WORLDS

OF

CULTURE

The Department of Sociology at Northwestern University is proud to be the host of the 2024 Chicago Ethnography Conference. The conference will be held in person on Saturday, March 30, 2024. This year’s theme is “Worlds of Culture.” Ethnography offers a unique lens into everyday life around the world by interpreting the constant circulation of bodies, objects, and ideas through global networks. In addition to the topics listed above, students are encouraged to submit ethnographic research that interrogates the intricate dimensions of group culture within both local and global fields.

Students in all academic disciplines are invited to present their original ethnographic research. We take a broad view of ethnographic research. Papers can be based on a variety of ethnographic methods, including but not limited to: field observation, in-depth interviews, focus group interviews, autoethnography, visual ethnography, and other forms of qualitative research. Papers in all substantive areas are welcome. In the past, presentation topics have included culture, class, crime, education, ethnicity, gender, family, globalization, health and illness, immigration, medicine, methodology,
performance ethnography, race, religion, sexualities, social movements, technology, urban poverty, and work and employment.

This year, we are lucky to have Dr. Rhacel Parreñas (Princeton University) and Dr. Kimberly Hoang (University of Chicago) join us as our keynote speakers. Below is information regarding our speakers and their talk.

SUBMIT BY: FEB 26

MEET OUR KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Dr. Rhacel Parreñas

Rhacel Salazar Parreñas teaches sociology and gender and sexuality studies at Princeton University, where she is the Doris Stevens Professor in Women’s Studies. She is the author of the ethnographic study Unfree: Migrant Domestic Work in Arab States (Stanford, 2022), which received the 2023 Distinguished Book Award from the American Sociological Association. Her most recent work is the forthcoming book The Trafficker Next Door: How Domestic Employers Exploit Forced Labor (Norton).

Title of Talk - Transnational Feminist Ethnography

This talk addresses the problem of gender essentialism in ethnography. Drawing on transnational feminism, Dr. Parreñas will make the case for the discovery of difference with a sensitivity to shared experiences in our examination of gender in globalization. With avoiding universalism as a goal, she addresses the limits of relying on standpoint feminist theory or reflexivity (which shades difference with the politics of location). Her discussion draws from her research on hostesses in Japan and domestic workers in the United Arab Emirates.

Dr. Kimberly Hoang

Kimberly Kay Hoang is Professor of Sociology and the College and the Director of Global Studies at the University of Chicago. Prof. Hoang is the author of two books Spiderweb Capitalism: How Global Elites Exploit Frontier Markets (Princeton University Press 2022) and Dealing in Desire: Asian Ascendancy, Western Decline, and the Hidden Currencies of Global Sex Work (University of California Press 2015). She received the 2020 Lewis A Coser Award from the American Sociological Association Section on Sociological Theory— a mid-career award for Theoretical Agenda Setting. Her books and articles have been awarded over 26 prizes from several different professional associations including the Association of American Publishers, the American Sociological Association, National Women Studies Association, Association for Asian Studies, and the Society for the Study of Social Problems. In addition to her research, she is the winner of the 2018 Llewellyn John and Harriet Manchester Quantrell Teaching at the University of Chicago.

Title of Talk - Spiderweb Capitalism: How Global Elites Exploit Frontier Markets

In 2015, the anonymous leak of the Panama Papers brought to light millions of financial and legal documents exposing how the superrich hide their money using complex webs of offshore vehicles. Spiderweb Capitalism takes you inside this shadow economy, uncovering the mechanics behind the invisible, mundane networks of lawyers, accountants, company secretaries, and fixers who facilitate the illicit movement of wealth across borders and around the globe. Drawing on ethnography and hundreds of in-depth interviews with private wealth managers, fund managers, entrepreneurs, C-suite executives, bankers, auditors, and other financial professionals this lecture traces the flow of capital from offshore funds in places like the Cayman Islands, Samoa, and Panama to special-purpose vehicles and holding companies in Singapore and Hong Kong, and how it finds its way into risky markets onshore in Vietnam and Myanmar. Based on the book published in 2022, this lecture reveals the strategies behind spiderweb capitalism and examines the moral dilemmas of making money in legal, financial, and political gray zones. Spiderweb Capitalism sheds critical light on how global elites capitalize on risky frontier markets and deepens our understanding of the paradoxical ways in which global economic growth is sustained through states where the line separating the legal from the corrupt is not always clear.