Our 2018 biennial conference is approaching rapidly. This year it will take place in Sweden, in the beautiful campus of the Stockholm University. Thanks to the spaces made available by the University, we were able to accept a large number of panels: this time 165. The work of the scientific committee, composed by colleagues coming from different intellectual traditions, has been improved by different approaches, research themes and sensitivities brought by each of them. Considering the large number of panels proposed this year, this diversity allowed us to make choices that we hope are relevant for our discipline. As it happens every time, we could not accept all the panel proposals despite the high quality of the proposals. We have promoted a wider range of formats: round tables, classic panels and sessions consisting of short presentations. We hope you have found good spaces of exchange and scientific discussion.
The three plenary sessions will punctuate our meetings around the theme Staying, Moving, Settling. A first one, organized by Martin Fotta, Ayse Caglar Miguel Vale de Almeida and Sarah Green, resulting from the collaboration between the scientific committee and the executive committee; it is about Anthropological knowledge production and the narratives, regimes and governance of mobility. The second one, under the responsibility of the local committee and organized by Ulf Hannerz will address the theme of Migrants, refugees and public anthropology. The third one, conceived by Georgeta Stoica and Sabine Strasser – members of the executive dealing with precarity in academia – and Gabriella Körling from the local committee, was set up through a call for papers; it is the early career scholars forum that continues the discussion of the GA Seminar organized in Bern last year, under the key words of im/mobility, uncertainty and hope.
Unfortunately, in this early summer, the Mediterranean which bathes the coasts of Marseilles, from where I’m writing these lines, is becoming the set of political battles playing with the lives of men, women and children who try to cross the sea in search of a better life. Frontiers are built where people should be able to move. Our long-term work aims at an understanding of social phenomena in depth; but we have also to mobilize our critical analysis on this kind of conflicting and difficult reality, which is changing the border of our common space, every day. The European governments still have to work before the right of citizenship, of circulation and of life will be really taken into account and respected. Anthropology can and must play a role. I am very pleased that our meeting is open by Shahram Khosravi, Professor of Social Anthropology at Stockholm University, whose life, career and work are a testimony and a valuable contribution to the understanding of migration phenomena and their effects on the lives of men and women who move, those who stay, those who welcome.
Nonetheless inequalities, power relations, exploitation and discrimination happen also in our places of research and teaching. In order to correct, at least in part, this presbyopia, our conference is a place open also to these debates. We invite you to browse all these spaces of debate that will spawn the conference. Among the various round tables I draw your attention on the following ones, organised by members of the executive committee: European Directory of Social Anthropologists (EDSA) Roundtable, related to the project that the EASA executive support with the Max Plank institute, and Anthropology After Data (Management): Access, Infrastructure, Ethics; or again the debate organized by the PrecAnthro group. The panels and the meetings of the networks members (28 networks organize panels, for about 45 panels), the laboratories and the film program will contribute to enrich the range of our tools of research and communication.
A conference of this size and scope could not be put in place without the day-to-day work that has accomplished a motivated team that for months enthusiastically dedicated itself to this event: Helena Wulff and Lotta Björklund Larsen and all the members from the local committee through which this meeting can take place. I would like also to thank NomadIT team for their professional work and their effective presence alongside the executive not only in the organization of the conference. By facing the many unforeseen events that take place during the organization of a conference, they allow us to meet every two years in a different city of Europe.
Last but not least, some lines on the work of the executive these last months: we continued the activities launched at the Bern AGM on precariousness. A survey on working conditions of anthropologists has just been launched in partnership with the collective PrecAnthro. https://ww2.unipark.de/uc/easa/
I hope you have taken the time to answer it or you will do it soon!
EASA is now a member of Scholars at Risk Network, in addition to EASSH (European Association of Social Sciences and Humanities), and we participate in ISE (Initiative for Science in Europe) activities. EASA will be represented by Georgeta Stoica at the next WCAA meeting which takes place in Florianopolis (Brazil) in mid July. All these connections allow us to be present in pressure groups at European and international level, not only to make anthropology more visible but also to enable us to be more effective in the battles we are waging or supporting, for anthropology or through anthropology.
Looking forward to meeting you in Stockholm!
Valeria Siniscalchi
EASA President