News from the Networks

Network meeting

The EASA Networks have expanded in number and become very active. This is good news for EASA as it proves the vitality of anthropologists and their engagement both with the discipline and with the pressing problems that beseech us. It is also an expression of growing interaction and collaboration among anthropologists in Europe and beyond.

As a result of the increasing number of networks, the new EASA Executive has decided to nominate a member of the Committee as “Network officer” in charge of liaising with the Network convenors. For the coming period Susana Narotzky has been appointed in this role ().

The previous Executive, in response to this expansive conjuncture, had clarified the rules for establishing new networks and these were published in the EASA Newsletter No.57 of November 2012.

The call for Network funding closed on January 30th 2013. Although a total of €25k had been approved for network funding this year, the number of applications and the amount requested went far beyond that provision. The Executive had to make very difficult decisions in awarding the funds and will consider the increased demand in view of the next call.

New Networks

EASA Anthropology of Economy Network

Convenors
Patty A. Gray (National University of Ireland Maynooth),
Hugo Valenzuela García (University Autonomous of Barcelona),

The Network currently has 33 members.

Intention & justification
Anthropology of economy is one of the most vivid, rich and complex subfields of the discipline, and its scope has grown and diversified in many ways, particularly during the last decade. Economy is integral to genuine anthropological preoccupations like globalization, development, entrepreneurship, household organization, institutions, food, work, consumption, sustainable energies, fisheries or markets. Given the ongoing economic instability in Europe and shifts in global economies, fostering widespread concerns that the dominance of the prevailing economic theory is no longer tenable, there is clearly an opening for the diverse perspectives on economy that anthropology can provide, and a need for anthropologists of economy to collectively engage in unfolding debates. In this context, an EASA network on Anthropology of Economy makes sense and is past due. Given the number of workshops convened for EASA 2012 devoted to themes of economy, finance, development, etc., it appears that significant interest in anthropology of economy already exists within EASA.

Recent Activities of EASA Networks

APPLIED ANTHROPOLOGY NETWORK
Dan Podjed, network coordinator,

The first meeting of the Applied Anthropology Network was held in July 2012 in Nanterre at the EASA conference.The network provides a platform for sharing information, experience and discussions regarding applications of anthropological knowledge. It attempts to become a reference for scientists and practitioners who believe that anthropological theories, approaches, methods and skills can be used beyond academic boundaries – to solve practical problems.

In 2012 the network was active through the mailing list, which currently has over 60 members. The list is used for internal communication of the members and for dissemination of relevant information (events, meetings, etc.) The network prepared and published the first newsletter on applied anthropology in Europe, which will be in the future distributed to the network members every 3-4 months (the first issue was sent out in April 2013). A database of European organizations (associations, companies, etc.) and individuals which are connected to applied anthropology – or at least interested in activities of the network – is also being prepared within the network.

We will organize a network meeting in late 2013 or early 2014 to discuss the current state and future possibilities for developing applied anthropology in Europe.

 

TEACHING ANTHROPOLOGY NETWORK (TAN)
Jakob Krause-Jensen, network coordinator,

The Teaching Anthropology Network are collaborating with two journals, Learning and Teaching and Teaching Anthropology. At the EASA 2012-conference we hosted a workshop on ’Teaching anthropology in times of uncertainty’ and based on this workshop a special issue of LATISS will come out in 2014. We have currently received support from the EASA network funding for the conference: Teaching Amidst Change. The conference is a joint effort between TAN and Teaching Anthropology journal and will take place in Oxford on the 5-6 September 2013. Below is a call for papers, and we would encourage all EASA members to participate.

Public sector reforms are being forced on European states; funding for academic research and learning is curtailed and universities and anthropology departments have been restructured by the Bologna process. What are the implications of such changes for academic research, teaching and learning across Europe? What is the role for anthropological teaching and learning in articulating or engaging with ‘change’?

Please submit abstractsbetween 400-500 words by 1 June 2013 to: .

 

MEDIA ANTHROPOLOGY NETWORK
John Postill, network coordinator,

The Media Anthropology Network is planning a workshop towards the edited volume Theorising Media and Change, eds. E. Ardevol, J. Postill, Tenhunen. The workshop will be held at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC), in Barcelona, and locally organised by Elisenda Ardevol. We are still working out the details, but the tentative dates are 25-26 Nov 2013. More information will be given in due course via the Network website and mailing list.

