Cfp: SIAC 2025 in Matera, Italy: Afro-descendant and Caribbean women negotiating hope and desire
Dear colleagues,
With apologies for cross-posting, Elena Zapponi and I are pleased to circulate the following call for contributions to our panel at this year's meeting of the Italian Society of Cultural Anthropology:
Call me =E2=80=9Cmamacita=E2=80=9D: Afro-descendant and Caribbean women neg= otiating hope and desire
Panel 32 / Quinto Convegno Nazionale SIAC =E2=80=9CSPERARE / DISPERARE / DE= SIDERARE=E2=80=9D
Matera, 25-27 settembre 2025
Proponenti: Elena Zapponi (Universit=C3=A0 Ca=E2=80=99 Foscari di Venezia),= Elise Hjalmarson (University of California, Berkeley)
Abstract
This panel explores the intersections of desire, hope and despair in the experiences of Latin American and Caribbean women, particularly those who are Afro-descendant, within transnational economies of intimacy. Legacies of slavery and the sugarcane economy have historically framed Caribbean and Brazilian women as desirable and consumable, perpetuating colonial stereotypes that continue to shape women=E2=80=99s representations and soci= al positioning. Constructing women as static objects of desire rather than actively desiring subjects, such racialized and gendered imaginaries infiltrate intimate relationships, orient migration trajectories and exacerbate economic precarity, compelling women to respond. Rather than reproducing narratives of exoticization, this panel examines how women navigate racialized and gendered constraints, self-representing and actively subverting, refining or reclaiming the mamacita figure =E2=80=93 a male-constructed, reductive and sexualized image =E2=80=93 in some cases, t= urning it into a tool of agentic self-definition. We invite contributions that engage with these themes, bridging historical legacies with contemporary configurations of desire. By foregrounding women=E2=80=99s lived experience= s, this panel challenges deterministic accounts of sexual tourism and hypersexualization, instead offering a nuanced understanding of how hope and desire are negotiated across intersecting differences of class, gender, status and borders.
Keywords: Desire, Hope, Caribbean, Women, Racialized Sexualities
Lingue accettate: Italiano / English / Fran=C3=A7ais / Espa=C3=B1ol
Kindly send your proposed abstract (max 1500 characters) to elena.zapponi@unive.it and elisehjal@berkeley.edu by May 23.
https://www.siacantropologia.it/panel-32-siac-2025/
A presto,
Elena Zapponi and Elise Hjalmarson
