"Race and Rurality in the Global Economy" Workshop

The conference will bring to the fore-front the status of indigenous peoples, blacks and other people of color and center them in a dialogue investigating the outcomes of development in its various effects, namely culturally, economically, ecologically, and politically. It will advocate a critical studies approach to development that shifts the focus from modernization mantras impelling change from agrarian to industrial status, to probe instead into the various relational fields generating hybrid urban-rural spaces that problematize typical narratives of development. This means critically examining the constitution of spaces through the optics of race, land and rurality; questioning the nature of the development practices and rhetorical promises of development; understanding the racializing production of hi/stories (human identity stories) and the fissures they provoke within imaginations of progress; and critically tracking the haunted quest for sustainability, resilience in the management of global spaces. This intervention will thus enable a better engagement with the vital issues related to the wellbeing of diverse populations of color facing the potentially existential threats from globalization and climate change.