[URBANTH-L]CFP: Session on Latin Americans in Europe for the AAA meeting, Philadelphia, PA, December 2-6, 2009

[Jessaca Leinaweaver]

CFP: Session on Latin Americans in Europe for the AAA meeting, Philadelphia,
PA, December 2-6, 2009

TENTATIVE TITLE: The End/s of Area Studies: Latin Americans in Europe
Co-organized by Jessaca Leinaweaver and Karsten Pærregaard 

TENTATIVE ABSTRACT:

Anthropological study has historically been founded on “culture areas;” even
now many anthropology departments require students to take an area-specific
course or two. Yet with increasing global migration as well as frequent
exchanges of cultural and material objects, traditional area studies
categories are confounded. How has this characteristic deterritorialization
transformed (or ended) the traditional aims, methods, or theoretical tools
of cultural and linguistic anthropology? Rather than posit their end, can we
argue that the ends of area studies – interdisciplinary communication and an
effort to de-parochialize developed regions’ interests – remain critically
significant? In either case, how and what can anthropology contribute to an
understanding of these shifts?

As citizens of Latin American and Caribbean nations migrate to European
countries, the nature of “Europe” as a place and identity, and the
place-based, culturally specific qualities of “Latin America,” are equally
complicated. With research on Latin Americans residing or visiting Europe,
this panel asks: What effects do these global mobilities have on “the
anthropology of Europe” and “the anthropology of Latin America”? Are we
still Latin Americanists, or Europeanists? Or are we globalists? What does
this imply for anthropology as a discipline, field work as a method, and
area studies as an organizing frame? 

Papers are sought which address a range of experiences of Latin Americans in
European countries. Perhaps ironically, we seek geographical and linguistic
diversity within this broader interrogation. Researchers considering labor
migration, touring musicians, sex workers, elite migrants, trafficking
victims, linguistic practices among Spanish-speaking migrants to Spain
and/or Brazilians in Portugal, in-home caregivers, tourists, and/or anyone
whose experiences construct notions of Latin America and/or Latin Americans
in Europe and the ways in which this alters, negotiates, or ends previous
attempts at understanding space and identity. Contributions addressing
theoretical and/or methodological implications of these shifts are also
welcome.

Please submit a 250-word abstract to Jessaca Leinaweaver
jessaca_leinaweaver at brown.edu and Karsten Pærregaard
karsten.paerregaard at anthro.ku.dk by Saturday, February 21 (since we plan to
apply for invited status from SAE and SLACA jointly, and need to submit a
final panel to the relevant sections by March 1st)

* * * * * * *
Jessaca Leinaweaver, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Brown University
Box 1921, 128 Hope Street
Providence, RI 02906 
(401) 863-6429
Jessaca_Leinaweaver at brown.edu