IPrA conference Call for Papers

[Val Pagliai]

Sorry for eventual cross-postings. Sabina Perrino and I 
Hi everybody,

Sorry for eventual cross-postings. Sabina Perrino and I are organizing a panel 
for the IPrA conference (July 2011) and we have space for a few additional 
panelists. If you are interested, please let me know ASAP.

        
Call for Papers
Making Citizens: Discursive Practices at the Boundary of Nationhood
IPrA Conference, 3-8 July 2011, Manchester UK
Organizers: Valentina Pagliai (American University) & Sabina Perrino (University 
of Michigan at Ann Arbor) 
The formation of new international bodies, such as the European Union, as well 
as growing transnational flows, have imposed the pressuring question on the fate 
of citizenship in the age of globalization.  In particular, scholars have 
pointed out that citizenship, while usually associated with rights and duties, 
is very much connected to civic and social participation. However, this type of 
participation is as much connected to actual citizenship (having an ID or 
passport, for example, being able to demonstrate legal belonging or residency – 
as in the case of immigrants) as it is to class and race. Images of who is a 
citizen or not may be completely separate from the ability to produce a passport 
or an ID – and participation and social inclusion similarly pass through class 
and racial lines. Cultural and social capital can also influence the ability of 
the person to participate to “citizenship”: – for example, in Italy US citizens 
are not considered “extracomunitari” (a word that is also racialized, meaning 
‘coming from outside the European Union,’ but applied only to certain categories 
of immigrants). New models of citizenship are thus emerging that may reproduce 
or distinguish themselves from a classic model of citizenship as simple 
belonging to a nation state - either by jus solis or jus sanguinis - and as 
connected to particular rights that may be additional or different from human 
rights accorded to both citizens and non-citizens alike. 

In this panel, we start from a consideration of everyday and institutional 
discursive practices as a fundamental site for the study of citizenship. Using a 
linguistic anthropological and pragmatic perspective, we argue that a careful 
attention to these discursive practices can help better understand nationhood in 
terms of belonging, the racialization of the Self, the gendering of citizenship, 
and so forth. 
We welcome contributions exploring everyday and institutional discursive 
practices about citizenship produced by different social actors: ordinary 
people, political representatives, immigrants, immigration officers, etc. The 
papers may consider, for example:
-       How the citizen is imagined in micro-narratives, as well as in longer 
narratives that may be produced in everyday encounters, in focus groups, or in 
interview settings. How is citizenship talked about? How is it imagined in 
everyday encounters?
-       The way citizenship is presented in everyday discursive practices 
produced in educational settings, such as schools, ESL programs, citizenship 
classes, and so forth. In the educational institutions ideas about citizenship 
may be reflected in the creation of language curricula, for example for the 
teaching of a second language.
-       The discursive practices that connect citizenship to the use of 
particular languages or varieties, either produced at the everyday level or 
proposed by the mass media or political parties (one only has to think of the 
recent laws passed in Arizona regarding teaching with a “foreign” accent).
-       The narratives that reflect political ideologies about citizenship, 
produced by mass-media or political parties, and their connection to linguistic 
ideologies.
-       The macro-level discursive practices produced by institutions, including 
legal views of citizenship and belonging.
-       Discursive practices that connect citizenship to identity and senses of 
belonging and place.
In all these contexts, everyday discursive practices are an important site in 
which citizenship is proposed in conversations and in other forms of language 
use. The papers proposed can look at both spoken and written language, and 
should have a focus on language use. Contributions that examine the intersection 
of citizenship, race and gender, or racial, class and gender identities are 
particularly welcome.
 Best,

 
Valentina Pagliai

Department of Anthropology
American University
Washington, DC 20016

 Phone# (908) 668-4840  (h)
            


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