Networks’ report
2019 reports and plans for 2020
Note from the Executive’s Network liaison officers, Cristiana Bastos and Miia Halme-Tuomisaari.
It is a true privilege to be in the position of overseeing all the EASA networks reports at once. Most of us at EASA are closer to the inner works of one or two of the formal networks and know of the works and meetings of a couple of others through friends and colleagues; some of us have been in one or other and left them for another, or imagined a new one, or worked for the merging of more than one. In other words, EASA members know by direct experience how networks are the material and symbolic channels that pump our collective energy and shelter us under shared goals, methods, interests. Seeing the bigger picture provided by the collection of annual reports allows us to perceive the fabulous dynamics and diversity of EASA networks: some are well established, some are just off the ground, some are actively pursuing theoretical goals, some are salvaging topics from oblivion, some are exploring new methods and horizons, some are oriented by activism or other societal interfaces, some keep the memory of the discipline, and so on, and all work hard, and new ones appear every year while others get dormant or transformed. We leave you a selected compilation of the information reported by the network conveners below – the original document collating all the actual reports would be too long. We also leave you trusting that all of us will find ways to overcome the limitations brought by the COVID-19 pandemic to our beloved biannual meetings. Early this year, expectations for the Lisboa2020 meeting were the highest: so many network-sponsored panels, so many formal and informal meetings, so many ideas to explore and expand. As we are forced to move to new forms of communicating and meeting through digital platforms due to quarantine lockdowns and travel bans affecting most universities, we are working on ways that complement the conference and prolong it in time while keeping the real-life meeting place (Lisboa) as soon as sanitary authorities allow us to do so.
Cheers and stay safe,
Cristiana and Miia
Extracts of the network reports for 2019-2020. In the impossibility of transcribing them in full, we ask readers to kindly consult the links provided and visit the networks sites. This is just a sample of the brave and rich diversity of engagements we have at EASA. For further information please consult the EASA page links to networks.
Anthropology and the Arts (ANTART)
Founded in 2016 and led by Roger Sansi (Barcelona) and Jonas Tinius (Berlin), will now be convened by Anna Laine, Jen Clarke, Maxime Le Calvé and Giulia Battaglia. Most action is available for viewing at https://www.easaonline.org/networks/antart/index.shtml . There is also a mailing list with further information and a regular presence at the EASA facebook page.
The round table ̈The Anthropologist as curator’ held at EASA2016, originated a book -- Roger Sansi (ed.) The Anthropologist as Curator, Bloomsbury London 2019.
At EASA2018 in Stockholm, the network held the panel “Art and Activism”, organized members meetings, and held an informal networking event in a theatre in Stockholm that brought together artists, anthropologists, and future network members.
The 2019 network event “The trouble with art: skepticism, philistinism and the role of art in anthropology” was held in Berlin and will provide the basis for a book proposal.
Anthropology and Mobility Network (ANTHROMOB)
Anthromob is currently led by Anna Lisa Ramella, Fabiola Mancinelli, and Silvia Wojczewski.At the end of 2019, membership in the ANTHROMOB network and on the network’s listserv has grown to 704 members (from 670 in 2018), with 1’217 followers (from 943 in 2018) on the network’s Facebook page and almost 200 followers on Twitter.
The 2019 network meeting “Mobility and the Future of Work” was held in Barcelona and engaged with intersecting notions of mobilities, work and the future; it also had a city tour in the district of Raval over the theme “Resistance to gentrification”. https://mobilityandfuture2019.home.blog/
The ANTHROMOB advisory board was created in 2019 and includes all former convenors, who will assist current convenors in matters like review processes for EASA panels or other network sponsored conferences or workshops and giving advice in matters of future developments of the network.
The Berghahn ‘Worlds in Motion’ book series is published in collaboration with ANTHROMOB. And includes already a variety of notorious titles, including
Volume 6: Deborah Reed-Danahay. 2019. BOURDIEU AND SOCIAL SPACE. Mobilities, Trajectories, Emplacements; Volume 7: Joris Schapendonk. 2020. FINDING WAYS THROUGH EUROSPACE. West African Movers Re-viewing Europe from the Inside; Volume 8: Vered Amit and Noel B. Salazar. Eds. 2020. PACING MOBILITIES. Timing, Intensity, Tempo and Duration of Human Movements.
The Anthropology and Mobility Bibliography, launched in 2018, encourages all members and beyond to include their publications and those they deem significant for the field.
Anthropologies of the State
AnthroState was founded in 2018 and is led by Anouk de Koning (Leiden), Steffen Jensen (Aalborg), Morten Koch Andersen (Copenhagen) and Martijn Koster (Radboud). The website is www.easaonline.org/networks/ anthrostate/ .
