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The 2008 annual conference of Anthropology Southern Africa(ASnA) calls on scholars and graduate students of Anthropology to rethink the relationships between anthropological practices within the Southern African sub-region, the wider African context, and globally. We welcome paper proposals from local and international scholars and graduate students; the organizers are particularly interested in contributions that explore relations among and between anthropologists and “anthropologies of the South”, with reference to the 1997 debate in Critique of Anthropology, and more recently, to the World Anthropologies Network (WAN) (Ribeiro & Escobar 2006). 

Within the Southern African sub-region, at the beginning of the 21st century Anthropology faces wide-ranging challenges as a discipline which has a long history of grappling with the sub-region’s social and political issues, including, among others, social anthropology’s critical engagement with segregation and apartheid in South Africa, or the urbanization studies carried out in South Africa and on the Zambian copperbelt from the 1930s onwards.

Central challenges of postcolonial transformation, and anthropological research in the region include the re-negotiation of culture and social relations in the aftermath of large-scale political violence and war in several countries, public culture, and the postcolonial state. We note that postcolonial social, cultural and political transformations have taken distinct shape and routes in the sub-region’s various countries, as is evident from the diverse approaches their political and social actors have taken to addressing contemporary issues such as HIV & Aids, land restitution and redistribution, human rights, poverty, the politics of indigeneity and Africanization, chiefs and democracy, public memory, reconciliation and truth commissions, gender and sexuality, globalization, cities in transition, translocal and transnational migration, ethnicity, race, and nationalism.

These are some of the issues for which the 2008 conference of Anthropology Southern Africa serves as a discussion platform. The theme of the conference emphasizes connections between the contemporary issues and their meanings for the people involved in the sub-region as a whole and within its different countries, as well as between current anthropological practices in the different Southern African countries.

Beyond Southern African research, we are particularly interested in presentations of recent anthropological research from other parts of the global “South”, in order to explore the diversity of contemporary anthropologies outside the discipline’s hegemonic centres in North America and the U.K., and to enhance international exchanges of anthropological knowledge production among scholars and graduate students from the South.

We invite proposals for papers and panels from local and international scholars and graduate students on the conference theme; proposals on additional topics are also welcome.


Deadlines:

15 May 2008 for abstracts (NEW DEADLINE: 31 May !)

Please provide your name and institutional affiliation, a title and short abstract of the paper you intend to present.

If you wish to propose a panel, please include the title and an abstract of the panel, titles and brief abstracts of the papers to be presented at the panel, and the names and institutional affiliations of the panel organir full text papers

Abstracts and full-text papers will be posted on the website of Anthropology Southern Africa (ASnA).

For enquiries, please contact the conference convenor at anthropology2008@uwc.ac.za
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Telephonic enquiries to 021 959-3718/2336


Conference bursaries:

a) Participants from Southern Africa
We can offer a limited number of conference bursaries for conference participants (paper presenters), based at institutions in Southern African countries, other than South Africa. These bursaries cover air travel to Cape Town, accommodation and conference fees.

Potential participants based in Namibia, Botswana, Angola, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho or Swaziland who are interested to attend and wish to apply for a conference bursary, please contact the conference organizers at anthropology2008@uwc.ac.za

b) Student bursaries
A limited number of conference bursaries are available for graduate students, who are registered at institutions in Southern Africa (including South Africa), Africa, and other regions of the Global South. Students whose paper proposals will be accepted for presentation will be given priority. These bursaries cover conference fees only.