Social Media: Unsettling the World
CFP
For over a decade, social media has been “unsettling” the world. The social power of social media has become all too apparent and it is important for anthropologists to address it and the implications it has past, present, and future. We are looking for papers that address this theme with special attention to power, social hierarchies, systems of inequality and the way social media reinforces these while also amplifying users’ voices to challenge such inequalities.
From hashtag activism to virtue signaling, from social movements like Black Lives Matter and political unrest in Belarus and Nigeria, we are looking for ethnographic examples that speak to these themes.
How does social media and its users challenge and contest systems of power, social hierarchies and the inequalities they produce? When does it reinforce them?
Conference Information:
The 2022 AAA Annual Meeting will again be a hybrid meeting. This means the meeting will take place in-person in Seattle, WA, from November 9-13, 2022, as well as online over those same dates.
Theme:
The 2022 AAA Annual Meeting theme “Unsettling Landscapes” encourages anthropological discussion of past, present, and future unsettlings of the world – be it through environment, power, political economy or through the collective efforts of unsettling and disrupting oppressive structures while building worlds otherwise. While our worlds are defined by nothing if not change, the current unsettling of landscapes brings with it an urgency that demands conversations which may elicit feelings of discomfort and disturbance, but may also stoke hope and determination. This orientation towards unsettling pushes us beyond easy narratives and facile binaries into moments of transformation. In essence, this theme asks two questions: In what ways are we, and those we work with, unsettled? How are we also unsettling landscapes and to what end?
How to Participate:
If you are interested in participating, please email me at sydneyyeager@gmail.com by Monday April 4th include a brief bio and your virtual/in-person preferences and date availability.
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