Abuse
A Global Inclusive Interdisciplinary Conference

Friday 3rd July 2020 to Saturday 4th July 2020
Bratislava, Slovakia

Abuse, or the mistreatment of oneself or another being, can come in many forms both subtle and extreme: drug, alcohol or substance abuse, cutting or other forms of self harm; verbal, physical, psychological, emotional, financial, medical or sexual abuse; child, elder or animal abuse; medical neglect; abuse of power, authority, information, or research; discriminatory abuse, legal abuse, hate crimes; harassment, bullying, controlling and cyber-bullying; human  trafficking, female genital mutilation, enforced sexual slavery or child soldiers; or intimidation, isolation, peer abuse, coercion or humiliation. All different, yet all abuse.

The effects of such abuse are profound. It can undermine relationships and cause both physical pain and psychological distress. Consistently, increased health risks and specific negative behaviours have been found to be associated with a history of abuse in individuals. Research focused on adverse childhood experiences by the Adverse Childhood Exposure (ACE) Study (Felitti et al, 1998) posits that there is a strong and graded relationship between ten different adverse childhood experiences, including emotional and physical neglect and sexual and physical abuse, with risk factors for death and disease.

What are the bigger questions regarding abuse?  What causes one to abuse?  What are the experiences of those who are abused?  What about those with limited or no voice?  How do systems of abuse affect the greater community? What connection is there between abuse and resilience?  What happens when abuse goes unchecked?  This project endeavours to explore abuse in its many forms across a range of critical, contextual, and cultural perspectives. Seeking to encourage innovative dialogues, we warmly welcome papers and projects that demonstrate the struggle to understand abuse and its impact on the individual, familial, cultural, community, and global level.

This conference has a global focus; it aims to facilitate dialogue and spark innovative collaborations and discussions at the international level. We welcome papers from all disciplines, professions and vocations, going beyond the academic world and bringing together researchers, community, and professionals engaged in work on Abuse.  We welcome traditional papers, panels or round tables, and workshop proposals, as well as other forms of presentation platforms (art, poetry, posters, video submissions, etc.) favoured outside academia, given the interdisciplinary nature of the conference, recognising that different groups express themselves in various formats and mediums.

Key Topics
Subject to the presentations and discussions which take place at the meeting, there is a possibility for a selective innovative publication to emerge with the aim of engendering further interdisciplinary collaboration and discussion.

We welcome proposals from a wide range of perspectives and voices, on topics including but not limited to:
~ Historical origins of abuse
~ Cultural perspectives
~ Types of abuse: physical, psychological, emotional, sexual, child, elder, financial, cyber, medical, dating, and animal abuse; physical, emotional, medical neglect; abuse of power, authority, information, or research; discriminatory abuse, legal abuse, and hate crimes; harassment, bullying, and cyber-bullying; or intimidation, isolation, and humiliation.
~ Abuse of academic research
~ Media representations of abuse
~ Case studies of abuse
~ Differences between abuse and discipline
~ Literature, art, music, film, portrayals of abuse; its effects, victims, and perpetrators
~ Laws surrounding abuse
~ Abuse related to technology and social media
~ Perpetrators of abuse
~ Victims of abuse
~ How to treat those who experience or perpetrate abuse
~ Therapeutic interventions
~ Causes of abuse
~ Effects of abuse on individuals, communities, systems

What To Send
The aim of this inclusive interdisciplinary conference and collaborative networking event is to bring people together and encourage creative conversations in the context of a variety of formats: papers, seminars, workshops, storytelling, performances, poster presentations, problem-solving sessions, case studies, panels, q&a’s, round-tables etc. Creative responses to the subject, such as poetry/prose, short film screenings/original drama, installations and alternative presentation styles that engage the audience and foster debate are particularly encouraged. Please feel free to put forward proposals that you think will get the message across, in whatever form.

At the end of the conference we will be exploring ways in which we can develop the discussions and dialogues in new and sustainable inclusive interdisciplinary directions, including research, workshops, publications, public interest days, associations, developing courses etc which will help us make sense of the topics discussed during the meeting. There is an intention, subject to the discussions which emerge during the course of the meeting, to form a selective innovative interdisciplinary publication to engender further research and collaboration.

300 word proposals, presentations, abstracts and other forms of contribution and participation should be submitted by Friday 10th January 2020. Other forms of participation should be discussed in advance with the Organising Chairs.

All submissions will be at least double reviewed, under anonymous (blind) conditions, by a global panel drawn from members of the Project Team, The Development 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 24th January 2020.

If your submission is accepted for the conference, a full draft of your contribution should be submitted by Friday 1st May 2020.

Abstracts and proposals may be in Word, 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) type of proposal e.g. paper presentation, workshop, panel, film, performance, etc, f) body of proposal, g) up to 10 keywords.

E-mails should be entitled: Abuse Submission

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

Kristine Seitz: kristine@kristineseitz.com
Len Capuli (Project Administrator): bratislavaabuse@progressiveconnexions.net