Please see the announcement below.  Abstracts and eenquiries should be addressed to Jane Carnaffan, [log in to unmask]

**Postgraduate conference announcement and advance call for abstracts**

NIASSH, Newcastle Institute for the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities,
Newcastle University, ARG, Americas Research Group Postgraduate Conference:

About the Americas Research Group at Newcastle University

The Americas Research Group at Newcastle University has existed since 2003. It brings together scholars who work on all parts of the Americas at Newcastle, and other regional universities, to explore connections and comparisons across the hemisphere, and across disciplines. In recent years the Group has organized workshops, lectures, seminars, postgraduate conferences and discussion groups on a wide variety of themes, and we would like to invite postgraduate researchers to our next conference:

Globalisation in the Americas: Interactions and Reactions.

For further information about ARG events, please visit our website at:
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/niassh/americas/

Venue: Newcastle University, UK

Date: 11th March 2009
Keynote: Mrs. Rosemary Thorp, Emeritus Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford University: http://www.lac.ox.ac.uk/staff_a-z_directory/staff/rthorp
Call for Papers

Journalist, economist and leading commentator on globalisation, migration and European issues, Philippe Legrain, offers the following definition of globalisation:

This ugly word is shorthand for how our lives are becoming increasingly intertwined with those of distant people and places around the world-economically, politically, and culturally. These links are not always new, but they are more pervasive than ever before.

(Legrain, 2002: 4)

Legrain's description of globalisation as an 'ugly word' attests to the controversy surrounding what is more neutrally described as the increasing interconnectedness of  modern life. These connections embrace economics, politics and culture on the global, local and personal scales. For many commentators this phenomenon is nothing new but represents an intensification of continuing processes of global integration.

The Americas are particularly pertinent sites in discussions of globalisation, both because of their historical and present-day geo-political positions. Columbus's fateful 'discovery' of the Americas in 1492 heralded the start of a truly global system of trade, and irrevocably changed the world's political, economic and cultural configurations. The current position of the US in world power structures provokes reactions around the globe and from the 'other' Americas. NAFTA and the Cuban trade embargo are just two examples of the US's controversial economic and political stances towards its Latin American neighbours. South America interacts with its Northern counterpart both in the global political and economic arenas, and also within the US itself. People of 'Latin' origin or descent now make up 15%, or some 45.5 million of the US population (US Census, 2008), with this figure predicted to triple by 2050 (USA Today, 2008). This, together with growing Latino political participation, as seen in the recent US presidential election, may herald the rise of an influential political and cultural force within the US.

This postgraduate conference aims to explore the interactions and reactions triggered by the contested, and often highly controversial, processes of globalisation in a friendly, informal environment. We welcome papers that focus on both North and South Americas, and across and between diverse fields of study and disciplines. Therefore, we welcome abstracts and posters from Masters and PhD students that address, but are not limited to, the following questions and themes concerning the Americas, encompassing North America, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Globalisation: Opportunity for world prosperity or neo-colonialism?

Development, neo-liberalism and emerging alternatives
Global financial institutions, the Credit Crunch, reactions and lessons
Transnational corporations and natural resource extraction

Globalisation: Preservation of power relations or creation of new political spaces?

Globalisation from above and below: Obama and a new world order?
Indigenous peoples' political movements in South America
Grassroots political mobilisation in the US

Globalisation: Cultural homogenisation or diversification?

Identities-global, national, local and the revival of indigenous identities
Tourism and migration: towards a borderless world?
Education, communication and language in a globalising world

Please submit abstracts of up to 250 words to: Jane Carnaffan, [log in to unmask]

Deadline: 30th January 2009

References: Legrain, P. 2002 Open World: The Truth about Globalisation, London, Abacus
US Census (2008) available at: http://www.census.gov/Press-release/www/releases/archives/population/011910.html, accessed 20/11/2008
USA Today (2008) available at: www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-02-11-population-study_N.htm - 48k -, accessed 20/11/2008

Diana Paton
Reader in Caribbean History
School of Historical Studies
University of Newcastle
Newcastle Upon Tyne
NE1 7RU
Phone: 0191 222 5038
Fax: 0191 222 6484