Conference: Michigan State University APA Studies Program

CALL FOR PAPERS

The Asian Pacific American Studies Program at Michigan State University is happy to announce their 3rd annual conference to be held on April 17-18, 2009 in East Lansing, Michigan.

Global-is-Asian: Asian diaspora identities in the context of globalization

Community and identity formation have never occurred in a vacuum. However, processes of globalization increasingly facilitate connections, both real and imagined, with other parts of the world. This conference focuses on Asian populations in diaspora—that is, living outside their ancestral homelands. Though the definition of diaspora and its application to various populations has long been debated, in using the term “diaspora” we assert the importance of understanding Asian communities within a global context; as sharing key similarities but as far from homogeneous. We aim to investigate how global forces, both historical and contemporary, have reshaped diasporic forms and analytical categories for examining collective memory, political alliances, transpacific migrations and movements, social spaces and global networks. We hope to explore what Jigna Desai (2004) has called the "heterogeneous connections to both the homeland and to other diasporic locations through such forms as political commitment, imagination, memory, travel, and cultural production."

The forms of cultural production --transnational youth cultures, art, cinema, literature, internet communities, new social movements-- that emerge in the context of globalization hold exciting potential. We are interested in exploring the range of identities that are constructed by Asian diasporic communities, and how these forms are then re-shaped through interactions, on both local and global scales.
• How do transnational flows of media, popular culture, goods, and capital originating from Asian communities in other parts of the world affect the expression and negotiation of “local” Asian identities?
• How are race, gender, class, sexuality, and religious identities reshaped or reworked through the experience of being in diaspora, or by local conditions that shape that expression?
• What new forms of travel, dwelling, migration, and exile emerge in the contemporary context of globalization?
• How do transnational religious movements among Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists and other religions play out within the context of diaspora?
• How do “Asian” groups that did not previously view themselves as sharing similarities broaden their ethnic boundaries in the context of specific racial, economic, and social policies in their countries of settlement?
• Indeed, how might the very definition of “Asian” or the assumed congruence of “race” and “culture” be redefined in the context of diaspora, as in the case of hapa, adoptee, peranakan, and others that reflect the hybridity of diaspora populations?
• How do global forces facilitate or hamper the imagining of homelands, or the creation of new ties altogether? Are homelands merely a construct to compensate for losses?
• What happens when communities who had imagined one another from afar meet though a global encounter (Chinese Americans visiting the motherland, Korean adoptees on homeland tours, Japanese Brazilians going to Japan for work)?

At the same time, we also hope to question the ways that an overemphasis on “global” or “diaspora” as academic buzzwords which, as Sau-ling Wong has noted, can result in the glossing over of local, regional and national levels of organization, and distract from nation-based identities (such as Asian American) that allow for coalition building and empowerment. These terms can become so broad and all encompassing as to lose their specificity of meaning, or merely become a means of expressing old concepts in new packaging.

We cannot ignore the continued power of nation states to define both national and local contexts that shape the constraints under which actors explore and express identities.
• In what ways do state constructions of legal or cultural citizenship define the parameters within which local communities operate?
• In the context of shifting global economies, it is also important to consider how Asian diaspora populations interact with others in their countries of residence. How do the politics of race and multiculturalism in Brazil, the UK, South Africa, the U.S. and elsewhere differentially shape the lives of Asian populations in those locations?
• How does the broader consumption of “Asian” culture through transnational Asian foods, goods, popular culture, movies, affect mainstream perceptions of Asians in a given location?
• How do neoliberal economic reforms accompanying globalization and the emergence of various Asian countries as global powers shape interactions between Asian immigrant entrepreneurs and local populations?


Please submit proposals to Joseph Villafuerte at global.is.asian09@gmail.com no later than January 15, 2009.

All proposals must include:
1. 250-300 word abstract
2. one-page CV, including full contact information
3. A list of any audio or visual equipment needed for the presentation.

Welcome!

A new academic year is starting, and we would like to welcome all of the new ASAGSG members we met during the Week of Welcome Resource Fair on September 16. Please contact Catherine if you haven't yet been included in our listserve: cmfung@ucdavis.edu.

We're looking forward to another productive year. First, to recap the last academic year, since we seemed to have neglected to do so on this blog...

-- We got together and got to meet each other during some fabulous potluck parties.

-- We collaborated with the Asian Pacific American Law Students' Association (APALSA) at UC Davis, and together launched a mentoring program geared toward informing undergraduates interested in applying to law school and graduate school.

-- We organized a panel about applying to graduate and law school. Our guest panelists were Bill Hing, Dina Okamoto, Mark Jerng, and Fatima Garcia.

-- We cohosted and participated in the Asian Pacific American National Graduate Student Conference, which was held at UC Berkeley.

-- We sponsored speakers for various Asian American events on campus.


Let's keep up the momentum this year! Stay tuned for news about our first organizational meeting!

CFP: Low-wage Work, Migration and Gender

Call for Papers
DEADLINE EXTENDED! September 30, 2009 (by 12noon, CST).

Low-wage Work, Migration and Gender

In recent years, as the number of women, particularly immigrant women who enter the U.S. labor market increases, the situation and working conditions of low wage workers, especially for women working at the low
end of the labor market, has become more challenging. In order to improve the employment conditions, job quality and the economic prospects of low wage women there is a need to understand the evolution of low wage labor markets, the changing dynamics of low wage work, the conditions in the jobs that low wage women tend to occupy, and the strategies that have been developed to improve their working conditions.

