World-Systems Analysis & the Challenges of the 21st Century

33rd Annual Conference of the Political Economy of the World-System Section of the American Sociological Association, April 23-25, 2009 (beginning Thursday evening and going to roughly noon Saturday), to be held at the University of San Diego, 5998 Alcala Park, San Diego, California, 92110. For information, contact Tom Reifer, Sociology Department, Affiliated Faculty, Ethnic Studies, USD, 5998 , , reifer@sandiego.edu. Sponsored by the Ethnic Studies Program, of Peace Studies, M.E.Ch.A, the Social Issues Committee, Sociology, USD.

World-systems analysis, as critique of existing structures of knowledge, violence and power, has made important contributions to our understanding of the global system. These analyses have ranged from nuanced explorations of world-regions, to the changing social foundations of successive hegemonies, to global power and inequalities - including of race, ethnicity, class, gender, patriarchy and nation, ranging from accounts of coloniality to analyses of comparative settler colonialisms - to the study of social movements seeking to transform the global system in more democratic, peaceful, egalitarian and ecological sustainable directions.

This conference focuses on cutting edge research and debates about the challenges of the 21st century, including of issues sometimes neglected in world-systems analysis. Special attention will be given to questions of diversity and inclusion, violence, religion and other “imagined communities” of the sacred (including “nations”), diasporas, world-regions, world inequalities, global ecology and the possibilities for creating a more egalitarian, democratic and ecologically sustainable world-society based on principles of inclusion and diversity and peace and social justice. Topics include: a) world-regions, diasporas and global transformations b) violence, the sacred and the global system c) global power, inequalities and antisystemic movements and d) violence, biogeography & globalization: human evolution in the longue duree e) world- systems analysis and the challenges of the 21st century.

A) World-Regions, Diasporas & Global Transformations
World-systems analysis has been associated with landmark explorations of the global system. Yet, at the same time, with its heritage from Annales, world-systems analysis has also embraced a nuanced analysis of world-regions, including border zones and immigration, comparative settler colonialisms, as well as the exploration of diaspora communities. This panel grapples with the question of world-regions, including border regions - especially the US-Mexican border region - diasporas, most especially and the African diasporas, as well as the Jewish & Palestinian diasporas and their changing role in the transformation of the global system. The panel also offers explorations of the emerging field of comparative settler colonialism, including as related to diasporas and decolonization.

B) Violence, the Sacred, and the Global System
The study of violence in the global system has ranged from the analysis of structural and symbolic violence to the exploration of physical violence, especially in organized forms such as warfare, massacre, genocide and torture. This panel aims to explore questions of structural, symbolic or physical violence as related to larger questions of the sacred/profane, with a special emphasis on religion and other imagined communities of the sacred (including of the “nation,” peoples and related civilizational identities) that have played major roles in the expansion of the global system and/or resistance to its attendant inequalities of wealth and power. Examples include Native American and other indigenous and syncretic religions, Judeo-Christianity, Catholicism, liberation theology, Pentecostalism and political Islam. This panel will explore these intersections, with a focus on contemporary issues.

C) Global Power, Inequalities & Antisystemic Movements
Global inequalities of race, ethnicity, class, gender and nation are constitutive elements of modernity. Today, there is also a growing awareness of how unequal ecological appropriation, biological exchanges and socio-ecological relations have played critical roles in the making of global power and inequality. This panel speaks to questions of power, inequalities and social movements. Of special interest too are papers that deal simultaneously with questions of power and inequalities and the structures of knowledge.

D) Violence, Biogeography & Globalization: Human Evolution in the Longue Duree
World-systems analysis adumbrated a full-fledged analysis of global social change and world-systemic transformations. In the late 20th and early 21st century, however, landmark works such as Alfred Crosby's Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe & Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs & Steel underscored the heretofore largely neglected impact of the Neolithic revolution and "imperialism as a vast global network of violent biological exchanges,"* replete with the differential development of peoples on different continents. Human colonization of the planet earth and the entwined growth of the productive and destructive forces - whether it be weapons of mass destruction or productive technology - now confronts humanity with the question of the very survival of human species, as violence – physical and structural – and related moral-ethical questions, from the question of torture to human rights as a whole, climate change and other contemporary 21st century challenges of peace and justice cry out for innovative action.** This panel interrogates these questions and maps out possible futures.

*from Mike Davis, "Biogeography as Destiny," Capitalism, Nature, Socialism: A Journal of Socialist Ecology, Volume 8 (2), Issue Thirty, June, 1997.
**for a recent attempt to explore just some of these issues as related to physical violence and the question of morality, see Jonathan Glover’s Humanity: A Moral History of the 20th Century, Yale, 2001.

