This is a blog recording the announcements that are sent out on the CASCA listserv.

Friday, January 31, 2014

call for proposals: CASCA 2014: Unsettling Marriage - Reminder: deadline February 7th

(Reminder: deadline February 7th)


CASCA Proposal "Unsettling Marriage: Kinship, Households and the
Privatization of Intimacy"

Panel organizers

Michael Connors Jackman (York University) mcj@yorku.ca
Robin Whitaker (Memorial University of Newfoundland) robinw@mun.ca

Call for proposals

Feminists, gay activists, socialists and anarchists used to challenge the
institutional dominance of marriage-centred households. Although some –
notably queers and anarchists – continue to trouble marriage, the dominant
question now revolves around who gets in. Likewise, marriage, through
kinship theory, once occupied a central place in the anthropological
imagination, with major studies from Malinowski, Lévi-Strauss and other
"founding figures" – although as feminist anthropologists pointed out,
these models precluded important lines of analysis. While recent
scholarship on kinship has shed light on the ways that relatedness gets
reconceptualized in the wake of the new biotechnologies and politics of
family life, much is yet unexplored about the entanglement of biopolitics,
neoliberalism, and capitalism. This session considers how marriage,
cohabitation, and consumption come to be configured and aligned within a
range of cultural contexts, as well as how such new and troubling
realities present possibilities for rethinking the public sphere. We
intend it
as a kind of workshop: the first stage in a conversation on marriage
between participants, with the intention of ultimately revising and
exchanging the papers presented in preparation for a roundtable to take
place at the CASCA conference in 2015. Thus, we encourage submissions from
those at various stages of their research projects.

Possible topics could include:

*How and why marriage, children, and homeownership become markers of
success, full adulthood, and citizenship in a neoliberalizing world.
* How anthropology might reinvigorate the marriage question and new
politics of
and against marriage to unsettle the anthropology of kinship and
households. *Critical analyses of marriage, common-law partnerships, and
cohabitation. *The entanglement of race, ethnicity, and class in the
formation of distinct and
divided suburban neighbourhoods.
*Studies of suburbanization and the role of neoliberal restructuring in
constituting the domestic sphere.
*Issues of reproduction, contraception, and abortion as they relate to the
structuring and reconfiguration of gender, sexuality, race, and the state.
*The privatization of forms of public intimacy and the involvement of the
state
in private relationships.
*New reproductive technologies, family planning, and childfree households.
*Normativizing and/or alternative relationship models and domestic
arrangements.

*Please e-mail your paper title and abstract (of no more than 150 words)
to Robin and Michael no later than 7 February 2014.*

CFP_CASCA 2014_Care Work and Transnational Family Care in the “Global South” Panel - Reminder: deadline February 7th

(Reminder: deadline February 7th)


CASCA 2014
York University, Toronto, Canada
April 30 - May 3, 2014

PROPOSITION DU PANEL
Care Work and Transnational Family Care in the "Global South":
Femmes migrantes au cœur de l'industrie mondiale des soins dans des
contextes des migrations "sud-sud"

Panel organizer: Aranzazu Recalde, Chaire Hans et Tamar Oppenheimer en
Droit international public, McGill University.

Much of the scholarship on care work, which is increasingly being done by
migrant women worldwide, has focused on the so-called Euro-Atlantic arena.
Over the past two decades, however, a growing body of literature on
intra-regional and/or "south-south" migrations has contested this
hegemonic geopolitics while problematizing the assumptions underlying it.
Our panel seeks to explore the experiences of migrant women doing care
work widely defined, including caring for children, the elderly, the sick
and the disabled as well as providing diverse housekeeping and sexual
services in a wide range of domestic, private and public settings in the
"Global South". What type of challenges do women face when seeking to
secure the socio-economic and emotional wellbeing of their families
through their participation in the global care industry as it has evolved
in diverse locations in the "Global South"? What are the local and
transnational strategies that they forge in order to care for their
dependents? Do the work and family arrangements that migrant women develop
under these circumstances differ from those forged by their counterparts
in different destinations in the "Global North"? Our panel welcomes papers
in English and French that explore these and attendant issues, from
diverse analytical and methodological perspectives.
Interested participants are invited to send their propositions (150-word
max. abstract, title and institutional affiliation) to
aranzazu.recalde@mcgill.ca<mailto:aranzazu.recalde@mcgill.ca> by February 7.

Aranzazu Recalde, PhD in Anthropology
Boursière postdoctorale du CRSH/SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow
Chaire Hans et Tamar Oppenheimer en Droit international public/Hans and
Tamar Oppenheimer Chair in Public International Law
Faculté de Droit/ Faculty of Law
McGill University
3644, rue Peel, room 503
Montréal (Québec) H3A1W9

aranzazu.recalde@mcgill.ca<mailto:aranzazu.recalde@mcgill.ca>
(514) 398-4400 ext. 09084

Call for paper submissions for panel CASCA 2014: The Racialized Child-Victim-Citizen in Humanitarian and Welfare Regimes: Juxtaposing Geographies of Intervention across the Global North and South - Reminder: deadline February 3rd

(Reminder: deadline February 3rd)


Call for paper submissions for panel CASCA 2014:

The Racialized Child-Victim-Citizen in Humanitarian and Welfare Regimes:
Juxtaposing Geographies of Intervention across the Global North and South

Xiaobei Chen has heralded the birth of "the new child-victim citizen of
the twenty-first century": a rare breed of global citizen who, due to her
status as an innocent victim, may legitimately claim access to public
resources, be they shrinking welfare coffers of the Global North or
humanitarian and development funds flowing to the Global South. Of
course, the child-victim-citizen emerges in the context of the massive,
global retrenchment of public support for the well-being of impoverished
adult citizens, who are increasingly vilified in public discourse. The
effect is to oppose the needs and interests of children with those of
their parents, families and communities, discursively and materially
(Malkki).

This dynamic of antagonistic needs of children and their kin is
particularly acute where children are citizens of postcolonial
(racialized) nation-states in the Global South, or members of racialized
groups in the Global North. International humanitarian and development
interventions addressing "children's rights" are commonly framed as
civilizing missions, continuing paternalistic colonial representations of
northern donor agencies as parents in relation to child-like "recipient"
countries in the south (Valentin & Meinert), while in North America, child
welfare discourses have been mobilized disproportionately against
Indigenous and other racialized families (Briggs).

At the same time, children continue to function as powerful symbols (hope,
futurity, social reproduction, transgenerational cultural
continuity/renewal) for nationalist, anti-colonial and indigenous
sovereignty movements and are often the locus of interventions aimed at
revalorizing indigenous languages, "traditional" practices, etc. For
example, in Canada, child-victim citizens of Indian residential schools
have become both icons of Indianness (Waldram) and symbols of the colonial
Canadian state's violent oppression of indigenous peoples; Indigenous
communities embrace "Aboriginal Head-start" programmes for their children
as welfare allocations to parents are shrinking. In Africa, the rise of
so-called culturally sensitive foreign NGO interventions into orphaned
children's upbringing interrupts patterns of resource provision within
extended family networks, yet simultaneously gives rise to new commitments
to caregiving by kin who resist the loss of their autonomy over their dead
relatives' children.

Anthropologists and other scholars are critically examining the emergent
cultural-political landscape of interventions in the name of the
child-victim-citizen, including attention to how these interventions may
impose ethnocentric and Eurocentric ideas of childhood, parenting and
kinship while circumventing or violating the sovereignty of postcolonial
nation-states and indigenous peoples (Bornstein). In this panel, we
leverage the figure of the child-victim-citizen as a pivot point to
explore modes of intervention into racialised communities in the Global
North and the Global South, tracing how such interventions converge and
diverge amidst broader landscapes of adult disenfranchisement. In
juxtaposing papers from disparate geographical regions, we seek to
complicate older dichotomies of resistance versus domination by
foregrounding the productivity of such interventions and the forms of
sociality and politics to which they give rise.

Panel organisers: Bianca Dahl and Krista Maxwell, Department of
Anthropology, University of Toronto

Please submit abstracts of not more than 150 words by Monday February 3rd
to bianca.dahl@utoronto.ca and krista.maxwell@utoronto.ca

Thursday, January 30, 2014

CASCA: Student Zone Notices/Annonces zone étudiante

Nouveaux ajouts/New announcements:


-ENGAGE 2014: Bridging the Divide in the Social World, 14th Annual
Graduate Student Conference, Dept. of Sociology and Anthropology,
University of Guelph, March, 2014

-Intersections: Multidisciplinarity, Method, and Medium in Social
Science Research, Sociology & Anthropology Graduate Students
Conference, March 2014, Concordia University

-Archaeology Live! 2014

-Society for Linguistic Anthropology Student Essay Contest


See them and others on our website.
Consultez-les ou voyez toute la liste en visitant notre site web:

http://cas-sca.ca/

Merci. Thank you

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

CASCA: Job postings/Offres d'emploi

(English follows)

Les offres d'emploi suivantes viennent d'être ajoutées à notre banque.


