Call for Papers: Fourth Global South Graduate Student Conference on Global Ethnographies
Friday, February 14, 2025 11:59 PM EST
Online Location
Call for Papers
Global South Research Hub at
4th Annual Global South Graduate Student Conference
Virtual Conference: May 1-2, 2025
Conference Theme: Global Ethnographies
Deadline for submission of abstracts: February 14, 2025
Deadline for submission of full papers for the best student paper award: March 21, 2025
The Global South Research Collective Hub, situated within the Center for Social Science Research (CSSR) at George Mason University, is organizing its fourth Global South Graduate Student Conference, scheduled for Thursday, May 1st, 2025, and Friday, May 2nd, 2025, to be held online via Zoom.
The theme for this year’s conference is Global Ethnographies.
Ethnography traditionally referred to a form of empirical investigation to understand different cultures and societies, ethnographic fieldwork being a central part of the discipline of anthropology. From having a contested past imbued with problems of subjectivity and power dynamics with a colonialist attitude to the study of ‘others’ by Western anthropologists in ‘primitive’ societies, ethnography shifted its terrain to the study of Western societies by Western scholars. Ethnography finally found its way to sociology through the Chicago School’s interest in analyzing human social life in urban locales to comprehend different patterns of life in the city. Again, globalization encompasses all the economic, social, political, and cultural processes that impact the interconnectedness between developed and developing societies against the backdrop of broader social structures of present-day neoliberalism and global capitalism. In this context, how do ethnographic sites encounter the processes of globalization to orchestrate new kinds of place-making and lead to the creation of new connections? How do global ethnographies contribute to the transcendence of boundaries and the imagination of new futures? What implications might they have in transforming politics by creating movements and counter-movements across the globe? How can global ethnographies account for the perpetuation or disruption of contemporary forms of inequalities and exclusions? What are the global imperatives of ethnographic endeavors that seek to unsettle universal categorizations of identities and experiences?
We invite abstract submissions from current graduate students at any stage of their study, across disciplines within the humanities and social sciences, from any university worldwide by the deadline of 11:59 p.m. ET on February 14, 2025. We will notify you about acceptance by February 21, 2025.
We also invite draft papers from students with accepted abstracts to be submitted for the best student paper awards competition by the deadline of 11.59 pm ET on March 21, 2025. The award will carry a cash prize of $300 for the winner and $200 for the runner-up, along with a certificate.
Note: Paper submission is only for the award and is not a requirement for the conference. All students with accepted abstracts will be invited to make conference presentations. The final conference program schedule will be released by the end of March.
Please submit a 250-word abstract with your name and academic affiliation by February 14, 2025, using the link below. Presentations should be given in English and should not exceed 15 minutes.
Registration Cost: No fee.
If you have questions about the conference, please reach out to the organizing committee here: cssr@gmu.edu
Link for submission of abstracts: Abstract Submission Form
For more information, please visit the website: Global South Hub
Hosted by Global South Research Collective Hub @ Center for Social Science Research (CSSR).
