Dear EASA members,
I wish you all a happy new year, hoping that 2018 will a positive year for research and for all your initiatives. I hope also that this year will be more peaceful than the year we leave behind us.
We finished 2017 with an important event – our AGM and seminar in Bern on scholar at risk and precarity – which turned out to be successful and very productive. Thanks to Sabine Strasser and Georgeta Stoica for the excellent organization and to all the participants for sharing their experiences and their analysis. We need to carry on from here. The question of precarity is one of the main issues facing the Executive and we must continue to work together on this subject in terms of actions and reflections. We believe that it is very important to promote and consolidate EASA’s position as a tool for linking scholars in Europe and beyond, on this issue.
You have been emailed the link to a survey set up by WCAA. It is really important for as many members as possible to answer this survey and I warmly encourage you to do it. The survey will give us a clear vision of the work that anthropologists are doing inside and outside the academia around the world. This will complement the survey to be launched by the PrecAnthro group whose pilot survey results were already discussed in Bern.
EASA was represented at the last WCAA meeting in Washington DC on the 2nd of December. Our participation at the WCAA and, through the WCAA, to the new bicameral association WAU (World Anthropological Union) allows us to join our efforts and exchange ideas and visions on a worldwide scale. At the same time it is crucial to continue the dialogue with other national and international associations such as the AAA. The new president Alex Barker and vice president Akhil Gupta took up office at the beginning of December and we are planning joint actions and events related to the topic of precarity at our next conference in Stockholm and at the next AAA meeting in San José.
At the European level, EASA is participating in a collaborative project for a European Directory of Social Anthropologist, thanks to Thomas Hylland Eriksen, who initiated the project with the Max-Plank Institute for Social Anthropology and continues to work on it. The first objective is to provide greater visibility for the discipline, both internally and externally, towards the world beyond the profession. The second objective is to make it easier for those anthropologists in Europe who want to make their expertise available to practitioners to be identified and contacted by those who may need their services. All these initiatives, as well as EASA involvement in the EASSH (European Association of Social Sciences and Humanities) or our participation in the European Commission Fifth External SSH Stakeholders Meeting in Brussels this month, contribute to reinforce our discipline and promote the importance and integration of SSH in the European research panorama.
We are very happy that Shahram Khosravi, Professor of Social Anthropology at Stockholm University, has accepted to be the Keynote speaker at our next biennial on Staying, Moving, Settling. I hope that as many members as possible will meet in Stockholm, in August. The call for panels remains open. This year we decided to widen the format of the panels: traditional panels, roundtables and fast-paced presentation panels, as well as the laboratories. The range of formats allows us to organise different kinds of discussions and ways of sharing our research. By doing this we also hope more members will be able to participate. Furthermore, this year we are increasing the amount allocated to support delegates. I especially want to thank the EASA treasurer, Rachael Gooberman-Hill, who has made this increase possible.
The 2018 EASA biennial conference scientific committee consists of three members from the executive – Marcus Banks (University of Oxford), Sarah Green (University of Helsinki) and myself, Valeria Siniscalchi (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Marseille) –, two members from the local committee – Lotta Björklund Larsen (Linköping University) and Helena Wulff (Stockholm University)–, and together we have chosen another three members from outside these two committees: Ayse Caglar (University of Vienna), Martin Fotta (Goethe University Frankfurt), and Miguel Vale de Almeida (University Institute of Lisbon/Centre for Research in Anthropology). This composition provides a wider representation of anthropology in Europe.
We consider networks a key resource for our association and an opportunity for collaboration in areas of special interest. For this reason, we continue to support them and are happy that a large number of them have organized events during 2017. Networks meetings in Stockholm will be another good occasion for rich exchanges.
I would like to thank all the members of the actual executive for their involvement and work. Everybody has accepted one or more tasks, and every task is important contributing to the development of our association at the service of its members. I would also like to thank the essential work of NomadIT, the EASA administration team. The call for a new Secretary and Treasurer (2-6 year terms) and for the two journal editors (2-4 year terms) is now open. We hope that many of you will apply!
All the best for 2018
Valeria Siniscalchi
EASA President