[URBANTH-L]Call for Contributions: Anthropology News

[Angela Jancius]

From: Elzbieta Gozdziak <emg27 at georgetown.edu>

Dear SUNTA and CORI members:

I would like to receive contributions for the Anthropology News on the
following issues the editors of AN would like to cover in the near future.

Hurricane Katrina
Insights from anthropological research could be offered to shed light on
what is happening in the Gulf; how are anthropologists responding to the
disaster and its affects right now; and how has it affected anthropology
departments and programs (and what are they doing as a result).   Any
suggestions or contributions you can offer to this would be welcome.

AN series on Rethinking Race
Stacy Lathrop,in collaboration with the AAA Understanding Race & Human
Variation Project, is developing a special issue for the Feb AN on this
topic.  The call for papers (along with those for other ongoing thematic
series, such as Shifts in Anthropological Knowledge), can be accessed at
http://www.aaanet.org/press/an/ancfp.htm.  The deadline for submitting to
the AN series on Rethinking Race is Nov 15.

Proposed AN series on Globalization for spring 2006
 Please provide feedback on the following:

Seeing Humans, Society and Culture in Globalization
 Corporations, firms, NGOs, non-profits, governments, universities,
policymakers and a host of other entities comprised of humans interact daily
in global networks underpinned, for the most part, by a neoliberal framework
constructed in assumptions about rational choices.  Many anthropologists
study these networks, frameworks and assumptions, grounding them within
particular sociocultural contexts.  Anthropology, however, has yet to engage
in an exploration of its own assumptions, findings and responses to
"globalization" in an attempt to integrate our anthropological understanding
of these processes, to evaluate the questions that frame research and
advocacy and the methods used in carrying these out, and to communicate our
contributions in this area of research to our disciplines, policymakers and
the public.
 Anthropology News invites readers to contribute short commentaries of
1000-1200 words or research reports of 600-800 words that address the
following questions and issues.
-How do anthropologists understand globalization?   How do anthropologists
study these processes?   What are the methodological challenges in studying
globalization?   How should anthropologists now direct their research on
globalization?
-What does anthropology contribute to studies on globalization that other
fields of study, such as economics, political science and sociology, might
miss?  What possibilities for multi-disciplinary collaborations are there?
-How do and should anthropologists understand globalization historically?
How can biological anthropologists and archaeologists contribute in placing
globalization in historical context?  What new forms of consumption and
global capitalism are emerging currently?
-What entities (for example, World Bank, IMF, WTO) play a key role in
directing and governing globalization today?  What entities (for example,
NGOs, transnational networks) have emerged in response?  What role(s) do
anthropologists play within and in relation to these entities-as employees,
consultants, ethnographers, activists?
-How do neoliberal policies impact humans? Is resistance good to think in
terms of locals relations to neoliberal globalization?   What case stories
exist of such resistance?  How else do humans relate to neoliberal policies,
both successfully and not so successfully?
-What systems of local, national, regional and international regulations of
global markets and trade have existed and are emerging?  What are the best
ways of understanding the efficacy of these anthropologically?
-What are the new languages of protest and globalization activism?  What
role do new technologies and media play in these protests?  What role should
anthropologists play in these movements as scholars and citizens?  And how
should or should not anthropological research inform advocacy?
-What new categories of identity have emerged as a result of neoliberal
policies?  How are these identities embodied, contested and related to other
identities?   What new rights and ideas of social justice have emerged in
response to these new identities?
-What role do new technologies play in new forms of global labor (for
instance, outsourcing, reconfiguring production practices)?
-How has globalization studies de-stabilized ideas about
"modernity/traditional" in development studies?   Are new binaries of
"global forces" and "local places" or "local authenticity" and "global
domination" good to think?  Or new studies on "cosmopolitanism"?
-How do other domains of human existence (such as ethics, politics,
academics, family, journalism, art, environment, health) become reconfigured
through metaphors grounded in neoliberal frameworks?  What are the
consequences of such borrowings?     What role do institutions play in these
processes?

Please send your comments on these and other issues of interest to SUNTA
membership to Elzbieta Gozdziak, SUNTA Secretary at emg27 at georgetown.edu

--
Elzbieta M. Gozdziak, Ph.D.
Research Director
Editor, International Migration
Georgetown University
Harris Building
3300 Whitehaven St NW
Suite 3100
Washington, DC 20007
Tel: 202-687-2193
Fax: 202-687-2541
e-mail: emg27 at georgetown.edu