New year, new events! The start of a new year makes us strangely aware of the passing of time – so don’t forget to send a proposal for ‘On Time’, the timely Biennial Conference of the Finnish Anthropological Society. The new year also offers food for thoughts around migration and asylum issues at Al Akhawayn and Chicago universities, an exciting Methods course in New York, and much much more – see below!
As always, if you want your event to feature in our next events list or if you wish to write a short report, don’t hesitate to get in touch with our events assistant at events@allegralaboratory.net
Call for Panels: On Time: The Biennial Conference of the Finnish Anthropological Society
29.–30.8.2019, Helsinki, Finland
Anthropologists have studied time for over a century; what makes it so topical right now? Looking into the terminology we use, recent research often replaces “time” with “temporalities”. This puts an emphasis on multiple rhythms, times that are particular to a place, or alternate trajectories. Such plural experiences of the passage of time can be exemplified by instances where “here” is cast as lagging behind in contrast to “there”, of “being stuck” while others accelerate, or being subjected to the boredom of surplus time while others find time scarce. Experiences of time being out of joint are at times even described as temporal rupture experienced in the immobility of a refugee camp, or during the long waithood preceding adulthood.
Time may be found in speech, symbol, nature, history, genealogy, theology, work, discipline, measurement, efficiency, and so on: every research question has its temporal dimension, and every research methodology its temporal issues. The 2019 conference of the Finnish Anthropological Society, therefore, invites panels that explore time in diverse ethnographic and theoretical settings. Panels may draw upon, but are not limited to, issues such as the interplay of imaginaries and practices of time and space, the co-existence of multiple temporalities, and anthropology’s own ability to grasp and narrate time. In particular, we welcome panels that provoke theoretical questioning of the oftentimes taken-for-granted temporal frames employed in anthropological scholarship, including fieldwork. In addition, we welcome panels that use time and related phenomena as a frame of analysis for other topics.
The Conference keynote will be delivered by Ghassan Hage, the Future Generation Professor of Anthropology at the University of Melbourne. The Conference will open with the annual Westermarck Memorial Lecture delivered 28.8.2019 by Laura Bear, Professor of Anthropology at the London School of Economics and Political Science.[more]
Panel proposals should be submitted by January 31st 2019.
Summer School: Summer School in Ethnographic Methods in New York City
July 23 to August 2, 2018, 11th CIFAS Field School in Ethnographic Research Methods
The Comitas Institute for Anthropological Study (CIFAS) is pleased to announce the 12th CIFAS Field School in Ethnographic Research Methods, in New York City. The goal of the Field School is to offer training in the foundations and practice of ethnographic methods. The faculty works closely with participants to identify the required field methods needed to address their academic or professional needs. The Field School is suitable for graduate and undergraduate students in social sciences and other fields of study that use qualitative approaches (such as education, communication, cultural studies, health, social work, human ecology, development studies, consumer behavior, among others), applied social scientists, professionals, and researchers who have an interest in learning more about ethnographic methods and their applications.[more]
Symposium: Audiovisual culture and History: politics, emotions and discourses
Catamarca, Argentina, October 2 to 5 , 2019.
In continuity with our symposia that since 1999 develops the interdisciplinary approach of Cinema and History, we call to discuss presentations on some of the following axes:
– The relationships between film / audiovisual studies and debates in the historiographical field, the theoretical and methodological problems that this relationship promotes.
– The ways in which filmmakers / artists / creators construct historical and political imaginaries, and how these are expressed in audiovisual languages.
– The cinematographic, television or performance representations that evoke the historical experiences of Peoples, Regions and Nations, which can reaffirm, question or reconstruct collective identities.
– The national or transnational circulations of aesthetic texts that prompted ways of imagining the past and the present, and the “translations” that may have been made by adopting elements from a different cultural context, what Michel Espagne defines as “cultural transfers”.
– The ways in which the circulation of people, audiovisual products and other materials in global circuits, festivals and alternative distribution generate new ways and ways of imagining the social.
[more]
Deadline for application: 15 March 2019
Conference: Migration in Morocco and Beyond: From Local to Global Dynamics
May 25-26, 2019, Al Akhawayn University, Ifrane, Morocco
The conference aims to expand on concerns in Morocco and elsewhere regarding the multifaceted issue of migration. Migration is one of the unavoidable issues of our times. According to the UN’s International Migration Report, 258,000,000 individuals, or 3.5% of the world’s population, were living in countries other than their own in 2017. 25,000,000 of these were refugees. Migration is a constant thread in the otherwise erratic news cycle. It figures on the agenda of countless international organizations. The issue takes center stage in every election in the West. Populations are concerned about how it impacts national identity while policy-makers worry about its intersections with security issues. Meanwhile, social scientists the world over are studying every facet of migration, how it contributes to development and women’s empowerment, how it transforms family relations, and how it intersects with that other unavoidable issue of our times, climate change.[more]
Deadline for application: 15 February 2019
Summer School: Spring University Prague 2019: Project Europe at a Crossroads
7 April 2019 – 18 April 2019, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
The objective of the Spring University Prague 2019, “Project Europe at a Crossroads”, is to provide students with a broad understanding of the most significant political and social issues in contemporary Europe.
Instead of relaxing at the “End of History” after the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in 1989, Europe is facing new challenges at the beginning of the 21st century. These new challenges – including the economic and financial crisis, ageing population, growing separatist/devolutionist tendencies in Scotland, Catalonia and other European regions, complicated relations with Russia and Turkey, terrorist attacks connected with the activities of the Islamic State, and the strong immigration flow – are raising concerns and leading to significant political radicalization and social unrest.
The course provides an interdisciplinary approach and combines multiple learning methods, such as lectures, workshops, round-table discussions, field work, group-work and student presentations. Students will not only have the opportunity to explore a range of interesting topics and gain valuable insights into the current challenges and risks to the development of Europe, but will also have occasion to improve their research and presentation skills. [more]
Deadline for application: 25 February 2019
Conference: In Search of Asylum: An Interdisciplinary Discussion
4 April 2019 – 5 April 2019, Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts, University of Chicago, Illinois, United States
“Asylum” has returned to the forefront of global political consciousness. In conjunction with highly charged terms like amnesty and assimilation, and such spectral figures as the “illegal alien” and the “migrant caravan,” asylum condenses a variety of anxieties about the changing parameters of power within a globalizing world and aspirations for a livable life. Under these circumstances asylum has taken on a new urgency, as either the moral imperative of our times or an unforgivable betrayal of the nation and its ideal.
The 2019 Weissbourd Conference, hosted by the University of Chicago Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts, will focus on situating the often rancorous contemporary debate over asylum in relation to historical expressions, theories, and practices of asylum. Our keynote speaker will be James Hathaway, the James E. and Sarah A. Degan Professor of Law at the University of Michigan, a leading authority on international refugee law and the founding director of the Program in Refugee and Asylum Law.[more]
Deadline for application: 25 February 2019
Featured image by byronv2 (flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0)