-Doctoral Fellowships: Urban Infrastructures in Transition: The Case of
African Cities

-Lecturer - Contemporary Digital Communication and Culture
University of Toronto Mississauga

-Fellowship in Ethnographic Writing, 2014-15
University of Toronto at Scarborough

-United Nations University - Post-Doc Fellowships

-Linguistique - Professeur (langues autochones)
Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)

-Sociologie - Professeur (sociologie de la société québécoise)
Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)

-Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Indigenous Education: Leadership and
Policy
University of Calgary

-Director of Indigenous Education
University of Calgary

-Curator-Manitoba Agricultural Museum

-African Peacebuilding Network - Research Grants

-2 permanent lectureships in Social Anthropology
University of Manchester



Consultez-les ou voyez toute la liste en visitant notre site Web:

www.cas-sca.ca

Merci

**********

The following job postings have just been added to our job page:


-Doctoral Fellowships: Urban Infrastructures in Transition: The Case of
African Cities

-Lecturer - Contemporary Digital Communication and Culture
University of Toronto Mississauga

-United Nations University - Post-Doc Fellowships

-Linguistique - Professeur (langues autochones)
Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)

-Sociologie - Professeur (sociologie de la société québécoise)
Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)

-Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Indigenous Education: Leadership and
Policy
University of Calgary

-Director of Indigenous Education
University of Calgary

-Curator-Manitoba Agricultural Museum

-African Peacebuilding Network - Research Grants

-2 permanent lectureships in Social Anthropology
University of Manchester


See them and others on our website:

www.cas-sca.ca

Thank you

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Call for paper submissions for panel CASCA 2014: The Racialized Child-Victim-Citizen in Humanitarian and Welfare Regimes: Juxtaposing Geographies of Intervention across the Global North and South

Call for paper submissions for panel CASCA 2014:

The Racialized Child-Victim-Citizen in Humanitarian and Welfare Regimes:
Juxtaposing Geographies of Intervention across the Global North and South

Xiaobei Chen has heralded the birth of "the new child-victim citizen of
the twenty-first century": a rare breed of global citizen who, due to her
status as an innocent victim, may legitimately claim access to public
resources, be they shrinking welfare coffers of the Global North or
humanitarian and development funds flowing to the Global South. Of
course, the child-victim-citizen emerges in the context of the massive,
global retrenchment of public support for the well-being of impoverished
adult citizens, who are increasingly vilified in public discourse. The
effect is to oppose the needs and interests of children with those of
their parents, families and communities, discursively and materially
(Malkki).

This dynamic of antagonistic needs of children and their kin is
particularly acute where children are citizens of postcolonial
(racialized) nation-states in the Global South, or members of racialized
groups in the Global North. International humanitarian and development
interventions addressing "children's rights" are commonly framed as
civilizing missions, continuing paternalistic colonial representations of
northern donor agencies as parents in relation to child-like "recipient"
countries in the south (Valentin & Meinert), while in North America, child
welfare discourses have been mobilized disproportionately against
Indigenous and other racialized families (Briggs).

At the same time, children continue to function as powerful symbols (hope,
futurity, social reproduction, transgenerational cultural
continuity/renewal) for nationalist, anti-colonial and indigenous
sovereignty movements and are often the locus of interventions aimed at
revalorizing indigenous languages, "traditional" practices, etc. For
example, in Canada, child-victim citizens of Indian residential schools
have become both icons of Indianness (Waldram) and symbols of the colonial
Canadian state's violent oppression of indigenous peoples; Indigenous
communities embrace "Aboriginal Head-start" programmes for their children
as welfare allocations to parents are shrinking. In Africa, the rise of
so-called culturally sensitive foreign NGO interventions into orphaned
children's upbringing interrupts patterns of resource provision within
extended family networks, yet simultaneously gives rise to new commitments
to caregiving by kin who resist the loss of their autonomy over their dead
relatives' children.

Anthropologists and other scholars are critically examining the emergent
cultural-political landscape of interventions in the name of the
child-victim-citizen, including attention to how these interventions may
impose ethnocentric and Eurocentric ideas of childhood, parenting and
kinship while circumventing or violating the sovereignty of postcolonial
nation-states and indigenous peoples (Bornstein). In this panel, we
leverage the figure of the child-victim-citizen as a pivot point to
explore modes of intervention into racialised communities in the Global
North and the Global South, tracing how such interventions converge and
diverge amidst broader landscapes of adult disenfranchisement. In
juxtaposing papers from disparate geographical regions, we seek to
complicate older dichotomies of resistance versus domination by
foregrounding the productivity of such interventions and the forms of
sociality and politics to which they give rise.

Panel organisers: Bianca Dahl and Krista Maxwell, Department of
Anthropology, University of Toronto

Please submit abstracts of not more than 150 words by Monday February 3rd
to bianca.dahl@utoronto.ca and krista.maxwell@utoronto.ca

CASCA 2014 CFP: The Certain Uncertainties of Aboriginal Lifeways - Reminder

(Reminder)

The Certain Uncertainties of Aboriginal Lifeways

Many Aboriginal peoples in Canada live lives of uncertainty. From the time
a critical mass of settlers arrived on Turtle Island, to Supreme Court
cases on treaty and other issues, to the over-representation of Aboriginal
peoples in Canadian prisons and through protesting fracking at
Elsipiogtog, Aboriginal peoples have lived lives of contingency but also
of agency in fighting against it. We seek papers discussing the certain
uncertainties of Aboriginal lifeways in Canada and Aboriginal responses to
them. Some questions of interest may be: How are Aboriginal peoples
responding to accumulation by dispossession due to corporate/state
resource extraction and transportation? How do the "securitization" of
Aboriginal grass roots political issues and new social movements create
uncertainty? What uncertainties do urban Aboriginal peoples face? What is
the role of of spirituality in dealing with uncertainty? Any other papers
on the certainty of uncertainty are welcome.


If you are interested in participating in this panel, please contact Craig
Proulx at: cproulx@stu.ca

Monday, January 27, 2014

CfP: Negotiating Ambiguities, Navigating Tensions in Subject-State Relationships (CASCA 2014)

We are pleased to announce our Call for Papers for our CASCA 2014
panel, *Negotiating Ambiguities, Navigating Tensions in Subject-State
Relationships*.
Please find our call pasted below for convenience.

Best wishes,
Rhiannon and Michelle

Rhiannon Mosher

Department of Anthropology
2054 Vari Hall
York University
4700 Keele Street
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3P 1P3


*Negotiating Ambiguities, Navigating Tensions in Subject-State
Relationships*

Global processes, such as increased migration and economic interventions
like free trade, have posed new and interesting sites for ethnographic
study. As these processes settle across diverse contexts they unsettle
individuals' and states' expectations for the future. This diverse set of
papers will explore how people navigate the tensions, contradictions and
complexities arising in everyday life by making and challenging claims to
national and local community spaces. The ethnographic discussions in this
panel will address myriad ways in which individuals and groups draw on
competing discourses to disrupt and reconfigure dominant national
narratives. From South America to the European Union and beyond, these
papers examine how individuals imagine their participation in the state as
moral subjects through discourses of nostalgia, neoliberalism, and cultural
belonging. Our focus on localized attempts to reconcile spaces of
discomfort and uncertainty reveal the broader processes undergirding state
and nation-building projects.

*Organizers:*

Rhiannon Mosher (York University) rmmosher@yorku.ca

Michelle Switzer (York University) *mswitzer@yorku.ca <mswitzer@yorku.ca>*

*Please email your abstract of no more than 150 words by February 8, 2014.
Include in your email: your paper title, keywords, and information (name,
email address, affiliation). Successful applicants will be notified by
February 10, 2014.*

CASCA2014 CFP: Unpacking the creative city / D=?iso-8859-1?Q?=E9construire_la_ville_cr=E9ative?= - Reminder: deadline February 5th

(Reminder: deadline February 5th)


PANEL TITLE / TITRE DU PANEL :

Unpacking the Creative City / Déconstruire la ville créative


(version française ci-bas)


Anthropologists are well placed to critically examine claims and practices
of urban creativity. In one sense, we can unpack the trend among
city-boosters like municipal politicians, urban consultants and chambers
of commerce to reconfigure cities to attract the 'creative class', which
supposedly stimulates economic growth. Which city-dwellers benefit from
this urban redesign and which don't? Thinking about creativity in more
traditional terms, we can examine cities as sites for creative arts work
(visual and performing arts, literature, film, etc.). How do artists use
cities in their production, and how do cities support or receive them?
Finally, we can explore the creative adoption and adaptation of cities by
those who Wilson and Keil (2008) call 'the real creative class' –
relatively marginalized groups of city-dwellers like migrants, the working
poor, the homeless or unhoused, urban Aboriginal peoples, LGBTQ groups,
etc. How do these groups inscribe cities with their distinctive
experiences? How are these adaptations (mis)recognized by the urban
mainstream?


Please send abstracts of 150 words to the organizers, Martha Radice (
martha.radice@dal.ca) and Alexandrine Boudreault-Fournier
(alexbf@uvic.ca), by February 5, 2014.


Les anthropologues sont bien placés pour examiner les revendications et
les pratiques de créativité urbaine. Dans un sens, nous pouvons
déconstruire la tendance, très populaire chez les élus municipaux, les
consultants urbains et autres membres de la chambre de commerce, à
reconfigurer les villes pour attirer la 'classe créative' qui est censée
stimuler la croissance économique. Quels citadins tirent profit – ou non –
de ce remodelage urbain? En pensant à la créativité selon sa définition
traditionnelle, nous pouvons explorer la ville comme site de production
artistique (arts de la scène, arts visuels, littérature, cinéma, etc.).
Comment les artistes se servent-ils des villes dans leur création? Comment
est-ce que les villes les reçoivent et les soutiennent? Enfin, nous
pouvons analyser l'adoption et l'adaptation créatrice de ceux que Wilson
et Keil (2008) appellent « la vraie classe créative », c'est-à-dire, les
groupes sociaux relativement marginalisés dans la ville, comme les
migrants, les travailleurs pauvres, les sans-abri, les Autochtones
urbains, les groupes LGBTQ, etc. De quelles façons distinctes ces groupes
inscrivent-ils la ville de leur vécu? Comment leurs adaptations sont-elles
reconnues ou méconnues par le
*mainstream*urbain?


Envoyer les résumés de 150 mots aux organisatrices, Martha Radice (
martha.radice@dal.ca) et Alexandrine Boudreault-Fournier (alexbf@uvic.ca),
avant le 5 février 2014.

Sunday, January 26, 2014

CASCA 2014: Registration - Rates are going up!/Inscription - Les prix vont monter!

Dear CASCA 2014 participants

Rates are going up!

