Thurs­day, Feb­ru­ary 28
6:30–8:30pm
Kane Hall 120

Where does artis­tic prac­tice and spir­i­tual belief inter­sect with grass­roots activism? This ques­tion will be at the heart of Raquel Z. Rivera’s dis­cus­sion on art and spir­i­tu­al­ity, The Lib­er­a­tion Mytholo­gies: Quests for Roots, Spirit and Jus­tice in Afro-Puerto Rican, Afro-Dominican, and Mex­ica Music and Dance. Dr. Rivera will look at myth-making through the prisms of eclec­tic North Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ties. She will exam­ine how groups try to explain the unex­plain­able, from Afro-Puerto Rican bomba dancers in New York to com­mu­ni­ties of New Mexico-based concheros and Mex­ica dancers. Rivera will con­nect the tra­di­tions these groups honor while explor­ing how they build a bet­ter future. Dr. Raquel Z. Rivera is an author, scholar, and singer-songwriter

Wednes­day, Jan­u­ary 30
5:30–7:30 pm
Gould 110

Tracy Fuentes, PhD stu­dent in the Inter­dis­ci­pli­nary Urban Design and Plan­ning Pro­gram, will present a case study of an urban brown­field site in the El Paso-Ciudad Juarez inter­na­tional met­ro­pol­i­tan region. Fol­low­ing reme­di­a­tion, the most recent chap­ter in the his­tory of La Esmelda (Smelter­town) includes plans to rede­velop the site using New Urban­ism design prin­ci­ples. But as the City of El Paso and the site trustee attempt to “recast the smelter” do the design and plan­ning processes appro­pri­ately address the site his­tory and affected com­mu­ni­ties? Can good design repair the wounded urban fab­ric and improve the qual­ity of life and urban function?

Come learn more about this site’s his­tory and join the con­ver­sa­tion on the role of design in envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice and brown­field rede­vel­op­ment. Food and drinks provided.

http://criticaldesignuw.wordpress.com/2013/01/28/upcoming-event-tracy-fuentes-january-30th/

Thurs­day, Feb­ru­ary 7
4 pm
Comm 120

Amer­i­can Stud­ies, Uni­ver­sity of Texas, Austin

The Latino/a child cit­i­zen sub­ject has become the focal point for all sorts of dis­courses about cit­i­zen­ship, be they the fig­ure of the Anchor Baby, Dora the Explorer as a poten­tial ille­gal immi­grant, the Dream Activists of Free­dom Uni­ver­sity, or a newly emerg­ing unpro­tected group, unac­com­pa­nied migrant chil­dren fac­ing depor­ta­tion pro­ceed­ings. In this talk, I demon­strate the ways in which race, immi­gra­tion sta­tus, social mobil­ity, skin color, social class and gen­der deter­mine whether or not a child is in fact deemed wor­thy of cit­i­zen­ship, wor­thy of being saved, and wor­thy of being incor­po­rated into the nation. Larger media trends have made such Latinas/o child-citizen sub­jects increas­ingly vis­i­ble in the last fif­teen years as the U.S.-Mexico bor­der is more mil­i­ta­rized than ever.

Nicole Guidotti– Hernán­dez is Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Amer­i­can Stud­ies and Asso­ciate Direc­tor of the Cen­ter for Mex­i­can Amer­i­can Stud­ies at the Uni­ver­sity of Texas. Her book Unspeak­able Vio­lence: Remap­ping U.S. and Mex­i­can National Imag­i­nar­ies was pub­lished by Duke Uni­ver­sity Press in 2011. She is cur­rently work­ing on two new books: ¡Santa Lucia! Con­tem­po­rary Chi­cana and Latina Cul­tural Rein­ter­pre­ta­tions of Saint Icono­gra­phies and Red Dev­ils and Rail­roads: Race, Gen­der and Cap­i­tal­ism in the Transna­tional Nine­teenth Cen­tury Mex­ico Borderlands.

