Greetings,

 

Here is a call for papers for next year’s SHA meetings in Toronto organized
around the concept of Diaspora. 

 

This year, the SHA has stated that presenters DO NOT have to be members, so
do not let membership issues stall you from participating in this rewarding
dialogue. The online submission system opens May 1st and authors will have
until June 15th to submit their abstracts. 

 

Those interested in joining this symposium should contact Edward
González-Tennant ([log in to unmask]) prior to June 1st. You are requested
to reply by this deadline to make sure that everyone interested in
participating will have a ample time to submit their paper as part of the
online symposium submission at sha.org. 

 

Sincerely,

-Ed González-Tennant

 

Historical Archaeologies of Diaspora Symposium – 2009 SHA Conference

Call for Papers

 

The “Historical Archaeologies of Diaspora” symposium invites archaeologists
working with diasporic groups to contribute papers exploring the theoretical
ramifications of this framework in their own work. Such a framework directly
ties into the 2009 SHA conference theme in a number of ways. Trade,
conflict, and borders all shape the historic experiences of diasporic
groups. For example, archaeologists deploying the diaspora concept
prehistorically have invoked the trade diaspora framework (e.g., Ian Lilley
and Gil Stein). Additionally, conflict arises in many diasporic experiences
through the intersections of race and processes of racialization. Diaspora
studies have been embraced by many scholars outside of archaeology as a
powerful way of subjugating oppressive nationalistic discourses by
transgressing political and disciplinary borders. 

 

The hope of this session is to bring together scholars working on disparate
experiences. Robin Cohen (1997 - Global Diasporas: An Introduction) has been
particularly helpful in establishing a set of criteria that has set the
foundation for comparative studies of diasporic experiences. These nine
criteria are:

1) Dispersal from an original homeland, to two or more foreign regions

2) Alternatively, expansion from a homeland in search of work, trade or
colonialism

3) A collective memory and myth about homeland

4) An idealization of the putative ancestral home and a collective
commitment to its maintenance, restoration, safety, and prosperity

5) The development of a return movement

6) Strong ethnic group consciousness sustained over a long time

7) A troubled relations with host societies, either as a lack of acceptance
or possibility of another calamity

8) Sense of empathy and solidarity with co-ethnic members in other countries

9) The possibility of a distinctive creative, enriching life in host
countries with a tolerance for pluralism

 

The presenters in this session are asked to engage with the issues raised
above and explore the ramifications of a diasporic framework in their
individual contexts — not to simply employ the term “diaspora” because it is
commonly found in a specific literature. We are particularly interested in
papers that understand diaspora as it dovetails with related frameworks
including cultural studies (particularly as framed by Gilroy and Hall),
critical theory, transnationalism(s), and so forth. As such, one way to
expand this beyond African Diaspora archaeology is to expand upon Cohen’s
divisions and frame sites in terms of victim, trade, labour and imperial,
intra-homeland displacement and cultural Diasporas. This includes groups
identified as African, Armenian, Jewish, Chinese, Lebanese, Indian, Irish,
Indigenous groups, Caribbean and other creolized/syncretic situations. 

 

Ultimately, key ideas to consider are the recursive connection between local
and global, an abandonment of static representations in favour of treating
experiences as processes, acknowledging disparity as a common experience,
and the transgression of boundaries. Authors who are unfamiliar with
diaspora as applied (theoretically) to archaeology are encouraged to check
out the following sources as the organizers have derived inspiration from
them in framing this call for papers:

 

Lilley, Ian (2004) ‘Diaspora and Identity in Archaeology: Moving beyond the
Black Atlantic’, in L. Meskell and R. Preucel (eds) A Companion to Social
Archaeology. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Lilley, Ian (2006) ‘Archaeology, diaspora and decolonization’, Journal of
Social Archaeology 6(1): 28-47.

Stein, Gil J. (1998) ‘From Passive Periphery to Active Agents: Emerging
Perspectives in the Archaeology of Interregional Interaction’, American
Anthropologist 104(3): 903-916.