[URBANTH-L]CFP AAA panel: Transnationalism and the US Military

[Angela Jancius]

From: Rebecca Forgash <rforgash at hotmail.com>
Subject: CFP AAA panel: Transnationalism and the US Military

American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting
November 15-19, 2006
San Jose, California

CALL FOR PAPERS FOR PROPOSED PANEL:

Session Title: "Off Limits": Transnationalism and the US Military

With more than 5500 sites worldwide, the United States Department of Defense
coordinates vast transnational flows of personnel, equipment, and other 
goods,
as well as culturally and historically specific ideas concerning power,
gender, nation, race, and class.  A topic historically and politically "off
limits" as a dangerous zone of discussion, this panel encourages approaches 
to
investigating the critical intersections of the U.S. military that are
sensitive to cultural production that spans the barbed wire fences
distinguishing on-base from off-base space.  At issue are far-reaching
processes of "militarization" that shape not only the interactions and
relationships between on-base and off-base persons, but more broadly,
understandings of citizenship, entitlement, and belonging that emerge in
specific localities and/or circulate throughout the global U.S. military
community.  International security treaties, status of forces agreements, 
and
immigration procedures place important legal parameters on the negotiation 
of
personal identity.  Where bases are a legacy of war and/or colonialism, 
active
duty service personnel relate to local persons within a sociopolitical
framework defined by reference to nation, race, and class difference.  All 
the
while, intimate social and economic relationships between U.S. service
personnel and local persons blur the boundaries of acknowledged social and
legal categories, giving rise to new racial, gendered, and class
subjectivities that are situated within complex and shifting fields of 
power.

The panel will explore these processes with reference to theories of
citizenship (broadly conceived), globalization, and governmentality, as well
as recent anthropological approaches to militarization and
American "empire."  "Empire" although referring to colonialism, in this
context also refers to the "geographical reach of U.S. military power and 
its
ability to assert that power/impose their will on any adversaries" (Lutz
2004). Few scholars in anthropology have approached the U.S. military as a
transnational institution, despite its national and global reaches.  We
specifically ask, how does a focus on the U.S. military challenge current
models of citizenship and transnationalism and demand novel analytical
frameworks?

Our own papers focus on the US military in Okinawa and Korea.  We invite
proposals/papers that strengthen or complement our larger focus on Asia and
the Pacific (including the United States).

Deadline for 250-word proposals and/or drafts of papers: March 29, 2006

Please send a copy of proposals/drafts to both:

Rebecca Forgash
Eaton Humanities 240
279 UCB
University of Colorado at Boulder
Boulder, CO 80309-0279
Email: Rebecca.Forgash at colorado.edu

Sue-Je Gage
701 East Kirkwood Avenue
Bloomington, IN 47405-7100
Email: slgage at indiana.edu