239910 Entanglements: Inequalities and/as Intersectionalities in the Americas (S) (SoSe 2014)

Recently, there is a growing academic interest in transnationalism and transnational flows of people, goods, capital and cultural products. These phenomena are usually interpreted as relatively new and related to "globalization". Simultaneously, an increasing interest in inequalities both within and between different world regions can be observed. This seminar seeks to bring into dialogue approaches on "inequalities" on the macro level (global, transnational, transregional) with approaches focusing on the "intersectionality" - or interrelatedness - of different axes of stratification on the micro level (such as race, class, gender, sexuality, religion). In the Americas in particular, current hierarchizations are marked by historical and geographical interdependencies and deeply affected by the legacy of colonization, the transatlantic slave trade, and the succeeding dominance of Western forms of knowledge and representation. Consequently, such (often enforced) transnational and transcultural encounters have a long trajectory in the Americas.
Case studies and cultural representations of phenomena such as transnational migration (and related phenomena like care chains, remittances, transnational parenthood, immigrant social networks) and North-to-South tourism (in particular sex tourism and the related revitalization of exotic racialized and gendered images of the places and people visited) serve us as exemplary cases of entanglements on both micro and macro level.
Against the backdrop of a stratified and unequal world system, the aim of the seminar is twofold: firstly, to seek to understand the described inequalities and intersectionalities as entangled. And, secondly, to think new units and categories of analysis and spatialization beyond nationality, culture, and identity in order to grasp these phenomena in their historical and intertwined dimensions. In a last step, we will engage with and critically discuss approaches seeking ways to overcome inequalities and decolonize hegemonic and unequal forms of knowledge and representation.

Bibliography

Shalini Randeria. "Entangled Histories of Uneven Modernities", http://www.ethno.uzh.ch/downloads/2002EntangledHistories.pdf

Sérgio Costa. "Researching Entangled Inequalities in Latin America: The Role of Historical, Social, and Transregional Interdependencies", desiguALdades.net Working Paper Series No. 9, http://www.desigualdades.net/bilder/Working_Paper/WP_Costa_Online.pdf

The Combahee River Collective Manifesto, 1978, http://circuitous.org/scraps/combahee.html