antropologi.info calendar

Budapest 16.-22.6.2010

Attracting ever more attention both in Hungary and throughout Europe, Dialektus Festival pays special attention to creating opportunities for filmmakers and other trade representatives to meet each other and their audience on professional forums, targeted, thematical events besides creating an informal, inspiring, buoyant festival-atmosphere. All because we need documentaries and documentary needs us too: to discover its priceless values, to point out to the possibilities it carries, to celebrate it, to talk about it – to treat it as well as it deserves. This is our way of encouraging dialogue between European filmmakers of different countries and different cultural backgrounds, to boost the popularity and strenghten the distribution of the documentary film.

Dialëktus Festival delayed!

Due to our main sponsor’s financial difficulties, instead of our usual March date, Dialektus Festival will take place in June this year. We’ll do our best to turn this to our advantage, with open air screenings, musical entertainment, strawberries, raspberries and a beach atmosphere! We hope the fragrant summer will do justice to the films, so we suggest daytime chillouts indoors, followed by evening garden cinema sessions with spritzers and firebugs.

The delay will not otherwise affect the usual order of the Festival. This year’s Dialektus has received 191 entries from 25 European countries, and preliminary judging is now all but finished.

Two major professional events will accompany the festival:

Docucritics’ workshop

Last year’s good memories have encouraged us to follow up the documentary film critics’ work shop with coordinators Ágnes Blaskó and Balázs Varga. focus will be on the birth of dialogue, the concepts and instruments of documentary film analysis, individual writing exercises, as well as the challenge of presenting the freshly-printed works to the audience. The workshop will be held in Hungarian.

„My Deer” Project development workshop

For the first time this year, but hopefully not the last, we are organizing a project development workshop with the support of the Visegrád Fund. We welcome those documentary projects to the workshop which are still being filmed, and are set in at least two of the Visegrád countries (Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia). The workshop aims to nurture coproductions and support the production of European films suitable for general distribution, giving a sensitive view of the culture and everydays of Visegrád countries. The workshop will culminate in a trial pitch.

http://www.dialektusfesztival.hu

7.-9. mai 2010, Trondheim

Grenser har lenge hatt en sentral plass i antropologien, både som tema for empiriske studier og som analytisk perspektiv i studiet av identitet, kulturell betydningsdannelse og sosial organisering. I tillegg til å rette oppmerksomheten mot nye grensedannelser i verden - kognitive, politiske, etniske, økonomiske - vil konferansen fokusere antropologiens egne grenser. Det vil gi oss anledning til å reflektere over hva faget er og kan være i en samtid preget av grenseoverskridende interaksjonsmønstre, stadig utvidelse av det antropologiske arbeidsområdet og større krav om at vi skal virke globalt, tverrfaglig og samfunnsnyttig. Konferansen tar sikte på å identifisere premisser, forståelsesformer og erkjennelsesinteresser som er med på å definere fagets grenser i vår tid. Ved å gjøre det kan vi utdype vår forståelse av hvordan nye omstendigheter fører til at faget endres, videreføres og fornyes.

Mer informasjon: http://portal.svt.ntnu.no/san/naf2010

27.-29.11.09 Torun, Poland

“ASPEKTY” is a yearly anthropological film festival, which aims at exploring different areas of culture. The principle of the festival is to discover and present various relations, phenomena, interactions and mechanisms, which take place within a culture or between cultures. The main goal of Aspekty Film Festival is to propagate the ideas of intercultural dialogue.

The organizers of the festival want to draw attention to the subject of cultural dissimilarities, present the audience with the diversity of human experience and the multiplicity of ways of expressing oneself within a society and the world.

more information: http://www.aspektyfestival.pl

15.-16.10.2009 Poznan, Poland

Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology at Adam Mickiewicz University is proudly celebrating its 90th anniversary of its establishment. As a part of this commemorations we announce a conference at which we would like to address several issues falling with the domain of what is broadly understood as the anthropology of Europe.

