******************************************************
*        http://www.anthropologymatters.com            *
* A postgraduate project comprising online journal,    *
* online discussions, teaching and research resources  *
* and international contacts directory.                *
 ******************************************************

“Strikes and revolutionary movements are endemic in the urban environment. Cities, and particularly the great cities are in an unstable equilibrium.” Robert Ezra Park, 1925

1st International Conference on Anthropology and Urban Conflict. Desertions, Counter-movements, and Forced Mobilizations  in the Contemporary City. 7-10th November 2012, Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat de Geografia i Història

Organisers:
Observatori Antropologia del Conflicte Urbà
Grup de Treball Etnografia dels Espais Públics de l'Institut Català d'Antropologia
Grup de Recerca sobre Exclusió i Control Social (GRECS) de la Universitat de Barcelona


PRESENTATION

Social conflict is inherent in urban society in general. Social conflict is a historic constant that
makes cities the epicenter of revolt in all of its forms. Despite our attempts to systematically
classify the varied logics that lay behind existing disparate scales of uprising, e.g. large mass
movements, small groups organized around blueprint actions, or individuals that quietly rebelled
with daily contempt, to date it has not been possible to bring them all under a common systemic
defiance. Political movements vs. social movements, peaceful vs. violent actions, organization vs.
spontaneity, etc., these are old dichotomies overcome by the force of the present situation.
So, how does conflict come about in contemporary cities? The varied kinds of agitation featured in
the current crisis are a good example of the different types of rebellion against public order, the
norms that sustain it, and the authorities that implement them. From a demonstration against
government cuts to apolitical graffiti somewhere on the urban fringe, from insubordination against
mortgage repossessions to the refusal to pay for the use of public transport, from symbolic
happenings performed in public spaces to the defense, at any cost, of squatted housing, of
neighborhood resistance against evictions or of the opposition to identification raids on
undocumented migrants.

The aim of this conference is to make an inventory and to analyze, from different ethnographic
approaches, those often invisible phenomena of daily or extraordinary disobedience designed for,
or inspired by, a rejection of spatial, economic, political, and social order. However, in order to
identify them as mechanisms aimed at denouncing a particular order, we must approach these by
looking at concepts that synthesize at once the processes that impose a homogeneous order as
well as the practices that challenge it. Examples of these kinds of notions are Pere López Sánchez’s
“Urban Desertions”, the “counter-movements” of Gaspar Maza, Gary McDonogh and Joan J.
Pujadas, and J.P. De Gaudemar’s “Forced Mobilities”.

Under these concepts, struggles for the right to housing, copyleft, daily shop-lifting, food
sovereignty, and disputes for public space converge, that is, the generation and conquest of
parallel and pugnacious forms of relationship and exchange come together in order to face the
current living conditions within urban society. Likewise, actions of “political resistance” coordinated
by residents, assemblies, or independent groups take place, as well as those desertion phenomena
that have unsettled social sciences so much, due to their lack of discourse: e.g. cyclical uprisings in
the fringes of major cities and the periodic riots linked to sporting events. Instigated by the
authorities and Capital, all of these phenomena link to mechanisms of urban domination and to the
commoditization of the city, taking shape as projects that theme space and make heritage out of
it, turning the environment into amenable tourism projects that stimulate the privatization of
space, as well as gentrification and real estate speculation, all of which end up forcing large
numbers of people into involuntary displacement. These processes are always accompanied by socalled
“citizen involvement”, which nevertheless legitimates social cleansing and government
practices that, far from achieving the involvement they advocate, squeeze it into juridical and
punitive frameworks of control which are of an increasingly moralistic and repressive character.


CALL FOR PAPERS

In order to submit a paper, we require an abstract, written in either English, Catalan or Spanish,
of no more than 250 words, together with a title, and 5 keywords. Authors will need to specify
their name and surname, academic affiliation and email address. Abstracts must be sent before
15th June 2012 to the following email address: [log in to unmask] Acceptance of
papers will be notified within a month and a half, together with the writing instructions and final
deadline.

*************************************************************
*           Anthropology-Matters Mailing List                 *
* To join this list or to look at the archived previous       *
* messages visit:                                             *
* http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/Anthropology-Matters.HTML   *
* If you have ALREADY subscribed: to send a message to all    *
* those currently subscribed to the list,just send mail to:   *
*        [log in to unmask]                  *
*                                                             *
*       Enjoyed the mailing list? Why not join the new        *
*       CONTACTS SECTION @ www.anthropologymatters.com        *
*    an international directory of anthropology researchers   *
***************************************************************