Registration costs will increase on February 3, 2014 to $175.00 for
faculty and $90.00 for students, postdocs, unwaged and retired
members. These prices will only be available until April 20, 2014.
Starting April 21, 2014 registration will be $195.00 for faculty and
$105.00 for students, postdocs, unwaged and retired members.

Here are the registration links:

membership: https://fedcan-association.ca/casca

conference: https://www.fedcan-association.ca/event/en/34/66

***

Avis aux participants CASCA 2014,

Les prix vont monter!

À partir du 3 février 2014, les frais d'inscription augmenteront à 175
$ pour les facultés et à 90 $ pour les membres étudiants,
post-doctorants, sans emploi et retraités. Ces prix ne s'appliqueront
que jusqu'au 20 avril 2014, après quoi l'inscription coûtera 195 $
pour les facultés et 105 $ pour les membres étudiants,
post-doctorants, sans emploi et retraités.

Voiçi les liens pour vous inscrire :

Adhésion: https://fedcan-association.ca/casca?lang=fr

Colloque: https://www.fedcan-association.ca/event/fr/34/66

Friday, January 24, 2014

CASCA2014: student travel grants/subventions de voyage pour étudiant(e)s

Reminder:

The Canadian Anthropology Society makes available a limited number of
travel grants to attend the annual conference. The awards are
available to doctoral students registered in Canadian Anthropology
departments.

See the website for more information:

http://cas-sca.ca/awards/Student_travel_bursary_2014.pdf

Rappel:

La Société Canadienne d'Anthropologie met à la disposition des
étudiant(e)s qui présentent au colloque annuel un nombre limité de
subventions de voyage. Les bourses sont offertes aux doctorants
inscrits dans les départements d'anthropologie du Canada. Consulter le
site Web pour plus d'information:

http://cas-sca.ca/awards/stud-trav_form_fr_2014.pdf

Call For Papers - CASCA 2014 - Unsettled Politics and Radical Potential - Reminder: deadline February 7th

Call For Papers

Conference: CASCA 2014

Dates: April 30 - May 3

Location: York University, Toronto, Canada

Plenary: "Unsettled Politics and Radical Potential: Figuring the Impulse to Act"

http://casca2014.apps01.yorku.ca/plenary/ 

Organizers:  Othon Alexandrakis (York University, oalexand@yorku.ca), Daphne Winland (York University, winland@yorku.ca), Antonio Sorge (York University, asorge@yorku.ca), Maya Shapiro (York University, shapirom@yorku.ca)

Novel, unconventional and unexpected sites of resistance continue to complicate the global political scene calling into question taken-for-granted understandings of cooperative action.  The objective of this symposium is to examine the taking up of creative political action among the precarious, dispossessed, humiliated – action informed by unexpected imaginings and constellations of desires that does not fit into identitarian or communitarian frames.  Our point of departure is the "coming political" grounded in the subjective experience of a de facto politically qualified agent struggling to make a life worth living.  The Symposium features three volunteered panels, each of which will explore our central theme, the impulse to act, through critical reengagements with: (1) political locations; (2) the political collective; and (3) political sensibilities.

 Panel #1

Moving Targets: The Radical Potential of Migrant Activism in Uncertain Times

Organizer: Maya Shapiro, York University

Discussant: Sara Shneiderman, Yale University

Structures and experiences of migration increasingly constitute the raw material for radical political action(s) directed at national and supranational entities. Uncertainty figures into these actions and processes in especially salient ways as both the goals of activism as well as activists themselves are 'moving targets,' defined by conditions of liminality, instability and/or modes of becoming. This panel considers how patterns and processes of mobility configure political action, exploring how uncertainty is not an abstract notion, but an empirical reality that is well-known, carefully considered and sometimes used as a tool for change by migrant activists and their allies. Presenters on this panel may take up a variety of questions related to fluctuations in borders, citizenship and/or activist collectives. All will address the radical potential of migrant activism and the ways in which it confronts, circumnavigates and/or depends upon uncertainty to carry out visions of a different future.

Panel # 2

Rivalling Powers: Alternative Configurations of the Political Sphere

Organizer: Arne Steinforth, York University

Discussant: Kabir Tambar, Stanford University

Across present-day societies, the moral legitimacy of nation-states as well as their agents appears to be the subject of increased scrutiny, critique, and challenge. The forms of public action and resistance this triggered ranges from large-scale political movements and organized protests all the way down to subversive grassroots discourse. In the process, people overcome different kinds of repression in order to reconstitute themselves as political actors, finding novel points of convergence and creating alternative rationales of imagined landscapes of power. The injustices that motivate their action, the frames of reference within which they are articulated, and the common ground they generate along the way provide valuable ethnographic data of the shared notions, desires, needs, and visions that drive processes of social transformation in their respective local settings. The central concern of this panel is the politics of pluralism – whether as a reaction to times of increased social insecurity or as resurgence of previously existing alternative configurations of the political sphere. Contributors are invited to address a range of issues including (but not limited to) considerations of cosmology and politics, utopianism, and other shared visions of a more desirable political future.

Panel # 3

Alternatives to Acquiescence: Unsettling Legitimacy and Resisting Emergent Ordinaries

Organizer: Antonio Sorge, York University

Discussant: Neni Panourgiá, Columbia University

Political movements and activist programs in the twenty-first century disrupt the reconfigurations of political authority that define late modernity, and seek to provide alternatives to often calamitous emergent ordinaries.  They interrogate the claimed necessity for public austerity and the entrenchment of market imperatives in governance, effectively unsettling the legitimacy of the neoliberal state. Notably, the range of agendas that constitute these alternatives knows little to no bounds, and spans across the political spectrum, reflecting dissatisfaction from numerous quarters. Panelists will take up the issue of lived changes in political topography and topology, as well as responses to the rise over the past decade in insurgent agendas driven by parochialism and xenophobia, examining the alternatives presented within micro-social sites of resistance to these troubling shifts in the global political landscape.

Proposal Submissions for Volunteered Panels:

If you are interested in presenting a paper, please submit your paper proposal including title, an abstract (max 150 words), your name, email address and affiliation to oalexand@yorku.ca no later than February 7th.   Do not forget to indicate which panel you would like to join.  Successful applicants will be notified by ­March 3rd

(Reminder: deadline February 7th)


Call For Papers

Conference: CASCA 2014


Dates: April 30 - May 3

Location: York University, Toronto, Canada

Plenary: "Unsettled Politics and Radical Potential: Figuring the Impulse
to Act"

http://casca2014.apps01.yorku.ca/plenary/

Organizers: Othon Alexandrakis (York University, oalexand@yorku.ca),
Daphne Winland (York University, winland@yorku.ca), Antonio Sorge (York
University, asorge@yorku.ca), Maya Shapiro (York University,
shapirom@yorku.ca)

Novel, unconventional and unexpected sites of resistance continue to
complicate the global political scene calling into question
taken-for-granted understandings of cooperative action. The objective of
this symposium is to examine the taking up of creative political action
among the precarious, dispossessed, humiliated – action informed by
unexpected imaginings and constellations of desires that does not fit into
identitarian or communitarian frames. Our point of departure is the
"coming political" grounded in the subjective experience of a de facto
politically qualified agent struggling to make a life worth living. The
Symposium features three volunteered panels, each of which will explore
our central theme, the impulse to act, through critical reengagements
with: (1) political locations; (2) the political collective; and (3)
political sensibilities.

Panel #1


Moving Targets: The Radical Potential of Migrant Activism in Uncertain Times

Organizer: Maya Shapiro, York University


Discussant: Sara Shneiderman, Yale University

Structures and experiences of migration increasingly constitute the raw
material for radical political action(s) directed at national and
supranational entities. Uncertainty figures into these actions and
processes in especially salient ways as both the goals of activism as well
as activists themselves are 'moving targets,' defined by conditions of
liminality, instability and/or modes of becoming. This panel considers how
patterns and processes of mobility configure political action, exploring
how uncertainty is not an abstract notion, but an empirical reality that
is well-known, carefully considered and sometimes used as a tool for
change by migrant activists and their allies. Presenters on this panel may
take up a variety of questions related to fluctuations in borders,
citizenship and/or activist collectives. All will address the radical
potential of migrant activism and the ways in which it confronts,
circumnavigates and/or depends upon uncertainty to carry out visions of a
different future.

Panel # 2

Rivalling Powers: Alternative Configurations of the Political Sphere

Organizer: Arne Steinforth, York University


Discussant: Kabir Tambar, Stanford University

Across present-day societies, the moral legitimacy of nation-states as
well as their agents appears to be the subject of increased scrutiny,
critique, and challenge. The forms of public action and resistance this
triggered ranges from large-scale political movements and organized
protests all the way down to subversive grassroots discourse. In the
process, people overcome different kinds of repression in order to
reconstitute themselves as political actors, finding novel points of
convergence and creating alternative rationales of imagined landscapes of
power. The injustices that motivate their action, the frames of reference
within which they are articulated, and the common ground they generate
along the way provide valuable ethnographic data of the shared notions,
desires, needs, and visions that drive processes of social transformation
in their respective local settings. The central concern of this panel is
the politics of pluralism – whether as a reaction to times of increased
social insecurity or as resurgence of previously existing alternative
configurations of the political sphere. Contributors are invited to
address a range of issues including (but not limited to) considerations of
cosmology and politics, utopianism, and other shared visions of a more
desirable political future.


Panel # 3

Alternatives to Acquiescence: Unsettling Legitimacy and Resisting Emergent
Ordinaries

Organizer: Antonio Sorge, York University


Discussant: Neni Panourgiá, Columbia University

Political movements and activist programs in the twenty-first century
disrupt the reconfigurations of political authority that define late
modernity, and seek to provide alternatives to often calamitous emergent
ordinaries. They interrogate the claimed necessity for public austerity
and the entrenchment of market imperatives in governance, effectively
unsettling the legitimacy of the neoliberal state. Notably, the range of
agendas that constitute these alternatives knows little to no bounds, and
spans across the political spectrum, reflecting dissatisfaction from
numerous quarters. Panelists will take up the issue of lived changes in
political topography and topology, as well as responses to the rise over
the past decade in insurgent agendas driven by parochialism and
xenophobia, examining the alternatives presented within micro-social sites
of resistance to these troubling shifts in the global political landscape.