The inaugural network meeting “Genealogies and Positionalities of Thinking the State” was held at Leiden University. Participants examined how approaches to the state are embedded in particular intellectual and everyday traditions and locations, those of the researchers and the sites where they work; discussed how the complex position and embeddedness of anthropological analyses – both of the varied and changing forms of states and various intellectual and social-historical genealogies – have shaped discussions of the state in anthropology in the last decade; and debated how other, differently positioned perspectives may further our understanding of states and state practices.
Building on the discussions at the network meeting, the first network panel “Relational States: New Directions in the Anthropology of the State” will be held at the 2020 EASA Biennial Conference in Lisbon.
Anthropology of Children and Youth Network (ACY)
ACY is led by Élodie Razy (Liege) and Charles-Édouard de Suremain (I R D).
ACY hosted several events in 2019: Séminaire de méthodologie, X. Les apports de l’anthropologie de l’enfance;
Retour à la méthode. Bilan et perspectives anthropologiques
https://www.lasc.uliege.be/upload/docs/application/pdf/2019- 08/sme_x_programme.pdf
Colloquio internacional « L'enfant dans la patrimonialisation: leçons, defis, perspectives» https://childherit.hypotheses.org/6294
Talleres Patromonio, Universidad Popular
https://childherit.hypotheses.org/6305
Séminaire de méthodologie. Les enfants dans leurs environnements : question de point de vue ou mondes partagées
? Les apports de l’anthropologie de l’enfance (XI). Séminaire interdiciplinaire de méthodologie
de l’UMR 208 PALOC (IRD/MNHN)
The lab “Giving research feedback to children: beyond ready-made recipes and asymmetrical relationships” was accepted at the EASA2020 conference.
Anthropology of Confinement
The network was set up in late 2014 as the result of a panel on prison ethnographies that took place at EASA 2014 Conference in Tallinn. Since then, the network has organized two panels in Milan (2016), one panel in Stockholm (2018), and one panel and a roundtable have been accepted for the 2020 Lisbon conference. In 2017, the Network organised its first interim meeting, i.e. the first meeting outside an EASA conference on confinement as a conceptual tool.
In 2019, the network meeting “Economies of Confinement” was held in Paris. Although most participants were anthropologists, the discussions were also enriched by participants’ multiple disciplinary backgrounds, covering political science, sociology, philosophy, law, criminology and social psychology. The format of the meeting was particularly welcomed in that there was plenty of time not only to discuss the papers presented but also to foster broader discussions. Also, the meeting was had a mix format of physical and Zoom participation; conveners “plan to continue to include this carbon free alternative for future meetings with participants from overseas and to promote the inclusion of participants from the Global South and undocumented scholars who are currently unable to travel.”
The network promoted the publication of papers presented at different network panels, along with other papers presented at later Anthropology of Confinement events; venues include Cadernos Pagu , the Global Prisons Research Network’s forthcoming publication in the Cambridge Journal of Anthropology, and the Anthropology of Confinement Network book series established with Berghahn.
The Network has three platforms - the network’s mailing list, which is confined to registered members and counts with over 141 subscribers, a public facebook page currently followed by 1070 people, and a public twitter account, which currently has 667 followers. The Network Facebook and Twitter accounts are used to circulate relevant news about confinement: current policy developments in different jurisdictions, new research being carried out, new publications, relevant resources, upcoming events, call for papers, conferences, etc.
Anthropology of Humanitarianism network (AHN)
AHN, led by Carna Brkovic (Goettingen) and Antonio De Lauri (Bergen), was founded in late 2018 so as to provide a platform for a broad (inter-)disciplinary discussion on the meanings and practices of humanitarianism and on the possible future directions of an anthropology of humanitarianism. In the first year of its existence, some 100 anthropologists from all over Europe and the US have taken an active part in its activities and over 700 people follow its work on the social media.
The 2019 kick-off meeting “Intersections of humanitarianism” was held in Goettingen. The keynote talk, “Humanitarianism and the Manhunt” (Elizabeth C. Dunn) is available on Youtube. Participants discussed intersections between humanitarian forms of reasoning and practice and a range of other ideas about how to relate to people, including activism, voluntarism, security, religion, human rights and so on. One panel explicitly focused on transnational forms of humanitarianism and another on its scaled-down, grassroots iterations.
The AHN has launched a website, it keeps active Facebook and Twitter accounts, and it has published a 19-page long bibliography on the anthropology of humanitarianism that is continually updated. The network also offers two publishing options to its members via the “Research-in-Progress” section of the AHN website and edited volumes within the Berghahn book series “Humanitarianism and Security”.
