The Society for the Anthropology of North America (SANA) and the American Ethnological Society (AES) announce a joint meeting for 2008:

SANA/AES Spring 2008 Meeting
Democracy, Disorder, and Discontent
April 3-5, 2008
Wrightsville Beach, NC
Submission deadline for panel and paper proposals: January 15, 2008 FEBRUARY 8, 2008
instructions for submitting paper and session proposals
keynote speakers & plenary panel sessions

The 2008 SANA/AES conference seeks panels and papers that creatively engage the discrepancies between the idea and the practice of democracy and that explore the forms of disorder and discontent engendered by these contradictions. What is democracy? Democracy is often understood as an expansion of individual freedoms, the spreading out of economic equality through participation in the market, and an alternative to excessive government regulation. Yet despite these optimistic claims, there remains an inherent tension between economic inequality and democratic politics. Emergent social and political orders in many parts of the world are characterized by growing inequality, and they are neither democratic nor secure. Furthermore, established rights, entitlements, and democratic principles in the United States itself have eroded, and wealth is increasingly redistributed upwards.

We seek participants who address the tensions inherent in democratic processes and the disorder and discontent that arise from these disjunctures. Key questions include, but are not limited to, the following: How do race, gender, class, citizenship, and sexual orientation shape the ways that different kinds of people understand democracy and democratic participation in the age of neoliberalism? Within emergent and long-standing democracies, how is citizenship linked to new forms of inclusion and exclusion? How and to what extent do democracies justify incarceration, police brutality, military and paramilitary activities and other forms of violence, even as they create political opportunities to critique them? What are the possibilities and pitfalls of new oppositional discourses that focus on individual, social, and human rights? What sorts of alternative political projects are currently imaginable and unimaginable?

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Keynote Speakers

• AES Keynote: Ida Susser, AES President (2005-2007)
• SANA Keynote: Hilary Cunningham (University of Toronto)

Plenary Panel Sessions

• "War, Impunity, and Accountability"
• "Race and Justice"

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Instructions for Paper and Panel Submissions

Deadline for abstract and proposal submission: January 15, 2008 FEBRUARY 8, 2008

Panel and paper submissions should be sent to aes.sana08@gmail.com
Please contact Lesley Gill with any questions, Lgill@american.edu

Download the appropriate form to include with your paper or session proposal:

Paper Submission Form
Word (.doc) Format
Acrobat (.pdf) Format

Panel Submission Form
Word (.doc) Format
Acrobat (.pdf) Format

We encourage you to think about creative as well as traditional formats for presenting your work. Guidelines are below.

1. Sessions will generally be scheduled for 1.5 hours (1 hour and 30
   minutes), which allows time for 5 fifteen minute paper presentations
   and a discussant or discussion.
2. Paper presentations should be prepared with a fifteen minute time limit in mind.
3. Organized session submissions are encouraged, but individual papers are
   also welcome. Individually volunteered papers will be organized into
   sessions by the program committee according to theme. All paper
   proposals, whether submitted individually or as part of an organized
   session, will be evaluated individually.
4. Roundtable discussions can be a useful alternative to traditional
   sessions. Instead of formal paper presentations, these involve informal
   discussion of a theme. Participants would be encouraged to circulate
   papers prior to the conference and to make copies available either at
   the meetings or on-line for others to read. Roundtable discussions have
   the potential to include more participants than traditional sessions,
   although they would be limited to the same 1.5 hours.
5. Other types of sessions are also possible, including poster sessions
   and workshops. Contact conference organizers if you wish to submit
   proposals for these or other types of sessions.

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THE MOST RECENTLY UPDATED INFORMATION ABOUT THE AES/SANA 2008 CONFERENCE WILL BE POSTED AT:

http://aesonline.org/AESSANA2008

Please bookmark this link for future reference.