Proposal Submissions for Volunteered Panels:

If you are interested in presenting a paper, please submit your paper
proposal including title, an abstract (max 150 words), your name, email
address and affiliation to oalexand@yorku.ca no later than February 7th.
Do not forget to indicate which panel you would like to join. Successful
applicants will be notified by ­March 3rd.

CfP CAS-SCA 2014: Tolerance of Ambiguity: New avenues for anthropological futures? Reminder: deadline February 1st

(Reminder: deadline February 1st)


CfP: Tolerance of Ambiguity: New avenues for anthropological futures?


The tolerance of ambiguity was first coined by Psychologist Else
Frenkel-Brunswik in 1948. This term, which ironically has no definitive
definition, has engaged scholars ever since, particularly in the fields of
medicine, clinical psychology and in organizational behaviour (Furnham and
Marks 2013: 717). Despite having some traction in the field of Sociology,
explorations of the tolerance of ambiguity is relatively non-existent in
the field of anthropology.

According to the definition provided by Ellsberg in 1961, ambiguity can be
thought of as "a lack of information that is necessary to understand a
situation or to identify all of the possible out-comes" (Furnham and Marks
2013: 718). A variable of this concept called uncertainty avoidance is
defined as "the extent to which people feel threatened by ambiguous
situations, and have created beliefs and institutions that try to avoid
these" situations (Hofstede 1984: 419).
For the purposes of this conference, we will define a tolerance of
ambiguity as: one's ability to handle 'the uncertain' with respect to
(newly) encountered people, places, or objects.


As this conference engages both the idea of uncertainty and future
anthropological endeavours, we will engage with the concept of tolerance
of ambiguity as a means to explore and interrogate the role of
anthropologists in their fieldwork and in their political and social
engagements. We will use tolerance of ambiguity to question the role of
applying anthropological methods and theories to organizational contexts,
such as community organizations, businesses, health care and education
settings. We will highlight the ways that anthropologists are uniquely
positioned to contribute to research and application in uncertain spaces.

We are seeking panelists to contribute to this discussion for the upcoming
CASCA 2014 meetings(http://casca2014.apps01.yorku.ca/). If you are
interested in contributing, please submit a 150-word abstract by February
1, 2014 to:

Jennifer Long , PhD (Wilfrid Laurier University)
jelong@wlu.ca

Melissa Fellin, PhD (Western University)
mm.stachel@gmail.com

CASCA2014, CFP - Panel Session Proposal: Travelling in an Uncertain Future - Reminder: deadline February 6th

(Reminder: deadline February 6th)


Call for Papers

CASCA (Canadian Anthropology Society/La société canadienne
d'anthropologie) Meeting
"Promising Uncertainties: Unsettling Future of Anthropological Terrain"
April 30 to May 2, 2014
York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Panel Session Proposal: Travelling in an Uncertain Future

Uncertain Futures provokes themes relevant for tourism and its study in
anthropology. We invite proposals for papers that address the
uncertainties, the paradoxes, and the ambiguities that affect received
notions and long-standing practices of tourism in the context of: climate
change; catastrophic weather; environmental disaster; bio-politics and
regulation of border crossing through such things as racial profiling and
body scanning; new forms of non-commercial hospitality (i.e. couch
surfing); critical demographic and population shifts (for example, the
ageing of the 'travel-mad' 'baby boom' generation, the evaporation of the
middle class, or the destabilizing affects of wide-spread youth
unemployment); the limits of new tourism markets and tenacious touristic
desire to 'get there before it is too late'; adventure travel in active
war zones or emergent and ongoing sites of revolution, protest and
uprising; the portend of future global crises, be they economic,
resource-driven, or bio-medical. This list is intended to be suggestive
rather than limiting. Papers that detail either the ethnographic
examination of such scenarios or explore methodological considerations in
light of them are encouraged.

Please send abstracts of no more than 150 words for papers to Susan
Frohlick (Susan.Frohlick@umanitoba.ca) or Julia Harrison
(jharrison@trentu.ca) by February 6, 2014.

CASCA: Conferences, Calls for Papers, Events/Colloques, Appels à communication, Évènements

(la version français suit)


Conferences and calls for papers:


The following conference announcements and calls for papers have just been
added to our web page:


-CFP - Legacies of Colonialism: Britain, France & Africa

-CFP - Indigenous Languages Preservation and Teaching

-CFP - Re-engaging African Diasporas

-Mitacs Globalink - New Funding for International Research - Call for
Proposals

-WOMEN IN WAR & AT WAR CONFERENCE 2014 - CALL FOR PAPERS - University of
Warwick, September 2014


See them and others on our website:

http://cas-sca.ca/call-for-papers


Events:


1. Webinars on Gender and Climate
Dear Colleague,

FAO welcomes everyone interested in climate-smart agriculture and equity
to join the online learning event. The event takes place from 30/1 to 18/2
2014.

Online learning event
Gender and Climate-Smart Agriculture
Webinars: 1) Thursday 30 January; 2) Wednesday 5 February; and 3) Tuesday 18
February 2014
The event consists of 3 webinars of 90 minutes, combined with online
discussions on the linkages between gender, agriculture and climate
change. The event is organized within the Community of Practice for
Climate Change Mitigation in Agriculture of the MICCA Programme in
collaboration with colleagues and partners.
Enrolled participants will receive invitations to the webinars and more
details prior to the event.

2 weeks to have a look at the recommended background reading
Training Guide for Gender and Climate Change Research in Agriculture and
Food Security for Rural Development (available in English, French and
Spanish) bit.ly/1aNC58R

Kind regards,
Maria, Claudia and Sibyl
Maria Nuutinen & Claudia Garcia
MICCA Programme
Maria.Nuutinen@Fao.org & Claudia.Garcia@Fao.org
+39.06.57053284


2. Upcoming Talk: Sonia Cancian
Simone de Beauvoir Institute, Montreal
Date: Friday afternoon, 31 January 2014 at 2.30 p.m.
Light refreshments will be on hand

The Ties that Bind: Money, Love, and Poverty in Twentieth Century Migrant
Correspondence
Presenter: Sonia Cancian, Concordia University
Abstract: Money and love have historically generated strong emotions among
families, including working-class and poor families. When we consider
migration movements of diverse ethnic groups in the twentieth century,
letters provide key written evidence on ways in which working-class and
poor families described and negotiated both of these powerful forces on a
short- and long-term basis. This paper explores how the combined notions
of money and love influenced families in transnational relationships and
vice-versa. We pay particular attention to the stayers, people who stayed
home and were involved in a relationship of some sort with a migrant. By
examining previously published and digitized letters written specifically
by Estonian, Croatian migrants and others available through the Digitizing
Immigrant Letters Project at University of Minnesota's Immigration History
Research Center, this interdisciplinary paper examines migrant family
letters using the two-fold approach of economic and qualitative analysis
of intimacy, gender, and socio-cultural relations drawing from economic
psychology, history of emotions, gender studies, and migration history.
Specifically, this paper looks closely at issues of language
(embellishment, silences, financial and emotional requests or appeals) and
power dynamics between writers that relate to both financial issues and
affect in the familial correspondence. Ultimately, we hope this paper will
provide a good grasp on the breadth of dynamics that poor and
working-class European migrants engaged in for love and money while trying
to secure more resources from their non-migrant loved ones in the
twentieth century.
The paper is co-authored by Sonia Cancian, Concordia University and Simone
Wegge, CUNY.
Biographical note
Sonia Cancian is a social historian interested in international migration,
correspondence, the history of emotions and intimacy, gender and women's
history, and family history. With Prof. Donna Gabaccia, she leads the
Digitizing Immigrant Letters project at the University of Minnesota's
Immigration History Research Center. Cancian is the author of Families,
Lovers, and their Letters: Italian Postwar Migration to Canada (University
of Manitoba Press, 2010), among other article, the publication, "The
Language of Gender in Lovers' Correspondence, 1946-1949" in the Journal,
Gender and History. She is currently working on a manuscript of love
letters written in the context of Italian migration to Canada.
Venue: Lounge, Simone de Beauvoir Institute, 2170 Bishop Street, Montreal
Date and Time: Friday afternoon, 31 January 2014 at 2.30 p.m.
Light refreshments will be on hand


Thank you

***********

Colloques et Appels à communication:

Les colloques et appels à communication suivants viennent d'être ajoutés à
notre page web.


-CFP - Legacies of Colonialism: Britain, France & Africa

-CFP - Indigenous Languages Preservation and Teaching

-CFP - Re-engaging African Diasporas

-Mitacs Globalink - New Funding for International Research - Call for
Proposals

-WOMEN IN WAR & AT WAR CONFERENCE 2014 - CALL FOR PAPERS - University of
Warwick, September 2014


Consultez-les ou voyez toute la liste en visitant notre site web:

http://cas-sca.ca/fr/appel-de-communications


Évènements:


1. Webinars on Gender and Climate
Dear Colleague,

FAO welcomes everyone interested in climate-smart agriculture and equity
to join the online learning event. The event takes place from 30/1 to 18/2
2014.

Online learning event
Gender and Climate-Smart Agriculture
Webinars: 1) Thursday 30 January; 2) Wednesday 5 February; and 3) Tuesday 18
February 2014
The event consists of 3 webinars of 90 minutes, combined with online
discussions on the linkages between gender, agriculture and climate
change. The event is organized within the Community of Practice for
Climate Change Mitigation in Agriculture of the MICCA Programme in
collaboration with colleagues and partners.
Enrolled participants will receive invitations to the webinars and more
details prior to the event.

