Call for Papers, 2003 American Anthropological Association meeting in Chicago, November 19-23. Proposed Panel:
Mismanagement, Unofficial Practices & the Boundaries of Place — Alternative Constructions of the Political?
How does the information age affect the workings of bureaucratic organizations? The over-abundance of information, accompanying the
new knowledge economy, wrecks havoc with centralized modes of control and surveillance. This panel will discuss unauthorized practices that
may result from mismanagement and that disrupt hierarchical models of power and authority. The state, the corporation, the hospital or school,
the NGO, as well as volunteer associations – all of these and more organized activities might serve as sites from which to examine the unruliness
of political practices and new forms of creative authorship.
Panelists are encouraged to cross the boundaries between ‘high' and ‘low' culture, authority and accommodation/resistance, to highlight
the permeability of public and private spheres. How do undisclosed, ‘meaningless' acts later become meaningful in official venues? What are
some of the alternative processes through which representations get made? Can unofficial practices bring about political effects?
As a point of departure, we make a distinction between the study of ideology and the operations of the ideological apparatus. In the
case of the nation-state, for example, the study of nationalism is often informed by an anthropology of history, while the state's legal institutions
can be approached through an anthropology of policy or technology. Papers might engage one or both fields of enquiry, either in the format of a
small case study or a theoretical excursus. Fieldwork accounts are especially encouraged.
Possible paper topics include, but in no way are limited to:
- mis-management and disorder
- issues raised by the lack of control over information
- changing notions of authorship & authority,
(e.g. in new media and in decentralized processes of decision-making)
- unofficial practices that later become official
- transfers of political technologies between sites
- benchmarking and the imitation of practices
- subject-positions that get made in response to new technologies
(e.g. inventions create new job classifications and new product liabilities)
- the state (or other institution) as war-machine
- virtualism and unstable places
- the crisis of discipline and/or the end of governmentality
- problematics of the ‘border' or ‘boundary'
- territorial borders and the reproduction of political ideologies
(e.g. through the notion of risk and defense)
Please send 250 word abstracts by e-mail or to the address given below.
Individuals selected will have 15 min. to present at the meetings in November.
Please note that all panelists will need to be members of the American Anthropological Association by April 1, 2003.
There will be two rounds for the call for papers. The first deadline for abstracts is March 18, 2003. The second deadline is March 25, 2003. In
this manner, early submissions are not only encouraged, but they are given first consideration.
Please feel free to ask questions and discuss paper topics with:
Tarra Drevet
Rice University
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Submissions can be e-mailed or sent to:
Tarra Drevet
Department of Anthropology
Rice University
MS 20, 6100 Main Street
Houston, Texas
77005-1892
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