Call for Papers: The Paradoxes of Race, Law and Inequality in US – UC Irvine

The Law & Society Review and the Center for Law, Society and Culture at the University of California, Irvine Law School will host a conference entitled The Paradoxes of Race, Law and Inequality, in May 2008. To be considered for participation, submit your paper title with an abstract and a c.v. by October 31, 2007. Details after the jump.

CALL FOR PAPERS: SPRING 2008 CONFERENCE
CO-SPONSORED BY LAW & SOCIETY REVIEW AND
THE CENTER FOR LAW, SOCIETY AND CULTURE
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE

THE PARADOXES OF RACE, LAW AND INEQUALITY IN THE UNITED STATES

Conference Theme: Law has played a role in remedying and exacerbating
racial and ethnic inequality in a variety of social and historical
contexts. In the case of the United Sates, the Civil Rights Movement of
the 1950’s and 1960’s reinvigorated socio-legal scholarship and raised new
questions about the place of law in social, political, economic and
cultural life. Today, scholars approach the analysis of race, law and
inequality in the United Sates in a very different socio-political climate
than that of the 1960s. There have been dramatic changes in immigration
law in the 1990s, debates over even more restrictive immigration policies
in the 2000s; transformative changes in labor markets within the United
States and overseas; skyrocketing concerns over security threats from
outside and within the United States, increased use of racial profiling,
new forms of incarceration, and fears of gang warfare. In the face of
these developments, theories and methodologies have diversified.

The paradoxes of race, law and inequality are at least as profound as they
were at the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. The United States is
one site where the salience of race to social disparities has increased
even as law has become a less robust avenue of redress. The broad
question before us is: what role can scholars play in understanding the
landscape where race, ethnicity, inequality, and law intersect?

In January 2007, Law & Society Review Editor Carroll Seron, and Associate
Editors Jeannine Bell, Laura Gómez, Ruth Peterson, and Jonathan Simon and
Susan Coutin the Director of the Center for Law, Society and Culture at
the University of California Irvine convened a workshop to plan a
conference and a symposium of the Review on the topic of race, law, and
inequality in the United States. Kitty Calavita and David Goldberg served
as commentators at this workshop. Students and faculty from across the
campus were also in attendance. After a day of brainstorming, a series of
cross-cutting themes emerged.

To explore these themes in greater depth, a conference will be held at UCI
in spring 2008 and a special symposium of the Review will follow in 2009.
The conference will be co-sponsored by Law & Society Review and the Center
for Law, Society and Culture at UCI. We invite paper submissions on the
conference themes. Following the conference, papers that are presented may
also be submitted for inclusion in the symposium. All articles will go
through the standard peer review process of Law & Society Review.

Procedures for submission of a paper: To be considered for participation,
please submit your paper title with an abstract and a c.v. by October 31,
2007. Participants will be selected by November 30, 2007. We anticipate
covering the travel and other expenses of participants at the conference.
All papers should be submitted to paradox@uci.edu.

Inquiries: You may submit inquiries to either Carroll Seron at
seron@uci.edu or Susan Coutin at scoutin@uci.edu. The Associate Editors of
Law & Society Review and the Advisory Board of the Center for Law, Society
and Culture will continue to play an active role in the development of the
conference and the selection of participants.

Date of conference: We anticipate that the conference, to be held at the
University of California, Irvine, will be May 2-3, 2008.

Proposed topics

What is the most productive way to describe race without reifying it?

How have racialized inequalities in the United States been reinforced or
exacerbated in recent decades?

How do discursive shifts in crime policy and the unprecedented expansion
of imprisonment since the 1960s affect investments in racialized forms of
governance?

How have institutionalized inequalities been sharpened even as few admit
to being racist?

What are the global impacts of American racial policies and practices?