2 weeks to have a look at the recommended background reading
Training Guide for Gender and Climate Change Research in Agriculture and
Food Security for Rural Development (available in English, French and
Spanish) bit.ly/1aNC58R

Kind regards,
Maria, Claudia and Sibyl
Maria Nuutinen & Claudia Garcia
MICCA Programme
Maria.Nuutinen@Fao.org & Claudia.Garcia@Fao.org
+39.06.57053284


2. Upcoming Talk: Sonia Cancian
Simone de Beauvoir Institute, Montreal
Date: Friday afternoon, 31 January 2014 at 2.30 p.m.
Light refreshments will be on hand

The Ties that Bind: Money, Love, and Poverty in Twentieth Century Migrant
Correspondence
Presenter: Sonia Cancian, Concordia University
Abstract: Money and love have historically generated strong emotions among
families, including working-class and poor families. When we consider
migration movements of diverse ethnic groups in the twentieth century,
letters provide key written evidence on ways in which working-class and
poor families described and negotiated both of these powerful forces on a
short- and long-term basis. This paper explores how the combined notions
of money and love influenced families in transnational relationships and
vice-versa. We pay particular attention to the stayers, people who stayed
home and were involved in a relationship of some sort with a migrant. By
examining previously published and digitized letters written specifically
by Estonian, Croatian migrants and others available through the Digitizing
Immigrant Letters Project at University of Minnesota's Immigration History
Research Center, this interdisciplinary paper examines migrant family
letters using the two-fold approach of economic and qualitative analysis
of intimacy, gender, and socio-cultural relations drawing from economic
psychology, history of emotions, gender studies, and migration history.
Specifically, this paper looks closely at issues of language
(embellishment, silences, financial and emotional requests or appeals) and
power dynamics between writers that relate to both financial issues and
affect in the familial correspondence. Ultimately, we hope this paper will
provide a good grasp on the breadth of dynamics that poor and
working-class European migrants engaged in for love and money while trying
to secure more resources from their non-migrant loved ones in the
twentieth century.
The paper is co-authored by Sonia Cancian, Concordia University and Simone
Wegge, CUNY.
Biographical note
Sonia Cancian is a social historian interested in international migration,
correspondence, the history of emotions and intimacy, gender and women's
history, and family history. With Prof. Donna Gabaccia, she leads the
Digitizing Immigrant Letters project at the University of Minnesota's
Immigration History Research Center. Cancian is the author of Families,
Lovers, and their Letters: Italian Postwar Migration to Canada (University
of Manitoba Press, 2010), among other article, the publication, "The
Language of Gender in Lovers' Correspondence, 1946-1949" in the Journal,
Gender and History. She is currently working on a manuscript of love
letters written in the context of Italian migration to Canada.
Venue: Lounge, Simone de Beauvoir Institute, 2170 Bishop Street, Montreal
Date and Time: Friday afternoon, 31 January 2014 at 2.30 p.m.
Light refreshments will be on hand


Merci

Thursday, January 23, 2014

call for proposals: CASCA 2014: Unsettling Marriage

CASCA Proposal "Unsettling Marriage: Kinship, Households and the
Privatization of Intimacy"

Panel organizers

Michael Connors Jackman (York University) mcj@yorku.ca
Robin Whitaker (Memorial University of Newfoundland) robinw@mun.ca

Call for proposals

Feminists, gay activists, socialists and anarchists used to challenge the
institutional dominance of marriage-centred households. Although some –
notably queers and anarchists – continue to trouble marriage, the dominant
question now revolves around who gets in. Likewise, marriage, through
kinship theory, once occupied a central place in the anthropological
imagination, with major studies from Malinowski, Lévi-Strauss and other
"founding figures" – although as feminist anthropologists pointed out,
these models precluded important lines of analysis. While recent
scholarship on kinship has shed light on the ways that relatedness gets
reconceptualized in the wake of the new biotechnologies and politics of
family life, much is yet unexplored about the entanglement of biopolitics,
neoliberalism, and capitalism. This session considers how marriage,
cohabitation, and consumption come to be configured and aligned within a
range of cultural contexts, as well as how such new and troubling
realities present possibilities for rethinking the public sphere. We
intend it
as a kind of workshop: the first stage in a conversation on marriage between
participants, with the intention of ultimately revising and exchanging the
papers presented in preparation for a roundtable to take place at the CASCA
conference in 2015. Thus, we encourage submissions from those at various
stages of their research projects.

Possible topics could include:

*How and why marriage, children, and homeownership become markers of success,
full adulthood, and citizenship in a neoliberalizing world.
* How anthropology might reinvigorate the marriage question and new
politics of
and against marriage to unsettle the anthropology of kinship and households.
*Critical analyses of marriage, common-law partnerships, and cohabitation.
*The entanglement of race, ethnicity, and class in the formation of distinct
and
divided suburban neighbourhoods.
*Studies of suburbanization and the role of neoliberal restructuring in
constituting the domestic sphere.
*Issues of reproduction, contraception, and abortion as they relate to the
structuring and reconfiguration of gender, sexuality, race, and the state.
*The privatization of forms of public intimacy and the involvement of the
state
in private relationships.
*New reproductive technologies, family planning, and childfree households.
*Normativizing and/or alternative relationship models and domestic
arrangements.

*Please e-mail your paper title and abstract (of no more than 150 words) to
Robin and Michael no later than 7 February 2014.*

Barbara Lane Walks On

Barbara Lane Walks On



http://seattletimes.com/html/editorials/2022696948_editfishing21xml.html

http://turtletalk.wordpress.com/2014/01/21/barbara-lane-walks-on/


We learned the terrifically sad news that Barbara
Lane, the legendary and heroic anthropologist
that served as the lead expert witness in the
United States v. Washington trial that led to the
Boldt decision passed away late last year.

Barbara Lane, one of the foremost experts in
First Nations anthropology and Native American
rights, passed away on December 31, 2013 in
Arlington, Washington. Dr. Lane produced
exceptional expert reports and testimony in more
than 40 court cases, many of which were pivotal
in determining the rights of native peoples to
access and use natural resources. The United
States federal courts that ruled on treaty
fishing rights in the Northwest relied heavily on
her testimony. Her work was instrumental for the
Quinault and other Washington Tribes in numerous
treaty fishing rights cases related to the 1974
Boldt Decision (U.S. vs Washington) and for the
Quinault in Mitchell vs U.S. in 1977. The United
States Supreme Court referenced her findings in
affirming the key decision on Northwest treaty
rights. (I.e. the 'Boldt' Decision.) She also
served as an expert witness in cases involving
fisheries and land claims of Canadian First
Nations. Her work was well known and respected by
Indigenous Peoples, the academic community, and
legal circles. She was retained as the U.S.
Federal Court of Oregon expert in U.S. v. Oregon in 1991.

Barbara was a member of the Society for Applied
Anthropology, the Canadian Sociological and
Anthropological Association, and the American
Ethnological Society. During her illustrious
career, she held many research, editorial and
administrative positions. Although she authored
numerous publications, she often preferred to do
her work without seeking public recognition.

She received an A.B. and M.A. from the University
of Michigan in the late 1940?s and earned a PhD
from the University of Washington in 1953.
Barbara held faculty positions at the
Universities of Washington, Hawaii, Pittsburg,
British Columbia, Victoria and Western Washington
University. In 2006, Barbara was awarded an
honorary Doctor of Law Degree from the University
of Victoria for her expertise and contributions
to First Nations anthropology and rights.

Her career took her to far reaches of the world,
including Postdoctoral Study at the Australian
National University from 1953-1954 and work with
Coast Salish peoples, India, and Vanuatu. Much of
her early work was done in professional
partnership with her Husband, Robert who predeceased her.

As Director for the Quinault Indian Bicentennial
Project from 1976-1977, she provided guidance and
direction for creating an historical record for
the people and culture of the Quinault Nation.
This work led to the publication of the Handbook
on Legislation and Litigation Affecting the
Quinault Reservation and established an
invaluable core of records for the Quinault
Historical Foundation (now called the Quinault Cultural Center).

Her home and office was located in Victoria,
British Columbia for many years. Barbara is
survived by a son, two daughters and one grandchild.

CFP_CASCA 2014_Care Work and Transnational Family Care in the “Global South” Panel

CASCA 2014
York University, Toronto, Canada
April 30 - May 3, 2014

PROPOSITION DU PANEL
Care Work and Transnational Family Care in the "Global South":
Femmes migrantes au cœur de l'industrie mondiale des soins dans des
contextes des migrations "sud-sud"

Panel organizer: Aranzazu Recalde, Chaire Hans et Tamar Oppenheimer en
Droit international public, McGill University.

Much of the scholarship on care work, which is increasingly being done by
migrant women worldwide, has focused on the so-called Euro-Atlantic arena.
Over the past two decades, however, a growing body of literature on
intra-regional and/or "south-south" migrations has contested this
hegemonic geopolitics while problematizing the assumptions underlying it.
Our panel seeks to explore the experiences of migrant women doing care
work widely defined, including caring for children, the elderly, the sick
and the disabled as well as providing diverse housekeeping and sexual
services in a wide range of domestic, private and public settings in the
"Global South". What type of challenges do women face when seeking to
secure the socio-economic and emotional wellbeing of their families
through their participation in the global care industry as it has evolved
in diverse locations in the "Global South"? What are the local and
transnational strategies that they forge in order to care for their
dependents? Do the work and family arrangements that migrant women develop
under these circumstances differ from those forged by their counterparts
in different destinations in the "Global North"? Our panel welcomes papers
in English and French that explore these and attendant issues, from
diverse analytical and methodological perspectives.
Interested participants are invited to send their propositions (150-word
max. abstract, title and institutional affiliation) to
aranzazu.recalde@mcgill.ca<mailto:aranzazu.recalde@mcgill.ca> by February
7.

