[nativestudies-l] CONF: New Worlds, New Sovereignties
Alyssa Mt. Pleasant
alyssa.mt.pleasant at yale.edu
Tue May 13 12:09:02 EDT 2008
New Worlds, New Sovereignties
Melbourne, 6 - 9 June 2008
http://www.newsovereignties.org/
at the University of Melbourne
This conference will bring together a range of international experts,
engaged scholars and community workers to discuss the new forms,
understandings and practices of sovereignty that are emerging in the
changing world order. Indigenous rights, citizenship, refugees, global
security and other issues will be addressed from many different
perspectives.
Which human groups are recognised as possessed of sovereignty and who
are excluded? Should nation-states refuse to interfere in each other?s
affairs regardless of the treatment of non-national minorities? Can
different sovereignties overlap and coexist or is sovereignty
monolithic and exclusive? Are settler democracy and Native sovereignty
compatible?
Questions such as these have been debated since the sixteenth century.
In the contemporary global era, ecological factors such as disease and
global warming are impervious to national boundaries. The same may be
said of the ?war on terror?. Does the tendency to supranational
aggregation, whether for economic, ecological or military reasons,
pose a threat to national sovereignties or is globalisation
encouraging new but equally vibrant forms of contemporary statehood?
Do these new concepts of sovereignty offer hopeful possibilities for
Indigenous peoples in complex modern societies?
Our conference will address questions such as these with a view to
bringing history to bear on the problems of the present. The
conference?s standpoint will be from below. We will be focusing on
sovereignty?s consequences for those whom the current order excludes
or diminishes, exploring opportunities for redress and restoration.
The conference will bring together distinguished international
scholars, policy-makers and community organizations in an exchange of
information that will make the fruits of contemporary scholarship
available to those responsible for delivering practical outcomes at
the local level. At the same time, it will alert academics to the
practical experiences and problems that should be informing our
scholarship.
Keynote speakers include:
Mrs Joy Murphy-Wandin (Wurundjeri/Australia, welcome to country)
Anthony Anghie, Australia/USA
Larissa Behrendt, Eualeyai-Kamilaroi/Australia
Ghassan Hage, Lebanon/Australia
Paul James, Australia
Marilyn Lake, Australia
Saree Makdisi, Lebanon/USA
Kent McNeil, Canada
Bob Miller, Eastern Shawnee/USA
Henry Reynolds, Australia
Ella Shohat, Israel/USA
Nin Tomas, Aotearoa/New Zealand
Convenors: Julie Evans (Melbourne University), Patrick Wolfe (La Trobe)
Host organisations: Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, School of
Political Science, Criminology and Sociology, University of Melbourne
Sponsor organisations: CAIS, Monash University, Victoria University
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