Fall Symposium, November 17-19

Gendering Diaspora and Race-ing the Transnational:
Feminists Theorizing Differences, Hegemonies and Diasporic Formations

•  How might diaspora studies and transnational feminism be placed in productive dialogue?
•  In what way is gender central to the production of diaspora?
•  How might we see diasporas as differentiated spaces – by time, place, class and generation?
•  How might racial formation be seen as central to the project of feminist transnationalism?

GENDERING THE DIASPORA, RACE-ING THE TRANSNATIONAL brings feminist transnational critique into an extended conversation with scholarship on the African Diaspora in order to think critically about the various “hegemonies” that have shaped these two fields. These hegemonies include: the tendency within both transnational migration and diaspora literature to privilege the place of “origin” over intra-diasporic links as the fount of identity; the tendency to map male gendered diasporic cultural and political spaces as universal, and to imagine and generate a particular kind of nationalism that reproduces hierarchies and inequalities; a tendency to privilege sameness and solidarity as the basis of diaspora; and to privilege certain forms of diasporic cultural and political practices in ways that define and constrain the political, cultural, and intellectual resources available to black communities globally. In creating a space for an extended dialogue on these important issues and critiques, we aim to formulate a gendered transnational analysis of the relations of Diaspora that rethinks the implications of globalization in generative and dynamic ways.

Co-Organizers: Tina Campt and Deborah A. Thomas, Duke University

Poster (pdf)
Local Hotels (pdf)

SCHEDULE: GENDERING DIASPORA AND RACE-ING THE TRANSNATIONAL

Thursday, 17 November 2005 - Franklin Center 240

4:00 PM Conference Opening: Susan Roth, Dean of Social Sciences (Duke)
Welcome and Introductions: Deborah A. Thomas (Duke)

4:15 PM Keynote Presentation #1: Hazel Carby (Yale)
Respondent: Tina Campt (Duke)

5:45 PM Reception - a combined celebration for the opening of "The Historical Sounding Gallery," a multi-media installation by Keith Piper, Tina Campt and Nicola Laure al Samurai

Friday, 18 November - Richard White Auditorium

9:30 AM Coffee in the East Duke Parlors

9:45 AM Welcome: Cathy Davidson, Vice Provost and Director for Interdisciplinary Studies (Duke)

10:00 AM Panel #1: Africa Diasporic
How has the role of Africa (and originary "homelands" in general) shifted over time in imagining diasporic community? How does it figure for Black communities transnationally? How is "Africa" itself produced and deployed in relation to diasporic communities? What effects, consequences, and contestations emerge as a result? How are contemporary African lives positioned in the current visions and aspirations of diasporic communities
and political projects?

Chair and Moderator: Charles Piot (Duke)
Presenters: Paulla Ebron (Stanford), "TransAtlantic Bad"
Saidiya Hartman (UC-Berkeley), "Afrotopia"
Jemima Pierre (UT-Austin), "There's no Place Like 'Home?' Interrogating Race, Identity, and Africa in Diasporic Studies"
Respondent: Bayo Holsey (Duke)

11:30 AM Lunch

12:30 PM Roundtable #1: Diasporic Masculinities

What forms of masculinity circulate transnationally in and through diaspora? How have diasporic cultural, material and ideological circulations produced particular ideas about gender and masculinity? How do different class, national and generational contexts shape these ideas, and how might they change over time? What effects might these ideas have
on consciousness, action, and representation within and among different communities in diaspora?

Chair and Moderator: Tyler Curtain (UNC)
Discussants: Claire Alexander (LSE)
Ben Carrington (UT-Austin)
Maureen Mahon (UCLA)
Harvey Neptune ( Temple )
Mark Anthony Neal (Duke)

2:30 PM Break

3:00 PM Panel #2: Transnational Sexualities

How does sexuality interact with other factors (for example, place, gender, and generation) to construct and differentiate diasporic communities? How are these differentiations articulated through processes of class formation and notions of respectability? In what ways might processes of globalization facilitate particular expressions of gender identities and sexualities? How might the same processes also limit these expressions? Can we actually speak of diasporic sexualities?

Chair and Moderator: Maurice Wallace (Duke)
Presenters: Denise Noble (Goldsmiths), "Postcolonial Blackness, Sexual Capital and the Cultural Logics of Neo-Liberal Transnationalism"
Rinaldo Walcott ( Toronto ), "Black Men in Frocks"
Meg Wesling (UCSD), "Why Queer Diaspora?"
Respondent: Suki Ali (LSE)

4:30 PM Panel #3: Diasporic Ambiguity and Transnational Perplexity

How does the "perplexing" (Ramamurthy 2003) and often ambiguous status of women's participation in global processes get left out of contemporary analyses of globalization transnationally? How can we account for the ambivalent positioning of women as gendered, raced, and sexualized producers and consumers? How have transnational circulations affected their articulation of new subjectivities, and how are these subjectivities manifested? Have new sites of political engagement emerged?

Chair and Moderator: Ranjana Khanna (Duke)
Presenters: Jayne Ifekwunigwe (UEL/Duke), "'All About the Money, Honey:' Serena Williams, Transnational Corporate Patronage, and the 'Perplexities' of Ethical Charity"
Priti Ramamurthy ( Washington ), "Valuable Girls: Theorizing Perplexity Towards a Politics of Consumption"
Deborah A. Thomas (Duke), "'Katrina' and Related Ideological Tricks: Jamaican Hotel Works in Michigan"
Respondent: Avtar Brah (Birkbeck)

6:00 PM Break

6:30 PM Keynote Presentation #2
Chair and Moderator: Robyn Wiegman (Duke)
Presenter: Inderpal Grewal (UC-Irvine)
Respondent: Alissa Trotz ( Toronto )

8:00 PM RECEPTION - East Duke Parlors

Saturday, 19 November - Richard White Auditorium

9:30 AM Coffee in the East Duke Parlors

10:00 AM Panel #4: The Status of Race in Diaspora

How do processes of racial formation differ among diasporic communities transnationally? Does this translate into divergent notions of racial belonging in diverse diasporic locations? How are diasporic communities co-produced in relation to one another? How might we understand points of affiliation and divergence among diasporic communities in relation to
different conceptions of racial belonging? Whose interests do claims to sameness or difference serve?

Chair and Moderator: Carlton Wilson (NCCU)
Presenters: Kesha Fikes ( Chicago ), "Getting Picky: Writing Race in the Ethnography of 'Diaspora'"
Lena Sawyer (Mid-Sweden U), "Placing Race in Calls for Diasporic Community in Sweden"
Michelle Wright ( Minnesota ), "Sexual Narratives and Black Identities"
Respondent: Michaeline Crichlow (Duke)

11:30 AM Roundtable #2: Translation and the Place of African-America in Diaspora

What is the role of African-America in cultural production throughout the African diaspora, and how is it marshaled or deployed in other diasporic communities? How do specific articulations of blacknesses circulate within a global public sphere, and what might these circulations tell us about broader dynamics of political, economic, and cultural power? Are there hegemonic formations within the diaspora? How are these made manifest? What role does generation play in the politics of diaspora and its cultural production?

Chair and Moderator: Tina Campt (Duke)
Discussants: Jacqueline Nassy Brown (Hunter-CUNY)
Barnor Hesse (Northwestern)
Karla F.C. Holloway (Duke)
John L. Jackson, Jr. (Duke)
Anne-Maria Makhulu (Duke)

1:30 PM Closing Remarks

For more information, please contact phoffman@duke.edu, call 919-684-3655