Events

1 May 2008

Ownership and Appropriation

Calls for papers

8-12 December 2008, University of Auckland

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.

The call for papers is open. Please browse the panel pages to find a suitable home for your paper. 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 should be submitted using the online form.

Organisation:

The Association of Social Anthropologists of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth,
The Australian Anthropological Society, and
The Association of Social Anthropologists of Aotearoa/New Zealand