[URBANTH-L] CFP: Double Oppression: Displacement, Involuntary Relocation and Controlled Exclusion

[Angela Jancius]

[x-posted from Culture_AgList at colfa.utsa.edu]

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeanne Simonelli [mailto:simonejm at wfu.edu] 
Sent: Friday, September 30, 2005 10:36 AM
Subject: SfAA session call for participants

Please circulate this message to potential participants:

The deadline for SfAA abstracts for the 2006 Vancouver meetings is 
coming soon, on October 15.  We are organizing a session on the 
complexity of displacement, involuntary relocation and controlled 
exclusion, as it affects all aspects of life, from the ability to plant 
and harvest crops to outright war.  The short form of the session 
abstract is below.  The long form follows.

If you are interested in participating, please send your 100 word 
abstract to Bill Roberts  <wcroberts at smcm.edu>  and Nadia Abu Zahra 
<nadia.abu-zahra at sant.ox.ac.uk>   by October 10th.  If included, you 
will need to do an online submission through SfAA by October 15th.

We look forward to your abstracts, and please feel free to circulate 
this to other potential presenters.

Double Oppression: Displacement, Involuntary Relocation and Controlled 
Exclusion

Session organizers: Nadia Abu-Zahra and Bill Roberts

In the wake of natural and social disasters, anthropologists have a 
history of applied work with dislocated and involuntarily resettled 
communities, in programs concerning colonial settlement, military 
purposes, and ethnic homogenization, and in organizations charged with 
providing aid.  How can we address questions concerning voluntary and 
forced migration, "illegality", and multiple exclusions? Why are some 
disasters considered more important, for reasons of economy, race and 
religion? How do constructed boundaries on human movement or thought 
reshape social and cultural configurations and affect physical, mental, 
and economical health? What roles should be played by organizations? 
Using complementary scientific and humanistic perspectives, we discuss 
issues confronting us as the scale of human displacement and 
resettlement intensify around the world.

Full abstract:
For humans home and land is not only a matter of heart, it is also a 
matter of social justice and survival. Forced migration is a form of 
double oppression: once when migration is forced (perhaps repeatedly) 
and again when migrants are subject to surveillance, categorization, 
limitation, confinement and attack. In this context, anthropologists 
have a long history of applied work with dislocated and involuntarily 
resettled communities. They work in the anti-globalisation movement, in 
the anti-war movement, and in disadvantaged communities worldwide. They 
are at the forefront of the movement for locally appropriate trauma 
mitigation, and stand for myriad social justice issues relating to 
globalization, imposed borders, development, resistance, struggles for 
autonomy, and voluntary and forced migration.

However, the roots of our discipline reach back onto the reservations 
created for Native American peoples in the US and Canada, and the 
internment camps for Japanese Americans during the Second World War. 
These roots continue in programs and projects concerning colonial 
settlement, military purposes, and ethnic homogenisation. To this day, 
some disasters are considered more important than others, for reasons 
largely to do with economy, race and religion. Why, for example, was 
little to nothing said of the thousands of West African families whose 
homes, livestock, and even children were washed away in this year's 
torrential rains?

Anthropologists also find themselves working for organizations charged 
with the sometimes beneficial but sometimes questionable process of 
providing aid. Anthropologists at the World Bank, for example, may 
document development-induced displacement and its ills, but have no say 
in its arrest or remediation.


How can we better address contemporary questions related to voluntary 
and forced migration, the creation of "illegality", and myriad forms of 
exclusion? How do the constructed boundaries on human movement or 
thought reshape social and cultural configurations? How do these 
constructed boundaries transcribe themselves onto bodies and minds, 
creating lines of health and ill health physically, mentally, 
economically, and otherwise? What roles are - or should be - played by 
professional, non-governmental, governmental and other organizations?

The focus of this session is to bring panel members and audience to 
identify and discuss the issues confronting us as the scale and scope of 
human displacement and resettlement intensify around the world as a 
result of natural disaster, military aggression, civil unrest or planned 
social change.  These issues are examined from complementary scientific 
and humanistic perspectives to see what hope anthropology offers to 
those who have to struggle to maintain, rebuild or regain their home, 
land, health and future.

-- 
Dr. Jeanne Simonelli, Chair
Department of Anthropology
Wake Forest University
PO Box 7807
Winston-Salem, NC 27109-7807
336-758-4310---office
336-758-6064---fax