Theme: Celebrating Ari Sitas: the World of Work and the Power of Poetics
It is our pleasure to invite you to submit paper and poster abstracts to the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) Global Studies Programme (GSP) conference, Celebrating Ari Sitas: the World of Work and the Power of Poetics. The Global Studies Programme is an interdisciplinary master’s programme devoted to the study of the processes of globalization and convened by UCT, University of Freiburg (Germany), Jawaharlal Nehru University (India), FLACSO (Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales) Argentina and Chulalongkorn University (Thailand). Prof Ari Sitas was pivotal in the foundation and functioning of this programme. He retires from the University of Cape Town in 2017, the Global Studies Programme’s 15th year. In his honour, we are organizing a two-day conference to celebrate the wide-ranging contributions Prof Sitas has made locally, continentally and globally as an intellectual, cultural activist and administrator. As president of the South African Sociological Association (SASA), and executive member of the International Sociological Association (ISA), Prof Sitas worked to centre the African experience in the production of knowledge as a necessary corrective to the erasures and negations that animate the ongoing student mobilization for a free, de-colonial education in South Africa. As an administrator, Prof. Sitas led the team that wrote the Charter for the Humanities and Social Sciences, paving the way for the establishment of the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences in South Africa. His scholarship, which is increasingly focused on South-South connections, is unearthing rich material on pre-colonial entanglements in the Afro-Asian world, long before the rise and dominance of the West.
We are therefore inviting proposals for papers and posters covering but not restricted to the following themes that animate Prof. Sitas’ work:
– African sociology and decolonization of knowledge
– Art and popular culture
– Deviance and defiance
– Historical materialism today
– Labour studies
– Migration and livelihood
– Reconciliation and justice
– Working class movements
Submission Guidelines and Important Dates:
Each abstract should identify a theme it seeks to contribute to. Abstracts of a maximum of 250 words in Word format should be sent to globalstudiesuct@gmail.com by Sunday, April 30, 2017.
Notice of acceptance of abstracts will be communicated by Wednesday, May 31, 2017.
Completed papers and posters should be submitted by Monday, July 31, 2017.
Contact persons:
Amrita Pande: amrita.pande@uct.ac.za
Faisal Garba: faisalgarba@gmail.com