Apologies for cross-posting
Call for Papers: Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers.
Boston, MA, April 5th-9th 2017
Session Title: Geographies of Migrant and Ethnic Minority Political Participation and Mobilisation
Session Organiser: Robin Finlay, Newcastle University, UK
The political participation and mobilisation of migrants and ethnic minorities is a growing field of enquiry. Traditionally, scholars have focused on the participation of migrants and minorities in institutionalised electoral politics, which is often considered to assist with social integration, citizenship claims, self-determination and equality of opportunity. Recently, however, there has been a shift in the conceptualisation of political participation, opening out the political agency of migrants and minorities. There are now, what O’Toole and Gale (2013) call, ‘new grammars of political action’, which incorporates social activism, protest marching, boycotting, blogging, e-activism, volunteering, community work and mentoring to name a few. This is a move away from conceiving political engagement solely through conventional electoral practices, to understand a number of non-conventional and non-intuitional practices and mobilisations as highly political. As a result of this reconceptualisation, there is a growing acknowledgement that migrants and minorities are highly active political agents, and new patterns of migration and increasing diversity are leading to a variety of new forms of political activities and social mobilisations.
This session then, seeks to explore the changing and emerging forms of migrant and minority political participation in contemporary societies. It aims to examine the geographically contingent nature of these mobilisations, unearthing how local, national, and global scales intersect to produce distinctive forms of political participation. Expanding on an exclusively ethnic lens of analysis, the session also seeks to examine how migrant and minority political participation can emerge and revolve around other axes of identity such as class, religion, gender, sexuality, disability, sub-cultures etc. Overall, the objective is to incorporate and examine a wide variety of political participations, ranging from mainstream electoral politics to radical social activism.
Papers could explore - but are by no means not limited to – the following themes:
• Participation in electoral politics and mainstream political parties
• E-activism (Social media, Facebook, Twitter, blogging etc.)
• Social activism (Anti-racism, feminist movements, anti-war, anti-capitalist, far-right movements, LGBT and queer movements etc.)
• Religious activism
• Environmental activism
• Youth movements
• University activism
• Diaspora politics
• Transnational politics
• Charity work
• Boycotting
• Art and political activism
• Community groups
• Volunteering
• Trade unions
• Protest marching
• Social/cultural capital and minority political participation
• Theorisations of political participation and diversity
• Barriers to political participation (Islamophobia, racism, sexism, marginalisation etc.)
To participate in this session, please send an abstract (250 words maximum) including title, institutional affiliation and contact details (including email) to [log in to unmask] by Friday, October 7th.
All accepted participants will be required to: 1) register and submit your abstract to the AAG following the AAG guidelines; 2) send your PIN number to [log in to unmask] by October 27, 2016.
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