Conference - Global Movements, Local Identities: Race, Space, and African Diaspora in Latin America

Global Movements, Local Identities: Race, Space, and the African Diaspora in Latin America

MARCH 6-7, 2008

University of California Los Angeles

Organized by the UC Berkeley Afro-Latino Working Group and
the UCLA Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity and Politics

Sponsored by the Inter-American Foundation

Abstract Submission Deadline: November 12, 2007

In recent years there has been an explosion in scholarship that goes beyond recognizing the presence of Afro-Latin Americans and towards interrogating this topic more deeply. Building on the momentum of this research and a successful 2007 Afro-Latino Working Group Conference, our second annual conference will be held in collaboration with the UCLA
Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity and Politics. The goal of this conference is to advance inter-disciplinary scholarship that produces critical theories and methodologies for understanding the African Diaspora in Latin America and the Caribbean. We aim to create a forum for graduate students to dialogue with established scholars whose work explores the
African Diaspora in Latin America. This conference will foster new academic dialogues about race, ethnicity, culture, society, economy, politics and nation.

The 2008 conference will focus on the impact of movement, globalization, and notions of space on processes of racialization and identity formation within the African Diaspora in Latin America. Departing from scholarship that treats the African Diaspora in Latin America as a fixed product of forced migration from Africa, this conference will highlight continual movement and interaction within the Diaspora. It seeks to explore cultural and political change within the African Diaspora as well as examine the creation of new diasporas.

The conference will feature a series of graduate student panels as well as an invited faculty roundtable with preeminent scholars working on the African Diaspora in Latin America. The conference is oriented towards graduate students pursuing projects about the African Diaspora in Latin America (including Mexico, Central and South America, the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, the United States and other global Latino communities). We invite abstract submissions from current graduate students on a diverse array of topics and disciplinary orientations that are both theoretical and empirical in content. We will not accept submissions from tenured faculty. We strongly encourage papers that address under-theorized regions in the Americas as well as comparative and regional works. We offer the following themes as submission suggestions:

• Migration, Transnationalism, and Border Politics
• Theorizing Race and Diaspora(s)
• Race, Gender, and Sexuality
• Social Movements and the Politics of Race
• Forced Displacement, Human Trafficking and Violence
• Globalization, Race, and National Identity
• Comparative Historical and Literary Analysis
• Regionalism, Race, and Space
• Popular Culture, Folklore, and Racial Representations
• Impact of Technology and Mass Media on Racialized Identities

300 word abstracts should be submitted to the organizing committee preferably via email as word documents or PDF files. Submissions that must be mailed should be received via USPS no later than the submission due date. We can only accept abstracts for individual papers or poster presentations; please do not submit panel abstracts. Please submit abstracts by November 12, 2007. No late submissions will be accepted. Submissions should include:
1. the abstract,
2. current contact information,
3. presentation title and current C.V.

Accepted authors will be notified by December 17, 2007, along with full submission guidelines for papers or poster presentations. Full papers are due on February 4, 2008. All papers and presentations must be available in English. Papers may be made available for publication at a later date.
Submissions and inquiries should be sent to: afrolatinogroup[at]berkeley.edu or via USPS to Vielka C. Hoy, Afro-Latino Working Group, 660 Barrows Hall, #2572, Berkeley, CA 94720.

Please check our website regularly for updated conference and registration information:
http://www.clas.berkeley.edu:7001/Research/workinggroups/groups/afrolatino.html

Petra Raquel Rivera
Ph.D. Candidate
African Diaspora Studies
Afro-Latino Working Group
University of California, Berkeley