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Ownership and appropriation
A joint international conference of the ASA, the ASAANZ and the AAS
8th - 12th December 2008, University of Auckland, New Zealand
In 2008 the ASA (Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK and the Commonwealth), the ASAANZ (Association of Social Anthropologists of Aotearoa/New Zealand), and the AAS (Australian Anthropological Society) are combining their annual meetings for a joint international conference. This will be hosted by the Department of Anthropology at the University of Auckland. The ASA organises an international conference every five years, but has never held one previously in either New Zealand or Australia. So this conference is a 'first' both collaboratively and geographically. We hope that anthropologists from all three countries, and from many others, will join us for the event.
Download the A3 colour poster, print it off and post it in your office/department - 5MB PDF
Although we have mailed posters to many departments, do please promote this conference and your involvement in it by running off your own copy!
Conference theme
Centering on the core theme of Ownership and Appropriation, the conference aims to extend anthropological theory, by shifting the focus from 'property' and 'property relations' to notions and acts of 'owning and appropriating'. It will explore a variety of dimensions of ownership and appropriation, being concerned with process rather than states of being, with dynamism rather than stasis, and with agency and creativity rather than with property and objects. This emphasis is highly relevant in a globalising world in which resources are at once being depleted and increasingly privatised or enclosed, and ideas about the very kinds of things that can be property are expanding Anthropology, with its emphasis on agency and understanding actors' perspectives, is well placed to advance colloquial understandings of such processes.
Call for papers
The call for papers has been extended until 14th May. Please browse the panel pages to find a suitable home for your paper. The link to the proposal form is at the foot of the panel pages. We hope papers will engage closely with the conference themes, to enable coherent discussion at the event, but we also want to encourage participants to approach the theme creatively.
Paper proposals (abstracts not full papers!) should be submitted using the online form by 14th May 2008.
Paper presenters need not be members of the three associations, but membership is encouraged.
To facilitate colleague's applications for funding we have requested panel convenors to make early decisions on proposals submitted ahead of the deadline wherever possible. So do please start submitting NOW in order to have an answer in time for funding deadlines.
Posters
To propose a poster presentation click here.
Film
Visual anthropology presentations are welcome and should be proposed into panels in the same way as papers. However, we recognise that Vis Anth also has its own requirements, and we are hoping to run a film programme during the conference that would allow sufficient time for full length films to be shown. These films could be independent of those shown/discussed within panels, or the same (ie. excerpt shown in the panel, full film shown outside the panel). More info on that will appear soon.
Travel grants for students/unemployed anthropologists
The ASA is delighted to announce that it can offer approximately ten travel grants of 300GBP to students/unemployed anthropologists who are presenting papers at the conference. This fund has been further supplemented by the generosity of the RAI. Relevant receipts will be required, and in the case of non-attendance, the ASA will request the return of the grant, so that it can be re-allocated.
Applications should be made by email to conference(at)theasa.org, Subject line: Student travel grant, by 6th June 2008.
Conference convenors
| Professor Veronica Strang E: v.strang(AT)auckland.ac.nz |
Dr Mark Busse E: m.busse(AT)auckland.ac.nz |
Please send all communication regarding the conference to conference(AT)theasa.org
Sponsors
This conference has been assisted by funding from the Wenner-Gren Foundation, and from the Royal Anthropological Institute.
Links
University of Auckland Anthropology Department
ASAANZ website
AAS website
