Stadt: Bielefeld

Frist: 2014-07-31

Beginn: 2015-01-22

Ende: 2015-01-24

URL: http://www.caribbeanresearch.net

The Junior Research Team of the Society for Caribbean Research (SoCaRe) in co-operation with the CIAS and the BMBF-project ‘The Americas as Space of Entanglements’ at Bielefeld University invites PhD candidates and Postdocs working in Caribbean Studies to submit abstracts for the interdisciplinary SoCaRe Junior Research Conference at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF) at Bielefeld University, 22-24 January 2015.

Keynote Speakers are:
Giselle Anatol, University of Kansas (confirmed)
Roberto Zurbano, Casa de las Américas, Havanna, Kuba (tbc)

Practices of transgression are essential in understanding the Caribbean and its diasporas in entangled areas such as the Americas, Africa, Europe, and Asia. This is partly due to the region’s history of colonization, (often enforced) migration, neo-colonial inequalities, as well as the Caribbean’s specific geopolitical role. The recent re-emergence of debates surrounding reparations is only one example for the multiple layers of entanglement of these areas and processes which continue to inform Caribbean practices of resistance. While as a theme, resistance seems to be omnipresent in disciplines such as politics, economics, history, anthropology, feminist and gender studies, cultural studies, or fields focusing on aesthetics, the concept frequently still remains under-theorized in application. The SoCaRe Junior Research Conference thus aims to examine existing practices and theories of resistance in the context of the Caribbean and its diasporas.

Thinking about the Caribbean and its diasporas as cultures of resistance provokes questions about how practices of transgression are conceptualized and realized by actors within local, (trans-)regional, (trans-) national and global contexts.

Presentations could address the following questions and topics:

• Which conceptions and theories of resistance and hegemony are evoked in relation to the Caribbean?
• How does resistance relate to other terms such as protest, violence, opposition, rebellion, activism, radicalism, riots, struggle, oppositionality, disobedience, power, domination?
• Which roles do transnational and diasporic movements/connections play in the dissemination and potential ‘culturalization’ of Caribbean ‘resistant’ subjectivities and practices?
• Individual and collective endeavors and strategies of activism in relation to questions of subjectivity, identity, embodiment, modes of thinking and being;
• Notions and practices of empowerment in racialized, gendered, and class contexts, as well as contexts determined by other social categories such as age, sexuality, and ability;
• The historical dimension and contemporary relevance of resistance, e.g. in relation to memory, mobility and migration;
• Religious practices of resistance and their conceptualization within Vodou, Obeah, Santería, Kumina, etc.;
• Language as resistance (e.g. regarding the ‘standardisation’ of Creole, Patwa, Kreyol);
• The relationship between Caribbean knowledge production and asymmetrical circulations of knowledge;
• Global geopolitics and the Caribbean.

We welcome papers addressing the conference theme and questions from all disciplines (including but not restricted to Literature, Media, Arts and Visual Culture, Geography, History, Politics and Society).

Moreover, we also encourage general project presentations (PhD, Postdoc) in the broader area of Caribbean Studies, for which a separate panel and a poster session will be organized.

This conference seeks particularly to encourage academic exchange between advanced scholars and young researchers. We will invite keynote speakers as well as commentators to give feedback to panelists and project presenters and to participate in the final roundtable discussion. We aim to publish a selection of contributions.

Abstract Submission
Please submit an abstract of no more than 250 words for a paper or poster presentation by 31 July 2014 to
juniorresearch@caribbeanresearch.net

Conference languages are: English, Spanish, French. Presentations should be accompanied by an English summary

For further information on the Society for Caribbean Research visit the SoCaRe-Homepage: www.caribbeanresearch.net

Beitrag von: Wiebke Beushausen

Redaktion: Christof Schöch