Call for papers - Music, Identity, and Culture in the Caribbean V

Note: I really recommend this conference! I've attended 3 of the previous 4 and always have an amazing time. It's one of the few conferences that includes musicians, dancers, and journalists alongside music scholars on an equal footing, which makes for much more interesting discussions. Also it's a great opportunity to meet Caribbean scholars you don't see at other international conferences. So just submit a proposal already!!

Call for Proposals

V International Conference

Music, Identity, and Culture in the Caribbean (MIC)

“Caribbean Musical and Dance Folklore in the Age of Globalization”

April 12, 13, 14, 2013

Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic.

The Institute of Caribbean Studies (INEC), the Eduardo León Jimenes Cultural Center (Centro León), and the Dominican Republic’s Department of Culture announce the Fifth International Conference Music, Identity, and Culture in the Caribbean (MIC-V). The conference aims to gather together researchers, educators, leading figures, and scholars of social and humanistic disciplines (musicology, ethnomusicology, anthropology, sociology, education, cultural management, journalism, economics, political sciences, law, information technology, and others) interested in Caribbean musical folklore, dance traditions, and culture to exchange knowledge of the various aspects of these pillars of the region, and to foster policies that strengthen national and regional cultural identity with a comprehensive approach. The Conference is a critical, multidisciplinary and reflective space for socializing research, experiences and findings around the central topic. It fosters an atmosphere that is favorable to the development of new ways of thinking about and acting on Caribbean and Latin American musical and cultural identity both within and outside of the region.

The MIC-V Conference centers upon twenty sessions comprised of presentations and debates in four parallel workshops, as well as several plenary sessions with keynote speeches, special panels, presentations of innovations, and a new Artists’ Discussion Group. There will be a variety of preparatory activities including research, socio-cultural entertainment activities, and meetings with musicians, scholars, educators, and music lovers, film and documentary series, among others.

The topic of the MIC-V Conference is: Caribbean Musical and Dance Folklore in the Age of Globalization.

As a result, the event is dedicated to studying the development of musical and dance folklore in the countries and territories of the Greater Caribbean’s various linguistic regions, including the Caribbean contribution to different world regions and vice versa, from a perspective of glocalization.

The Conference will explore the origins, history, and evolution of Caribbean musical and dance folklore in different spheres; its presence, diffusion, and assimilation in different geographic, socio-economic, political, and socio-cultural contexts in Caribbean society and on different continents (in the context of migration, urbanization, industrialization, modernization, mass communication and culture, among others). The Confernece will consider folklore’s role in identity processes in the region’s countries (in both the insular and continental Caribbean); and in cultural syncretism, transculturalization processes, and the preservation of transnational identities, especially with regards to cultural heritages of the Caribbean “Diaspora” in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere.

The Conference will also be based upon the ideological aspects of musical and dance folklore: its ethnic, gender, and class characteristics; its role in the mental representations in the region; its links to Caribbean literature; and particularly how it is reflected in different literary genres; its relationship with the region’s linguistic contexts; media’s role in spreading and socializing music as a form of musical folkloric preservation; radio, print publication, television, and Internet in their disseminating and internationalizing role; and the study of recording, editing, and dissemination technologies and their application to traditional Caribbean music and dances and their ties to glocalizaiton processes; discography and other documentation and recording processes in the digital era.

Additionally, the Conference will discuss the creation of community cultural heritages; copyright questions, both in theory as well as their treatment in national and international legislation; the impact of UNESCO’s proclamations of several Caribbean musical and dance traditions as Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity and their inclusion in the Representative List of that heritage; and specifically, what work is being done by regional nations to protect and disseminate their musical and dance folklore as a result of centuries of cultural construction and cultural interweaving of several continents (America, Europe, Africa, Asia); this includes a review of the related state strategies being enforced and budgetary investments dedicated to that end.

Other topics that may be included with regards to Caribbean musical folklore include but are not limited to:

• ·         Their styles, transformations, and innovations, and the musical and dance histories of communities, creators, and transmitting groups, as well as the life stories of archetypal figures representing these traditions.
• ·         Their instrumentation and related classification. Their impact and presence in the musical cultural of the Greater Caribbean, including academic music.
• ·         The external influences in Caribbean and Latin American music, as related to musical and dance folklore (heritage or traces from Europe, Africa, and so on). 
• ·         The relationships among traditional musical genres and the so-called generic complexes.
• ·         The choreographies and performance styles associated with Caribbean musical and dance folklore; the role of the so-called folkloric groups and ballets in their preservation and dissemination.
• ·         Their economic aspects: commercialization, record market, festivals, show business, the manufacture of instruments, and their relationship with cultural industries.
• ·         Pedagogical experiences in the transmission of knowledge about musical folklore.
• ·         The ties between local musical and dance traditions and regional and national cultures, as well as the relationship with the cultural ecosystems in which they unfold.
• ·         Terminologies, nomenclature, and conceptualizations of the traditional: lectures that assist with the conceptual clarification of meanings, approaches, shades, and relationships among frequently used concepts such as “folkloric,” “traditional,” “heritage,” “legacy,” “inheritance,” traces,” “roots,” “Identity,” “memory,” among others, and that propose new conceptual developments.

The participants in the MIC-V are challenged to cross theoretical boundaries to propose strategies to address musical folklore as a means of cultural identification and citizen education, and for its promotion through educational programs, socio-cultural entertainment, research, and other fields, based on theoretic and methodological criteria.

Finally, the conference will explore the possibilities of national and regional cooperation on the subject.  

Guidelines for proposals

Presentations in Spanish, English, and French will be accepted. Other translation needs will be evaluated according to the organizers’ ability to provide them.

Individual Proposals – The conference’s central approach is to offer presentations of high conceptual quality; comparative studies (among traditions, nations, or other variables) will take priority, as will those based on fieldwork.

Panel Proposals – The conference will also accept proposals for panels composed of up to four panelists. The panels should treat similar, related, or complementary issues and should revolve around a common main topic. Proposals should contain: the general topic of the panel, connections to other presentations, and the proposed panelists. The presentations will be evaluated individually by the Reading Committee to assure that they meet the formal requirements and are of the required quality.

The deadline for proposals is December 15, 2012. Proposals shall only be accepted by email at inec97@yahoo.es. Proposals should include: 1) The presenter’s personal and professional contact information, institutional affiliation, and a brief resume of no more than 100 words that includes research, presentations, and publications related to the topic; 2) the title and a 200 word summary of the presentation, including a brief bibliography. Acknowledgment of receipt will be sent by email, and the final decision will be sent by email no later than December 30, 2012.

Submission of Final Papers – The final papers shall be submitted in Microsoft Word or a compatible format and will include a bibliography and other references. The final document and confirmation of conference attendance shall be sent by email to inec97@yahoo.es no later than March 5, 2013.

The Organizing Committee will evaluate the submitted proposals based on their theoretical and methodological contributions, and it reserves the right to publish those that it considers most relevant to the understanding of the Conference topic. Those presenters whose proposals are selected will be provided with regulations for submission of their texts for publication. Those papers published will be edited for form and style. 

Honorary Committee – The Organizing Committee will designate an Honorary Committee for the MIC V Conference that includes well-known researchers of Caribbean musical folklore and of indisputable merit and international and national renown, individuals who are relative to the region’s culture, as well as representatives of the primary sponsors.