 

ANTHROPOLOGY OF LAW AND RIGHTS NETWORK
Heike Drotbohm, network coordinator,

The Anthropology of Law and Rights network convened a workshop titled Deportation, Justice, Anxiety, which took place at the last EASA conference in Nanterre, France (10.-13.7.2012).

The Anthropology of Law and Rights network is planning a workshop titled Mobility within and to the Global South. Alternative histories, policies and citizenship regimes. The workshop will be held at University of Cologne, either in October or December 2013, and locally be organized by Heike Drotbohm and Michaela Pelican. More information will be given via the Network's website and its mailing list.

 

AFRICANIST NETWORK
Tilo Grätz, network coordinator,

The EASA Africanist Network successfully organized a PhD-workshop in March, 2012 in Halle /Germany, on Fieldwork in Africa. On the occasion of the EASA conference in Paris, we convened a workshop that focused on the relationship between History and Anthropology. A selection of papers is currently under review and will be published in a Special Issue of the Journal Social Evolution & History.

 

MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY YOUNG SCHOLARS NETWORK (MAYS)
Katerina Vidner-Ferkov & Dominik Mattes, network coordinators,

The 3rd Annual MAYS meeting preceded the EASA bi-annual conference and was held at the Université Paris Ouest in Paris/Nanterre La Défense on July 9-10, 2012. More than 60 students, PhD candidates and postdoctoral researchers from around the world attended 20 presentations in four panels, two roundtable discussions, and a skills lab. In the business meeting of the EASA Medical Anthropology Network meeting, the former young scholars representatives Claire Beaudevin and Susann Huschke stepped down and Katerina Vidner Ferkov (University of Nova Gorica, Slovenia) and Dominik Mattes(Freie Universität Berlin, Germany) were elected as new MAYS coordinators. They are currently organizing the 4th Annual MAYS meeting which will precede the Joint International Conference "Encounters and Engagements: Creating New Agendas for Medical Anthropology" (organized by the AAA's Society of Medical Anthropology, the EASA Medical Anthropology Network and the Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona) and will take place on 10-11 June 2013. The program for this meeting, which will focus on "catalysts and impediments" experienced by young medical anthropology scholars during their research, will soon be available on the network website. The MAYS network is continuously growing and has more than 100 members from across the globe.

 

ANTHROPOLOGY AND MOBILITY NETWORK
Roger Norum & Jamie Coates, network coordinators, ,

On 27–28 September, 2013, the EASA Anthropology and Mobility Network will be holding a two-day workshop in Oxford entitled Fielding challenges, challenging the field: The methodologies of mobility. The event is intended to look at how ethnographers are responding to various methodological questions being raised in the study of mobility. Novel ethnographic spaces comprising multiple scales, diverse geographies, mobile actors and disembodied information and technologies are providing fodder for new anthropological horizons, as well as spawning new challenges and obstacles engendered by such fresh forms of scholarly enquiry. Among other things, the workshop will explore the ‘zones of awkward engagement’ (cf. Tsing) between the methodologies of mobility and the production of ethnographic theory, and the ways in which ethnographies of movement may provide novel theoretical horizons for anthropology. We encourage all interested EASA members to submit related papers (funding for members' travel/accommodation is available), as this should be a very interactive and engaging event, and the convenors have an eye towards putting together a publication afterwards. Deadline for the submission of abstracts is 17 May 2013. For more information, please visit sites.google.com/site/mobilemethodologies/home.

 

PEACE AND CONFLICT STUDIES IN ANTHROPOLOGY NETWORK (PACSA)
Michael Lidauer, network coordinator, t

Announcement of the 4th Bi-annual PACSA Meeting on “Crisis and Conflict”, Copenhagen, 28-30 August 2013. The meeting is organized in collaboration with DIGNITY - Danish Institute against Torture and Global Refugee Studies, Aalborg University.

For this year’s PACSA meeting we encourage reflections on what it means to live in a state of crisis. How may we understand crises? Is it a motor of change? A catalyst for socio-cultural transformation, or merely a gesture intended to frame the abnormal? How do these discussions affect our conceptualizations of peace and conflict, particularly in situations where crisis is permanent or even normalized? And finally, what happens when individual perspectives meet systemic views of peace, crisis, and conflict? Whichever way we chose to understand crisis, it is clear that it is located somewhere beyond the homoeostasis of peace, yet prior to the ultimate turmoil characteristic of conflict. Which are the links between crisis on one the hand, and the prospects for peace as well as the threats of conflict on the other? How are these zones delineated towards one another? We invite participants to submit abstracts before 30 April 2013 to pacsacph2013(at)gmail.com. More information is available on the EASA website and on www.pacsa-web.eu/fourth-bi-annual-pacsa-conference-copenhagen-2013-crisis-and-conflict/.

