25th DiscourseNet Conference on Global Dispositives* (November 12-15 2020) deals with the processes of social change that are discursively driven and supported by technological infrastructures and new cultural, economic and political relations. In the context of globalization, they affect transformations in all social domains – from economy to culture, including media and education, (digital) technology, industry and environment, politics and governance.

Global Dispositives can be recognised in popular examples of social change. First of all, the global political and economic projects, i.e. the discourses evolving around the Belt and Road Initiative, new infrastructural development of the Arctic region, Eurasian Economic Union but also on small-scale and in semi-official or informal organisations such as the Three Seas Initiative, Visegrad Group or countries within the mini-Schengen integration project. Secondly, global dispositives can be tied to discourses of technology, security and warfare. Examples are not only projects such as the Internet itself (or rather the entire World Wide Web), but also discourses bound up to its structural changes like the implementation of 5G internet technology, balkanization of the internet, various concepts of IoT or surveillance etc. And finally, the discourses tied to the consequences of various kinds of transitions such as the transforming regulations of global migration (based on causes such as war or environment), an emerging post-liberal global trade system based on nationalism(s), global political upheavals and new struggles over postnational identities (especially among youth cultures). The DN25 on Global Dispositifs aims to attract researchers who explore (inter)cultural, economic, technological and political processes of global change on various levels, from a range of disciplinary perspectives in the broad field of discourse studies.

Hosted by the Cultural Trends Lab, situated at the Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities of Tyumen State University in Siberia (Russia) and organised in cooperation with China Media Observatory (Lugano, Switzerland) and the School of Government and Public Affairs (Beijing, China), this conference endeavors to devote special attention to Belt and Road Initiative as a unique example of a global dispositive. The launch of the Belt Road Initiative (BRI, previously known as One Belt, One Road) in 2013, promised new imaginaries of a multipolar world and an alternative model of globalisation. It came into play in the form of cross-country mega infrastructure projects, new regulating mechanisms and bilateral agreements. These material infrastructures, together with their legal, political and economic dimensions, cultural and educational interconnections, and new media and telecommunication standards represent a chain of social ensembles which create completely new setting. However, integrating processes often ensue discursive struggles and conflicting narratives regarding a number of social changes in important fields such as economy and trade, progress and technology, geopolitical cooperation and competition, domestic and foreign culture, political and national systems. Although some aspects of it have been investigated in specific disciplines such as political economy, media and communication, anthropology, linguistics, human geography, area and (inter)cultural studies, the dialogue across these disciplines rarely takes place. Therefore, there is a strong need for BRI and other global dispositives to be mapped and described from the perspective of social sciences and humanities. One of the aims of this conference would be to develop on theoretical and methodological interdisciplinary approaches which will help grasp some of the issues of global dispositives. Furthermore, we want to reflect on media discourses dealing with BRI as an alternative globalisation model. Critical, affirmative and neutral perspectives should be discussed in both national and regional contexts. The perspectives take place in the broad spectrum from imaginaries to strategies or political doctrines. The question about the representation and positioning is of course connected to the interests of the various actors within the discourses which correspond and define respective dispositifs.

In the context of forces which drive the global cultural scene, this conference wants to consider the role of the in-between regions or rather those regions outside the global centres in the contemporary culture. Within the scope of the Cultural Trends Lab’s central project ‘Elsewhere’ (which concentrates on mapping digital streams of culture emerging both autonomously from and partly depending on the models of the centres), this conference is interested in all those contributions discussing, investigating and researching the digital forms of culture and sociality preferably outside the global centres. The idea of culture in transit regions as an element of both the New Silk Road or Arctic region is indivisible from the discussion about the existing and new telecommunication infrastructures and data flows. However, new cultural and social practices of digital and non-digital domains (or the actors that will shape such practices) continue to merit the discussion.

We welcome all contributions that investigate phenomena tied to the digital transformation, people’s cultural understandings of global political-economic imaginaries (such as the BRI) by utilising the conceptual and analytical toolkits of discourse studies, e.g. power, subjectivity, critique, identity, context, language use etc. As the field of discourse studies are inherently interdisciplinary, we invite authors from disciplines as varied as media and communication studies, sociology, linguistics, anthropology, ethnography, cultural and political studies or law. Furthermore, we also invite guests outside of academia, such as activists, NGO and public intellectual scene representatives, to contribute to our topics. Likewise, we seek to provide a forum for discussing methodological and theoretical questions.


