Events

RECENT AND UPCOMING CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

Nia I. Cantey will present: "Intersectionality: A critical view of African American Women."  at the 2009 National Popular Culture and American Culture Associations Conference (ACA/PCA) to be held in New Orleans, Louisiana, Thursday, April 8 through Saturday April 11.

Abstract:
A phenomenological study offers insight and understanding of the lived experiences of African American lesbians.  The study will include Critical Race theory’s theoretical and methodological approach to understanding the intersection of race, gender, and sexuality for this population. The difficulty of having an individual attempt to negotiate their space in society based upon their race, gender, or sexual orientation forces an individual to choose one identity over another.  How can one choose one social construct over another when the individual is rooted in each construct.  All three constructs identifies the person. Exploration of this critical theory offers the field of Conflict Analysis and Resolution an understanding of how socio-historic and socio-political differences conflict co-creates social injustices. This study offers a framework for resolving issues of racism, sexism, heterosexism based upon social structures and hegemonic worldviews.  Additionally, this study offers the field of Conflict Analysis and Resolution a pedagogical approach to eradicating continued forms of oppression related to intersecting identities. Finally, this proposed study is beneficial to the African American community, lesbian community, feminist studies, and gender studies as a lens of understanding intersecting systems of a marginalized, underrepresented, and silent community.

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Patrick T. Hiller will present: "Social Identity Formation of Nonviolent Peace Activists" at the 2008 Peace and Justice Studies Association Conference Building Cultures of Peace to be held September 11-13, 2008, Portland State University, Portland, OR. For more information see: http://www.peacejusticestudies.org/conference/

Abstract:
The notion of nonviolent resistance is most readily associated with the names of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Nelson Mandela, three personalities who dedicated their lives towards achieving social change by nonviolent ways. In today’s world many individuals of numerous, collective grassroots organizations follow in their footsteps by working in the service for peace by nonviolent means. I am proposing to present the findings of my ongoing study to obtain a doctoral degree in the field of Conflict Analysis and Resolution. This study focuses specifically on peace activists from Mexico, and explores the personal and socio-cultural meanings that these individuals, committed to the philosophy of nonviolence, attach to their life experiences. While many people long for peace, those who actually become dedicated nonviolent activists are comparatively few. There are no studies on the (hi)stories, perspectives, and meaning making of ‘ordinary’ people actively seeking social justice and peace through nonviolent means. The research questions that will be discussed are: How do nonviolent peace activists give meaning to their actions? What is the meaning of nonviolence for these activists? How does the intersection of the individual\'s personal life with family/social/cultural/political/economic norms influence his or her dedication to nonviolent action? How does the social context affect the development of a nonviolent orientation? What role does religion play in the activist’s life? How are the themes of ‘obedience’ and ‘disobedience’ developed? How does the orientation towards nonviolent action influence life outside the activist group? Peace activists in the Mexican context face struggles that deal with social/political/economic structures and consequences of globalization. In contemporary Mexico, changes and truly democratizing efforts have been linked to social movements. Local activism is strongly influenced by the macro-context. Societal courses on the national and international basis shape the local manifestation and perception of activism. Latin America has a colonial history of exploitation, which has led to contemporary societies with wide cultural and social divisions. This study highlights the invisible histories of common people and how they interpret their role in society. In this regard, I hope that the knowledge and understanding from this project can then be used to create mutual understanding and openness among nonviolent peace activists, civil society, and their adversaries on a national and international level. Furthermore, this study can connect American peace scholars/practitioners/activists who will be able to forge cross-national ties as well. From an academic perspective, this study also hopes to make a contribution to the conflict resolution and peace-building field by using multidisciplinary methodologies based in combined theories and methods from social psychology, anthropology, sociology, and conflict analysis and resolution.

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Dr. J. P. Linstroth presented :Cognition of Maya Immigrant-Trauma: narratives of
past migration and present integration”, at Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies (CILAS). The title of the conference is: First Conference on Ethnicity, Race, and Indigenous Peoples in Latin America and the Caribbean, University of California, San Diego, May 22-23, 2008

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Dr. J. P. Linstroth presented “Maya Trauma: some brief thoughts on cognition,memory, and trauma of South Florida’s Maya immigrants”. He was invited by Department of Anthropology, New College of Florida, The Honors College, Sarasota, Florida, April 25, 2008

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Dr. J. P. Linstroth presented“Revealing Invisible (immigrant) Histories: the relevance of anthropology and biography to immigrant injustices”, at the Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA), (68th Annual Meeting). The title of Conference was: The Public Sphere and Engaged Scholarship: opportunities and challenges for applied anthropology, Memphis , March 25-29, 2008

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Jacqueline N. Font-Guzmán's proposal for participation in the 2008 ISA Annual Convention in San Francisco, CA, USA has been accepted. The title of her presentation is "‘Sur o no Sur’ The meaning of the Puerto Rican citizenship and its implication for the emergence of the popular and legal discourse on nationalism".