Pre­sented as part of B/ordering Vio­lence: Bound­aries, Gen­der, Indi­gene­ity in the Amer­i­cas, a John E. Sawyer Sem­i­nar in Com­par­a­tive Cul­tures gen­er­ously funded by the Andrew W. Mel­lon Foun­da­tion and co-sponsored by the Latin Amer­i­can & Caribbean Stud­ies pro­gram, the Jack­son School of Inter­na­tional Stud­ies, the Simp­son Cen­ter for the Human­i­ties, and the Insti­tute for the Study of Eth­nic­ity, Race, & Sex­u­al­ity (WISER). For more on the B/ordering Vio­lence Sem­i­nar Series, visit www.borderingviolence.com

Fri­day, Feb­ru­ary 1
4 pm
Thom­son 317

Mike Wil­son (Tohono O’odham) is a pol­icy direc­tor of the Bor­der Action Net­work. His work cen­ters around pro­vid­ing human­i­tar­ian aid to undoc­u­mented peo­ples who cross through the deserts of south­ern Ari­zona. As a mem­ber of a sov­er­eign Native nation and a mem­ber of the Bor­der Action Net­work, Mike Wilson’s per­spec­tive pro­vides insight into the con­text and impact of U.S. Bor­der Patrol actions on the U.S.-Mexico bor­der and within indige­nous homelands.

Thurs­day, Jan­u­ary 31
3:30 pm
Allen Auditorium

“Under Arpaio” shows the grass­roots resis­tance to Mari­copa County, Arizona’s Sher­iff Joe Arpaio, who prides him­self on being the “tough­est sher­iff in Amer­ica.” Arpaio prides him­self on immi­gra­tion raids on migrant and Latino neigh­bor­hoods, human rights vio­la­tions in his jails, and wast­ing hun­dreds of mil­lions of tax­payer dol­lars. “Under Air­paio” fea­tures the grass­roots activists from low-income migrant com­mu­ni­ties, the attor­neys, reporters, elected offi­cials, and indige­nous peo­ple who speak truth to power.

Thurs­day, Jan­u­ary 17, 2013
COMM 120
4:00–6:00 pm

Indige­nous women who migrate to the United States suf­fer human rights vio­la­tions at every step: in their homes, where vio­lence and impunity com­pel them to migrate; as they cross the wide expanse of Mex­ico; and once they enter the United States, where they face new vul­ner­a­bil­ity to part­ners or strangers if they are undoc­u­mented and incar­cer­a­tion if they ask for asylum.

This is not what was sup­posed to hap­pen. The mul­ti­cul­tural reforms of the 1990s in var­i­ous Latin Amer­i­can coun­tries gen­er­ated hope and unprece­dented social mobi­liza­tion for indige­nous women seek­ing full access to their human rights. How­ever, the promises of neolib­eral mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism never mate­ri­al­ized. Indige­nous peo­ple suf­fered all the dam­age of ruth­less neolib­eral eco­nom­ics, with­out the demo­c­ra­tic pol­i­tics, rights regimes, and rule of law it was sup­posed to bring with it. In their stead, there are ille­gal economies on a mas­sive scale and increas­ingly author­i­tar­ian states mil­i­ta­riz­ing to com­bat ille­gal­ity, while cor­ruptly par­tic­i­pat­ing in it to reap some prof­its. This talk takes indige­nous women migrants’ oral his­to­ries as a point of depar­ture for ana­lyz­ing the larger struc­tures of power that mark them for
vio­lence and ren­der their human rights all but non-existent in the vio­lent era Speed calls “neolib­eral multicriminalism.”

Shan­non Speed is Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Anthro­pol­ogy and the Direc­tor of Native Amer­i­can and Indige­nous Stud­ies (NAIS) at the Uni­ver­sity of Texas at Austin. Her research and teach­ing inter­ests include indige­nous pol­i­tics, human rights, neolib­er­al­ism, gen­der, fem­i­nist the­ory, and activist research. She has pub­lished five books and edited vol­umes, includ­ing Dis­si­dent Women: Gen­der and Cul­tural Pol­i­tics in Chi­a­pas (2006), Rights in Rebel­lion: Human Rights and Indige­nous Strug­gle in Chi­a­pas (2007), and Human Rights in the Maya Region: Global Politics,Moral Engage­ments, and Cul­tural Con­tentions (2008).

