CFP AAA - Personal Names and Social Identities

[Karen Pennesi]

Please circulate this widely.

 

Call for papers: American Anthropological Association Meeting, Chicago,
November 2013

Personal Names and Social Identities

 

Organizer: Karen Pennesi, University of Western Ontario

 

I am looking for panelists to present research on how personal names are
used in the construction of identities. We will start with an understanding
of identities as emergent through performance, jointly produced and adapted
to context. The aim is to bring together anthropologists interested in
onomastics to explore how personal names are treated both as linguistic
structures and as symbolic resources. While there is large body of
anthropological literature on the connections between language, identity and
ideology, very few studies look specifically at personal names as
ideologically charged lexical items or as identity markers with specific
phonetic variables, for example. To fill this gap and enrich onomastic
theory, scholars are invited to present papers investigating a broad variety
of topics, including: 

*	name choices
*	name changes
*	nick-names
*	online aliases
*	alterations to spelling and pronunciation of names
*	use of different names in different contexts
*	name choices as indexes of social relationships
*	names as indexes of social, cultural or racial categories
*	naming practices
*	name-related policies, regulations and laws
*	name-related stereotypes
*	name-related ideologies
*	name-related humour or speech play
*	name-related topics in pop culture or media
*	historic trends in naming
*	technologies for organizing and finding names
*	and others.

This session elaborates on the meeting theme "Future Publics, Current
Engagements" by demonstrating how anthropological investigations of personal
names can provide insights that have practical relevance to diverse publics
and in several domains outside of academia. For instance, multilingual and
multicultural populations require that people learn how to negotiate
interactions with different kinds of names. This is as important for human
resource managers and organizations that serve the general public as it is
for individuals making decisions about how to introduce themselves or how to
refer to others. The trend of creating multiple online identities, as well
as changes in how family membership is marked, have also led to more
variation in how people name themselves. The papers will illustrate how the
study of personal names and the ways in which they are used addresses
fundamental anthropological questions about identity, family, social
organization, cultural practices, and language. 

 

Please send a 250-word (max.) abstract with title and key words by 1 April
2013 to Karen Pennesi pennesi at uwo.ca .