Abstract:
How do notions of Puerto Rican nationhood emerge in the legal and popular discourse in light of the decision in 1995 of several Puerto Ricans to legally renounce their American citizenship? Specifically, I will examine the case of Mari Brás, a prominent pro-independence attorney who renounced his American citizenship in his struggle to assert his Puerto Rican nationality and fight colonialism from within the discourse of the legal system. My interest lies in determining the manner in which Mari Brás’ actions contributed to the deconstruction and re-construction of legal and popular discourses that led to the imagined reality that Puerto Rico is a nation. My approach is an integration of legal anthropology with the theory of complex adaptive systems. Other questions are: how can the theories of nationalism help us understand the interaction between the legal system and the concept of ‘citizenship’ in the colonial experience? How can citizenship become simultaneously a source of agency for the colonial subjects and a mechanism of oppression for the colonizer? My goal is to provide insight as to how, similar to many indigenous people in the United States and Canada, the Puerto Rican people use citizenship to assert their nationalism in a nation within a nation.

Visit to Israeli-Palestinian Peace Panel

CCG members Cristina Andriani, Alison Hall and Tami Rafidi attended a panel presentation by Dr. Gershon Baskin and Hanna Siniora on Paving the Road for Israeli-Palestinian Peace. Dr. Gershon is the Israeli founder and co-director of the Israel/Palestinian Center for Research and Information (IPCRI), a joint Israeli-Palestinian public policy think-tank. Author of The Future of Jerusalem; How to Conduct Business in the Palestinian Territories; The Future of the Israeli Settlements in Final Status Negotiations, and more. Hanna Siniora is a Palestinian peace activist. Co-director of the Israeli-Palestinian Center for Research and Information (IPCRI). He has been a member of the Palestinian National Council since 1990. His career includes editing and publishing the Palestinian daily Arabic Newspaper Al Fajr and The Jerusalem Times.

The event was co-organized the Sue and Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies - University of Miami; The Taplin Middle East Peace Project; The Dr. M. Lee Pearce Chair in Middle East Peace Studies; Hillel, University of Miami; Muslim Students of UM (MSofUM) and Organization of Arab Students Instituting Solidarity (OASIS).

Nova Southeastern University, Department of Conflict Analysis and Resolution Presentations at Residential Institute Winter 2008 Friday, February 8, 4:30pm-6:00pm

IIntroduction - Dr. J. P. Linstroth

Jacqueline N. Font-Guzmán (Nova Southeastern University) - Physicians Negotiating End-of-life Across Cultures: Are Interest-based Negotiation and “Cultural Competency” Trainings the Answer?

Robin Cooper (Nova Southeastern University) - Imagining Nationalist Wombs: how nationalism is expressed through women’s bodies

Marcie Washington (Nova Southeastern University) - Insiders living Outside: the role diasporas play in civil wars

Panel: A close look at Israel, Palestine and the Hamas
Patrick Hiller (Nova Southeastern University) - Rethinking International Negotiations: An Analysis of the Negotiations between the Middle East Quartet and Hamas

Cristina Andriani (Nova Southeastern University) - The language of negotiation and the negotiation of language: A case study of Hamas and the US negotiation relations

Tami Rafidi (Nova Southeastern University) – Terror and Violence in Gaza

Question & Answer Period

Nova Southeastern University, Department of Conflict Analysis and Resolution Presentations at Residential Institute Fall 2007

IMonday, October 15, 4-5.30 p.m. – Culture and Conflict Group

	Introduction - Dr. J. P. Linstroth
	Tami Rafidi - “The Memory of Palestinian Exile”		Nia Cantey - "Expanding pedgagogy: walking out of silence"
	Cristina Andriani - “Structural Violence and Conflict Resolution: Deconstructing ICR in the context of Bedouin-Israeli conflict”		Paloma Ayala Vela - “S.T.O.P.: society takes over politics”
Cancelled due to illness	Robin Cooper - “Imagining Nationalist Wombs: how nationalism is expressed through women’s bodies”

International Conference Ethnicity, Belonging, Biography, and Ethnography at the Georg-August-University in Goettingen, Germany

International Conference Ethnicity, Belonging, Biography, and Ethnography at the Georg-August-University in Goettingen, Germany

Dr. John Linstroth (Nova Southeastern University), Dr. Julia Chaitin (Sapir Academic College), Patrick Hiller, Denese Edsall, Paloma Ayala Vela, Mamyrah Prosper, and Alison Hall (all Nova Southeastern University) presented the results of a collaborative study funded by the Humboldt Foundation: Hyphens of belonging: ethnicity and community among Haitians and Cubans in the United States.