The list of possible topics includes (but is not constrained) to the following:

(Inter)cultural connectedness
New communication infrastructures
Digitization, digitalization, digital transformation
Technologisation of society
Discourses of Imaginaries
History of Digital Technology and Imaginary
Chinese-European Media
Critical approach to suffering in digital age
Education in the Digital Age
Environmental Sustainability and Development of Global Periphery
Apparatuses of global political economy
Ethnographic approach to transcultural phenomena
Global media analysis about BRI
Cultural traditions across media changes
Intercultural communication in polycentric world
The physical traces of BRInfrastructure
Dispositives of New Digitality
Ideological and political constructions
From anthropology to ethnography of global dispositifs
Gender and class
Transnational identities
Subjectivities in a global context
Cultural and discursive political economy
(Re)Standardization of the societies
Centre and periphery discourses
New global constellations
Social role of material infrastructure
The governance of the internet in the age of its balkanization/sovereignty
Political and economic alliances and ruptures
Global gaps and digital divides, global exclusion and invisibilities

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All abstracts fitting one or more of the aforementioned themes are welcome. We also invite interesting panel proposals and presentations relevant to the overall conference topic. Check the Ideas page for inspiration

Preliminary list of special guests, keynotes and topics:

University of Tyumen (UoT), Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities (SocGum), Cultural Trends Lab (CTL), DiscourseNet Association (DNA), Università della Svizzera Italiana (USI), China Media Observatory (CMO), China University of Communication (CUC), School of Government and Public Administration (SoGaPA)

Globalised spaces of academic discourse
Johannes Angermuller, Open University Milton Keyes, UK DNA​


Chinese-European Media
Zhan Zhang, Università della Svizzera Italiana /USI, Switzerland CMO​


History of Digital Technology and Imaginary
Gabriele Balbi, Università della Svizzera Italiana /USI, Switzerland CMO


Global media analysis about BRI
Zhou Ting, Communication University of China, China CUC


Critical approach to suffering in digital age
Benno Herzog, Valencia University, Spain DNA​


Economic Expert Discourses in Globalised Societies
Jens Maeße, Giessen University, Germany DNA​


Ethnographic approach to Transcultural Phenomena
Jaspal Naveel Singh, The University of Hong Kong, HKSAR China DNA​


Philosophy of Globalisation
Igor Chubarov, University of Tyumen, Russia SocGum


Dispositives of New Digitality
Jan Krasni, University of Tyumen, Russia DNA, CTL​, SocGum

Abstracts and Registration

Please submit your 250 word abstracts on the conference registration service on dn25.sciencesconf.org. Keep the following important dates in mind:

Deadline for uploading abstracts for DN25: May 15th, 2020
(If you need to plan your trip in advance, please contact us for a faster review of your abstract. Deadline for those who do not need visa will be extended)
Notification of acceptance for abstracts: June 20th, 2020
(If you need visa, please let us know so we would take care of it earlier)
Registration will be complete upon payment.
Payment deadline: October 1st, 2020. A confirmation email will be sent after the deadline for payments has passed.

All the abstracts are vetted by a blind review. The reviewers belong to the committee selected from our 5000 members. This secures the scientific quality of the presentations.



Visa information

As soon as you are informed about the acceptance of your abstract, we will provide you with further information about how to apply for visa. More general information about visa you can find here.


Conference fee & Payment instructions

Fees include (a) catering expenses for coffee breaks and lunches throughout the conference and (b) a one-year obligatory DiscourseNet membership fee worth 30 euros which enables you to participate in DiscourseNet events and use many of DiscourseNet services. Please read about advantages of being DiscourseNet member here.

DiscourseNet tries to make its conferences as accessible as possible for researchers from all social strata. For this reason we are trying to keep the costs as low as possible. The money we raise from memberships and conference fees will be used for the participants, special guests and for servicing our website.

Fees for people who are not yet paying members of the DN Association when they pay the conference fee for DN25 in 2020:

Regular fee: 70 euros
Reduced fee (for participants without institutional funding only): 50 euros
Poster presentation (for MA students and young researchers) - 30 euros

Paying members of the DN association (who have payed their association membership fee of thirty euros separately in 2020) enjoy the following discounts:

Regular fee: 40 euros
Reduced fee (for participants without institutional funding only): 20 euros
Poster presentation (e.g. MA students and young researchers) - free

Payment instructions will be published after the notification of acceptance for abstracts (after June 20th, 2020). If you have any questions please contact discoursenet25@gmail.com .



You may also pay the appropriate amount using the following services:

Skrill.com: www.skrill.com (free of charge)
Transferwise: www.tranferwise.com
Kukuruza card: http://kykyryza.ru/



If you have any questions please contact: discoursenet25@gmail.com