Website: https://ahneasa.wordpress.com/
Photographs from the kickoff workshop: https://www.facebook.com/pg/Anthropology-of-Humanitarianism-Network-EASA-304091677091998/photos/?tab=album&album_id=525492288285268
Anthropology of Mining
Led by Lorenzo D´Angelo (Reading) and Robert Pijpers (Hamburg), the network exists since 2014. Currently, the network has 48 members, including the two convenors, but a much larger number of followers on the facebook page. During the 2016 EASA conference in Milan the network has successfully organized the panel ´Mining Temporalities,´. further developed during a workshop held in Utrecht (NL) , which resulted in a special issue published by the journal Extractive Industries and Society (EXIS) in March 2018.
The panel ´Mining Mobilities´ was held at EASA 2018 in Stockholm, and tackled issues connected to the mobility and connectivity of knowledge, expertise, policies, technologies, resources and people in the context of resource extraction. The network meeting during EASA 2018 held discussions on future possibilities, including that of adjusting the network´s name to ´Anthropology of Extraction´ to include anthropologists that study gas and oil.
The 2019 Network conference “The global life of mines: Mining and post-mining between extractivism and heritage-making” was held in Cagliari.
Anthropology and Social Movements
The network is led by Alexander Koensler and Elena Apostoli-Cappello. Highlights of the network activities include: the “Laboratory of Ethnography of Social Movements” (Laboratorio di etnografia dei movimenti sociali - LEMS) in Italy; the Conference “Political Imagination Laboratory, U Perugia: https://www.easaonline.org/networks/movement/events ; and smaller network activities at Queen’s University Belfast.
The 2019 EASA-Network “Anthropology and Social Movements” event was organized in cooperation with the “Peasant Activism Project” ( www.peasantproject.org ) and brought together anthropologists, social scientists, film-makers and activists from around Europe, as well as from Mexico and India. Debates included visions on contemporary activism, how to visualize or to contextualize the political imagination of contemporary social movements, how to uncover those utopian aspirations, strategic and/or ideological horizons that too often pass implicitly, silently, or invisibly. The program combined paper presentations with film screenings, roundtable discussions, and work-in-progress visual expositions.
Anthropology of Economy Network
The network is led by Detelina Tocheva (Paris), Dimitra Kofti (Athens), Martin Fotta (Frankfurt), and Charlotte Bruckermann (Bergen) and raises questions of general interest on their quarterly Anthropology of Economy Newsletter – such as Where is the fun in anthropology (Richard Wilk)? Are we ready to seize the opportunity to rethink economic-environment relations in the Capitalocene (Natalia Buier)? How do economic policies and cultural politics contribute to the rise of the new right (Andreas Streinzer)? Is the shift in economic anthropology from small-scale sociality to abstract processes and entities a good thing (James Carrier)? Should we really be generalizing (more) (Felix Stein)? .
The 2019 event focused on “The Moral Dimensions of Economic Life: Cross-Regional Perspectives” and was held in Oxford.
For more information:
https://www.easaonline.org/networks/economy/
https://www.easaonline.org/networks/economy/newsletter
https://www.facebook.com/EASAinfo/posts/easa-anthropology-of-economy-has-posted-its-latest-newsletter-online/2792458774099915/
Anthropology of Food Network
The network is led by Zofia Boni and Stephanie Ketterer Hobbis, was founded in 2017 and has grown notably since then, with more than 350 members from across Europe but also from North America, Asia, Oceania and Africa. The majority of members are anthropologists but related disciplines such as sociology, geography and regional studies are represented as well. In addition, various members work in interdisciplinary settings, and we have both members working in and outside academia.
In 2019, in collaboration with Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale, the network started the EASA Award for a Postgraduate Student Paper in the Anthropology of Food; first recipient of the award was Désirée Kumpf, PhD student at U Leipzig for her paper “What does climate change taste like? Multispecies tasting on organic tea plantations in India.”
Also, the network started a newsletter published in July 2019 and March 2020.
Anthropology of Labour Network (AoL)
AOL, led by Mariya Ivancheva and Dan Hirslund, was established in 2018 out of the efforts of the #PrecAnthro collective to fight academic precarity on European level in collaboration with EASA. Discussions at the PrecAnthro 2016 convergence and EASA’s AGM in Bern emphasised how precarity has been a prevalent feature of life and labour under flexible capitalism.
AoL held its first annual meeting at the EASA2018 conference in Stockholm, mapping themes of interest and urgency for participants, which framed the following year's event in Amsterdam – AoL’s inaugural meeting.
