[nativestudies-l] Locating the Intersections of Ethnic, Indigenous, and Postcolonial Studies

[jkauanui at wesleyan.edu]

* CALL FOR PAPERS*

*"POSTCOLONIAL" FUTURES IN A NOT-YET POSTCOLONIAL WORLD:*


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*Locating the Intersections of Ethnic, Indigenous, and Postcolonial Studies*

*March 7-9, 2008*

*Ethnic Studies Department*
*University of California, San Diego*

In September 2007, after twenty years of debate, the United Nations finally
passed the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples - a huge symbolic
victory for indigenous peoples around the world who struggle under predatory
and exploitative relationships with(in) existing nation-states. At the same
moment, the UN was lumbering along in the 18th year of its impossible
attempts to eradicate colonialism, with groups from around the world
flocking to it to petition for the decolonization of their territories or to
demand that their situations at least be recognized as "colonial."

Across all continents, indigenous and stateless peoples are struggling for
and demanding various forms of sovereignty, as the recently decolonized
world is sobering up from the learning of its limits and pratfalls.
Postcolonial societies that were born of sometimes radical anti-colonial
spirits, now appear to be taking on the role of the colonizer, often against
the indigenous peoples that reside within their borders. In places such as
Central and Latin America, a resurgence of Third World Leftist politics is
being accompanied by a resurgence of indigenous populism. Meanwhile the
recent arrests of sovereignty/environmental activists in New Zealand
represents another instance where those from the 3rd and 4th worlds who dare
to challenge the current make up of today's "postcolonial world" are branded
as terrorists.

As scholars involved in critical ethnic studies engage with these ever more
complex worlds, they are increasingly resorting to the lenses provided by
postcolonial and indigenous studies. This engagement however is not without
its limits or problems. As ethnic studies scholars seek to make their vision
and scholarship more transnational and global, this push is nonetheless
accompanied by gestures that, at the expense of indigenous and postcolonial
frameworks, re-center the United States and reaffirm the solvency of its
nation-state. In addition, despite their various commonalities, indigenous
and postcolonial studies represent intellectual bodies of knowledge that are
fundamentally divided over issues such as hybridity, sovereignty, nation,
citizenship and subjectivity.

*The purpose of this conference, then, is to create a space where scholars
and activists engaged in these various projects, in various forms, can
congregate to share ideas, hash out differences and move beyond caricatured
understandings of each of these intellectual projects. It seeks to ask how,
by putting ethnic, indigenous and postcolonial studies in conversation with
each other, we may theorize new epistemologies that may better address the
violences and injustices of the contemporary world. *

To this end we solicit papers that address questions including, but in no
way limited to, the following:

  - What are the epistemological frameworks that inform postcolonial,
  ethnic and indigenous studies? What is their relationship to modernity and
  how do they challenge and/or complement each other?


  - What constitutes the subject of postcolonial and ethnic studies? How
  does the construction of these subjectivities limit possible conversations
  with indigenous studies?


  - What are the limitations and pitfalls of sovereignty as popularly
  envisioned? How do postcolonial and indigenous communities reaffirm or
  rearticulate sovereignty within their respective contexts?


  - What are the different theories and strategies of decolonization as
  laid out by postcolonial and indigenous studies, and how do they inform
each
  other?


  - How does the political status of indigenous peoples complicate
  dominant discourses on immigration and citizenship? Moreover, with regards
  to settler nation-states such as the U.S ., how does the
  "nations-within-nations" status of indigenous communities complicate the
  project of ethnic and transnational studies?


*Abstracts must be submitted to: **futures0308 at gmail.com*<
futures0308 at gmail.com>


*Requirements:*

250-word abstract, specifying if the proposal is for individual or
roundtable presentations

Information including name, institutional affiliation, mailing address,

telephone number, e-mail address

*Deadline for Submission: January 7th, 2008*

*For more information please visit:
**http://futures0308.blogspot.com/* <http://futures0308.blogspot.com/>
or *contact:* Michael Lujan Bevacqua at* **mlbasquiat at hotmail.com*
< mlbasquiat at hotmail.com>* or * Rashné Limki at
*rashne.limki at gmail.com*<rashne.limki at gmail.com>