December 18, 2013
Table of Contents:
International Conference on African Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Environmental Ethics (AIKSEE 2014) Call for Abstracts
Book Announcement: Sex Tourism in Bahia: Ambiguous Entanglements By Erica Lorraine Williams

International Conference on African Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Environmental Ethics (AIKSEE 2014)

AIKSEE 2014 is hosted by The DST/NRF IKS Centre of Excellence University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa
12 to 14 June 2014

Call for Abstracts

Preamble
In 2010 UNESCO published a book titled 'Universalism and Ethical Values for the Environment'. The book critiqued contemporary approach in international institutions, nation states and academia to universalize ethics, values and general principles. It is also acutely true that today's global environmental crisis has become one of the most pressing and timely concern of our planet. As a global phenomenon, no society is totally immune against the threats and dangers, which the crisis poses to humanity and our
collective planet, the earth. However, with regard to the African experience, with its rich and diverse natural resources of flora and fauna, the dimension of the environmental crisis has a peculiar character. In spite of its minimal contribution to the global environmental crisis, Africa is the most affected due to its lack of capacity to deal with the global challenges. There is, therefore a need for a philosophical interrogation on
Africa's causes of environmental pollution, degradation, injustice and poverty of effective coping and management strategies in addressing the environmental crisis. There is also lack of viable environmental ethics that take cognizance of the peculiar dynamics of the environmental crisis in Africa.

Conference Objective
The main objective of the conference is to contribute to the consolidation of an emerging orientation towards African environmental ethics and effective environmental management which takes into consideration the cultural diversity of the continent and the world at large.

Call for Abstracts
We would like to invite papers that explore and interrogate the way African ways of knowing, knowledge production and values are embedded in environmental ethics and contribute to innovation for sustainable livelihoods. Abstracts may be submitted for oral/poster presentations. Authors of accepted abstracts will be invited to submit full
papers for peer- reviewed publication in the conference proceedings.

Conference Themes:
1. Human Rights, Environmental Governance and Justice
  • African Indigenous Knowledge Systems (AIKS) and environmental governance and justice
  • Human rights, culture and environmental governance and justice
  • Institutional aspects of environmental governance and justice
  • Human rights, AIKS and natural resource justice
2. African Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Environmental Ethics
  • African indigenous philosophies and environmental ethics
  • African indigenous ways of knowing, knowledge production, values and environmental ethics
3. Science and Technology in Environmental Ethics
  • African indigenous knowledge systems (AIKS) and Science and Technology
  • AIKS, climate change and food security
  • AIKS, intellectual property and environmental ethics
4. Rural Development and Sustainable Livelihood
  • African indigenous knowledge systems (AIKS), rural policy development and implementation
  • Land ownership, reform policies and environmental ethics for sustainable livelihood
  • Private, public and community partnership and implica��on on environmental policy and ethics
5. Communications, African Indigenous Languages and Power Relations
  • African indigenous languages and environmental ethics
  • African indigenous communica��on systems and environmental ethics
  • Gender, power and environment
  • African diaspora, knowledge transfer and environmental ethics
Timelines
  • Abstract submission deadline: 28 February 2014
  • Notification of successful abstracts: 21 March 2014
  • Submission of full paper: 25 April 2014
  • Notification of successful papers: 20 May 2014
Registration fees
US$ 150 delegates and US$ 50 (for students).
Registered delegates and students are entitled to use the conference facilities. Detailed information on the conference including payment procedures for registration will be provided on request.

Conference languages
Taking into consideration the continental nature of the conference, the abstracts and papers can be submitted in English and French.

Conference Contacts
Email: aiksee2014@gmail.com
Web: http://aiksee.wordpress.com

Enquiries (English)
Ms Sithembiso Mkwananzi
DST/NRF IKS Centre of Excellence
University of KwaZulu-Natal
Private Bag X54001, Durban,
4001, South Africa
Telephone: +27 (31) 260 1794
Email: aiksee2014@gmail.com

Enquiries (French)
Mr. David Kossi L�b�n� Agbemedi
Point Focal National Op�rationnel du Projet FEM-Volta
Direction de l'Environnement
Lom�, Togo
T�l: +228 935 96 88/234 46 13/732 64 21
Email: adavidkossilbn@yahoo.com

Conference Convener
Prof. Hassan Omari Kaya
Director
The DST/NRF IKS Centre of Excellence
University of Kwazulu-Natal
Private Bag X54001,
Durban, 4001, South Africa
Telephone: +27 (0)31 260 7237
Facsimile: +27 (0)31 160 8925
Email: kaya@ukzn.ac.za
Web: http://www.ukzn.ac.za

Technical and Scientific Committee
Click here to download the PDF.
   


Sex Tourism in Bahia: Ambiguous Entanglements
By Erica Lorraine Williams
University of Illinois Press, November 2013


AWARDS AND RECOGNITION:
Winner of the National Women's Studies Association/University of Illinois Press First Book Prize

 www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/67nsg8gz9780252037931.html

How sexism, racism, and socio-economic inequality interact in the Brazilian sex industry

Brazil has the largest national economy in Latin America and a population five times greater than any other South American country--and for nearly a decade, Brazil has surpassed Thailand as the world's premier sex tourism destination. As the first full-length ethnography of sex tourism in Brazil, this pioneering study treats sex tourism as a complex and multidimensional phenomenon that involves a range of activities and erotic connections, from sex work to romantic transnational relationships. Erica Lorraine Williams explores sex tourism in the Brazilian state of Bahia from the perspectives of foreign tourists, tourism industry workers, sex workers who engage in liaisons with foreigners, and Afro-Brazilian men and women who contend with foreigners' stereotypical assumptions about their licentiousness.

In her analysis, Williams argues that the cultural and sexual economies of tourism are inextricably linked in the Bahian capital city of Salvador. She shows how the Bahian state strategically exploits the touristic desire for exotic culture by appropriating an eroticized blackness and commodifying the Afro-Brazilian culture in order to sell Bahia to foreign travelers. Drawing on ethnographic research and in-depth interviews, Sex Tourism in Bahia: Ambiguous Entanglements combines historical, sociological, anthropological, cultural-studies, and feminist perspectives to demonstrate how sexism, racism, and socioeconomic inequality interact in the context of tourism in Bahia.

"This ambitious, fascinating ethnography clearly articulates how sex tourism in Bahia, Brazil, depends on the sexualized and racialized bodies of people of African descent. Erica Lorraine Williams makes a significant contribution by examining how sex tourism is both a racial and sexual project and how race is central to the commodification of culture."--Amalia L. Cabezas, author of Economies of Desire: Sex and Tourism in Cuba and the Dominican Republic

Erica Lorraine Williams is an assistant professor of anthropology at Spelman College.
 http://faculty.spelman.edu/ericawilliams/
   

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