As organizer of the conference “Nomadism and Mobile Ways of Life in the Americas”, that will take place at the Vienna Urania from Wednesday 15th to Friday 17th of February 2012, the Forschungsgesellschaft für den kontinentalamerikanischen und karibischen Raum [Society for the Study of Continental America and the Caribbean] of the KonaK Vienna in cooperation with the Asociación de Historiadores Latinoamericanos y del Caribe [Association of Latin American and Caribbean Historians] invites scholars to submit contributions in this connection. The conference wants to serve as a platform for the international exchange between scholars with regional focus on North/Cen¬tral/South America, Caribbean and/or the Atlantic World, who occupy themselves with the phenomena nomads, nomadism and mobile ways of life in a wider sense. Considering recent global developments (e.g. flows of refugees from zones of uprising and war in Northern Africa and the Middle East, or the expulsion of Rom by the French government), we think that thorough dealing with the historical and current situation in the Americas and the Atlantic area is urgently necessary.

The term nomadism shall be interpreted in a broad sense and includes its various forms, taking into account the change of time. We especially see ties to research on autochthonous, religious and ethnic minorities, gauchos/cowboys/vaque(i)ros/huasos/chinas, merchants, smugglers, pirates, bandits, ship crews, fugitive slave catchers, slave hunters, bandeirantes, vagabonds, squatters, landless, soldiers, guerilleros (combatants), rebels, slaves, forced laborers, maroons, scientists, explorers, diplomats, missionaries, gold prospectors (pork knockers), prostitutes, families, children, women, frontier, proto-states, military dictatorships and seas. In doing so, different perspectives should be chosen. In all reflections the role of seas and oceans should not be underestimated, for they have shaped specific forms of nomadism. How broad the term nomadism has to be defined in connection with the Americas and the Atlantic World – we think about the fluent transition to refugees and migrants – and how deep an impact the Neolithic Revolution has made in this connection will be pointed out in the course of the conference. Further core themes will be the analysis of interactions between nomads and resident population, of experiments of social disciplining of (allegedly) nomad autochthonous peoples that went as far as intentional genocide, as well as nomadism as a consequence of colonial power, slavery and/or ecological catastrophes. This will ask for a discussion about the motives and “voluntariness” or “involuntariness” of mobile ways of life in the area of tension between state and capitalism and shall bring new insights for the research of nomadism.

The conference is interdisciplinary and without restriction concerning the epoch. We invite presentations of ongoing or completed research works from the disciplines anthropology, archeology, ethnology, history, literature, political science, law, linguistics, economy, geography and sociology in colonial and postcolonial contexts and especially encourage junior scientists to participate. On the basis of case studies from different areas of the Americas and the Atlantic regional comparisons should be made possible. We will favor proposals that will treat less known regions and countries.