Thematic 
sections:


1. ‘Anthropology of Europe’ in general and comparative perspective: contemporary research challenges

2. Similarities and differences in doing anthropology ‘at home’ and ‘abroad’

3. Hierarchies of knowledge

More information: http://etnologia.amu.edu.pl/anthropology_of_europe/index.html

October 7-9, 2009, Virtual Jaspers Centre, University of Heidelberg

Transculturality is certainly one of the recent concepts we must come to terms with, literally. And with all its complexity and many criticisms the relatively young field of inquiry into globalisation has already received. We propose that by studying the flows of images and media in such a light, we sharpen our competence and ‘literacy’ to think, write and speak transculturally.

With this annual conference’s topic, the cluster of excellence “Asia and Europe in a Global Context” ventures into new domains of research on the transculturality of images and media. It addresses the felt need to ask new questions on the basis of this challenging approach on the one hand, and to develop new or modify more conventional and often genuinely ethno- and Eurocentric concepts, as they are applied ‘naturally’ in many of the established and even younger disciplines within the Humanities. Such concepts may range from origin, original and originality to authenticity and value, taste and distinction. They also highlight problematic notions such as the dichotomy of indigeneity and hybridity, high and low art, religious and secular domains as categories of distinction.

More information: http://www.asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de/annual-conference-2009

7.-8. 10.09, Norlandia Karl Johan Hotell Oslo

Antronettkonferansen fokuserer på å oversette antropologisk kunnskap til en mer arbeidslivsorientert kunnskap. I tillegg ønsker konferansen å formidle hva som skjer på forskningsfronten innenfor ulike tema.

Konferansen kan i år skilte med plenumsforedrag av Tian Sørhaug, som skal snakke om antropologi i kunnskapsøkonomien, Iver Neumann, som skal snakke om antropologi og diplomati og Anna Kirah, som skal snakke om å flytte antropologien fra deskripsjon og analyse til å arbeide med mennesker for å iverksette endringer i produkter og tjenester.

I tillegg er det seks arbeidsgrupper fordelt over to dager med følgende tematikk:

1. Britt Kramvig (Norut) & Trine Olsen-Slagman (Kudi): Kan du være min informant?

2. Henrik Sinding-Larsen (Culcom): Kulturendring som en dialektisk prosess i spenningsfeltet mellom personlige relasjoner og upersonlige systemer.

3. Benedicte Brøgger (BI): Å lære av egne erfaringer - og kanskje litt av andres.

4. Cecilie Øien (Fafo): Antropologi og politikkutforming: å formidle antropologisk kunnskap i media og det politiske feltet

5. Ingjerd Hoëm (SAI): Mellom forskning og formidling.

6. Anette Thiis-Evensen (daVinci): Mangfold og bedriftsledelse - viktig, riktig og lønnsomt?

For fullt program og påmelding (Deltakeravgift 3000 kr), se http://antropologi.org/index.php?o=59&e=150&mid=167

30.9-3.10.09 Frankfurt am Main

Die DGV-Tagung 2009 wird vom 30. September bis zum 03. Oktober 2009 unter dem Titel “Kulturelle Aneignungen: Anpassung - Anverwandlung - Camouflage” an der Goethe Universität Frankfurt a. M. in Kooperation mit dem Frobenius Institut und dem Institut für Ethnologie statt finden.

Während ältere ethnologische Ansätze vorrangig an den Formen des Widerstands gegen kulturelle Außeneinflüsse interessiert waren, rücken neuerdings Strategien der aktiven Auseinandersetzung mit den Herausforderungen der Globalisierung in den Fokus ethnographischer Forschung. Sie sollen auch im Mittelpunkt der kommenden DGV-Tagung zum Thema „Kulturelle Aneignungen“ stehen.

Unter Anverwandlung wird dabei der selektive Umgang mit Kulturimporten sowohl materieller als auch ideeller Art verstanden, die nicht einfach übernommen, sondern an tradierte Lebensformen adaptiert und mit alternierenden Bedeutungen versehen werden. Im Gegensatz zu diesen Formen kultureller Nostrifizierung erfolgt die Anpassung an dominierende Ordnungen als Bruch mit den eigenen Überlieferungen, der – sofern er scheitert – oft forcierte Retraditionalisierungsbemühungen zur Folge hat. Unter dem Begriff Camouflage schließlich lässt sich eine Strategie fassen, die sich den von außen erhobenen Forderungen nur scheinbar beugt, um damit Spielräume zur Verfolgung traditioneller Zielsetzungen zu schaffen.

