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The International Association of Inter-American Studies (IAS), which is the sister Association of IASA and which holds its bi-annual conferences to alternate with those of IASA, is inviting you to its second bi-annual conference:
Second Bi-Annual Conference of the International Association of Inter-American Studies
Crossing Boundaries in the Americas:
Dynamics of Change in Politics, Culture, and Media
Crossing Boundaries in the Americas:
Dynamics of Change in Politics, Culture, and Media
Guadalajara, September 25 - 27, 2012
Mass migration, accelerated urbanization, and the processes of transnational economic integration are profoundly challenging the social and cultural constitution of the Americas in the New Millennium. In view of these dynamics of change, it has been argued that the sovereignty of the "nation-state" is an outdated concept. The gradual decline of the geopolitical hegemony of the U.S. is also changing the ways in which influence is negotiated regionally, as new global players from the South--such as Brazil--are gaining power. The political landscape in the Americas is subject to contradictory dynamics. The new Latin American left has entered a phase of consolidation, while--at the same time--there is also a recent shift to the right with a revival of nationalist and fundamentalist discourses in many countries. New social movements affect the political systems across borders and, with the crisis of multiculturalism, the postcolonial legacy with its ethnic or racial boundaries eroding and transforming. The cultural and linguistic contact zones of borderlands and diasporas have become laboratories of hybrid cultures and post- or plurinational citizenship. The cultural flows of media industries which traverse the Americas in diverse directions, albeit in an asymmetrical manner, have a deep impact on how people imagine the communities they feel to belong to in North and South, as well as transversally. Although there is still a wide digital gap, especially with regard to Latin America, the global interconnectedness of the World Wide Web is changing the ways in which people participate in local, national, and transnational communities, preserve their cultural roots, and use new forms of expression.
The conference will be held in Guadalajara (Mexico); it is co-hosted by the Universidad de Guadalajara and by UNAM. Conference languages are English and Spanish. You are invited to submit a proposal (in English or Spanish) for an individual presentation by September 30, 2011 or else for a panel by October 31, 2011. For the complete Call for Papers, please go to http://www.interamericanstudies.net/?p=1816. Please send your proposal to congreso.ias.2012@gmail.com.
The conferences of the International Association of Inter-American Studies (IAS) may present a great opportunity for IASA members to get together in the years between IASA conferences.
