Call for Papers - Theorizing and Excavating Neighborhoods - SAA 2015

My colleague, Lise Truex (University of Chicago) and I are organizing a session for the 80th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in San Francisco, April 15-19, 2015. Our session is entitled "Theorizing and Excavating Neighborhoods." We've confirmed our esteemed discussants Steve Wernke (Vanderbilt) and Elizabeth C. Stone (SUNY Stony Brook). We're still seeking abstracts! The original due date for abstracts was to be August 11th, 2014, but we can be a little flexible. Don't hesitate to be in touch or to circulate the CFP.

email Dave - DavidPacificoPhD (@) gmail.com

email Lise - liset437 (@) uchicago.edu

Call for Papers - "Theorizing and Excavating Neighborhoods"

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CALL FOR PAPERS

for

Theorizing and Excavating Neighborhoods

A Session Proposal

Submitted to the Society for American Archaeology

For the 2015 Annual Meeting in San Francisco

Organized by

 David Pacifico, Ph.D. and Lise Truex, Ph.D. candidate (University of Chicago)

           

The ‘neighborhood’ encompasses complex social and analytical phenomena linking households, settlements, and regions. This session investigates the ‘neighborhood’ as a concept, a heuristic, and a social formation as well as the relationship between those dimensions.

On a theoretical level, what anthropological concepts does the ‘neighborhood’ imply or highlight (e.g., kinship, space, economy)? How might we conceive of ‘neighborhood’ when planning, conducting, and reporting research?

As anthropologists, we aim to examine and compare how neighborhoods are configured, produced, and supported at different times and places in human (pre)history. What emic forms of neighborhoods existed (e.g., the Aztec calpulli, Andean ayllu, and Old Babylonian babtum)? How can archaeologists study neighborhoods as imagined as well as physically constructed or culturally practiced?

            Methodologically, we wish to examine how archaeologists can address neighborhoods in all the many formations and configurations that may exist. Of course, we also would like to examine the limitations of ‘neighborhood’ as a heuristic and to discover what directions might move us through and beyond the neighborhood.

Contributors are encouraged to place the study of neighborhoods within broader analyses of urbanization, early towns, rural settlements, and the production of regional landscapes.

Discussants: Steve Wernke, Ph.D. (Vanderbilt) and Elizabeth C. Stone, PhD (SUNY Stony Brook)

Please send presentation abstracts of 200 words or less to both:

davidpacificophd@gmail.com and liset437@uchicago.edu

Deadline for paper abstract submission to Dave and Lise is: August 11, 2014.

Deadline for full session lineup: September 11, 2014.