, including spaces,
notes and references, and should follow the Journal´s guidelines for
authors accessible HERE .

If you have any question you can contact the guest editor Ela Drążkiewicz:
ela.drazkiewicz@savba.sk

Slovak Ethnology / Slovenský národopis is a peer-reviewed, open access
journal published by the Institute of Ethnology of the Slovak Academy of
Sciences in Bratislava four times a year since 1953. The first issue of
each year is published in Slovak/Czech, and the second, third and the
fourth ones in English. Slovak Ethnology presents to the international
academic community the results of research in social sciences and
humanities, mainly in the field of ethnology and cultural/social
anthropology. The journals publishes articles by experts from Europe and
overseas.

Abstracting, indexing and distribution:

Emerging Sources Citation Index of Web of Science (ESCI, WoS),

 SCOPUS , DOAJ ,
EBSCO , ProQuest ,
CEEOL , Central European Journal of Social Sciences
and humanities (CEJSH)
, The Modern
Language Association (MLA) , Ulrichsweb
, Willingspress, Norwegian
Centre for Research Data (NSD)

, European Science Foundation (ESF),
European
Reference Index for the Humanities and the Social Sciences (ERIH PLUS)

, Sciendo (De Gruyter)



--

Elżbieta Drążkiewicz, PhD

Senior Research Fellow

Institute for Sociology

Slovak Academy of Sciences



RECENT PUBLICATIONS



'Institutionalised Dreams: The Art of Managing Foreign Aid'

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What Should Academics Do About Conspiracy theories
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Scientific Intimacy
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Taking Vaccine Regret and Hesitancy Seriously. The role of truth,
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, forum
in Social Anthropology vol:28:3, pp co-edited with Thomas Strong
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