Mehr Informationen: http://tagung2009.dgv-net.de/

15.9.-16.9.09 University of St Andrews (Scotland)

The purpose of this conference is to assess the place of cosmopolitanism within anthropology, both as an analytical concept and as a political and moral programme. Cosmopolitanism has long been a part of philosophical and political debate, but in recent years recognition of its possible applicability has spread: cosmopolitanism has entered debates on globalisation, transnationalism, diaspora and multiculturalism. Anthropology’s specialism as a study of social relations in global perspective makes it an appropriate venue for an examination of notions of the ‘cosmopolitan’ and their relevance.

The 2006 ASA conference (Association of Social Anthropologists of the Commonwealth) took cosmopolitanism as its central theme, as did the 2007 CASCA conference (Canadian Anthropology Society). A number of edited volumes have recently been published (Vertovec and Cohen 2000, Robinson 2007, Werbner 2008), and new research centres opened. Are these significant developments? Does ‘cosmopolitanism’ offer something original, distinct from conceptualisations of ‘multiculturalism’, ‘globalism’, ‘diaspora’, ‘transnationalism’, ‘hybridity’, ‘pluralism’, ‘ecumenism’ or ‘civil society’?

‘Cosmopolitanism’ provides an umbrella for an array of conceptual, methodological and empirical insights which do not necessarily sit comfortably together: can these distinct perspectives be explored in dialogue without the creation of entrenched intellectual camps? The conference to be held in St. Andrews in September 2009 will take stock and deliver a verdict in the form of a collected volume of papers.

The intuition of the conference organizers is that cosmopolitanism does indeed usefully identify a new anthropological agenda. One does not intend a master-trope or panacea, but the concept is workable for claiming a particular history of inscribing the human, and a future project (Hannerz 2006; Rapport 2007a, 2007b). More than this, cosmopolitanism offers a significant perspective on matters of social policy: on integration in modern society, on the bearers of human rights, on the balance between community memberships and tradition on the one hand and the capability of individuals to be singular authors of their own ongoing identities.

More information: http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~centrecs/conferences.html

1-4th July 2009 at Leeds Metropolitan University

The RAI International Festival of Ethnographic film moves biennially from one university host to another, in association with local community and cultural organisations.

http://raifilmfest.org.uk/film/festival/2009-static/

University of British Columbia, Vancouver, CANADA May 13-16 2009

In an era when anthropology is increasingly attentive to transnational connections, globalized geographies, and diasporic identities, the discipline itself is subject to new and challenging forms of deterritorialization and re-territorialization.

Anthropology has long been constituted by tensions between the gravitational force of its various national traditions and the pull toward an international intellectual cosmopolitanism. Yet the increasing presence of scholars from the world “periphery” in metropolitan universities, the rise to international prominence of subaltern academic centers, the deterritorialized concerns and priorities of funding institutions, and the growing transnational links between researchers, research institutions, and research subjects (among other factors) are further complicating the spatiality of anthropological practice.

These shifts, in turn, are transforming the way anthropologists examine the production of power relations, inequalities, and identities in local and global arenas.

The 2009 CASCA-AES conference to be held at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver calls anthropologists and scholars from across the social sciences and the humanities to offer a fresh look at the increasingly transnational nature of knowledge production, at the resilience of regionalized academic hierarchies, as well as at the different ways in which the latter are being reconstituted and subverted. Additionally, the conference welcomes submissions related to the internationalization of social practices, power relations, and subjectivities and to any other theme associated with ongoing anthropological questions.

