Dear EASA members,
The days we spent together in Stockholm were very pleasant. The colleagues from the Stockholm University and from the Linköping University welcomed us very warmly. Together with the NomadIT team, they allowed us to have four days of rich and intensive exchanges: from panels to round tables, from plenaries to laboratories, from films to the extra program meetings, including the discussions and conversations we were able to have, and the keynote presentation by Shahram Khosravi, which set the pace of the conference.
Enough to feed us for the coming months, which will be very dense for the association!
The members’ forum was very lively and intense, showing the attachment of the members to the association and the role that EASA has and can have at the international and national level. The work on precarity and specially the survey on employment and working conditions of anthropologists inside and outside Academia promoted by EASA and PrecAnthro collective, were presented by Georgeta Stoica and Sabine Strasser, members of the Executive and in charge of this complex issue, and by Martin Fotta representing the PrecAnthro collective. This work is one of the priorities of the current EASA Executive and it improves the policy paper which will be presented to the European Commission during the Autumn in order to promote the implementation of concrete measures concerning precarity and its effects on anthropologists’ life and the career. The first result of this survey were presented in Florianopolis during the WCAA / WAU conference last July.
During the EASA members’ forum, two motions were tabled. The first one concerned Israeli academic institutions, situated in occupied Palestinian territories. The motion called for EASA to express its own opposition to the establishment of academic institutions exclusively serving Israeli citizens, situated within occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and to pledge its own non-cooperation with these institutions; and to express its solidarity with Palestinian academics and students suffering the brunt of these discriminatory policies as well as with the Israeli colleagues of the Israeli sociological association and Israeli Anthropological association who oppose the same policies. The AGM largely supported this motion. After that, we received a letter from the Israeli Anthropological Association thanking us for our support and explaining in detail the situation in the Occupied Territories and the position taken by our colleagues from the IAA. EASA members who needed further information, or who were not present at the AGM, now have an opportunity to vote electronically to still express their solidarity with colleagues in occupied Palestinian territories through the electronic vote, which is open now. A second motion, which was largely supported by the membership, mandated the Executive to gather a working group in charge to elaborate a code of conduct to address professional misconduct (among others, the abuse of power, psychological and sexual harassment, and the exploitation of precarious labor). The Executive is organizing this working group in charge of developing guidelines and working to the way in which EASA can offer support in cases of non-respect of professional ethics. We hope to submit you the result of this reflection in the next months.
This year we awarded a Lifetime distinction and two Early career prizes: the first one was offered to Adam Kuper to recognize his major contribution to the development of anthropology in Europe, today represented in its diversity and richness by the EASA, that he contributed to create. The laureates of the Early Career Award were Vita Peacock for her article “Academic precarity as hierarchical dependence in the Max Planck Society”; and Francisco Martínez for his monograph Remains of the Soviet Past in Estonia: an Anthropology of Forgetting, Repair, and Urban Traces.
In Stockholm, we appointed the new treasurer David Mills, who will replace Rachael Gooberman-Hill starting from next December; and the new secretary, Monica Heintz, who will replace Alberto Corsín Jiménez also by the end of the year. These are very important charges and I would like to thank the colleagues who applied – also that ones who have not be appointed – for their involvement in the life of the association. EASA specially needs the time and the energies that we give it. For this reason I thank warmly Rachael and Alberto, who did the job for the last six years.
We hired also two new journal editors, Nikolai Sorin Chaikov and Laia Soto Bermant. They will replace Sarah Green and Patrick Laviolette who made our journal Social Anthropology / Anthropologie Sociale really attractive during the last four years. I would like to thank them sincerely for their work. The journal, together with the book ten published by Berghahn is the visible part of the intellectual life of our association.
Changes continue: new election to renew the Executive committee will take place at the end of the year. The call for application will open in a few weeks and we hope that several colleagues will decide to be involved for the next two years to improve EASA projects. In November the call for funding to finance the seven events will open. As you know, this is the principle of the years without the conference: the life of the association continues also through the rich activities organised by the seven’ members all year long. We will not get bored during the next months!
I would like to renew here our support to the Brazilian colleagues: the archives and the collections of one of the most important departments of anthropology disappeared with the fire the 2nd and 3rd of September which destroyed completely the ancient palace of Sao Cristovao of the Museu Nacional do Rio de Janeiro. The PPGAS (Graduate Program in Social Anthropology), together with UFRJ’s Library System, is beginning a book donation campaign to try to rebuilt the « Francisca Keller » Library, lost with the fire. They have created a website to collect donations (https://franciscakeller.weebly.com/english.html). I warmly invite you, through your institutions, to relay this concrete support campaign.
Last but not least, the next EASA conference will be host in Lisbon, in Portugal where the first EASA conference took place in 1990 (Coimbra). This is just perfect to celebrate the thirty years of our association, but also to reflect to the dreams that we had at that time and to the transformations that affect our present. The first steps to organize the next conference have already started and the handover to the next Executive committee, that will be elected between next December and January, will take place on the 11th and 12th of February 2019 in Lisbon, where the trustees will visit the place which will host us in 2020.
Nice return to your activities and plenty of beautiful projects!
Yours sincerely
Valeria Siniscalchi
EASA President