Human Traf­fick­ing in an Era of Glob­al­iza­tion: Forced Labor, Invol­un­tary Servi­tude, and Cor­po­rate & Civic Responsibility

An inter­na­tional con­fer­ence to exam­ine the root causes of human traf­fick­ing and develop strate­gies to work towards not only pre­vent­ing, but also erad­i­cat­ing the trade.

Fri­day, Jan­u­ary 11, 2013:
Reg­is­tra­tion Opens at 8:30am
Pro­gram 9:00am-5:15pm
Forced Migra­tion & Labor Rights
Inter­na­tional Trade Agree­ments
Human Rights
Keynote & Recep­tion: 5:30–7:30pm

Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 12, 2013
Pro­gram 9:00am-4:15pm
Pub­lic Health
How Sur­vivor Ser­vices Can be Improved
Eth­i­cal Sourc­ing & Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment
Human­iz­ing the Impacts of Human Trafficking

Location:University of Wash­ing­ton Husky Union Build­ing (HUB), North Ballroom

Tick­ets are avail­able for $150 and can be pur­chased at:
http://humantraffickingconference.brownpapertickets.com/

Spon­sored by the Uni­ver­sity of Wash­ing­ton Women’s Center.

The 1491s are com­ing to the UW!

Indian Coun­try Today: “The 1491s are a group of Native Amer­i­cans who got together to do com­edy videos for fun and put them on YouTube.com to see what would hap­pen. The videos, which range from bit­ing cul­tural satire and seri­ous polit­i­cal state­ments to just plain goofi­ness, went viral in Indian coun­try and gained an instant following…The 1491s are some of the fun­ni­est peo­ple in Indian coun­try; they hold a mir­ror up to the cul­ture and cri­tique it with a pointed stick.”

When: Fri­day, Novem­ber 30th, 7-9pm
Where: Sav­ery 260

For more infor­ma­tion on the 1491s check out:

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/article/on-the-cutting-edge-of-native-comedy-with-the-1491s-130943

http://www.facebook.com/1491s

Spon­sored by First Nations@UW, Amer­i­can Indian Stud­ies depart­ment, the ECC (Office of Minor­ity Affairs and Diver­sity), and the ASUW AISC

Strad­dling Bound­aries: Hemi­spherism, Cul­tural Iden­tity, and Indi­gene­ity
http://www.kent.ac.uk/ccusb/events/algoma.html

The keynote speak­ers for this con­fer­ence will be: Clau­dia Sadowski-Smith; Niigaan­wewidam James Sin­clair; Guillermo Verdecchia

The Cul­ture and the Canada-US Bor­der (CCUSB) net­work invites pro­pos­als for 20 minute papers, or full pan­els, for its inau­gural con­fer­ence to be held at Algoma Uni­ver­sity, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada, from 24th-26th May 2013.

Where bor­der stud­ies in North Amer­ica has hith­erto focused pri­mar­ily on US engage­ment with Mex­ico to the south, the CCUSB net­work seeks to shift bor­der dis­cus­sion North to the 49th par­al­lel, and to inves­ti­gate the rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the bor­der in both Amer­i­can and Cana­dian cul­ture and cul­tural production.

As part of a series of CCUSB events, this con­fer­ence will inter­vene in famil­iar bor­der dis­courses, which have expanded out of the social and polit­i­cal con­texts of the US-Mexico bor­der, while the Cana­dian bor­der with the USA has tended to be overlooked—prior to 9.11 at least—as ‘pas­sive’. Ulti­mately we seek to develop fur­ther border-specific con­ver­sa­tions within Hemi­spheric and Transna­tional Stud­ies, draw­ing atten­tion to the ways in which cul­tural pro­duc­tion at/on the Canada-US bor­der both cor­rob­o­rates and unset­tles that nar­ra­tive of ‘pas­siv­ity’, and high­lights the nuances and exi­gen­cies of US-Canadian rela­tions, as well as Canada’s unique place in the cul­tural his­tory of the Americas.