E) World-Systems Analysis & the Challenges of the 21st Century: Critiques, Revisions, Agendas, Explorations
This panel explores pressing questions, including those heretofore relatively neglected in world-systems analysis, in light of the challenges of the 21st century. The panel thus tackles the question of new research agendas, new departures, new concepts, revision of theoretical perspectives, or revisit ongoing controversies in world-systems analysis, including but not limited to its core analytical foundations.

Programme

Thursday, April 23, 2008

6-8 pm: Plenary/Keynote I: World-Systems Analysis & the Challenges of the 21st Century: Giovanni Arrighi,* Immanuel Wallerstein.
Dean Headley, Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies
Dr. Rafik Mohamed introduces Giovanni Arrighi & Immanuel Wallerstein

Friday, April 24, 2008:

8:30-10:30 am: World-Regions, Diasporas
& Global Transformations
Giovanni Arrighi, Sociology, Johns *
Wally Goldfrank, Sociology, UCSC
Gershon Shafir, Sociology, UCSD
Moderator: Leonora Simonovis, Languages & Literatures, USD

Friday, April 24, 2008

10:30am-12:30 pm: Global Power, Inequalities & Antisystemic Movements
Christopher Chase-Dunn, Sociology, Director, IROWS, UCR
Roberto & Monica Hernandez, Ethnic Studies, UCB, SDSU
Floyd & Rafik Mohamed, English, Affiliated Faculty, Ethnic Studies; Soc., Affiliated Faculty, Ethnic Studies, USD
(Beyond) The “Triangle of Emancipation” Collective, USD
Moderator: TBA

Lunch, 1-2pm: Soloman Hall

Friday, April 24, 2008:

2:30 - 4:30 pm: Violence, the Sacred & the Global System
Bahar Davary, Theology & Religious Studies, Affiliated Faculty, Ethnic Studies, Studies, USD
Enrique Dussel, Philosophy, UNAM,
Michelle Jacob, Ethnic Studies, USD
Alberto Pulido, Director, Ethnic Studies Program, USD
Moderator: Carl Jubran, Associate Provost for International Affairs, USD

Friday evening

5:00-6:30pm: Poetry/prose reading & Sunset Reception, Featuring Olga Garcia Echeverria – Soloman Hall
Friday evening Plenary/Keynote II: 7pm
Keynote Address: Saskia Sassen, Sociology,
Committee on Global Thought,

8:30pm: Dinner

Saturday, April 25, 2008

8:30-10:30 am: Violence, Biogeography & Globalization:
Human Evolution in the Longue Duree
Mike Davis, MacArthur Fellow*
Enrique Dussel, Philosophy, UNAM,
Daniel Ellsberg, Right Livelihood Award Winner, 2006
Andrew Jorgenson, Sociology,
Moderator: Judith Liu, Sociology, USD

10:45am-12:45pm: World-Systems Analysis & the Challenges of the 21st Century: Critiques, Revisions, Agendas, Explorations
Bruce Cumings, History,
Ramon Grosfoguel, Ethnic Studies, UCB; , SUNY
Tom Reifer, Sociology, Affiliated Faculty, Ethnic Studies, USD; Associate Fellow, Transnational Institute
Manuela Boatca, Sociology,
Beverly Silver, Sociology, Johns *
Moderator: TBA

12:45-1: Closing Remarks:
[skeletal schedule]

Thursday, April 23, 2008

6-8 pm: Plenary/Keynote I: World-Systems Analysis & the Challenges of the 21st Century: Giovanni Arrighi, Immanuel Wallerstein

Friday, April 24, 2008:

8:30-10:30 am: World-Regions, Diasporas
& Global Transformations

Friday, April 24, 2008

10:30am-12:30 pm: Global Power, Inequalities & Antisystemic Movements
2:30 - 4:30 pm: Violence, the Sacred & the Global System

Friday evening

5:00-6:30 pm: Poetry/prose reading & Sunset Reception, Featuring Olga Echeverria – Solomon Hall
7:00-8:00 pm: Plenary/Keynote Address II: Saskia Sassen, Sociology, Committee on Global Thought, Columbia University (Introduced by Transborder Institute Director, David Shirk, IPJ Program Director Elena McCollim & Gender Studies Director, Lori Watson, Philosophy, USD)

8:30pm: Dinner in near

Saturday, April 25, 2008

8:30-10:30 am: Violence, Biogeography & Globalization:
Human Evolution in the Longue Duree
10:45-12:45: World-Systems Analysis & the Challenges of the 21st Century: Critiques, Revisions, Agendas, Explorations
12:45-1pm: Closing Remarks:
Giovanni Arrighi
Mike Davis
Beverly Silver

For information, contact Tom Reifer, Sociology Department, Affiliated Faculty, Ethnic Studies, USD, 5998 Alcala Park, San Diego, CA 92110, reifer[at]sandiego.edu.