[URBANTH-L]AN CFP: Seeing Humans, Society and Culture in Globalization

[Angela Jancius]

Dear Colleagues,

You may be interested in this Anthropology News call for papers on
globalization.  Rather than contacting the AN managing editor, you may wish
to contact SUNTA's Secretary/AN editor, Elzbieta Gozdziak
<emg27 at georgetown.edu>.  If there are several SUNTA contributions,  Elzbieta
may be able to coordinate them on a page of AN, as she did with several
articles on the Paris riots, in January issue.   - AJ

AN Call for Papers: Seeing Humans, Society and Culture in Globalization
Deadline: March 20, 2006

Corporations, firms, NGOs, non-profits, governments, universities,
policymakers and a host of other entities comprised of humans interact daily
in global networks. They are 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 discipline,
policymakers and the public.

Anthropology News thus invites readers to contribute short commentaries of
1,000-1,200 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, could
miss?  What are the possibilities for multi-disciplinary collaborations?
How do and should anthropologists understand globalization historically?
How can biological anthropologists and archaeologists contribute to place
globalization in historical context?  What new forms of consumption and
global capitalism are currently emerging?

What entities (for example, World Bank, IMF, WTO) play a key role in
directing and regulating globalization today?  What entities (for example,
NGOs, transnational networks and UN policies) 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 positive 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 unsuccessfully?

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 systems 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 have 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 have 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" useful?  What about 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?

Anthropology News invites the submission of ideas, brief articles (400-800
words) and lengthier commentaries (1,000-1,400 words) on this topic and
these questions. Using examples from their own research and disciplines,
contributors are requested to submit their thoughts as an email attachment
to Stacy Lathrop, AN Managing Editor, slathrop at aaanet.org.