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CITIZENSHIP IN CALIFORNIA, PAST AND PRESENT

Panel proposal for the
American Anthropological Association conference

San Francisco, 14-18 November 2012

Panel organiser: Trevor Stack (U of Aberdeen) [log in to unmask]

The panel will reflect on the ways in which citizenship - a key topic of recent anthropology - has played out in the Californian past and present, not least to negotiate borders and crossings of many kinds.

Possible topics include:
* The pressure placed on the Californian missions by the offer of Mexican citizenship to the Native American population; the significance of the denial of US citizenship to the same Native Americans after 1848; the contemporary relationship of Native Americans to citizenship.
* Early uses of US citizenship to limit access and security to non-US miners in the Gold Rush and later to the Chinese railroad workers, pioneering the use of US citizenship to maintain pools of highly productive yet cheap and disposable labor, culminating in the massive undocumented workforce of recent years.
* Attempts of labor unions since the 1960s and immigrant rights groups to renegotiate the exclusions of US citizenship, for example by mobilising undocumented workers to strike or in recent years to stage media-visible demonstrations.
* Attempts to use citizenship in order to dignify 'second-class citizens', such as the early gay rights movement's  bid to harness the individual rights of liberal citizenship, and the Chicano movement's pioneering struggle to hyphenate national citizenship as well as to reclaim the Californio legacy.
* Possible non-national notions of citizenship, including claims of urban citizenship (among them those of 'sanctuary cities') and the disputes around trans-national citizenship, as well as movements aspiring to global citizenship.
* Discourses of good citizenship, ranging from the use of public health discourse to stigmatize immigrant groups from the late-19th century, the elevation of soldiers and sailors as model citizens in World War II (at the expense of groups like the Zoot Suiters), and the effects of the long tradition of Civics teaching in schools.
* Ideals of democratic citizenship, including movements to reform city, county and state politics, as well as the proliferation of citizen ballot measures.

We are looking to fill two remaining slots on the panel. Prospective speakers should email an abstract of 250 words and a brief CV to Trevor Stack [log in to unmask] as soon as possible and at the latest by 25 March.

Trevor Stack
Programme Coordinator, Department of Hispanic Studies
Director, Centre for Citizenship, Civil Society and Rule of Law (CISRUL)
University of Aberdeen
http://www.abdn.ac.uk/spanish/staff/details.php?id=t.stack
http://www.abdn.ac.uk/cisrul


The University of Aberdeen is a charity registered in Scotland, No SC013683.

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