This conference aims to focus on the imbrication of desire in the project of local, national and global forms of racialised domination. By taking desire as its starting place, the conference will aim to problematize how race shapes desire (and desire shapes race) in as diverse forms as gender, sexuality, consumerism, identity, embodiment, occupation, territory, knowledge and the possessive investments that often underpin claims to belonging and indeed being. Importantly, the conference will focus on desire within both mainstream and marginal communities, and from across borders and communities, and draw upon a broad understanding of what constitutes ‘desire’. It will also consider the desire for difference.
In terms of identity categories, and by focusing on issues of race, gender, class, religion, sexuality and nation as mutually constituted, we hope to engender a conference that moves beyond simple description or indeed excuses, and instead moves towards the theorisation of how hegemony works in both marginal and mainstream communities, despite attempts to the contrary. We also hope for a conference where creative, challenging and non-marginalising work can be celebrated and amplified.
Individual papers will follow the standard format of a 20 minute presentation and 10 minutes for questions. Paper abstracts should be no more than 200 words in length, and should be accompanied by a 50 word biographical note about the author(s). Symposia will encompass a 1.5 hour session, and those interested in facilitating one should submit the three 200 word abstracts to be included in the session along with biographical details of each author. It is expected that submitted panels will have a theme that links the three papers. Indicative topics might include:
* the criminalisation of HIV/AIDS
* sexual and/or reproductive tourism
* sexual racisms/nationalisms
* migration
* 'sex trafficking'
* food practices, race and desire
* the colonisation of desire and intimate colonialities
* queer diasporas
* transnational adoption
* race, sex and gender in citizenship
* gender or sexual persecution in asylum seeker cases
* sovereignties
* cultural representations of desire - in film, theatre, performance, literature
* creative responses to racialised desire
* law's desire
Important Dates
Abstract submission deadline: July 31st 2012 to conference2012@acrawsa.org.au
Decision on abstract notification: August 31st
Applications due for scholarships: September 16th
Early bird registration deadline: October 31st