The 2019 meeting in Amsterdam was co-organised with Focaal and the Moving Matters (MoMa) group at UvA; it provided a space for debate and update on state-of-the-art research in the anthropology of labour (…) and showed the strong engagement of a new generation of anthropologists on labour issues.
The network seeks ways to make space for a wide variety of studies on and of labour in order to create an integrative environment. At the AGM we discussed ideas for possible future cooperation with other networks, such as Anthropology of Economy, Anthropology of Mobility, and the Anthropology of Social Movements. (see below). The next meeting will be held at the EASA2020 conference.
Anthropology of Race And Ethnicity (ARE)
ARE is led by Jasmijn Rana, Damani Partridge, Esra Özyürek, Mihir Sharma and Duane Jethro.
The 2019 Network Meeting was held at Leiden University. Issues of notice: creation of a mentoring system for members; co-operation with Gender and Sexuality and Queer networks; collaboration with the Anthropology of Teaching network; a special section on ‘Race in Europe’ was produced in Social Anthropology. Results of a joint ARE/MAE panel at EASA2018 in Stockholm on “Sorting, Typing, Classifying: The Elephants in Our Ethnographic Rooms” are published on http://www.medanthrotheory.org/read/11679/sorting-typing-classifying?fbclid=IwAR1wCjkHoKFUWFmsNz2wDpDRR7cHdj8IBsXFliuv4VaucBJgwETsBsULSW0
Membership assessed by Email subscriptions increased from 284 in 2018 to 322; facebook page ( https://www.facebook.com/groups/1780336045618084/ , jumped from 62 members in 2018 to 226 members in 2019.
Anthropology of Security Network (ASN)
ASN is currently led by Alexandra Schwell, Monika Weissensteiner, and Tereza Kuldova and has a page athttps://anthro-security.net/..
The network addresses the powerful yet elusive concept of security (…) security is everywhere – it is the leitmotif of the contemporary moment. Anthropology has much to say. This network of scholars will advance Social Anthropology’s contribution to the study of security by focusing especially on anthropological and ethnographic contributions to topics such as: Asylum seekers, refugees, undocumented and other migrants as objects of (in)securitization; Surveillance, CCTV, policing, identification; Borders, international relations, human security; Security policy making and expertise; Governmentality, biopower, the ban-opticon; Security industry and new technologies; Uncertainty, risk, insecurity, and new threats such as bio-security and environmental displacement; Critical anthropological, forensic and evolutionary discussions of security; Crime and terrorism, policing and counter-terrorism. Anthropological perspectives are still lacking, especially perspectives that call critical attention to ethics, processes of subjectification, transnational assemblages, (non)local experiences, and the styles of reasoning that are characteristic of transversal forms of ‘expertise’. Anthropological perspectives are important, but we must also seek to understand the form and situatedness of those perspectives and the available horizons on which they are levelled. Beyond narrow-gauge discussions of methodology, we must begin to consider the range of conceptual tools that are necessary and the range of conceptual work that should be undertaken.
The 2019 network Conference “Security and Morality” was held in Oslo and offered a productive platform to explore security through a focus on morality and to share and discuss research-projects at different stages. Participants greatly welcomed the conference topic and opportunity to analyze the security-morality nexus in their respective fields of research on counterterrorism, humanitarianism, biker-clubs, migration control, policing, ‘community’ cohesion, victim-support programs and more (see program). The topic also opened a space for reflections about the ethical challenges in doing research in a politically and morally highly charged field. Geographically, the case studies presented at the conference explored the security-morality configurations in different EU countries, as well as in the US, Russia, Mexico, the Middle East and in the South Pacific. The conference brought together around thirty colleagues from across the disciplines of anthropology, political science, social work, law and criminology. On the first evening, Katja Franko Aas’ keynote lecture addressed the moral economy of migration control. The conference concluded with two book-launches: “Security Blurs: The Politics of Plural Security Provision”, presented by Tessa Diphoorn and Erella Grassiani and “How Outlaws Win Friends and Influence People”, by Tereza Kuldova.
Network-related news, information about new publications, and calls for papers and articles can be found on the ASN homepage, https://anthro-security.net/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2272580782971421/
http://lists.easaonline.org/listinfo.cgi/security-easaonline.org
Collaboratory of Ethnographic Experimentation (#COLLEEX)
Led by Eeva Berglund, Tomás S. Criado, Adolfo Estalella, and Anna Lisa Ramella, Colleex was created in 2016 aiming to open up a space for debate and intervention around experimental forms of ethnographic fieldwork; the main agenda is to foster events around theoretical debates and practical explorations on ethnographic experimentation.
