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The conference 'Norms in the Margins and Margins of the Norm, The Social Construction of Illegality' proposes to reflect on the relations between the dynamics of criminalization and the construction of State powers, on the one hand, and on criminal strategies &#8211; legal or not &#8211;, moral economies in the illegal spheres, the ploys and tactics of &#8220;deviant&#8221; groups on the other hand. Law and the informal norms tied to its various uses are viewed as processes seized upon and retailored by actors for their own purposes and strategies, in a context where penal policies commanding conformity in collective behavior are not necessarily aimed at eliminating crime and illegalism (Foucault), but essentially broaden the areas of intersection and interaction between State coercion, criminal trajectories, and the management of norms. These considerations suggest various potential tracks for analysis. How do State and supra-national criminalization activities construct landscapes of illegality? How are the legal and illegal sides of global capitalism&#8217;s underground economies intertwined? What are the ethical justifications given for the legal and illegal constructions? How are norms inhabited, legitimized and challenged in the marginal spheres of today&#8217;s illegal and criminal worlds? How are the legality and legitimacy of the illegality-producing societal spheres maintained and perpetuated? Another area of inquiry would bear on our practice as researchers. How can we, as researchers, circulate in the spaces created by penal policies, between the analysis of state-led coercive processes and the observation of criminal trajectories? What ethical, political and epistemological issues are raised by investigation of the illegal and criminal spheres? Faced with objects of this sort, what positions and reflexive policies can research advance?Studies will therefore pertain both to the production of the categories of illegality and to the production of ethical categories in the underworld, while stressing the intertwining and ambiguous entanglements of legal and illegal networks and creation of moral economies.Norms and their codification are central to the organization of human societies. From its inception, sociology has construed the creation of norms and the embeddedness of law in social practices as an object of study, as illustrated by the work of Emile Durkheim. Anthropologists, historians, and philosophers have pointed out the processes at work in the production, the implementation and the transformations of law, as well as the diverse appropriations of rules in contexts of legal pluralism.The international conference &#8220;Norms in the Margins and Margins of the Norm&#8221; will scrutinize relations to norms and to the law as a process of negotiation in line with globalization. Within the current neoliberal configuration of the world, powerful multinational corporations and supra- and international institutions impinge on the role of States, producing blurred spaces where informal norms thrive. The intricate fabric that shapes and reshapes norms involves actors in quest for profit at the interfaces left open by legislative gaps. In contemporary societies, then, the codification of norms has reached a hitherto unknown degree of complexity and scope. Yet, never before has social and technical upheaval produced such a proliferation of norms on the fringes of legality.Studies on the production of illegality in the social sciences are probably best known when bearing on the macroeconomics of transnational trafficking and war economies, in&#160;contexts of economic liberalization, of &#8220;criminalization of the state&#8221; and of growing synergy between politics and business through both legal and illegal networks. Most media attention focuses on drugs and arms, which are only the most visible elements in the multi-trafficking system structured around transnational hubs.Without denying the relevance of &#8220;macro&#8221;, totalizing and generalizing approaches, the present colloquium aims at articulating these with an approach to illegality viewed &#8220;from&#160;below&#8221;. Seminal landmarks in this perspective include the Chicago school of urban sociology, which theorized the empirical approach to &#8220;deviance&#8221;, gangs, rackets, and corruption (with R. E. Park and W. F. Whyte) as well as research based on the notion of the &#8220;moral economy&#8221; (Thompson) and aimed at developing an anthropology of ethics.Studies will therefore pertain