A significant portion of research on the interaction between gender, low wage work, and migration focuses on the particular location of women in the formal occupational/industrial structure. New scholarship has added and gone beyond this work by establishing the critical role of low income immigrant women workers in sustaining economic activity and has shown how they navigate through political and economic uncertainties by developing alternative forms of human capital development. These include supporting labor organizing strategies, taking the leadership in campaigns that support workers in low wage sectors, and engaging in economic development activities that support themselves, their households, and their communities while seeking to improve the quantity and quality of jobs. A focus on low wage and immigrant women is particularly important at this time as the country faces a deepening labor market and employment crisis, tougher immigration policies, and ongoing local and global economicrestructuring processes that present serious challenges to the ability of women and families to improve their livelihoods.

In this call for papers, we seek to compile essays from academics, practitioners, and others interested in understanding the conditions of low wage and immigrant women. We seek papers that describe and analyze the particular condition of women in the low wage labor market, the characteristics and processes related to employment in particular jobs, and strategies to improve the human capital and the working conditions of
women who work in the low wage labor market. Selected papers will be published in an edited volume.

We are also going to be holding a conference on low-wage work, migration and gender at the University of Illinois at Chicago in the Spring of 2009 where participants will present their papers and have an opportunity to discuss their work.

Key themes of the conference include:
(1) How do recent political and economic transformations impact the labor force participation and the labor market opportunities for low income and immigrant women?

(2) What alternative mechanisms of human capital development do immigrant and low income women develop in order to deal with labor market and economic challenges?

(3) What is the role of community based organizations and NGOs in supporting low wage and immigrant women?

(4) What are some of the recent strategies and campaigns that have been successful in organizing low wage and immigrant women?

We welcome submissions on these and related topics from a variety of perspectives and academic disciplines. We also seek to invite submissions and participation from practitioners or teams that include academics and
practitioners.

Funding:
Modest funds are available to support projects. Airfare and lodging will be provided to participants whose papers are selected for the conference. Honoraria will be provided to the participants whose papers will be
selected for the edited volume.

Submission instructions:
Please send an abstract no longer than 200 words by September 30, 12 noon to: lmg2009@gmail.com. If funds are being requested for projects, please submit an itemized budget along with your abstract.

For more information, please contact:
Anna Guevarra guevarra@uic.edu or Nilda Flores-Gonzalez nilda@uic.edu

This Project is supported by a Grant from the Ford Foundation.

Asian American and Pacific Islander Community Fall Welcome

CFP: Conference - Global Islam in Everyday America

***Call for Papers*** Global Islam in Everyday America
April 3, 2009
University of Pennsylvania
Hosted by the Asian American Studies Program, the Middle East Center, and the South Asia Center

As Islam is increasingly associated with worldwide debates on terror, anti-West sentiment, and extremism, images of Islam and Islamic identity circulating in the media have become ubiquitous. Pictures of the veil, the turbaned terrorist, and the children schooled in madrasas are conflated to a singular representation of all Muslims. While Muslims face the challenges of negative imagery, researchers know relatively little about the lived experiences of Muslim Americans.

Global Islam in Everyday America is a one-day conference that explores Islam and Muslim identities in the U.S. by interrogating the multiple implications resonating from stereotypes of Islam and the ways in which the imagined versus the lived experience of American Muslims are implicated. We encourage papers that address the migration experiences, political participation and representation of Muslim Americans. We welcome scholars from a wide range of social science and humanities disciplines to submit their 750 word abstract that address these issues on Muslims of all racial and national backgrounds in the United States. Preference will be given to papers based on ethnographic research.

Possible topics may include but are not limited to the following:
Popular Culture and Islam
Gender and Islam
Second Generation
Social Practices
Race and Islam
Islam and Film
Muslims and Migration
Islam and Folklore
Muslim Identity

Please send your 750 word abstract along with your curriculum vitae to:
Dr. Fariha Khan
Associate Director, Asian American Studies Program
University of Pennsylvania
166 McNeil Bldg
3718 Locust Walk
Philadelphia, PA 19104
fariha@sas.upenn.edu

Abstracts are due by November 7, 2008 and we will notify you of the status of your proposed presentation by December 1, 2008.

CFP: A/P/A Studies

Call for papers: Asian/Pacific/American Studies

We seek papers for a ground-breaking collection of interdisciplinary essays that examine the intersections of Asian American, Pacific Islander and Latin@ American Studies from a hemispheric and transnational perspective within and across the Americas, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific. We seek essays that link Trans-American studies with Asian American and Pacific Islander studies within contemporary debates and social movements especially as these debates impact policy, labor, cultural productions, racialization, identity, land rights, and social and political entities.

We are interested in essays that challenge the geographical conventions of American studies and North-South relations to rethink American interactions with Asia and the Pacific. We also seek essays that explore inter-ethnic and inter-racial relations between/among Latin@s, Asians, and Pacific Islanders. We are especially interested in interdisciplinary essays that challenge and rethink the separation of area studies and ethnic studies. Essays should engage larger debates in accessible and jargon-free prose.

Some possible topics include but are not limited to the following:
transnational Labor exploitation and organizing
Popular culture and racial formation
Mixed race identity and belonging
Asian migration in the Americas
Borders and boundaries in the Americas/American Pacific
Transnational and Transpacific social movements
Race, ethnicity and food (or culinary mestizaje)
The Politics of Immigration
U.S. empire and cultural productions
Hawaiian sovereignty movement
Post-area and post-ethnic studies
Asian American and Latino politics/political movements/organizing

Please send paper abstracts, cvs, and a short bio to either Rudy Guevarra-Asian Pacific American Studies, Arizona State University-at rpguevarra@asu.edu or to Camilla Fojas-Latin American and Latino Studies, DePaul University cfojas@depaul.edu .

Send abstracts by October 22nd.