« Diasporas, Cultures of Mobilites, ‘Race »
Université Montpellier III, France – Wake Forest University, USA – Oxford University, UK : 2011-2013
Under the auspices of EMMA (Etudes Montpelliéraines des Mondes Anglophones, Montpellier, France) and gathering the leading scholars in the field, this series of four conferences will identify and assess the different evolutions of “Diaspora Studies” and the notion of “race” to better understand: 1) how socio-economic and political changes have affected diasporic communities; 2) how literature and the arts, the social sciences and cultural studies have seized that question. This project entails a redefinition of terms and concepts and the confrontation of different, but not necessarily divergent, perspectives. The third conference will be specifically dedicated to the interlocking issues of “race” and the Black Diaspora.
______________________________________________________________
3. International conference: ‘African-Americans, “Race” and Diaspora’, June 13-15, 2013, University Paul-Valéry, Montpellier 3
The diverse uses of “diaspora” have helped to redefine and renew the field of “African American Studies” and to rethink African American identity in relation to a subject more broadly defined as both racialized and diasporic. The reflection on “race,” central to the field, will be articulated with that of diaspora to envision the links, the breaking points and the articulations between the two notions. Participants will be asked to interrogate this redefinition of “African American Studies” and to formulate the questions and the new objects of study that this transformation has generated.
Conversely, what has been the impact of “African American Studies” on the fields of “Diaspora and Race Studies” or “Postcolonial and Race Studies”? The term “post-race” stands at the core of heated debates among scholars of the field. Have the different disciplinary fields (social sciences and the humanities) vested interests in preserving
one concept over another through such and such a paradigm or certain combinations? Finally, are the arts (literature, the visual arts, popular culture, the Internet) privileged markers of these evolutions: notions of avant-garde, of globalization, utopias? A call for papers will be handed out in 2012.
This conference will take place in Montpellier, Saint-Charles building, conference room n°1.
How to get there?
Conference program
Diaspora Registration Form Listeners
___________________________________________________________
4. Concluding symposium: June 30 – July 2, 2013, Department for Continuing Education, University of Oxford, UK
With its three international centres of research addressing matters of diaspora and migration, the University of Oxford will be the ideal venue for the final meeting to take place. It will attract a wide international audience and provide an important point at which to disseminate the initial findings and conclusions for the programs as a whole.
This concluding symposium will be organised in collaboration with IMI, COMPAS, Refugee Studies Center and Oxford Diaspora Programme. Two panels will be reserved for papers selected by the Montpellier convenors.
« Rethinking Diaspora » conference website
______________________________________________________________
1. Preparatory Symposium: ‘Diasporas and Cultures of Migrations’, June 20-23, 2011, Université Paul-Valéry – Montpellier 3
In a global and increasingly trans-national context, numerous terms, such as “diaspora,” “migration,” “displacement,” “dispersion,” refer to populations of refugees, displaced persons, exiles, migrants and immigrants. Why has one term been preferred to another at a certain period of time or in a certain place? Why has one concept dominated when another was rejected? What are the specificities of and the common points between these diasporas? Specialists of these questions from various disciplines (anthropology, sociology, political science, literature, comparative literature), will be asked to assess the state of the debate in their field, to share reflections and to put them in dialogue in round tables and discussions in preparation for the following event.
_____________________________________________________________
2. International conference: ‘Diasporas and “Race”’, October 25-27, 2012, Wake Forest University (North Carolina, USA)
Diasporas have always had to negotiate new articulations of ethnic/racial identities while individuals had to make do with contexts already defined by certain types of racial relations and certain evolutions of racial transnational references. The emergence of new racisms and of new racialized identities reconfigures class hierarchies, which often results in violence against migrants. Does the prism of diaspora allow for a clearer conceptualization of the concept of “race” as a socio-historical construction and a surface of projection that depends on context? How can the concept of “race” be imposed, but also how have populations appropriated it? What role does the mediation of art and literature play in these evolutions?
http://www.wfu.edu/romancelanguages/Diasporas%20and%20Race/index.html
_____________________________________________________________
Partners:
CAAR (Collegium for African-American Research)
the Centre de Recherches Littéraires et Historiques de l’Océan Indien (CRLHOI, University of La Réunion)
the Centre of South Asian Studies (CSAS, University of Edinburgh, UK)
the Department for Continuing Education (University of Oxford)
the Institut de Recherche Intersite Etudes Culturelles (IRIEC, Université Paul-Valéry, Montpellier 3)
the International Institute of Migration (IMI, University of Oxford)
the MSH-Montpellier (Maison des Sciences de l’Homme-Montpellier)
Wake Forest University (North Carolina, USA)
Wesleyan University (USA).
Co-convenors:
Dr Sally Barbour (Wake Forest University, USA)
Dr David Howard (University of Oxford, UK)
Dr Thomas Lacroix (IMI, University of Oxford, UK)
Dr Judith Misrahi-Barak (Montpellier 3, France)
Pr Claudine Raynaud (Montpellier 3, France)
Contacts:
judith.misrahi-barak@univ-montp3.fr
claudine.raynaud@univ-montp3.fr