This national conference will bring together graduate students from the social sciences and the humanities who research ethnic, racial, and cultural boundaries. Sessions will be organized thematically to allow comparisons of boundaries from diverse regions and historical periods, as well as different disciplinary approaches. With this conference, we aim to shift attention toward the dynamics of boundaries: how they are created, imposed, defended, bridged, subverted, and transformed.

Themes include:

-Properties of boundaries: permeability, permanence, salience, etc.

-Boundary processes: exclusion, bridging, imposition, etc.

-Historical research on racial and ethnic formations over time.

-Ethnographic findings on how boundaries are negotiated in everyday life.

-Boundaries in cultural production and reception: contesting authenticity, dynamics of collaboration and competition, etc.

-Imagery of boundaries in cultural artifacts and performance

-How boundaries operate in the expression of collective identity, through cultural and linguistic practices.