LAMACS

A Distinguished Visiting Researcher in Residence Public Seminar

THURSDAY NOVEMBER 17
Arts 509
5:30
70 Laurier Ave. West

Professor Fethi Mansouri
Director, Centre for Citizenship and Globalisation Deakin University, Australia

Presented by The Audiovisual Media Lab for the study of Cultures and Societies (LAMACS) and Laboratory of African and Diasporic Studies (LEAD) University of Ottawa, Canada

Transnational ties and their consequent configurations for citizenship and intercultural relations are shaping the way new social and political relationships are being constructed within the nation state. This lecture will examine our understanding of the interrelationship between transnational practices and local integration among migrants in the west. It will explore whether an upholding of transnational ties can in some cases work against developing a sense of connection to one’s local environment. It will also examine the complex relationship between transnational practices and related cultural identities on the one hand and issues of national belonging and active citizenship outcomes on the other. In doing so, the seminar will reflect on whether transnationalism in general can be posited as a potential conduit toward local integration, despite the obvious tensions relating to social inequality among migrant communities in western émigré societies.

Biography
Professor Fethi Mansouri, Director of the Centre for Citizenship and Globalisation, holds a Chair in Migration and Intercultural Relations, School of International and Political Studies, Deakin University. He is the author of several publications that deal with questions of diaspora and identity including Islam and Political Violence: Muslim Diaspora and Radicalism in the West, (2007). His 2004 book Lives in Limbo: Lives in Limbo: Voices of Refugees under Temporary Protection was short-listed for the 2004 Human Rights Medals and Awards.

Sponsored by: The Faculty of Arts
The Office of Vice-President Research

For more information email:
Lamacs@uOttawa.ca
(613) 562-5800 ext. 2985
(seats are limited RSVP)

Reframing multiculturalism for the 21st century’s realities

Monday 21 November – Tuesday 22 November 2011
University of Ottawa, Canada

Citizens of multicultural nations often struggle to realize and establish an identity that bridges both their complex past with the uniqueness of their multiple cultural connections as well as their (trans)national belongings. Indeed, in many cases, multiculturalism, as a political structure based on institutionalizing social justice and social equality in many nations is being challenged, not merely because such politics for equality and social justice have failed to establish their main objectives, but because the ideal of such politics must not disregard the human capacity to resist, negotiate or embrace.

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Articulations of memory in cinemas

Friday 02 September – Saturday 03 September 2011
University of Ottawa, Canada

Download the Programme PDF or the timetable in French or English.

Representations of memory are linked with the questions of the representations of identity and identity structures, because they not only shed light on the past but also reflect on the actual constructions of the past. In our multicultural societies, audio-visual representations of memory seem to question individual identities as far as collective ones.

This bilingual workshop will include professors from Africa, North America and Australia who are specialists in the questions of memory in black and African cinemas. We will be pleased to welcome three filmmakers (Martine Chartrand, Mariette Monpierre, Donald McWilliams), Professor V.Y.M Mudimbe (Duke University) and Professor G. Lang (University of Ottawa) as Keynote Speakers.

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Benoît Awazi Mbambi Kungua is Doctor in philosophy. His research focuses on the search of an ethic leadership for “Another Africa”. He is the President of the Centre de recherches pluridisciplinaires sur les Communautés d’Afrique noire et des diasporas (CERCLECAD), in Ottawa, Canada. He published “De la postcolonie à la mondialisation néolibérale. Radioscopie éthique de la crise négro-africaine”, Harmattan Editions, Paris.

This first five year term of the lab has been devoted to the three philosophic pillars of AMLAC&S: (1) the research and the development of questions linked to identity representations and multicultural societies; (2) a partnership development on the national and international level and (3) training in proximity and providing open minded experiences.

In celebration of five years of operations we have produced a quinquennial report that explores the numerous achievements and future projects that the lab has been involved with.

You can get your own copy of the report in print (email us if you wish to receive a copy), PDF or alternatively view it online.

The Promised Land Project: Why are Americans Interested in African Canadians of the Mid-Nineteenth Century?

We welcome one and all to our lectures — pull up a chair, indulge your mind, speak your piece. The presentation, in French will lasts 30 minutes, and will be followed by a bilingual question-and-answer period.

The Underground Railroad: This presentation stems from a SSHRC-funded project for which Dr. de B’béri is principal investigator. The project is entitled “The Promised Land: The Freedom Experience of Blacks in Chatham and Dawn Settlements”, and focuses on Canada’s “historical amnesia” vis-à-vis the contributions of nineteenth-century black pioneers in Chatham-Kent, Ontario, and the role a multicultural group of blacks, whites, and First Peoples played to end slavery and to fight for civil rights in Canada, the United States and abroad.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011 – 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m.

Cascades Salon, Canadian Museum of Civilization For more information, please contact John Willis: john.willis [at] civilization.ca

The Conversation Series is a project that focuses on creating a dialogue with filmmakers, researchers, and teachers who examine the world through a cultural perspective. More specifically, the project brings to the surface voices and perspectives that are normally held to the margins of national and cultural grand narratives.

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The purpose of this project is to create a comparative study aiming at understanding how racial and cultural identities are articulated in the independent cinemas of Canada, South Africa, and Australia. Given our global contemporary context of new identity practices that are fertile with crisis, we are exploring what can be learned from a study of these specific representations.

The three main objectives of this research are:

1. to establish a corpus of thirty films from independent cinemas of the multiracial and multicultural countries of Canada, South Africa, and Australia
2. to gain an understanding of the significant factors representing identity practices of center and peripheral groups within the three target countries. This will be achieved by analyzing the epistemological markers of the films as well as interviewing ten of the filmmakers
3. to compare historical and ideological foundations represented in these films through their articulations of identity and racial identity practices.

This project is financed by SSHRC from 2007 until 2010.

Memory is a slippery concept. When one considers how culture, history, and society overlap and intertwine, memory becomes a complex of the relations between these elements. If we consider the affects of global, transnational, and trans-disciplinary landscapes, add in the various forms of production, distribution, exhibition and consumption, the movement of memory becomes incredibly dynamic and at times, overwhelming.

We can see how this occurs within the redefinition and re-articulation of macro/micro cultural identities and citizenship within, across, and beyond the traditional, canonist conceptions of continent, nation, geopolitical space, and sociocultural identity (ethnicity, race, gender, social class, sexual orientation, etc.).

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The Promised Land Project (PLP) is a multidisciplinary research project that focuses on the study the role and evolution of the early black settlements in the Chatham-Kent area, whose role has been uncelebrated and contributions neglected.

The description of such communities as the “final stop on the underground railroad” points to a historical ideology suggesting that this extraordinary heritage is simply an ending rather than the birthplace of something significant and unique. It is not widely known that when Canada became a country in 1867, the sixth-largest population group was people of African descent. The Canadian national history still terms these citizens as “fugitive slaves” disregarding their efforts towards the fight to end slavery in the United States, on the implementation of civil rights in modern Canada, and on the social, cultural and economic development of this region.The overall objectives of this project are:

1. to protect primary historical materials
2. to make these materials publicly accessible
3. to support new academic research and teaching
4. to promote community development in this historic region of Canada
5. to use the new knowledge generated by the project to frame current discussions of ethnoracial identity, social justice, migration and Canadian multiculturalism

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