[URBANTH-L]AAA Panel CFP: Communities responding to Conflict

[bburke at email.arizona.edu]

FYI for those working in conflict areas. Also, both of the panel organizers
research transnational/refugee communities so there might be affinities there
as well.

--brian




Call for papers: Panel proposal for the American Anthropological Association
Annual meeting (www.aaanet.org), Philadelphia, PA - December 2-6, 2009

Communities responding to conflict: Social change and cultural production in
contemporary conflict settings

Contemporary conflicts produce zones of war, violence, displacement, and
resettlement in which social relations, livelihoods, and community structures
undergo transformations.  Forms of identity are disrupted and reconfigured
within families, ethnicities, and nations. In short or long-term conflict
situations, actors also demonstrate flexibility, innovation, and solidarity by
strategically employing sociocultural resources in response to emerging
community needs and changing realities. Community leaders and international
actors, including governments, civil society, and humanitarian aid
organizations, often seek to seek to influence and shape those responses on
local and global scales. This panel examines the ways in which conflict and
post-conflict settings engender new forms of social organization,
participation, cultural production and communication and the broader
implications of these adaptive strategies for communities living with and
recovering from recent experiences of conflict.

We are especially interested in papers that relate to the following themes:

-Changing social dynamics in populations affected by conflict, especially in
refugee camps and resettlement zones
-Gender relations in conflict settings
-The impacts of conflict on youth and their responses to it
-Use of performance genres and media as modes of representation in conflict
settings
- Development and government agency attempts to direct community responses to
conflict

Submissions: Please send abstracts (250 words max.) with, name, affiliation,
department, telephone number, and email address by March 18, 2009. The AAA
deadline for the panel proposal and conference registrations for
participating members is April 1.

Abstracts may be sent via email to:
deubel AT email.arizona.edu and alicewilson AT cantab.net

Tara Deubel
PhD candidate, Dept. of Anthropology
University of Arizona

Alice Wilson
PhD candidate, Social Anthropology
University of Cambridge