Aranzazu Recalde, PhD in Anthropology
Boursière postdoctorale du CRSH/SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow
Chaire Hans et Tamar Oppenheimer en Droit international public/Hans and
Tamar Oppenheimer Chair in Public International Law
Faculté de Droit/ Faculty of Law
McGill University
3644, rue Peel, room 503
Montréal (Québec) H3A1W9

aranzazu.recalde@mcgill.ca<mailto:aranzazu.recalde@mcgill.ca>
(514) 398-4400 ext. 09084

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

CASCA 2014 CFP: Unsettling Species : Methods in Ethnography Beyond the Human - Reminder, deadline January 25th

(Reminder, deadline January 25th)


Unsettling Species : Methods in Ethnography Beyond the Human

'Multispecies', 'inter-species' or 'transspecies' ethnography is gaining
popularity in anthropology but, as it is still emerging, this form of
inquiry is largely undefined. Such uncertainty can make this inquiry seem
outlandish, but it also implies the promising freedom to participate in
the crafting of this burgeoning sub-discipline. Important to this craft
are methods. How does one do multispecies ethnography? Laying out the
blueprints for a reappropriable methodology may help both current
practitioners better understand and communicate their own craft, and
potential practitioners understand how they can conduct such research
themselves. This panel invites presentations that explore fieldwork
experiences, methods, and/or applicable theory of multispecies
ethnography, thereby contributing to anthropology's practical inquiry into
the relational processes that bind humans, beings of other species and the
world we co-inhabit.

Convenors : Julie Laplante, Nicolas Rasiulis, Scott Simon (University of
Ottawa, Department of Sociology and Anthropology)

Interested participants should send abstracts to Nicolas Rasiulis
(nicolasrasiulis@gmail.com) before January 25.

Monday, January 20, 2014

CASCA: Job postings/Offres d'emploi

(English follows)

Les offres d'emploi suivantes viennent d'être ajoutées à notre banque.


-Associate Professorship in Anthropology - Aarhus University, Department
of Culture and Society

-Assistant / Associate Professor - Social and Behavioural Health Sciences
- Tenure Stream Dalla Lana School of Public Health - UofT

-Centre canadien de recherché sur les froncophonies en milieu minoritaire
(CRFM), University of Regina 2014 Grant Competition

-UCLA Costen Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship

-Research Fellowship in Urgent Anthropology: Sudan

-Bourse postdoctorale, Chaire en études taïwanaises (Ottawa) /
Postdoctoral Fellowship, Chair in Taiwan studies (Ottawa)

-Postdoctoral opportunity in Social Sciences/Humanities at USF (including
Anthropology)

-Sociology - Assistant Professor
Trent University

-Sociology - Assistant Professors (2)
University of Saskatchewan

-President
First Nations University of Canada


Consultez-les ou voyez toute la liste en visitant notre site Web:

www.cas-sca.ca

Merci

**********

The following job postings have just been added to our job page:


-Associate Professorship in Anthropology - Aarhus University, Department
of Culture and Society

-Assistant / Associate Professor - Social and Behavioural Health Sciences
- Tenure Stream Dalla Lana School of Public Health - UofT

-Centre canadien de recherché sur les froncophonies en milieu minoritaire
(CRFM), University of Regina 2014 Grant Competition

-UCLA Costen Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship

-Research Fellowship in Urgent Anthropology: Sudan

-Bourse postdoctorale, Chaire en études taïwanaises (Ottawa) /
Postdoctoral Fellowship, Chair in Taiwan studies (Ottawa)

-Postdoctoral opportunity in Social Sciences/Humanities at USF (including
Anthropology)

-Sociology - Assistant Professor
Trent University

-Sociology - Assistant Professors (2)
University of Saskatchewan

-President
First Nations University of Canada


See them and others on our website:

www.cas-sca.ca

Thank you

CASCA: Conferences, Calls for Papers, Events/Colloques, Appels à communication, Évènements

(la version français suit)


Conferences and calls for papers:


The following conference announcements and calls for papers have just been
added to our web page:


-Call for submissions: 7th International Anth Film Festival @ UBC

-Appel à communication Les usages de la sociologie des politiques sociales

-Call for papers for a Special Issue of Critical Public Health - "Big
Food" and the Global Growth of Noncommunicable Disease, Special Issue of
Critical Public Health

-CFP: TOTEM: The University of Western Ontario Journal of Anthropology

-Prix Hilda Neatby en histoire des femmes et du genre - appel de
candidatures/Hilda Neatby prize in Canadian Women's and Gender History
2014 Call for Nominations

-CFP - African Studies Association 2014



See them and others on our website:

http://cas-sca.ca/call-for-papers


Events:

UNIVERSITÉ D'OTTAWA | UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA

L'Institut d'études des femmes
The Institute of Women's Studies
vous présente | presents

LES CAFÉS FÉMINISTES
THE FEMINIST CAFÉS
2013-2014

I Feel, Therefore, I Know:
The Perilous Role of Emotions in Social Justice Awareness
Raising Efforts

Gada Mahrouse, Ph.D.
Simone de Beauvoir Institute, Concordia University
Bank of Montreal Visiting Scholar, Institute of Women's Studies


Vendredi 24 janvier 2014 | Friday January 24th, 2014
11 : 30 - 13 : 30
Pavillon des Sciences sociales, pièce 4006 | Social Sciences Building,
Room 4006
120, Université | 120 University
Université d'Ottawa | University of Ottawa

La conférence sera donnée en anglais suivie d'une période de questions
bilingue.
The conference will be given in English followed by a bilingual question
period.

Entrée libre / Free admission

INFO : womenst@uOttawa.ca<mailto:womenst@uOttawa.ca>
ABSTRACT/RÉSUMÉ:
In this talk, Dr. Gada Mahrouse will share insights into the relationship
between emotions and programs designed to raise awareness on social
injustice. Drawing from feminist scholarship and from several areas of her
research, she will trace the emotional "journeys" produced through
examples of specific awareness-raising campaigns programs/campaigns used
by humanitarian, anti-violence, and/or anti-racist organizations based in
the Global North in recent years. Specifically, her presentation will
raise and respond to the following questions: 1) how are emotions
produced/ mobilized in particular programs/campaigns and to what end? 2)
What emotions are expressed about specific geopolitical contexts and not
others? 3) How
are certain feelings structured around race, gender, class, and sexuality?
These examples, she will argue, illustrate how emotions provide powerful
clues to the ways in which we take ourselves to be implicated in the lives
of others.

BIO:
Gada Mahrouse is an Associate Professor at the Simone de Beauvoir
Institute,
Concordia University (Montreal) where she teaches and researches in the
areas of critical race studies, cultural studies, social justice
pedagogies and transnational feminist and postcolonial theories. Motivated
by a longstanding interest in social justice, Dr. Mahrouse's research
seeks to identify and challenge social inequalities. She has a forthcoming
book with McGill-Queen's University Press entitled Conflicted Commitments:
Race, privilege and power in solidarity activism".


Thank you

***********

Colloques et Appels à communication:

Les colloques et appels à communication suivants viennent d'être ajoutés à
notre page web.


-Call for submissions: 7th International Anth Film Festival @ UBC

-Appel à communication Les usages de la sociologie des politiques sociales

-Call for papers for a Special Issue of Critical Public Health - "Big
Food" and the Global Growth of Noncommunicable Disease, Special Issue of
Critical Public Health

-CFP: TOTEM: The University of Western Ontario Journal of Anthropology

-Prix Hilda Neatby en histoire des femmes et du genre - appel de
candidatures/Hilda Neatby prize in Canadian Women's and Gender History
2014 Call for Nominations

-CFP - African Studies Association 2014



Consultez-les ou voyez toute la liste en visitant notre site web:

http://cas-sca.ca/fr/appel-de-communications


Évènements:



UNIVERSITÉ D'OTTAWA | UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA

L'Institut d'études des femmes
The Institute of Women's Studies
vous présente | presents

LES CAFÉS FÉMINISTES
THE FEMINIST CAFÉS
2013-2014

I Feel, Therefore, I Know:
The Perilous Role of Emotions in Social Justice Awareness
Raising Efforts

Gada Mahrouse, Ph.D.
Simone de Beauvoir Institute, Concordia University
Bank of Montreal Visiting Scholar, Institute of Women's Studies


Vendredi 24 janvier 2014 | Friday January 24th, 2014
11 : 30 - 13 : 30
Pavillon des Sciences sociales, pièce 4006 | Social Sciences Building,
Room 4006
120, Université | 120 University
Université d'Ottawa | University of Ottawa

La conférence sera donnée en anglais suivie d'une période de questions
bilingue.
The conference will be given in English followed by a bilingual question
period.

Entrée libre / Free admission

INFO : womenst@uOttawa.ca<mailto:womenst@uOttawa.ca>
ABSTRACT/RÉSUMÉ:
In this talk, Dr. Gada Mahrouse will share insights into the relationship
between emotions and programs designed to raise awareness on social
injustice. Drawing from feminist scholarship and from several areas of her
research, she will trace the emotional "journeys" produced through
examples of specific awareness-raising campaigns programs/campaigns used
by humanitarian, anti-violence, and/or anti-racist organizations based in
the Global North in recent years. Specifically, her presentation will
raise and respond to the following questions: 1) how are emotions
produced/ mobilized in particular programs/campaigns and to what end? 2)
What emotions are expressed about specific geopolitical contexts and not
others? 3) How
are certain feelings structured around race, gender, class, and sexuality?
These examples, she will argue, illustrate how emotions provide powerful
clues to the ways in which we take ourselves to be implicated in the lives
of others.

BIO:
Gada Mahrouse is an Associate Professor at the Simone de Beauvoir
Institute,
Concordia University (Montreal) where she teaches and researches in the
areas of critical race studies, cultural studies, social justice
pedagogies and transnational feminist and postcolonial theories. Motivated
by a longstanding interest in social justice, Dr. Mahrouse's research
seeks to identify and challenge social inequalities. She has a forthcoming
book with McGill-Queen's University Press entitled Conflicted Commitments:
Race, privilege and power in solidarity activism".