both to the production of the categories of illegality and to the production of ethical categories in the underworld, while stressing the intertwining and ambiguous entanglements of legal and illegal networks in so many fields. Analysis will articulate the political construction of criminality by States and supra- and international agencies on the one hand, with the social and geographic organization of crime and the development of criminal habitus, as well as everyday practices and poetic heroizing (Herzfeld) in informal and illegal circles, on the other hand.The above considerations suggest various potential tracks for analysis. How do State and supra-national criminalization activities construct landscapes of illegality? How are the legal and illegal sides of global capitalism&#8217;s underground economies intertwined? What are the ethical justifications given for the legal and illegal constructions? How are norms inhabited, legitimized and challenged in the marginal spheres of today&#8217;s illegal and criminal worlds? How are the legality and legitimacy of the illegality-producing societal spheres maintained and perpetuated? Another area of inquiry would bear on our practice as researchers. How can we, as researchers, circulate in the spaces created by penal policies, between the analysis of state-led coercive processes and the observation of criminal trajectories? What ethical, political and epistemological issues are raised by investigation of the illegal and criminal spheres? Faced with objects of this sort, what positions and reflexive policies can research advance?This conference therefore proposes to reflect on the relations between the dynamics of criminalization and the construction of State powers, on the one hand, and on criminal strategies &#8211; legal or not &#8211;, moral economies in the illegal spheres, the ploys and tactics of &#8220;deviant&#8221; groups on the other hand. Law and the informal norms tied to its various uses are viewed as processes seized upon and retailored by actors for their own purposes and strategies, in a context where penal policies commanding conformity in collective behavior are not necessarily aimed at eliminating crime and illegalism (Foucault), but essentially broaden the areas of intersection and interaction between State coercion, criminal trajectories, and the management of norms.http://illegality.africamuseum.bePreliminary programmeOctober 25th , 2012 - Royal Museum for Central Africa (Historical Ballroom, Colonial Palace)Plenary session8h45-9h30: Registration and welcome buffet9h30-9h40: Welcome address by the director general of the Royal Museum for Central Africa, Guido Gryseels9h45-9h55: Address by Cristiana Panella (Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren, Belgium)9h55-10h40: Opening lecture:&#160; Michael Herzfeld (Harvard University, Cambridge, USA)10h40-11h10: Coffee break11h10-11h40: Keynote address: B&#233;atrice Hibou (Centre for International Studies and Research, Paris, France) theme: Neo-liberalism, norms and the State11h40-12h30: Debate with the two speakers12h30-14h00: Lunch14h00-14h30: Philippe Bourgois (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA) theme: Drugs networks14h30-15h00: Nancy Scheper-Hughes (University of California, Berkeley, USA) theme: International traffic of human organs15h00-15h30: Debate15h30-16h00: Coffee break16h00-16h30: Ralph Austen (University of Chicago, Chicago, USA)&#160;theme: The representation of deviance in literature16h30-17h00: Danielle de Lame (Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren, Belgium)&#160;theme: Art in the City: normative representations in Nairobi17h00-17h30: Debate18h00-19h00: (Guided) tour: renovation project Royal Museum for Central Africa19h00: Walking dinnerOctober 26,th&#160; 2012 - Free University Brussels (Institute of Sociology)Panels8h45-9h00: Welcome coffee and opening address by Pierre Petit (Free University Brussels, Brussels, Belgium)9h00-9h30: Opening lecture by Jean-Fran&#231;ois Bayart (Centre for International Studies and Research, Paris, France)9h30-9h45: questions9h45-10h00: Coffee break10h00-12h00: PanelsPanel 1: The Ethics of IllegalityPanel organizer: Kedron Thomas (Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, USA)Panelists:John Osburg (University of Rochester, USA), The Hidden Rules of Officialdom: Elite Social Networks and the Moral Economy of Corruption in Contemporary ChinaLaurens Bakker (Radboud University, The Netherlands), Illegality for the General Good? Social Responsibility among Regional Militias in IndonesiaKedron