Abstract:
Cuban and Haitian refugees/immigrants have had a major impact on political, social and cultural life in Florida in the United States. In this talk, we focus on the connections between ethnic identity and sense of belonging among members of these two groups. Our work was part of a collaborative project between researchers from Nova Southeastern University and the Georg-August-University in Goettingen that was supported by the Humboldt Foundation. In our research, we combined biographical-narrative interviews and ethnography. In the Haitian immigrant population, we found that major themes of importance for the research participants were these of power in relation to class, race, authority, ‘ambiguous belonging’, education, and gender. In the Cuban sample, we found that the main themes were idealization of Cuba, gender, ambiguous belongingness and broken dreams. In the talk, we will discuss similarities and differences between the two immigrant groups, tying perceived sense of ethnic belonging to issues of political consciousness, connections to the homeland, and issues of class and race.

Dr. Linstroth presented Al Norte: cognition, memory, and identity among Guatemala/Maya living in South Florida at the same conference.

Abstract:
Memory in relation to biography, and especially its association with trauma, is examined from various accounts of Guatemala/Maya living in South Florida. What this essay argues is that recent cognitive understandings of religio-practices have similar structural features to acculturative memories of immigrant experiences from imagistic trauma, particularly in association with the journey from war-torn Guatemala in the 1980s. In other instances, ‘structural violence’ as experiential clashes with the new host-culture cause other punctuated spikes of episodic trauma. Such flashbulb memories, escaping from a civil war or coping with racial prejudice, are points of heightened emotional experience among the everyday or routinized memories of living as an integrated-foreigner in North American life. To this extent, the experiential narratives of Guatemala/Maya may be regarded as ‘mental maps’ of their immigrant ontology of new identity formations—expatriated, bounded by the past in the present, and imaginatively liminal to the collective majority.

Click here to download the abstract reader

2007 Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association at Washington D.C. on November 28, 2007

Jacqueline Font-Guzmán presented at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association at Washington D.C. on November 28, 2007. The theme of the meeting was “Difference, (In)equality and Justice”. The title of her presentation is "The Invasion of the Body Snatcher: the construction and deconstruction of the ethnic minority body in the healthcare bioethical decision making process"

Abstract:

My focus is the sociocultural construction of the body of minority groups within healthcare institutions in a pluralistic society. 

Specifically, my interest lies in determining ownership over bodily practices in healthcare systems: or, what happens when the ‘owner’ of the body has lost consciousness and others make important healthcare decisions on his/her behalf? My contention is that the patient’s body becomes implicated in a power struggle between those possessing a dominant discourse and those who do not. On the side of the healthcare institution the patient’s body is constructed as a medium to retain power, preserve the status quo, and thus maintaining inequality and injustice. On the side of the patient’s family, the body becomes constructed as an agent of resistance and instrument for equality and justice. When the ‘social arrangements’ comprise excessive power, humans are destined to deconstruct and reconstruct their bodies in order to alter their reality and re-create themselves.  My interest is to understand and explore how this process of construction and deconstruction takes place with ethnic minorities within healthcare institutions. Other questions are: what agency is given to physicians in contrast to patients and their families? My goal is to provide insight into healthcare practices for minorities, especially how the body is constructed and deconstructed through bioethical decision-making.

Yanira Alemán Torres presented "Legal patricide: Understanding gender-based inequalities in Puerto Rico via child custody cases"

Abstract:
An anthropological approach to the study of conflicts related to child custody in Puerto Rico will provide a better understanding of the complex social processes they are embedded in. The legal order idealizes motherhood to the detriment of fathers. Divorced fathers in Puerto Rico have limited rights, and their attempts to obtain a more equitable legal order with regards to child custody have continually failed for years. Furthermore, such legal conundrums exemplify how cultural constructions of gender affect the institutionalized legal order.  Descriptions of how the law overwhelmingly favors mothers, while also giving them power over fathers, are presented to illustrate why the notion of male hegemony, a dominant view of Latin society from the social sciences perspective, needs rethinking from this legal example. The current framework reifies within Puerto Rican culture the conceptualization of women as an ideal type with a fixed and exclusive role in association with motherhood.  Such ideals played out in the law and in society circumscribe fathers to the "breadwinner" role, which significantly undermines a father's manhood and agency as an equitable partner in a given marriage. Implicit in my discussion are the interrelationships between gender, power, and law and how the Puerto Rican child custody cases may transform our understanding of these social arenas.