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This panel invites proposals exploring the uses of vernacular culture in any aspect of its manifestation and deployment. The term "vernacular culture" has many meanings ranging from a reference to language and verbal rituals to non-verbal practices of dance, music, and social rituals. The problem it poses is as old as the tension between the sacred and the secular. It is as new as how to understand the significance of hip hop culture in American society or how to use traditional African cultures as they adapt and change in the face of urbanization and modernization. Anthropology has played an important and disturbing role in defining the parameters of vernacular culture. Very often vernacular culture is invoked in relationship to political goals supporting claims about difference and relations of domination and subordination. Arguments based on specific, but not always sound, conceptualizations of vernacular culture have been employed by some who have staked claims in terms of race, ethnicity, and nationality. Such claims, usually focusing on integrity and wholeness have been challenged by competing claims complicating vernacular culture in terms of gender, sexuality, and border crossings. These competing claims tend to focus on hybridity and mobility.
Send your 500-word abstract to the address below. Please identify your paper as emerging from a course, a seminar paper, a chapter, etc. and any future plans you might have for the work. Email submissions are welcome.
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