 

NETWORK FOR THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF INTERNATIONAL GOVERNANCE
Birgit Müller, network coordinator,

The Network for the Anthropology of International Governance met officially for the first time in Paris in July 2013. The members identified six subject areas where they wanted to pursue the exchange of experiences and ideas.

The volume based on the papers from the Paris workshops in 2008 and 2010 will come out as a paperback: The Gloss of Harmony. The Politics of Policy Making in Multilateral Organisations. London: Pluto Press, 2013

The network will meet at the AAA 2013 to link up with American colleagues interested in the subject. Birgit Müller and Janine Wedel have organized a panel at the conference.

 

MEDITERRANEANIST NETWORK NETWORK(MEDNET)
Jutta Lauth Bacas and William Kavanagh, network coordinators, ,

The EASA Mediterraneanist Network (MedNet) is able to continue its cooperation with Mediterranean universities and research institutes and will hold its 6th scientific workshop in cooperation with the Mediterranean Institute at the University of Malta. The theme of the forthcoming 6th MEDNET WORKSHOP (from 31 Oct. – 3 Nov. 2013, University of Malta) is: “Connecting spaces, constructing places, constituting memories: Comparative approaches in the anthropology of the Mediterranean”

The workshop sessions will focus on the following aspects:
A. Connecting spaces: Connectivity has been seen as one of the main features of Mediterranean societies and cultures since the work of Braudel and Horden/Purcell. Evaluations may critically reflect on these contributions or focus on recent phenomena of connectivity, such as migration, networks or border encounters.
B. Constructing places: Another focus of comparative analysis will be the multiple ways of constructing and perceiving places in the Mediterranean and giving meaning to them through changing social and cultural practices, such as the ‘sharing’ of shrines in the Mediterranean by different religions.
C. Constituting memories: Also welcomed will be studies of perceived continuity and tradition and the analysis of processes of constituting memories of shared experiences and conflicts in the Mediterranean as a region of comparison.

 

VISUAL ANTHROPOLOGY NETWORK (VANEASA)
Dr. Beate Engelbrecht, network coordinator,

VANEASA members met at the EASA conference 2012 in Nanterre discussing future activities. An interest group on the Anthropology of Art (co-ordinator is Roger Sani ans01rsr(at)gold.ac.uk) was installed then. The main activity of various VANEASA members consisted in the creation of an EASA online journal called Anthrovision. The application with revues.org was accepted and the first steps of installing the journals are done. www.openedition.org/10936.

The first issues are now ready for publication, but some copyright issues have to be clarified yet. The advantage of being an open access online journal also asks for serious examination of legal aspects. The editorial board will meet again in Manchester, August 2013. We would be happy to receive suggestions of any kind (contact(at)anthrovision.eu). The publication will be announced through the VANEASA-mailing list.

Some VANEASA members are involved in the realisation of ethnographic film festivals in Europe (/www.anthropological-filmfestivals.eu/), most of them have some sort of conference and/or workshop attached, which gives many occasions of meeting at various places.

 

NETWORK OF THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE CONTEMPORARY MIDDLE EAST AND CENTRAL EURASIA (ACME)
Dr. Pedram Khosronejad, network coordinator,

The network of the Anthropology of the Contemporary Middle East and CentralEurasia (ACME) is happy to announce the launch of its new anthropologicaljournal. The first issue will be available during the 17th World Congress ofthe International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences whichwill be held during 5-10 August 2013 in University of Manchester in U.K.

The Journal of the Anthropology of the Contemporary Middle East and CentralEurasia (ACME) is a peer-reviewed journal devoted to the anthropologicalstudies of all societies and cultures in the Middle East and Central Eurasia. All submissions for articles are peer-reviewed.Its scope is to publish original research by social scientists not only inthe area of anthropology but also in sociology, folklore, religion, material culture and related social sciences. It includes all areas of modern andcontemporary Middle East and Central Eurasia (Russia, the Caucasus, CentralAsia, China) including topics on minority groups and religious themes.