Thomas (Washington University in St. Louis, USA),The Ethics of Informal Enterprise: Security, the State, and Indigenous Citizenship in Post-Conflict GuatemalaDennis Rodgers (University of Manchester, UK), The Moral Economy of Murder: From &#8216;Bare Life&#8217; to &#8216;Bare Death&#8217; in Gangland NicaraguaYi-Chieh Jessica Lin (National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan), Somewhere Over the Rainbow: The Mediascape of Military Villages in Contemporary TaiwanDiscussant: Janet Roitman (New School for Social Research, USA)Panel 2Panel organizer: Mike Rowlands (University College London, UK)Panel in progressPanel 3: Extra-Legal Practices in Socialist and Postsocialist StatesPanel organizers: Filippo Zerilli (University of Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy) and Alan Smart (University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada).Panelists:Jane Guyer (Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA), Gaps, innovations and casuistic reasoning in currency dynamics in the roaring &#8216;90s: Nigeria, eastern Europe and their connections.Ellen Hertz and Maryl&#232;ne Lieber (University of Neuch&#226;tel, Neuch&#226;tel, Switzerland), Hotline fever (rexian re): Technologies of selving and rights consciousness in transnational Chinese enterprises.Alan Smart (University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada), Extralegality in China: Socialist norms, capitalist practices and the consequences of corruption.Janine Wedel (George Mason University, Fairfax, USA), Financial Legerdemain: What the extra-legal practices of post-communist Russia reveal about Wall Street and crises today.Filippo Zerilli (University of Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy), Building the rule of law through extra-legal practices: Ethnographic explorations within the international legal cooperation in post-socialist Europe.Panel 4: Illegality and order in contemporary youth practices and mobilizationsPanel organizers: Armando Cutolo (University of Siena, Siena, Italy) et Stefano Boni (University of Modena e Reggio Emilia, Modena &#38; Reggio Emilia, Italy)Panelists:Stefano Barone (University of Siena, Siena, Italy), Revolution and constituent power in Tunisia: from informality to communitasMoussa Fofana (University of Bouak&#233;-Abidjan, Ivory Coast), Ill&#233;galit&#233; et parcours d&#8217;insertion sociale pour jeunes ex-rebelles en C&#244;te d&#8217;IvoireKojo Sebastian Amanor (Institute of African Studies/University of Ghana, Ghana), Legality, livelihoods and youth in the Ghanaian forest sectorArmando Cutolo (University of Siena, Siena, Italy), Youth, illegality and moral economies at La Sorbonne, AbidjanStefano Boni (University of Modena e Reggio Emilia, Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy), Legal invasiveness and anti-legal practices in contemporary ItalyDiscussant: M. Tar&#236; (independent scholar, Uninomade)12h00-13h30: Lunch13h30-15h30: PanelsPanel 5: Legality and illegality in contemporary ChinaPanel organizer: Fran&#231;oise Lauwaert (Free University Brussels, Brussels, Belgium).Panelists:Isabelle Thireau (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, France), L&#233;gitimit&#233; et l&#233;galit&#233; &#224; l&#8217;&#233;preuve des &#171; Lettres et visites &#187;.Adam Chau (University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK), Putting Religion in its Place: Spatialising Illegality in Contemporary China.Eric Florence (University of Liege, Liege, Belgium), Illegalisation, visibilisation and appropriation: a few thoughts on the politics of migrant labor in South China.Lisa Richaud (Free University Brussels, Brussels, Belgium), Chinese Propaganda and the Social Construction of &#8220;Disorder&#8221;.Ying Xing (China University of Political Science and Law, Beijing, China), Grassroots Mobilization and the Mechanism of Interest Expression of the Peasants Group: A comparative study of four cases.Panel 6: Norms, Networks, and Informality in the Global South: Unmapping Urban SpacePanel organizer: Karen Tranberg Hansen (Northwestern University, Evanston, USA)Panelists:B. Lynne Milgram (OCAD University, Toronto, Canada), Livelihoods on the Edge: The Politics and Legality of Marketplace Redevelopment in Baguio City, Philippines.Jose Maria Munoz (Emory University, Atlanta, USA), Making Contracts Public: Legal Change and Urban Renewal in Northern Cameroon.Walter E. Little (University of Albany - SUNY, New York, USA), Fa&#231;ade to Street to Fa&#231;ade: Negotiating Public Urban Spatial Legality in a World Heritage City