Call for Participants
The New School for Social Research
2012 Anthropology Conference: “Rethinking Inheritance”
April 28th, 2012
The Theme: Inheritance has typically been conceived as a passive process of reception. Yet, inheritance also implies claims to something. Claiming inheritance and claiming selves, communities, nations and other units as heirs is an active practice. How can we better conceptualize the labor involved in establishing inheritance? How are inheritances rejected, resisted, renewed, reformed, or renegotiated? How are identity and belonging implicated in inheritance?
As we begin to think of inheritance in multiple registers, we hope to challenge its supposed passivity and expand its conceptualization. What does it mean to inherit a citizenship, a nationality, a legal framework, or an ethnicity, and what are the modes for these inheritances? How can inheritance be employed to think through temporal relationships of historical consciousness, collective memory, and their narration? We also hope to think together about how active inheritance relates to materialities and economies, financial institutions, and the act of making claims on properties, whether virtual or physical. Similarly, we can consider inheritance in terms of spaces and boundaries, wondering how territories are passed down and how borders are maintained.