[URBANTH-L]CFP: Anthropology of Global Production

[Nikhil Anand]

CALL FOR PAPERS:

Second Annual Stanford Graduate Student Conference in Cultural and 
Social Anthropology
The Anthropology of Global Productions

Friday, April 7, and Saturday, April 8, 2006

Deadline for abstracts: 100-150 words abstracts, no later than 5:00 
p.m. January 1, 2006
Webpage: http://www.stanford.edu/dept/anthroCASA/globalproductions/

The Second Annual Graduate Student Conference in Cultural and Social 
Anthropology aims to bring together students and professors from the 
San Francisco Bay Area and beyond in the interests of interdisciplinary 
research, with particular regard to anthropology, geography, and 
cultural studies.

Rhetorics and regimes of ‘the globe’ claim a logic and coherence that 
are at once evaluative and prescriptive of a universal reality.  From 
invocations of the ‘end of history’ to incantations of post-socialism, 
democratization and neoliberalism, the language of ‘the global’ 
imagines the world as a seamless whole.  Implied in this coherent 
universe are integrated political economic regimes in which 
individuated, rational subjects make up harmonized national and 
transnational populations.  In examining these claims, social 
scientists often reify their coherence and reach; our criticisms of 
global projects make counter-claims that can reinforce the very 
orderliness we attempt to contest.  Within the discourses of 
world-making projects and the knowledge production they inspire are 
disorderly and contested relations of power, subjectivity, violence, 
affect, civil society, governmentality, and beauty.

The Anthropology of Global Productions will explore such discourses of 
world-ordering.  If anthropology often seeks to disaggregate and 
disable these discourses, we aim to understand both the content and the 
effects of these disaggregations.  We wish to raise theoretical and 
methodological questions about our own contributions as knowledge 
producers.  How do we investigate the patchwork quilt of lived 
realities in a way that engages those making global generalizations?  
How do we strengthen the knowledge of grounded practices in a way that 
speaks effectively to and in debates about the globe?  What claims and 
interventions can we make through ethnographic research?

We are seeking the most compelling papers from a variety of disciplines 
that engage a broad range of topics.  Relevant topics include (but are 
not limited to) political economy, neoliberalism, governmentality, 
race, class, gender, diaspora studies, nationalism, religion, violence, 
human rights, NGOs, environmentalism, labor and commodity production, 
science and technology studies, popular culture, mass media, 
performance, literature, art, affect, identity and the formation of 
subjectivities.

Panel presentations will be 15 minutes long and papers should be no 
more than 7 pages in length.  During the conference proceedings, panels 
will give way to workshops, which provide an intimate environment for 
graduate students and faculty discussants to exchange ideas on 
conference themes.  Confirmed faculty discussants include Tom 
Boellstorf, Paula Ebron, Jim Ferguson, Akhil Gupta, Liisa Malkki, Bill 
Maurer, William Mazzarella, Lynn Meskell, Diane Nelson, Suzana Sawyer, 
Anna Tsing, Kath Weston, and Sylvia Yanagisako.  The conference will 
also feature two keynote addresses, delivered by James Ferguson and 
Anna Tsing.

Guidelines for Submissions:
Paper proposals should incorporate one or more of the themes of the 
conference, listed above.  A proposal for a paper should consist of a 
100-150 word abstract.  Paper proposals must also include the paper 
title, the name of the presenter, daytime and evening phone numbers, 
email address, mailing address and institutional affiliation of the 
presenter.

Electronic Submissions:
Please send submissions and inquiries by email to: 
graduate-conference at stanford.edu
Please include your abstract either in the body of the text or as an 
email attachment (in Word DOC or RTF format).

Non-Electronic Submissions:
If you are unable to email your proposal, you may send a hard copy or 
PC-compatible floppy disk containing the document to:
Submissions, Graduate Student Conference
The Anthropology of Global Productions
Department of Cultural and Social Anthropology
Stanford University
Building 110, Main Quad
Stanford, CA 94305

Presenters will be notified of the conference committee’s decision via 
email by February 5, 2006.  There will be no conference registration 
fee.

For more information, please see our website:
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/anthroCASA/globalproductions