More information: http://aesonline.org/node/589

Norsk antropologisk forenings årskonferanse 2009 “Maktens metamorfoser” avholdes ved Grand Hotel Terminus i Bergen 8.-10. mai 2009, og arrangeres av Institutt for sosialantropologi v/ UiB, i samarbeid med Sveriges Antropologförbund, Bergen Museum og Christian Michelsen Institute.

http://naf2009.uib.no/?o=0&e=142&mid=163

Tuesday, 9 December, 16.00 - 17.00. Georg Sverdrups Hus, Klubben (Blindern, Oslo)

Book launch

The Impact of Electricity . Development, Desires and Dilemmas. Berghahn Books
by Tanja Winther

Umeme: Faida na Athari Zake. Uzoefu Kutoka Kijiji cha Uroa
by Tanja Winther
Translated to Swahili by Omar M. Said and Ally Saleh Khalfan
Published by SUM: publications (@) sum.uio.no

Commentators:
Pat Caplan, Professor, Department of Anthropology, Goldsmiths College, UK
Jonas Sandgren, Senior Adviser Energy, Sweco Norge AS
Kristi-Anne Stølen, Professor and Director of SUM

Refreshments will be served.

More information: http://www.sum.uio.no/calendar/pdf/2008_plakat%20boklansering%20winther.pdf

See also interview with Tanja Winther about the book

Tromsø museum, 2-4 October 2008

This two day seminar will explore the way that indigenous people create homes and homelands for themselves in the circumpolar North.

The seminar will consist of a set of public lectures by specialists on the cosmology and archaeology of circumpolar dwellings as well as the historical dynamics of households. There will be equal time in the programme for craftspeople to display modern and traditional dwellings and to speak about their meaning.

More information: http://www.sami.uit.no/boreas/conference.html

21-27 Sep 2008 Salekhard, capital of the Yamal-Nenets autonomous region

The First Russian Anthropological Film Festival (RAFF) is the only Russian full format competitive film festival representing rapidly developing genre of anthropological film.

The most northern in the world festival with peaceful formula art+science has already become very popular and the internationally authoritative among Russian and foreign cinematographers, managers of culture, Arctic researchers. It is reputed as content art-intellectual film festival and effective social and cultural phenomenon, and it has received set of positive responses in Russia and abroad, its film-winners were shown on all-Russian and regional TV channels.

Today RAFF serves, besides other purposes, as an experimental platform to search for new film-forms, to co-act in current search for identity and culture-building rather than just to reflect nostalgia for leaving cultural values.

http://rfaf.ru/eng/raff/153/247

26th to 30th August in Ljubljana, Slovenia

The 10th conference of the European Association of Social Anthropologists, 26 to 30 August in Ljubljana, Slovenia

Anthropologists have been facing diversity since the beginning of social/cultural anthropology as an academic discipline. The main aim of the conference is to deal with public discourse on diversity, cross-cultural communication and, at the same time, the absence of speaking about underestimated aspects of mutuality, including post-colonial, post-imperial, post-socialist, and post-racial.

Experiencing processes of late (or post-) industrialism and modernity, anthropologist study the present-day situation “in the field” and equally accentuate consideration of constructed and “natural” environments. When speaking of diversity, the conference will not overlook the flip side of the “intercultural dialogue”: new racism, ethnic nationalism, cultural fundamentalism and “soft” modes of exploitation.

Registration fees
Non-members: €180
Members (EASA & WCAA organisations): €130
Students and/or economically disadvanteged: : €90
Registration prices will rise after the beginning of July

More information http://www.easa2008.eu/

6–9 August 2008, Tromsø (Norway)

Nordic Assocation for Canadian Studies (NACS/ANEC), in collaboration with the Centre for Sami Studies at the University of Tromsø, and in parallel with the Nordic Political Science Association (NOPSA), will be holding its ninth triennial conference in Tromsø, Norway, from 6–9 August 2008.

Papers may be given in English or French; the working language of the Conference will be English.

The conference themes include: Northern security, Canadian and Nordic Aboriginal issues, Arctic issues, narratives of Norths, Canadian film and Northern arts, and constitutional issues.

The 9th triennial Conference of the Nordic Assocation for Canadian Studies (NACS/ANEC) will take place in Tromsø, at the northernmost university in the world, located north of the arctic circle. The Conference is organized in cooperation with the Centre for Sami Studies.

More information: http://www.sami.uit.no/nacs/

British Museum, London, 10 July, 9.30-4pm.

Lecturers from 17 university anthropology departments will run interactive workshops covering social, biological, and various other strands of Anthropology. Find out more at www.londonanthropologyday.co.uk.

