REGISTRATION DEADLINE APPROACHING FEB. 15!

Call for Submissions and Registration Information:

Indigeneities and Cosmopolitanisms

AES/CASCA Joint Conference
May 8-12 , 2007
Toronto, Canada

The American Ethnological Association (AES) and the Canadian Anthropology Society (CASCA) invite the submission of papers, sessions, symposia, roundtables, and workshops for the upcoming joint conference on the theme of “Indigeneities and Cosmopolitanisms.” The conference will be hosted by the University of Toronto.

Read the rest of this article for more information about the conference theme, registration, and other relevant issues (including information about the Elsie Clews Parsons Prize, the AES award for best graduate student paper). The final deadline for conference registration and submissions is February 15, 2007.

To go directly to the registration site for the AES/CASCA conference and to submit a proposal for a paper or a session, click here: Meeting Registration and Paper/Session Submission

Conference Theme: The “indigenous” and the “cosmopolitan” seem to exist as oppositional formations in the imaginary field demarcated by the local and the global. While the former seems rooted, timeless, and traditional; the latter appears mobile, contemporary, and (post)modern. As recent work by anthropologists has shown, both of these characterizations are quite deceptive. “Indigeneity” is a deeply current issue, which, over the past decade, has relentlessly forced itself onto social, political and academic agendas across the planet. While the question of who is and who is not “indigenous” was never innocent, it is becoming increasingly crucial in today's global and globalising world. At the same time, the genealogy of the “cosmopolitan” has been moved back in time. It now appears as a quasi-primordial reference point for a social and political vision beyond the nation-state and empire. Together, the “indigenous” and the “cosmopolitan” signify the tensions animating contemporary anthropology. As the discipline negotiates its long-standing commitment to local processes in a rapidly transnational world, both the “indigenous” and the “cosmopolitan” have emerged as crucial figures for analysis and debate. The notions of “indigeneity” and “cosmopolitanism” thus speak to a range of pressing theoretical and quotidian concerns: the politics of recognition, inclusion and exclusion; rights to scarce resources; the relation between peoples, spaces and places; neoliberal visions of the global as open-ended, unanchored flows; autochthony, sovereignty and citizenship; conflict and violence; and the ways global capitalism generates cosmopolitan imaginaries while simultaneously producing novel forms and assertions of emplacement. We welcome papers that engage with “indigeneity” and “cosmopolitanism” in a broad sense – as predicaments, moral locations, political positions, imaginative objects – together with their theoretical, epistemological and practical entailments.

A highlight of the conference will be the AES Plenary Session, which will feature a keynote lecture by Jean and John Comaroff (University of Chicago) and responses by Carol Greenhouse (Princeton University) and James Siegel (Cornell University).

Call for Submissions: The conference organizers invite submissions in a number of formats. We especially encourage sessions that bring together participants from different institutions and society memberships.

Papers will be 15 minutes each. They may be volunteered individually. The program committee will organize individually volunteered papers into sessions according to theme and content. Papers intended as part of a proposed session (or symposium) must be submitted by the session organizer as part of the session proposal form.

Sessions will be 90 minutes each, and will generally consist of up to five papers with a discussion period to follow. Please note that if a formal discussant will be participating, there should be no more than four papers in a session, in order to leave time for general discussion. Organizers may schedule as few as three papers if they wish to leave an extended time for discussion.

Symposia will generally be formed of at least two sessions of 90 minutes each. Symposium parts will be held in sequence, with a break between the parts, and where possible, will be located in the same room.

Roundtables are less formal than sessions: participants do not present formal papers but discuss an issue or topic laid out by the session organizers in their proposal. Roundtables, like sessions, are 90 minutes long.

Workshops consist of a small number of participants who gather to discuss a theme or subject in a more informal way than a session or a symposium. A workshop is the equivalent of a session and is 90 minutes long. Workshop organizers should indicate criteria for participation (i.e. pre-circulated papers, topic preparation, pre-registration).

Please note: Each participant will normally be limited to presenting one paper and acting as discussant once.

Please note also: Prior to submitting proposals for papers, sessions, symposia, roundtables or workshops, all participants must be members of either AES or CASCA, and have registered for the conference (the registration website features the relevant links).

Conference Registration and Submission of Papers and Sessions:

 

To register for the AES/CASCA conference as a member of AES/AAA and to submit a proposal for a paper or a session, click here: Meeting Registration and Paper/Session Submission

If you have technical problems with conference registration or payment, please contact Khara Minter at: kminter@aaanet.org

For general questions about the conference, submitting proposals, participation, accommodation, or travel, please contact: conference2007@anthropologica.ca

Deadlines and Fees: The final deadline for conference registration and submissions is February 15, 2007. Early registration comes with reduced fees. These fees are US $80.00 for professionals ($106 after 1/15/07), and US $35.00 for students ($53 after 1/15/07).

Please note that scholars registering for the conference through AES (and via the AES web page) need to be members of AES (and AAA). A link to the AAA membership site is provided on the conference website.

Cancellation Policy: If your proposal is not accepted and/or you wish to cancel your participation you may apply for a refund of the conference registration fees. Requests may be sent by email to conference2007-admin@anthropologica.ca up to and including March 15, 2007. A $30 processing fee will be deducted. There will be no refunds for withdrawals after March 15th, 2007.

Elsie Clews Parsons Prize: This year AES will also award the biannual Elsie Clews Parsons Prize for the best graduate student paper. The winner of the prize receives a medallion cast by a Hopi silversmith featuring a design visible on our website as the society's logo. Graduate students interested in applying for the Elsie Clews Parsons Prize should mail three copies of the complete paper to Fran Rothstein, Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminal Justice, Towson University, Towson, MD 21252-0001 by April 1, 2007. Papers should be no longer than 35 double-spaced pages, previously unpublished, and should conform to American Ethnologist style guidelines.