We welcome proposals from scholars contributing to cultural studies who may be located in any discipline, inter-discipline, or scholarly field. CSA aims to provide multiple and diverse spaces for the cross-pollination of art, activism, pedagogy, design, and research by bringing together participants from a variety of positions inside and outside the university. Therefore, while we welcome traditional academic papers and panels, we also encourage contributions that experiment with alternative formats and challenge the traditional disciplinary formations and exclusionary conceptions and practices of the academic (see session format options listed below). We are particularly interested in proposals for sessions designed to document and advance existing forms of collective action or catalyze new collaborations. We encourage submissions from individuals working beyond the boundaries of the university: artists, activists, independent scholars, professionals, community organizers, and community college educators.
Cultural Studies Association
Georgetown University, May 25-27, 2017
CALL FOR PAPERS
General Call:
The Ethnography Working Group investigates how the ethnographic method can continue to shed light onto the field of Cultural Studies, as well as discussing the practice of ethnographic research. We invite parties to submit proposals for papers or panels that employ the ethnographic method within the field of cultural studies, discussion panels debating best practices or contemporary issues, or workshops and skill-shares (praxis workshops). While we encourage proposals that match the theme, feel free to submit proposals that do not.
Theme Call:
The Ethnographic Working Group looks to expand upon the CSA conference theme “Culture in the Age of Mass Debt” to examine the question of emotional debt incurred during fieldwork and as part of ethnographic knowledge production. How are ethnographic studies inherently indebted projects? How do ethnographers work through the emotional debt incurred during fieldwork, particularly in autoethnographic field sites where responsibility to the community may go beyond the traditional researcher-participant relationship? Does the emotional labour that is part of ethnographic fieldwork differ from the affective labour of other methodologies and if so how can we begin to account for and acknowledge this in our work?
Concurrently we recognize that knowledge production involving individuals and/or communities incurs indebtedness in regards to feelings of obligation, reciprocity, emotion, and in some cases social justice. Autoethnography, feminist ethnography, queer ethnography, and other ethnographic interventions may bring with them their own set of indebtedness. How does this sense of indebtedness get expressed in the form of emotion and affects? What responsibility do we as researchers have to address these forms of debt in our research, writing and teaching? What is the relationship between the university as a site of knowledge production and the marginalized communities which are often the site in which institutions create knowledge? How can ethnographic approaches to reciprocity provide us examples of critical self-reflection and meaningful engagement with the communities in which we conduct our research (and sometimes live)?
For any questions, please contact Jodi Davis-Pacheco (JDavisPacheco@fullerton.edu), or Marcos Moldes (mmoldes@gmail.com). Abstracts due Feb 20
