From: YSAN0004@VM1.YORKU.CA (John Murray)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.qualrs-l
Subject: Conference Announcement
Date: 17 Oct 92 01:17:44 GMT
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                  Canadian Anthropology Society

                              CASCA

               Societe canadienne d'anthropologie


                     20th Annual Conference
                         May 6 - 9, 1993
                         York University


                      CROSSING BOUNDARIES:
            Exploring Knowledge, Power, and Practice
                     in Society and Culture

*****************************************************************
The challenge of the 1993 CASCA meetings will be to explore the
construction, reproduction, and transgression of acknowledged
systems of power, knowledge, and practice.  The focus is on
boundaries in local, national, and international contexts.  New
international conditions have created politics and economies that
are fragmentary and unstable, the massive devastation and
dislocations of populations accompany many groups fighting for
their independence and such actions have created a wholesale
movement of refugees across geo-political and ideological
boundaries both of which themselves have become the sources and
focuses of violent formations.  Still other groups have chosen
less confrontational and more dialogical modes of social
transformation.  Environmental issues, as a focus of popular
concern, pose serious political questions that demand that social
actors draw upon their own cultures and social institutions as
powerful resources to gain recognition in an increasingly
interdependent world.

The crucial question is whether we recognize the ironies, crises,
and opportunities of living in such increasingly plural yet
polarized geo-political arrangements.  Crises seem to coincide
with every opportunity for identity production, with every novel
popular social formation and movement, and with new forms of
knowledge, transmission, production, and re-configuration -- from
our own national constitutional debate (or lack of it) to the
variety of new forms of disciplinary effort that call for the
dismantling of "meta-narratives" of theoretical authority and
allow for the contribution of subject-voices otherwise not heard.
The point is to address these issues in ways that do not explain
such ironies and the conditions of crisis away, but to
problematize them, thereby making them epistemologically and
methodologically central to our practice as social critics and
analysts.

Canadian anthropologists find themselves in the centre of these
issues both in their professional and personal lives.  We hope
that the 1993 meetings will provide the environment for
establishing new dialogue partners, opening new avenues of
communication in order to find new metaphors, paradigms, and
models to challenge and enrich anthropological practices.

One of York University's strengths is its strong
interdisciplinary approach to research and we would like to
highlight this unique quality and dimension and to play on its
strengths.  Scholars from the variety of programs and centres
that make up the high quality of scholarly life at York are
included in our conference plans.  Additionally, we are pleased
to announce that our conference will connect with a national
conference sponsored by York University's Centre for Feminist
Studies and its Centre for Refugee Studies entitled "Gender
Issues and Refugees: Development Implications."  Arrangements are
being made for cross-over sessions and all registered members
will have the opportunity to attend their meetings as they attend
ours.  Most importantly, however, we extend interested parties a
warm invitation to organize sessions, round-tables, workshops,
symposia, and to write papers dealing with these and related
issues.

PLEASE NOTE: While the coordinating committee has established a
theme for the conference, this does not mean that sessions and
papers unrelated to the theme will be excluded.  Our theme is
established simply to focus general attention on these issues.
All topics and subjects are welcome and will be considered.

Professor Kenneth Little
CASCA 1993 Conference
Department of Anthropology
YORK UNIVERSITY
Room 2054  Vari Hall
4700 Keele Street
North York (Toronto), Ontario  M3J 1P3
Telephone: 416/736-2100, Ext. 33539 (Kenneth Little) or
           416/736-2100, Ext. 77786 (Terri Aihoshi)
FAX: 416/736-5768   Email KLITTLE@VM1.YORKU.CA
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