8-11 July 2008, University of Manchester

The European Conference on Modern South Asian Studies (ECMSAS) is the largest gathering of South Asia oriented researchers in Europe, covering all fields from the humanities and social sciences to technology, natural sciences and medicine.

http://www.arts.manchester.ac.uk/ecmsas/

3 - 5 July 2008, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale, Germany

The Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Department II, invites participants to a conference from the 3 – 5 July 2008 at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle, Germany, to discuss and develop anthropological approaches to the study of social
support.

Ethnographic accounts of life under state socialism offer an instructive case of human ingenuity in the face of pervasive shortage. The ‘supplier state’ that sought to monopolise channels of support in many cases failed to do so thereby facilitating the role of personal networks of support. In fact, the latter came to permeate the state to such a degree that it became a resource in itself, to be distributed through these networks.

Yet the supplier state also provided a sense of stability and security, of guaranteed, however insufficient, supplies. For the last two decades, whether in Eastern Europe, China or Vietnam, many have painfully experienced the erosion of this basic sense of being looked after ‘from cradle to grave’.

Today, the welfare states of late industrial nations in Europe and North America are also undergoing far-reaching reforms. There, high levels of unemployment, ageing populations and cuts in social benefits also erode a sense of stability and security. To what extent is the market here an alternative to personal networks? Clearly, one can observe the “commoditisation of support”, as part of an ever expanding service economy.

This is not limited to Europe and North America but can also be seen elsewhere. As a consequence, in many parts of the world the social gap between those who can afford ‘support for money’ and those who cannot is widening.

As anthropologists, we are interested in people’s inventiveness in organising support and the meanings they afford these practices. What can we learn from places where there is no welfare state? How are notions and moral concepts of support acted out in daily life? What kinds of sources and resources of support are mobilised? Support can mean a state providing for child care or old age, but also a friend offering words of consolation, relatives lending money, a citizen donating blood, a deity protecting a village or a group of elderly offering sociability. Is support always necessarily serious business?

Can support not be organised through play? Local notions and modalities of support will also reflect and shape ideas of the person and its efficacy. The ideal of individual self-reliance in the West is but one example.

Social support has received attention mainly from sociologists and psychologists, especially in health studies and social network analyses. In anthropology, it has featured only marginally and tended to be conceptualised as simply a form of transaction. It is one major aim of this conference to examine and account for the continuities and discontinuities between support and other kinds of transactions.

As a broad frame for our anthropological enquiry into support, we suggest three terms: paternalism, mutuality and charity. Our first term, ‘paternalism’, makes reference to top-down systems of support, be it a bureaucratic welfare state or a locally operating racketeering group. Apart from paternalism, we suggest ‘mutuality’, where support occurs within less or not hierarchically structured relationships. Finally, ‘charity’ is intended to capture those forms of support that are locally considered ‘interest-free’.

The issue of support often arises in the context of dramatic life events. Anthropological studies of life histories, social memory and temporality promise to be one important field here. But legal anthropology, as for instance Keebet and Franz von Benda-Beckmann have shown, can also be a productive perspective on social support. And of course the discipline’s long-standing interest in gift exchange seems essential for any study of the giving and receiving of support. These three domains of inquiry in anthropology are not meant to be exhaustive.

Contact: Markus Schlecker, e-mail: schlecker (at) eth.mpg.de
Friederike Fleischer, e-mail: fleischer (at) eth.mpg.de

http://www.eth.mpg.de/

6. Juni 2008, 14-21 Uhr, Große Aula, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

Auf dem Informationstag “Lokale Welten – Globale Zukunft Ethnologie als Schlüsselkompetenz im 21. Jahrhundert” möchte das Institut für Ethnologie und Afrikanistik in München die Ethnologie und deren Relevanz der Öffentlichkeit vorstellen. Es gibt u.a. Vorträge zur Konfliktforschung, Organisationsethnologie und Entwicklungszusammenarbeit sowie eine Podiumsdiskussion mit Vertretern aus Politik, Kultur und Wissenschaft:

Die Veranstaltung ist gratis und offen für alle.

