easa

Letter from the President

Dear EASA member

Even though EASA’s 13th biennial conference in Tallinn, Estonia, is already some months behind us, the commentaries on social media platforms continued for weeks on end. Overall, the participants (over 1130 people) seemed pleased with their conference experience. Our innovative experiments, such as the Laboratories and the new format of the Young Scholars Forum, were evaluated positively. Some of the plenaries and panels provoked intense scholarly discussion, both on site and online. Those who could not be present physically were able to follow some conference highlights through livestreaming. They could also read the constant newsfeed on Twitter and appreciate the many pictures that were taken (see here and here). The video recordings of the plenaries are now available online. Let me use this opportunity, once again, to thank everybody who worked so hard to turn EASA2014 into a memorable event.

The Members Forum in Tallinn was well attended too. As expected, the changes to our governing document (‘the Constitution’) provoked a lively exchange of ideas. In this newsletter, we present you the follow up to this. The final decision will be made through electronic voting later on this year. Apart from reporting on the association’s business, the executive committee was happy to present the new co-editors of EASA’s flagship journal, Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale, namely Sarah Green (University of Helsinki) and Patrick Laviolette (Tallinn University). Another eagerly awaited news was the announcement of the venue for the next biennial meeting. EASA2016 will be held at the University of Milano-Bicocca in Italy (most likely from 21 until 24 July).

Just before EASA2014, we co-signed a letter of support for Alexander Sodiqov, a PhD student from the University of Toronto who was detained in Tajikistan while conducting fieldwork. Thanks to the international pressure, Alexander was released from custody and has been able to return to Canada to resume his studies. He remains under investigation and unable to safely return to Tajikistan. In response to this case, a website is being developed that will gather information about changing fieldwork conditions in particular places. Via the Initiative for Science in Europe, EASA is trying to have anthropology better represented on the scientific committees of Science Europe, the umbrella organisation of national research funders and some major research institutions. And through EASH, the European Alliance for Social Sciences and Humanities, we are setting up an appointment with the new European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science in order to voice our concern over the role of the social sciences and humanities in Horizon 2020.

The dialogue with other anthropological associations seems to be intensifying. At a meeting of representatives of anthropological associations in Tallinn, there was a consensus that more exchange of information and open dialogue are an absolute necessity in order to make anthropology stronger within but also beyond regions, nation-states and continents. As a follow-up to the EASA/ABA/AAA/CASCA webinar in 2013, the Canadian Anthropology Society (CASCA) invited us to continue the reflection about the importance of plurilingual approaches to the advancement and sharing of anthropological knowledge at their 2015 conference in Quebec. In my capacity as international delegate, I represented EASA at the biennial meeting of the World Council of Anthropological Associations (WCAA) in Taipei, Taiwan. This was an important gathering because one of the items on the discussion table was the increased collaboration between WCAA and the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES). Finally, our colleagues of the International Society for Ethnology and Folklore (SIEF) invited me to attend their Golden Jubilee Symposium.

This is my last letter to you in my capacity as president of the association. I am extremely grateful for the opportunity I was given by the membership and the current executive committee to invest time and energy in strengthening EASA. I started my mandate with the intention to work on two long-term goals: (1) strengthening the association’s role in representing fairly the wide variety of European social anthropology in the academic, professional and public spheres; and (2) using EASA as a strategic instrument to boost the quality of anthropology across Europe, making the discipline more worthwhile for all members and inspirationally relevant to the serious socio-economic and environmental challenges the world is facing. While progress has been made on both fronts, I sincerely hope that the next executive committee will continue developing EASA along these same lines. I hereby warmly invite each ordinary EASA member to seriously consider becoming a candidate for the upcoming elections. EASA needs people like you!

Noel B. Salazar,
your president