CALL FOR ABSTRACTS
Session at the AAA Annual Meeting
Washington DC, Nov. 29-Dec. 3, 2017
The political materiality of cities
How might a focus on materiality help us understand the relation between the urban and the political differently? Anthropologists have long understood cities as important political arenas and as key sites in the formation of political communities that are not limited to systems of representative democracy. This work has shown how urban politics is located in various social spaces, and in a range of everyday practices and more spectacular events. In recent years, increasing attention has gone to the role of non-state actors – from social movements and corporations to churches and criminal organizations – in urban governance and negotiations of citizenship.
This session seeks to extend this work by exploring the role of non-human entities in urban politics. Drawing on the “material turn” in anthropology and related disciplines, we are particularly interested in analyzing how urban politics and citizenship are assembled through relations between humans and various forms of urban technology, infrastructure, housing, biophysical flows, nonhuman animals, and consumer products. We want to understand when, how and why urban matter becomes political, and urban politics become material. What insights can be gained by directing ethnographic attention to the socio-material coproduction of urban politics, and the practices and norms that are central to this process? What role do different material entities play in enabling, limiting and mediating forms of political community? How are different objects – from walls and roads, to water networks and utility bills – central to political subject formation, both within and beyond the nation-state?
This session invites contributions that combine ethnographic and theoretical explorations on urban politics, citizenship and materiality to address such questions. The papers in this session will be the starting point for a special issue. Please email your abstract of no more than 250 words, accompanied by a brief bionote, to the organizers:
- Rivke Jaffe, University of Amsterdam [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
- Francesca Pilo’, University of Amsterdam [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
The deadline for abstract submission is March 15. For more information about the AAA meeting see http://www.aaanet.org/meetings/.
Francesca Pilo'
Post-doc researcher at SECURCIT program
Department of Human Geography, Planning and International Development studies
University of Amsterdam
*************************************************************
* Anthropology-Matters Mailing List
* http://www.anthropologymatters.com *
* A postgraduate project comprising online journal, *
* online discussions, teaching and research resources *
* and international contacts directory. *
* 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
*
* To unsubscribe: please log on to jiscmail.ac.uk, and *
* go to the 'Subscriber's corner' page. *
*
***************************************************************
|