Algoma Uni­ver­sity is a small pro­gres­sive uni­ver­sity in North­ern Ontario over­look­ing the Canada US bor­der, pro­vid­ing an ideal loca­tion for the stag­ing of this con­fer­ence. The strate­gic loca­tion of the Twin Cities of Sault Canada and Sault Michi­gan on the St. Mary’s River is the site of a rich inter­na­tional his­tory linked to bor­der issues, includ­ing those sur­round­ing indi­gene­ity and the bor­der, the cross-fertilization of cul­tural iden­tity, and the cul­ture and ‘archi­tec­ture’ of post-9/11 secu­rity and sur­veil­lance. The Algoma cam­pus is located on the site of a for­mer Indian res­i­den­tial school, and now includes Anishi­naabe pro­grams through Shing­wauk Edu­ca­tion Trust. For the 2013 CCUSB con­fer­ence we will have the option of accom­mo­da­tion on site so that par­tic­i­pants can enjoy the cam­pus. For fur­ther details, visit: http://www.algomau.ca

We seek con­tri­bu­tions that exam­ine issues raised by the cul­tural impli­ca­tions of the Canada-US bor­der in Cana­dian and/or Amer­i­can lit­er­a­ture, tele­vi­sion, cin­ema, visual art, music, and other cul­tural forms, as well as the sig­nif­i­cance of such cul­tural forms within other discourses—truth and rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, health pol­icy, secu­rity, for­eign pol­icy, and so on. We par­tic­u­larly encour­age papers focus­ing on the fol­low­ing issues, though sub­mis­sions on any rel­e­vant area of inter­est are wel­come:
Indi­gene­ity and the border(lands)
migra­tion and immi­gra­tion
cul­tural cross-fertilization
mil­i­ta­riza­tion of the bor­der
cul­tures and archi­tec­tures of sur­veil­lance
racial­i­sa­tion along the bor­der
améri­can­ité and the Québec-US bor­der
Canada and hemi­spheric Amer­ica
lan­guage and region­al­ism
the cul­ture of leisure on and across the border

Please send pro­pos­als for 20-minute papers and a brief CV to CCUSBorder@kent.ac.uk by 30th Novem­ber 2012. Panel pro­pos­als of 3 papers (for a 90 minute slot) should include paper pro­pos­als plus a brief (100 words) sum­mary of the panel’s theme.

A num­ber of post­grad­u­ate travel bur­saries are avail­able. See web­site for details.

Cather­ine Barter
Research Net­work Admin­is­tra­tor | “Cul­ture and the Canada-US Bor­der“
School of Eng­lish, Uni­ver­sity of Kent, CT2 7NX
Email: C.J.Barter@kent.ac.uk
Work­ing Hours: Mon­day and Tues­day, 9am-5pm
twit­ter: http://www.twitter.com/CCUSBorder
fb: https://www.facebook.com/groups/249625671815331/
www: http://www.kent.ac.uk/ccusb

Wed. Nov 28, 2012
EEB 403
12:00pm — 1:20pm

In this pre­sen­ta­tion Monroy-Hernandez will describe the infor­ma­tion shar­ing prac­tices
of peo­ple liv­ing amid urban narco-violence. Monroy-Hernandez will out­line the vol­ume
and fre­quency of microblog­ging activ­ity from four cities afflicted by
the Mex­i­can Drug War, show­ing how cit­i­zens use social media to alert
one another and to com­ment on the vio­lence that plagues their
com­mu­ni­ties. Then he will explain the emer­gence of civic media
“cura­tors,” indi­vid­u­als who act as “war cor­re­spon­dents” by aggre­gat­ing
and dis­sem­i­nat­ing infor­ma­tion to large num­bers of peo­ple on social
media. He will con­clude by sketch­ing out the impli­ca­tions of our
obser­va­tions for the design of civic media sys­tems in wartime.

Bio:
Andrés Monroy-Hernández is a researcher at Microsoft Research and an
Affil­i­ate at Har­vard University’s Berk­man Cen­ter for Inter­net &
Soci­ety. His research focuses on the design and study of social
com­put­ing sys­tems that sup­port cre­ative expres­sion and civic
engage­ment. His work has been fea­tured in the New York Times, CNN,
Wired, and has received awards from Ars Elec­tron­ica, and the MacArthur
Dig­i­tal Media and Learn­ing Com­pe­ti­tion. He holds a PhD from the MIT
Media Lab and a BS in Com­puter Sci­ence from Tec de Mon­ter­rey in
Mexico.