Letter from the president
Dear EASA members,
Whether or not you will be going to Milan next month, I suggest you take a look at the programme for a glimpse into the vitality, creativity and diversity of European social anthropology (http://www.easaonline.org/conferences/easa2016/index.shtml). The fantastic audiovisual programme, curated by Paolo Favero and Ivan Bargna, would alone make for a filling meal. The laboratories, started as an experiment in Tallinn, continue in Milan with fifteen open-ended explorations of ways in which anthropology can be performed, interrogated or challenged to destabilise its own boundaries. And, as the programme shows, a variety of other events are also planned. While many will be attracted to these events, and with good reason, the bulk of the conference consists, as always, in panel presentations and discussions. The breadth and diversity of the 140-plus panels does not only testify to the intellectual vitality of European anthropology; it also seems to echo Anthony Wallace’s 1961 statement about culture not being about the replication of uniformity, but rather the organisation of diversity.
A conference of this size, scope and popularity can easily be seen as a tangible reminder of the fact that although new technologies now enable alternative methods of teaching and dissemination of research, the old forms of communication continue to hold sway. Years ago, I heard about a job applicant at an anthropology department embarking on his trial lecture. Stating at the outset that he would now use state-of-the-art technology to aid him in his oral presentation, he was soon entangled in technical problems of a kind still all too familiar today. From what we heard, he did not get the job offer. At the time, the thought occurred to me that as an anthropologist, he might instead have introduced his lecture by stating that ‘I will now use the most sophisticated communication technology available to humanity, namely the human voice, coupled with physical presence.’
When the new, deterritorialised and instantaneous communication technologies with which we are now all familiar first became available, some of us (and I include myself) believed that this was good news for people’s calendars and the environment. Instead of getting up at five in the morning to catch a polluting flight somewhere, we could carry out our oral examinations from the comfort of our offices or even homes. Rather than jeopardising family life and normal sleep rhythms by travelling to remote places to give talks and lectures, we could perform the same work on-screen. Some even envisioned that academic workshops could be held more efficiently and smoothly online than in a shared physical space.
With the hindsight of a quarter century, we now know that none of this happened. It would be an understatement to say that electronic communication has taken off, and to most active academics it quickly became indispensable. Yet the new possibilities never transformed academic communication in the ways some predicted in the early 1990s. The value of being in the same room, with the entire register of human communication at one’s disposal, from the raised eyebrow to the spontaneous burst of laughter, cannot be measured, but it can be experienced. This is why we, often malgré nous, continue to go, literally, out of our way in order to meet.
An EASA conference is about sharing the same physical space for a few intensive days. It is a form of multifaceted immersion. I therefore hope that those of you who make the trip to Milan will not only find time to take part in our formal conference programme and dip into various fringe events, but also to meet friends old and new over an espresso or a glass of red, and to catch a glimpse of the city itself – a luxury which is far too often forsaken at this time of academic overheating. So do immerse yourself in the abundant riches of European social anthropology in Milan, but it is allowed to have a good time while doing so.
Warm regards,Thomas Hylland Eriksen
President