Antigua, Guatemala.Jose Carlos Aguiar (University of Leiden, Leiden, The Netherlands), Illegality Mesh: Global Circulation and the Spatial Entanglement of Criminal and Informal Activities in Urban Latin America.Gordon Mathews (The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong), Where the Global South Comes to Buy: Informality and Illegality in a Developed-World Paradise (Chungking Mansions, Hong Kong).Discussant: A. Smart (University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada).Panel 7: The neoliberal effect: normalization, exclusion and resistancePanel organizers: Mathieu Hilgers (Free University Brussels, Belgium) &#38; Benjamin Rubbers (University of Liege, Belgium)Panelists:G&#233;raldine Andr&#233; (Fonds National de Recherche Scientifique &#8211; University of Liege, Belgium) &#38; Marie Godin (Free University Brussels, Belgium), Childhood and Work at the Neoliberal Age: Ethnography of Child Work in Artisanal and Small-scale Mining in the Katanga province (DRC)An Ansoms (Catholic University of Leuven, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium), The Bitter Fruit of a New Agrarian Model: Large-scale land deals and local livelihoods in RwandaMathieu Hilgers (Free University Brussels, Belgium),Urban governance and neoliberalism in AfricaBenjamin Rubbers (University of Liege, Belgium), African reactions to neoliberalism. The reform of the mining sector in Katanga (D.R. Congo)Discussant: B&#233;atrice Hibou (Centre for International Studies and Research, Paris, France)Panel 8: Blurred spaces, negotiable norms and the governmentality of crime: the case of ItalyPanel organizer: Bj&#248;rn Thomassen (The American University of Rome, Rome, Italy).&#160;Panelists:James Walston (The American University of Rome, Rome, Italy), Clientelism, corruption, organized crime and the law: new roads to Rome?Ferro Trabalzi (The American University of Rome, Rome, Italy), Illegality and Competitiveness: The Paradox of Regional Development in the Age of Globalization. The Case of Buffalo Mozzarella in CampaniaFrancesca Cantarella (Legal Office, Francesca Cantarella, Rome, Italy), The construction of crime and the criminal: Pathologies of the Italian legal systemIsabella Clough-Marinaro (John Cabot University/The American University of Rome, Rome, Italy), Rome's 'legal' camps for Roma: The construction of new spaces for illegalityStefano Becucci (University of Florence, Florence, Italy), Chinese Migration and the Italian Labor Market. A Functional Overlapping between Formal and Informal EconomyFiona Rose-Greenland (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, US), Crimes against Archaeology: Illicit cultural practices and the struggle for Italian antiquityDiscussant: P. Vereni: (University of Rome - Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy)15h30-16h00: Coffee break16h00-18h00: PanelsPanel 9: Sustainable (il)legalities. Daily life interstices of the law, chains of arrangement and gradients of 'loss'Panel organizer: Cristiana Panella (Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren, Belgium)Panelists:Bj&#248;rn Thomassen (The American University of Rome, Rome, Italy), Norms versus averages: legality and illegality in the work of Gabriel TardeAndrew Walsh (University of Western Ontario, Ontario, Canada), Lost and/or Left Behind: Compromising Responsibly in a Malagasy Mining TownCecilie &#216;degaard (University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway), Sovereign loss, sovereign things: The smuggling of energy resources between Bolivia and PeruRivke Jaffe (University Leiden, Leiden, The Netherlands), The Hybrid State: Crime and Citizenship in Urban JamaicaDario Gaggio (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA),Valuing Place/Placing Value: The Elusive Normativity of Landscape in Rural TuscanyDiscussant: Bruno Riccio (University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy)Panel 10: The New MuseumPanel organizer: Ciraj Rassool (University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa)Panelists:Leslie Witz (University of Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa), Observing and disobeying the signs: The Lwandle Migrant Labour Museum, a heritage park in Cape TownCorinne A. Kratz (Emory University, Atlanta, USA), Do Boundaries and Margins Dissolve in Blurred Genres?Larissa F&#246;rster (University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany), The power of bones: repatriation and the remaking of museum norms and practicesGary Minkley (University of Fort Hare, Alice (Western Cape), RSA), The museum and the image: Re-looking at the visual in Eastern Cape MuseumsSusan Leg&#234;ne (VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands), Are the former tools of empire now just tools of the nation state?Discussant: C. Rassool (University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, RSA)Panel 11: Frontiers to shadow: borders, traffic and uncertaintyPanel organizer: Steven van Wolputte (Catholic University Leuven, Leuven, Belgium).Panelists:Katrijn Asselberg (Catholic University Leuven, Leuven, Belgium)Onyanta Adama (Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala, Sweden)Gracia Clark (Indiana University, Indiana, USA)Paul Nugent (University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK)Ilda Linell (Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala, Sweden)Panel 12: Beyond corruption. Practical norms in public services deliveryPanel organizers: Giorgio Blundo (EHESS, Marseille, France) &#38; Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan (LASDEL, Niamey, Niger)Panelists:Alena Ledeneva (University College London, UK): From the Economy of Favours To the Economy of Kickbacks: the case of Russian bureaucracyRichard Crook (IDS, University of Sussex): The state and the norms of local justice in Ghana: hybridity, legitimacy and popular valuesMohamed Mebtoul (Universit&#233; Es-S&#233;nia, Oran, Alg&#233;rie): D&#233;construction des normes professionnelles et discours de "victimisation" des acteurs de la sant&#233;Tom De Herdt (Antwerp University, Antwerp, Belgium) &#38; Emmanuel Kasongo (Universit&#233; de Kinshasa, Kinshasa, DRC): Tuition impossible? Policy and practices of school fee abolishment in DRCThomas Cantens (World Customs Organization &#38; Centre Norbert Elias EHESS Marseille): The Orders of Informality in the Relations Between Users and Public Services: African Customs and Transnational Circulation of CommoditiesDiscussant: Giorgio Blundo (EHESS, Marseille, France)Evening event 'general public'October 27th , 2012 - Katholieke Universiteit Leuven10h00-10h45: Closing lecture by Vincenzo Ruggiero (Middlesex University, London, UK)10h45-11h45: Closing debate12h00-14h00: Closing receptionAfternoon: sightseeing Leuven.Scientific Committee:Michael Herzfeld (Harvard University)Jean-Fran&#231;ois Bayart (Centre d&#8217;Etudes et de Recherches Internationales, CNRS, Paris)B&#233;atrice Hibou (Centre d&#8217;Etudes et de Recherches Internationales, CNRS, Paris)Michael Rowlands (University College London)Berardino Palumbo (Universit&#224; di Messina)Filippo Zerilli (Universit&#224; di Cagliari)Filip de Boeck (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)Pierre Petit (Universit&#233; Libre de Bruxelles)Danielle de Lame (Mus&#233;e royal de l&#8217;Afrique centrale, Tervuren)Cristiana Panella (Mus&#233;e royal de l&#8217;Afrique centrale, Tervuren)David Berliner (Universit&#233; Libre de Bruxelles)Mathieu Hilgers (Universit&#233; Libre de Bruxelles)Jo&#235;l Noret (Universit&#233; Libre de Bruxelles)Benjamin Rubbers (Universit&#233; de Li&#232;ge)Organizing Committee:Cristiana Panella (Mus&#233;e royal de l&#8217;Afrique centrale, Tervuren)Pierre Petit (Universit&#233; Libre de Bruxelles)Filip de Boeck (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)Danielle de Lame (Mus&#233;e royal de l&#8217;Afrique centrale, Tervuren)Mathieu Hilgers (Universit&#233; Libre de Bruxelles)Jo&#235;l Noret (Universit&#233; Libre de Bruxelles)Steven van Wolputte (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)How to register?Fill in the registration form (Word, 30 Kb)Proceed to payment and send the registration form before June 30th, 2012 to norms-illegality2012@africamuseum.be or to:Val&#233;rie Herzet Royal Museum for Central Africa Leuvensesteenweg, 13 B-3080 Tervuren BelgiumPractical informationRoyal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA) October 25th, 2012 - Opening plenary sessionThe event will take place at the Colonial Palace (building A on the map)Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA)Colonial Palace&#160; (Historical ballroom) Paleizenlaan 3080 TervurenHow to get there&#160;Where to stay (Tervuren and surroundings)Contact : Val&#233;rie Herzet or&#160; valerie.herzet [at]africamuseum.beUniversit&#233; libre de Bruxelles October 26th, 2012 - PanelsUniversit&#233; libre de Bruxelles (ULB)Institut de Sociologie (Building S)Solbosch Campus Avenue Jeanne 44 1050 BruxellesHow to get thereWhere to stay (Brussels, near ULB)Contact: Sandrine Lev&#234;que - tel. +32 02 650 37 98 - e-mail:&#160; lamc [at] ulb.ac.beKatholieke Universiteit Leuven October 27th, 2012