Merci

CASCA: Student Zone Notices/Annonces zone étudiante

Nouveaux ajouts/New announcements:


-CFP/APPEL À COMMUNICATIONS: Carleton/Ottawa "Under My Skin" Graduate
Colloquium / « Dans Ma Peau » Colloque Gradué

-Social Movements and Social Change in Brazil

-Prague Summer Schools, July 5-12, 2014

-Anthropologies of Unconformity: Erosions, Depositions, and
Transformations, 6th Annual McGill Anthropology Graduate Student
Conference, March 2014

-2014 Sylvia Forman Prize for Student Papers

-Italy Preservation Field School – Buildings, Ceramics, Paper, Books and
Art - Athens Trip

-Tweedie Exploration Fellowships for Students


See them and others on our website.
Consultez-les ou voyez toute la liste en visitant notre site web:

http://cas-sca.ca/

Merci. Thank you

CASCA 2014 "Uncertain Sexualities": Call for Paper proposals - Reminder, deadline January 31st

(Reminder, deadline January 31st)


*Call for Papers for Proposed Panel at the Canadian Anthropology Society
2014 Meetings (April 30-May 3, York University, Toronto Canada):
*

*
Uncertain Sexualities: Queering the Anthropological Terrain in Canada*

*Panel organizers: *

David AB Murray (York University) damurray@yorku.ca

Michael Connors Jackman (York University) mcj@yorku.ca

*Abstract: *

This panel explores the shifting terrain of sexualities in Canada from
anthropological perspectives. We are interested in examining
normativizing processes and subversive ruptures through which sexual
identities and practices come to be configured, regulated, named and
transformed. By foregrounding the national and transnational frameworks
that inform ethnographic research on sexuality in Canada, this panel
considers the strengths and limitations of examining desire in relation
to multiple intersecting borders (including but not limited to
geo-political, cultural, ethno-racial, linguistic, classed and
gendered). Possible topics may include:

*Queer futurities and relationships between sexuality and temporality.

*Temporary, precarious life and compressed time frames for becoming queer
or claiming citizenship.

*Relationships between queer past, present, and future in Canada.

*Homonormativities and heternormativities produced through Canadian
security policies, health policies, government practices, and/or public
cultures.

*The social and legal regulation of desire and sexual practices by the
Canadian government and/or courts.

*How LGBT/queer communities, bodies, and identifies in the past, present
and future are configured with and/or related to productions of
Canadianness and Canadian identity.

*How LGBT/queer communities in Canada invest in the preservation, public
recognition and commemoration of their identities.

*Critical analyses of the anthropology of sexuality in Canada and queer
settler colonialism.

*How transnational politics, economies and migratory flows impact
Canadian queer communities/identities and vice-versa.

*Please e-mail a paper title, abstract (of no more than 150 words),
keywords, and co-authors (if applicable) to David and Michael no later
than January 31, 2014.*

CASCA2014 CFP: Whatever Happened to the Anthropology of Performance? - Reminder, deadline January 26th

(Reminder, deadline January 26th)


Whatever Happened to the Anthropology of Performance?


*Organizers:*Magdalena Kazubowski-Houston (York University) and Virginie
Magnat (University of British Columbia)

Recent decades have seen a so-called "performative turn" in anthropology
that dates back to the 1970s and the work of Victor Turner (Turner 1975,
1982, 1988), which directed anthropological attention to performance as
an important constituent of social reality, and to social reality as
inherently performative. Subsequently, a multitude of anthropological
projects have examined performance and performativity in terms of
aesthetics, politics, identity, subjectivity, embodiment, power and
agency (e.g. Andriolo 2006; Basso 1970; Crawford 1992; Fjeldstad and Hien
2006; Hall 2000; Harstrup 2004; Isbell 1998; Little 2006; Murray 2002;
Pravaz 2008). Furthermore, Turner's collaborations with
performance theorist Richard Schechner (Schechner 1985) marked the
genesis of a new interdisciplinary field -- performance ethnography (e.g.
Conquergood 1985; Culhane 2011; Denzin 2003; Fabian 1990; Irving 2011;
Kazubowski-Houston 2010; Madison 2010; Magnat 2011; Mienczakowski 1995;
Turner &Turner 1986). However, while anthropologists have made important
contributions to the study of performance, performativity and performance
ethnography since the 1970s, in the last few years,
anthropological innovations in these areas have dwindled. Cutting-edge
research has emerged largely from other fields, such as performance-,
communication-, and folklore studies.

This roundtable session seeks to critically examine the current moment of
stagnation in the anthropology of performance.Why has anthropology been
lagging behind other fields in pushing theoretical and
methodological boundaries in the study of performance and in performance
ethnography research? How can we reinvigorate this branch of
anthropology? What are possible future directions for the anthropology of
performance? What are the ways in which the anthropology of
performance might engage with uncertainty?

Interested scholars should submit a proposal (no more than 250 words)
indicating the scope of their contribution to the roundtable and a brief
bio to Magdalena Kazubowski-Houston mkazubow@yorku.ca
<mailto:mkazubow@yorku.ca>by January 26, 2014. Acceptance to participate
in the roundtable will be communicated in early February 2014.

Sponsored by the Centre for Imaginative Ethnography (CIE)

http://imaginativeethnography.org

Information on CASCA 2014:

http://casca2014.apps01.yorku.ca/

CASCA 2014 CFP: Storytelling and the Imagination: Ethnographic Experiments - Reminder, deadline January 26th

(Reminder, deadline January 26th)


Storytelling and the Imagination: Ethnographic Experiments

In spite of the postmodern narrative turn in the 1990s and a
disciplinary commitment to "blurred genres," anthropology has remained
relatively conservative in representational strategies (Geertz 1988).
Although there is an impressive growing body of work (e.g. Behar 1993,
1996, 2007; Ghodsee 2011; Gottleib and Graham 2012; Jackson 1986,
2012; Narayan 2007; Rosaldo 2013; Stoller 1989, 1997, 1999),
experiments in ethnographic novels, memoirs, performances, and
creative nonfiction remain marginal to the larger field. This session will
offer anthropologists an opportunity to join invited Canadian writer
Camilla Gibb (trained as an anthropologist) in a session
showcasing imaginative ethnographic experiments in writing and
storytelling. Ethnographic papers in this session may include the
poetic, the dramatic, historical, magical, visual, or fictional on a range
of empirical studies. This session aims to "unsettle"
traditional ethnographic writing and reimagine the anthropologist as
artist/writer.

Organizer: Denielle Elliott

If you are interested, please submit abstracts before January 26 to
dae@yorku.ca

More information on CASCA 2014:
http://casca2014.apps01.yorku.ca/

More information on Camilla Gibb:
http://www.camillagibb.ca/

More information on Imaginative ethnography:
http://imaginativeethnography.org

CASCA2014 CFP: Unpacking the creative city / D=?iso-8859-1?Q?=E9construire_la_ville_cr=E9ative?=

PANEL TITLE / TITRE DU PANEL :

Unpacking the Creative City / Déconstruire la ville créative


(version française ci-bas)


Anthropologists are well placed to critically examine claims and practices
of urban creativity. In one sense, we can unpack the trend among
city-boosters like municipal politicians, urban consultants and chambers of
commerce to reconfigure cities to attract the 'creative class', which
supposedly stimulates economic growth. Which city-dwellers benefit from
this urban redesign and which don't? Thinking about creativity in more
traditional terms, we can examine cities as sites for creative arts work
(visual and performing arts, literature, film, etc.). How do artists use
cities in their production, and how do cities support or receive them?
Finally, we can explore the creative adoption and adaptation of cities by
those who Wilson and Keil (2008) call 'the real creative class' –
relatively marginalized groups of city-dwellers like migrants, the working
poor, the homeless or unhoused, urban Aboriginal peoples, LGBTQ groups,
etc. How do these groups inscribe cities with their distinctive
experiences? How are these adaptations (mis)recognized by the urban
mainstream?


Please send abstracts of 150 words to the organizers, Martha Radice (
martha.radice@dal.ca) and Alexandrine Boudreault-Fournier (alexbf@uvic.ca),
by February 5, 2014.


Les anthropologues sont bien placés pour examiner les revendications et les
pratiques de créativité urbaine. Dans un sens, nous pouvons déconstruire la
tendance, très populaire chez les élus municipaux, les consultants urbains
et autres membres de la chambre de commerce, à reconfigurer les villes pour
attirer la 'classe créative' qui est censée stimuler la croissance
économique. Quels citadins tirent profit – ou non – de ce remodelage
urbain? En pensant à la créativité selon sa définition traditionnelle, nous
pouvons explorer la ville comme site de production artistique (arts de la
scène, arts visuels, littérature, cinéma, etc.). Comment les artistes se
servent-ils des villes dans leur création? Comment est-ce que les villes
les reçoivent et les soutiennent? Enfin, nous pouvons analyser l'adoption
et l'adaptation créatrice de ceux que Wilson et Keil (2008) appellent « la
vraie classe créative », c'est-à-dire, les groupes sociaux relativement
marginalisés dans la ville, comme les migrants, les travailleurs pauvres,
les sans-abri, les Autochtones urbains, les groupes LGBTQ, etc. De quelles
façons distinctes ces groupes inscrivent-ils la ville de leur vécu? Comment
leurs adaptations sont-elles reconnues ou méconnues par le
*mainstream*urbain?


Envoyer les résumés de 150 mots aux organisatrices, Martha Radice (
martha.radice@dal.ca) et Alexandrine Boudreault-Fournier (alexbf@uvic.ca),
avant le 5 février 2014.

