Urbanities,
Vol. 4
·
No 2
·
November 2014
© 2014
Urbanities
116
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Annual Conference of the
Commission on Urban
Anthropology
The Global Financial Crisis and the
Moral Economy: Local Impacts and
Opportunities
Venue & Date
: Brooklyn College, CUNY
Brooklyn, New York, June 18-20, 2015
Sponsors
Brooklyn College of The City University
of New York
International Education Program, Brooklyn
College CUNY
CUNY Academy of Humanities and
Sciences
Feliks Gross Seminar on Visual and Urban
Ethnography
General Convenors
Jerome Krase, Brooklyn College CUNY
(USA)
Judith N. Desena, St. Johns University
(USA)
Conference Scientific Committee
Jerry Krase, Brooklyn College CUNY
(USA)
Judith N. Desena, St Johns University
(USA)
Italo Pardo, University of Kent (UK)
Giuliana B. Prato, University of Kent (UK)
Michel Rautenberg, Centre Max Weber,
Université Jean Monnet, St Etienne
(France)
Manos Spyridakis, University of
Peloponnese, Corinth (Greece)
Conference Outline
Both individuals and groups in local urban
settings have been impacted by global
economic forces, international regulations,
and flows of capital and people. The global
financial crisis has also created scenarios
that directly bear on urban research
methods and theory. For example, in
Europe, the local effects of the crisis have
been exacerbated by the imposition of the
Maastricht parameters among most of the
countries that have adopted the Euro.
There as elsewhere, such as in the USA,
the crisis has dramatically impacted on
neighbourhoods, provoking catastrophic
housing and job losses and, as a by-
product, setting in motion dynamic urban
social processes such as the relatively
peaceful “Occupy Wall Street” movement
as well as bloody street demonstrations in
Greece.
By and large, governments have failed to
constructively
meet
the
complex
challenges posed by these global
phenomena, thus raising critical issues of
both legitimacy and legitimation. The
current crisis has apparently established
the supremacy of economics over politics.
Comparative ethnographic analyses can
document in detail local effects of this
crisis such as unemployment, informal
employment, foreclosures, homelessness,
bankruptcy, suicide and crime. It can also
bring to light how local cultures are coping
with this situation.
Urban Anthropologists and other Social
Scientists have studied in depth the
empirical realities of the widening gap
between the distribution of rights and
access to them, and the attendant processes
of societal inclusion and exclusion. A
major task of this Conference will be to
reflect on how this affects ordinary people.
Urban ethnographers have demonstrated
the moral and cultural complexity of
individual action, highlighting the social
value of individual and local community
action.
Through ethnographically-based analyses,
this Conference will bring together 20 to
30 scholars to explore these complex
