CFP: Imagining the Guyanas / Across the Disciplines
Extended deadline: 03/06/2016
 
Conference Dates: November 3-5, 2016
Location: Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3
 
Confirmed Keynotes:
William Marshall, University of Stirling
Charles Forsdick, University of Liverpool
 
Special Guest: Alissa Trotz, University of Toronto
 
Confirmed Writer: Pauline Melville
 
http://pays-anglophones.upv.univ-montp3.fr/?page_id=2212 <http://pays-anglophones.upv.univ-montp3.fr/?page_id=2212>
 
This is the third and final academic event of the 3-G Network’s Celebration of the Guyanas, a gathering of scholars, authors, and activists, commemorating 40 years of Independence of the Republic of Suriname, 50 years of Independence of Guyana, and 70 years of the declaration of la Guyane as a French Département d’Outre-Mer. These countries are rarely focused upon together yet they are historically and culturally linked if linguistically, politically and socially different.
 
After the launching conference ‘The Pan-Guyanese Highway: Cayenne-Georgetown-Paramaribo’ in Amsterdam (October 1-3, 2015), and the second conference ’Imagining the Guyanas – Ecologies of Memory and Movement’ in London (October 27-29, 2016), this concluding symposium in Montpellier seeks to engage the theoretical and methodological challenges of the study of symbolic, social and physical ecotones in the Caribbean. Ecotones are understood as total realities, an assemblage of natural, political, cultural and temporal dynamics. Gathering scholars from the social sciences and humanities, the aim is to confront, and create a dialogue between, different disciplinary perspectives to revisit the main themes that have undergirded the Ecotone project: transnationalism and place making, encounters and hybridity, reinvention of memories, ecological discontinuities and environmental hazards. French Guyane, Guyana, and Suriname are key places of observations of such processes. They are three contexts marked by slavery and decolonization struggles, deforestation and resource spoliation, but also immigration and diasporisation, cultural and artistic production and economic competition. The Caribbean in general, and the Guyanas in particular, are taken between a colonial past that created them and their inscription into global connections and power flows.
 
We are interested in creating a cross-disciplinary dialogue. We welcome papers of social scientists incorporating artistic material and humanities scholars engaging with contemporary conceptual and methodological debates that cross disciplines. What definitions of ecotones arise from existing approaches? Seen from the Caribbean, how does contemporary neoliberal globalization compare with and shift from the modern time imperial globalization? How can a focus on the Guyanas favor a clearer understanding of the issues at stake in the Caribbean as a whole, and possibly elsewhere? How can it provide a laboratory for a cross-disciplinary sharing of ideas and visions for the future?
 
For this conference, the convenors welcome research-based papers around our theme of Imagining the Guyanas / Across the Disciplines. Approaches with a focus on methodology and cross-disciplinarity are strongly encouraged. Submit your proposal by March 6, 2016, through this https://ecotones.submittable.com/submit/46610 <https://ecotones.submittable.com/submit/46610>. Your proposal should include Name, Title of Paper/Presentation including a suggested theme, a 250-word Description, and a short Biography with Contact information (150 words).
 
The second conference, entitled Imagining the Guyanas / Ecologies of Memory and Movement, will take place in London a few days before (October 27-29, 2016). It is possible to submit two different proposals for the two events provided they respond to the specificities of each call for paper.
 
Local Organizing Committee:                                                                         
Lawrence Aje (EMMA Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3) 
Judith Misrahi-Barak (EMMA Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3) 

Ecotones Committee:
Thomas Lacroix (MIGRINTER Université de Poitiers)
Judith Misrahi-Barak (EMMA Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3)                                                                                                                                   
Maggi Morehouse (Coastal Carolina University)

Steering Committee:
Frédéric Piantoni (MIGRINTER);
Malik Ferdinand (Université des Antilles);
Bénédicte Ledent (Université de Liège);
Ameena Gafoor (The Arts Journal)
Catherine Gilbert (Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London)