Saturday, January 18, 2014

CASCA2014 CFP: Language risk, Language choice and Language rights: The Uncertainty of Language Diversity in Contemporary Anthropological Terrains - deadline extended

PANEL TITLE:
Language risk, Language choice and Language rights:
The Uncertainty of Language Diversity in Contemporary Anthropological
Terrains

Organizers:
Christine Schreyer – University of British Columbia (Okanagan)
Email: Christine.schreyer@ubc.ca

Sarah Shulist – MacEwan University
Email: ShulistS@macewan.ca

Abstract:
The desire to understand and document linguistic diversity has long been a
focus of anthropological research and continues to attract both scholars
and the general public. However, colonization, as well as increasing
globalization, has impacted the security of language diversity throughout
many, if not all, contemporary anthropological terrains. This
panel addresses language risk, language choice, and language rights in the
various locales where we have conducted anthropological research. In
particular, we question whether declaring languages to be "at risk" of
endangerment creates more uncertainty in these communities. We also look
at how uncertainty and ambiguity both shapes and is shaped by the choices
made by speakers of minority languages, and factors into their
understandings of the meaning of these choices. Finally, we discuss how
language rights have been enacted through language use and language
planning (both top-down and bottom-up) as a means of addressing and coping
with linguistic insecurity.

Please e-mail a paper title, abstract (of no more than 150 words),
keywords, and co-authors (if applicable) to Christine and Sarah no later
than February 1st, 2014.

Friday, January 17, 2014

Call For Papers - CASCA 2014 - Unsettled Politics and Radical Potential

Call For Papers

Conference: CASCA 2014

Dates: April 30 - May 3

Location: York University, Toronto, Canada

Plenary: "Unsettled Politics and Radical Potential: Figuring the Impulse to Act"

http://casca2014.apps01.yorku.ca/plenary/ 

Organizers:  Othon Alexandrakis (York University, oalexand@yorku.ca), Daphne Winland (York University, winland@yorku.ca), Antonio Sorge (York University, asorge@yorku.ca), Maya Shapiro (York University, shapirom@yorku.ca)

Novel, unconventional and unexpected sites of resistance continue to complicate the global political scene calling into question taken-for-granted understandings of cooperative action.  The objective of this symposium is to examine the taking up of creative political action among the precarious, dispossessed, humiliated – action informed by unexpected imaginings and constellations of desires that does not fit into identitarian or communitarian frames.  Our point of departure is the "coming political" grounded in the subjective experience of a de facto politically qualified agent struggling to make a life worth living.  The Symposium features three volunteered panels, each of which will explore our central theme, the impulse to act, through critical reengagements with: (1) political locations; (2) the political collective; and (3) political sensibilities.

 Panel #1

Moving Targets: The Radical Potential of Migrant Activism in Uncertain Times

Organizer: Maya Shapiro, York University

Discussant: Sara Shneiderman, Yale University

Structures and experiences of migration increasingly constitute the raw material for radical political action(s) directed at national and supranational entities. Uncertainty figures into these actions and processes in especially salient ways as both the goals of activism as well as activists themselves are 'moving targets,' defined by conditions of liminality, instability and/or modes of becoming. This panel considers how patterns and processes of mobility configure political action, exploring how uncertainty is not an abstract notion, but an empirical reality that is well-known, carefully considered and sometimes used as a tool for change by migrant activists and their allies. Presenters on this panel may take up a variety of questions related to fluctuations in borders, citizenship and/or activist collectives. All will address the radical potential of migrant activism and the ways in which it confronts, circumnavigates and/or depends upon uncertainty to carry out visions of a different future.

Panel # 2

Rivalling Powers: Alternative Configurations of the Political Sphere

Organizer: Arne Steinforth, York University

Discussant: Kabir Tambar, Stanford University

Across present-day societies, the moral legitimacy of nation-states as well as their agents appears to be the subject of increased scrutiny, critique, and challenge. The forms of public action and resistance this triggered ranges from large-scale political movements and organized protests all the way down to subversive grassroots discourse. In the process, people overcome different kinds of repression in order to reconstitute themselves as political actors, finding novel points of convergence and creating alternative rationales of imagined landscapes of power. The injustices that motivate their action, the frames of reference within which they are articulated, and the common ground they generate along the way provide valuable ethnographic data of the shared notions, desires, needs, and visions that drive processes of social transformation in their respective local settings. The central concern of this panel is the politics of pluralism – whether as a reaction to times of increased social insecurity or as resurgence of previously existing alternative configurations of the political sphere. Contributors are invited to address a range of issues including (but not limited to) considerations of cosmology and politics, utopianism, and other shared visions of a more desirable political future.

Panel # 3

Alternatives to Acquiescence: Unsettling Legitimacy and Resisting Emergent Ordinaries

Organizer: Antonio Sorge, York University

Discussant: Neni Panourgiá, Columbia University

Political movements and activist programs in the twenty-first century disrupt the reconfigurations of political authority that define late modernity, and seek to provide alternatives to often calamitous emergent ordinaries.  They interrogate the claimed necessity for public austerity and the entrenchment of market imperatives in governance, effectively unsettling the legitimacy of the neoliberal state. Notably, the range of agendas that constitute these alternatives knows little to no bounds, and spans across the political spectrum, reflecting dissatisfaction from numerous quarters. Panelists will take up the issue of lived changes in political topography and topology, as well as responses to the rise over the past decade in insurgent agendas driven by parochialism and xenophobia, examining the alternatives presented within micro-social sites of resistance to these troubling shifts in the global political landscape.

Proposal Submissions for Volunteered Panels:

If you are interested in presenting a paper, please submit your paper proposal including title, an abstract (max 150 words), your name, email address and affiliation to oalexand@yorku.ca no later than February 7th.   Do not forget to indicate which panel you would like to join.  Successful applicants will be notified by ­March 3rd

Call For Papers

Conference: CASCA 2014


Dates: April 30 - May 3

Location: York University, Toronto, Canada

Plenary: "Unsettled Politics and Radical Potential: Figuring the Impulse
to Act"

http://casca2014.apps01.yorku.ca/plenary/

Organizers: Othon Alexandrakis (York University, oalexand@yorku.ca),
Daphne Winland (York University, winland@yorku.ca), Antonio Sorge (York
University, asorge@yorku.ca), Maya Shapiro (York University,
shapirom@yorku.ca)

Novel, unconventional and unexpected sites of resistance continue to
complicate the global political scene calling into question
taken-for-granted understandings of cooperative action. The objective of
this symposium is to examine the taking up of creative political action
among the precarious, dispossessed, humiliated – action informed by
unexpected imaginings and constellations of desires that does not fit into
identitarian or communitarian frames. Our point of departure is the
"coming political" grounded in the subjective experience of a de facto
politically qualified agent struggling to make a life worth living. The
Symposium features three volunteered panels, each of which will explore
our central theme, the impulse to act, through critical reengagements
with: (1) political locations; (2) the political collective; and (3)
political sensibilities.

Panel #1


Moving Targets: The Radical Potential of Migrant Activism in Uncertain Times

Organizer: Maya Shapiro, York University


Discussant: Sara Shneiderman, Yale University

Structures and experiences of migration increasingly constitute the raw
material for radical political action(s) directed at national and
supranational entities. Uncertainty figures into these actions and
processes in especially salient ways as both the goals of activism as well
as activists themselves are 'moving targets,' defined by conditions of
liminality, instability and/or modes of becoming. This panel considers how
patterns and processes of mobility configure political action, exploring
how uncertainty is not an abstract notion, but an empirical reality that
is well-known, carefully considered and sometimes used as a tool for
change by migrant activists and their allies. Presenters on this panel may
take up a variety of questions related to fluctuations in borders,
citizenship and/or activist collectives. All will address the radical
potential of migrant activism and the ways in which it confronts,
circumnavigates and/or depends upon uncertainty to carry out visions of a
different future.

Panel # 2

Rivalling Powers: Alternative Configurations of the Political Sphere

Organizer: Arne Steinforth, York University


Discussant: Kabir Tambar, Stanford University

Across present-day societies, the moral legitimacy of nation-states as
well as their agents appears to be the subject of increased scrutiny,
critique, and challenge. The forms of public action and resistance this
triggered ranges from large-scale political movements and organized
protests all the way down to subversive grassroots discourse. In the
process, people overcome different kinds of repression in order to
reconstitute themselves as political actors, finding novel points of
convergence and creating alternative rationales of imagined landscapes of
power. The injustices that motivate their action, the frames of reference
within which they are articulated, and the common ground they generate
along the way provide valuable ethnographic data of the shared notions,
desires, needs, and visions that drive processes of social transformation
in their respective local settings. The central concern of this panel is
the politics of pluralism – whether as a reaction to times of increased
social insecurity or as resurgence of previously existing alternative
configurations of the political sphere. Contributors are invited to
address a range of issues including (but not limited to) considerations of
cosmology and politics, utopianism, and other shared visions of a more
desirable political future.


Panel # 3

Alternatives to Acquiescence: Unsettling Legitimacy and Resisting Emergent
Ordinaries

Organizer: Antonio Sorge, York University


Discussant: Neni Panourgiá, Columbia University

Political movements and activist programs in the twenty-first century
disrupt the reconfigurations of political authority that define late
modernity, and seek to provide alternatives to often calamitous emergent
ordinaries. They interrogate the claimed necessity for public austerity
and the entrenchment of market imperatives in governance, effectively
unsettling the legitimacy of the neoliberal state. Notably, the range of
agendas that constitute these alternatives knows little to no bounds, and
spans across the political spectrum, reflecting dissatisfaction from
numerous quarters. Panelists will take up the issue of lived changes in
political topography and topology, as well as responses to the rise over
the past decade in insurgent agendas driven by parochialism and
xenophobia, examining the alternatives presented within micro-social sites
of resistance to these troubling shifts in the global political landscape.


Proposal Submissions for Volunteered Panels:

If you are interested in presenting a paper, please submit your paper
proposal including title, an abstract (max 150 words), your name, email
address and affiliation to oalexand@yorku.ca no later than February 7th.
Do not forget to indicate which panel you would like to join. Successful
applicants will be notified by ­March 3rd.

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