Mehr Infos inkl Program gibt es auf http://www.ethnologie.lmu.de/lokalewelten

4-8 June 2008, Tropentheater Amsterdam (NL)

Beeld voor Beeld (Image by Image) positions itself at the crossroads of visual anthropology, documentary filmmaking and politics.

Counterbalancing preconceived ideas is the main focus of the Beeld voor Beeld Festival. Rituals surrounding death in different societies, the influence of globalization on African ‘traditional’ societies, as well as the life of illegal immigrants in The Netherlands and in Spain, and Moroccan women participating in women’s running groups in their free time: these are all themes which hopefully will give the audience a better understanding of human societies.

More information: http://www.beeldvoorbeeld.nl/2en/fs.html

23.-25. mai 2008, Oslo

Tema for Norsk antropologisk forenings årskonferanse 2008 er “Forestillinger om fellesskap". Konferanselokalet vil være Georg Sverdrups hus (Universitetsbiblioteket) UiO.

mer informasjon http://www.sai.uio.no/Naf/

23. februar - 12. maj 2008, København

Charlotte Haslund-Christensen tager udgangspunkt i den vestlige opdagelsesrejsendes blik på “den anden", men vender objektivet mod os selv: danskerne. Udstillingen er en fotografisk installation af de indfødte.

Mer informasjon

New Delhi, India, May 9-10, 2008

This conference seeks to bring together scholars working across areas such as sociology, gender studies, film/media studies, anthropology, popular culture, and urban studies in order to explore emerging cultures of intimacy and friendship in contemporary non-Western contexts.

We are particularly interested in perspectives that relate the topic to the making of social selves at a time great economic and cultural change in many Asian societies. Socially, ‘non-Western’ has often been considered synonymous with traditional, conservative, static and illiberal, particularly in contexts of intimate/personal relationships that are expected to conform to certain values, norms and expectations of heritage.

However, following modernity at large and specific influxes of change like economic liberalization, globalization and the worldwide web, there is, increasingly, a perception (if not a belief) that social structures and networks have been affected, and “new” cultures of intimacy and togetherness are emergent (if not already established). There is a decided conviction that such new structures and networks are visible in day-to-day contexts at work, home and leisure, and that they reflect political, cultural, emotional and intellectual transitions and upheavals.

At this conference, we would like to explore this notion of emergent cultures of “new” intimacies and togetherness in the contemporary non-Western world, in as varied a social and cultural register as possible.

Inquiries and expressions of interest to: intimaciesconference (AT) yahoo.com

Brinda Bose, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, India
Sanjay Srivastava, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia

Medical anthropology, health care systems and the client society -investigating interactions of practice, power and science

Place of venue: Denmark, The Sandbjerg Estate - Aarhus University Conference Centre, Sandbjergvej 102, 6400 Sønderborg (southern Denmark), http://www.sandbjerg.dk/en/index.php

Date: 8th of May to 11th of May 2008

Introduction:
We would like to point to medical anthropology*s growing engagement and cooperation with local medical institutions and medical research units as not only isolated approaches to research of health and illness, but as one leg of a triangle of interconnected social and scientific processes with certain consequences. The triangle consists of medical anthropology, the health care system and the client society. This triangle is made up by three powerful but also interdependent actors that influence each other and presumably exhibit a shift of balances compared with former years of medical anthropological research.

Invited key note speakers:

- Susan Reynolds Whyte, professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen University, Denmark

- Nikolas Rose, professor, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK

- Annemiek Richters, professor, Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Leiden University Medical Center, the Netherlands

- Giovanni Pizza, senior researcher, lecturer, Dipartimento Uomo & Territorio, University of Perugia, Italy.

- Cheryl Mattingly, professor, Department of Anthropology, USC College, USA

Price: Preliminary price per person for the whole conference (3 nights with full board): 400 EURO. The conference organizers will try to raise funds for the conference and the price might be reduced.

Any questions regarding the conference are welcome and should be sent to Mette Bech Risør, mbris (AT) as.aaa.dk, Research Clinic for Functional Disorders, Aarhus University Hospital or Bjarke Paarup, etnobpl (AT) hum.au.dk, Department of Ethnography and Anthropology, Aarhus University.

The organizers are preparing a homepage for the conference and all further information will be conveyed via this homepage.