6th annual CRRC conference to be held on June 26-27 in Tbilisi
Tuesday, January 21
The last decade has seen broad political, economic and social changes across the South Caucasus. In the last ten years, events including Armenia’s 2018 ‘Velvet Revolution’, the 2016 ‘Four-Day War’ in Nagorno-Karabakh, the region’s first ballot box-driven change in government in the 2012 Georgian parliamentary elections, the devaluation of the national currency in Azerbaijan, and volatility in relations between the European Union and Russia have reshaped the region. Such events have raised questions as to whether the three nations of the South Caucasus are growing increasingly apart, and if so, whether these changes reflect genuine divergence among societies or if they are simply an outcome of the interests of national elites?
The Caucasus Research Resource Centers (CRRC) seek proposals for the 6th Annual CRRC Conference and welcomes proposals for (a) thematic panels and (b) methodological seminars. For the thematic panels, panel and paper proposals investigating the deep sociopolitical, cultural, and economic changes occurring in the South Caucasus through a comparative, empirical lens are invited. CRRC welcomes quality scholarly contributions from emerging and established academics exploring the following broad themes: Conflicts, displacement, and reconciliation, culture, values, and identity; economic development, energy, and mobility; politics, power, and democracy; urban development and environmental issues; Civil society and activism.
Furthermore, as CRRC is committed to promoting innovative research methods, it calls on scholars to present proposals for the methodological seminars, and welcome contributions on the methodological aspects of collecting and analyzing quantitative and qualitative data. They invite papers which explore methodological innovations and address challenges and novel approaches in data collection, analysis, visualization, and dissemination.
At this year’s conference, the release of the latest wave of the Caucasus Barometer will be celebrated, a bi-annual household survey administered by CRRC offices across the region. While CRRC welcomes contributions using original data, authors who plan to present scholarly work using Caucasus Barometer data are especially encouraged to apply. Apart from methodologically guided substantive contributions, authors are encouraged to submit proposals for methodological sessions.
The first day of the 6th CRRC Conference will be dedicated to parallel sessions exploring the conference’s substantive topics outlined above. On the second day, participants are invited to contribute to methodological seminars where contributors will present the methodological aspects of their work.
The Caucasus Research Resource Centers (CRRC) is a network of research and research support centers in the capital cities of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. Established in 2003, CRRC’s goal is to strengthen social science research and public policy analysis in the South Caucasus. Over the past seventeen years, CRRC offices have become a nexus of activity for the social science community in the South Caucasus by providing open access to data, scholarly literature, and professional training for social science researchers.
