Scholars to address 'Militarizing Everyday Life'

What could an examination of dispossession and alienation reveal about the contemporary human condition?

A diverse group of scholars will explore the relationship between security and insecurity, and between military conflict and modernity, in a two-day conference, "Accumulating Insecurity, Securing Accumulation: Militarizing Everyday Life," April 17-18 in 423 ILR Conference Center.

The conference is the result of several years of planning and the culmination of a three-part colloquium, including two workshops in fall 2008, said Charles Geisler, professor of development sociology, who co-organized the colloquium series with Shelley Feldman, professor of development sociology and Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program director.

"[We] worked for several years on the theme of displacement of society, considering everyday militarization and how lives have been displaced and altered," Geisler said.

Some examples of that displacement include long-term detainees in Guantanamo, refugee camps in Tanzania, a Mumbai slum and an export-processing zone in Tijuana.

The workshops have featured University Lecturers as keynote speakers, along with the involvement of 16 faculty members from across disciplines in a collaborative reading group supported by the Society for the Humanities.

"This is thinking as a family, and sharing concerns," Geisler said. "I think it's valid as well that their research issues have changed during this process."

Conference participants will look at political exclusion and alienation in the contemporary social order, how certain forms of human degradation are normalized -- such as the administration of violence and suspension of rights -- and what the effects are. The discussion also takes into account a workforce marginalized by mechanization and outsourcing, and the effects of "fear, apprehension [and] insecurity" in America following Sept. 11, 2001, Feldman said.

Renate Ferro, visiting assistant professor of art, will present a video installation, "Facing Panic," April 17 at noon as part of the conference.

University Lecturer Michael Geyer, a professor of history and faculty director of the Human Rights Program at the University of Chicago, will deliver the keynote address, "Millennial Militarism: Sovereignty Panics in the Contemporary United States," April 17 at 4:30 p.m. in Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall. Geyer studies war, peace and civil society.

"Ultimately we want to keep this conversation going both on and off campus -- the momentum is there," Feldman said.

The conference, which is primarily sponsored by the Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program, is free and open to the public. For more information, see http://www.arts.cornell.edu/fgss/events/index.html.

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Nicola Pytell