From its inception #Colleex has operated with an open digital infrastructure consisting of a website ( https://colleex.wordpress.com/ ) where the activities of the network are documented, and a digital forum for the organisation of the events (Google Group mailing list, https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/colleex with 284 subscribers as of March 2020).
Open formats. What are they? And, even more importantly, what could an open format be? With these questions in mind, this documentation project has a twofold goal. First, developing discussion on the relevance of meeting formats as pedagogical spaces for the apprenticeship of ethnographic experimentation. Second, we argue for the need to document these ‘experiments in meeting’ so that they may travel, be learnt and reproduced elsewhere.
The convening team is curating a digital documentation project which involves archiving these ‘open formats’ and the conditions for putting them together, as well as sharing the aspirations and reflections, individual and collective, opened up before and after undertaking them: https://colleex.wordpress.com/colleex-open-formats/
They are also conceiving a Colleex-related publication project, experimenting with zine, aiming to open up and circulate the documentation and reflections around the arts of academic encounters developed so far among the #Colleex network. We expect to show a first draft of the zine at this year’s conference in Lisbon.
The 2019 #Colleex workshop “The use•ful•less•ness of the experiment: Anthropology and the assembly of the
unexpected” was held in in Cieszyn (Poland),
URL:
https://colleex.wordpress.com/2nd-colleex-workshop-2019-cieszyn-poland/
Other useful links: https://colleex.wordpress.com/2019/11/18/things-we-feel-and-know-exploring-ethnography-with-colleex-in-cieszyn-july-2019/
https://colleex.wordpress.com/2019/11/30/ways-of-inhabiting-academia-ethnographic-experiments-with-colleex-in-cieszyn/
Energy Anthropology Network (EAN)
EAN was founded in Milan in 2016 and brings together anthropologists working on energy-related topics, with a broad outlook and inclusive approach to what constitutes ‘energy’.
https://ean.hypotheses.org/ has the publications, records of activities and other information.
The 2019 between-conference meeting of the Energy Anthropology Network took the form of a joint meeting with the Future Anthropology Network at the university of Lyon. FAN explores the anthropological potential for future-oriented methodologies, while EAN generates knowledge on approaches to energetic practices of various kinds. The workshop brought these two concerns together, to generate synergies, theoretical trajectories and newly shared research agendas.
By bringing together these two relatively new areas of anthropological research and practice we aim to consolidate an agenda for research and intervention. This agenda seeks to both impact on the theory and methodology of the discipline and to advance an anthropological approach to energy futures as an interdisciplinary research field. At the meeting an innovative book project was planned. Rather than following the conventional model of producing an edited volume, the strength of contributions encouraged the participants to take a bolder step towards a co-authored volume, with different sections authored collectively by sub-groups. The group will meet prior to the 2020 EASA conference in Lisbon for a writing workshop in order to produce this collectively written book.
For more information about the workshop: https://etechfutures.sciencesconf.org/
Several publications are on their way with Berghahn and Routledge.
Two panels sponsored by EAN have been accepted for EASA2020. The network meeting will be the opportunity to elect a new leadership for EAN as both convenors are looking to step down this year after co-founding the network and leading it for the past 4 years. As Energy research continues to grow across the board, it is increasingly important to keep the profile of anthropological research in view, and to promote the valuable and timely work coming out of this work.
Environment and Anthropology Network
Led by Aet Annist (Tartu) and Franz Krause (Cologne), the network started activities in 2018 and has an email list and Facebook page with 260+ followers.
The 2019 inaugural meeting “Perspectives and stories in a world of facts and figures? Exploring the potential of anthropology in tackling environmental issues” was held in Cologne, bringing together 30 pecha kucha presentations and discussions on different applied themes concentrating on what environmental anthropology could contribute to solving the environmental crises.
Lisboa2020: two network panels, also the highest rated amongst the network members, were approved into the conference programme.
EASA Linguistic Anthropology Network (ELAN)
ELAN was founded by Jenanne Ferguson and Laura Siragusa in Stockholm in 2018 as a way to reach out to scholars interested in anthropological questions regarding language and communicative practices, particularly in the European context. While ‘linguistic anthropology’ as one of the four subfields of anthropology grew up within the North American tradition—and thus was not always recognized in the European context—we had found many social anthropologists in Europe were also asking relevant and engaging questions about language, and we wanted to create a forum to showcase these interests at EASA meetings and beyond.
The panel Linguistic agency and responsibility in (im-)mobility bore its fruits in an edited volume, Responsibility and Language Practices in Place, which will soon be published by Fennica Series Anthropologica (Open Access). Each piece explores acts of movement, revealing the ways in which mobility affects the ways that individuals relate to a place, as well as to their language(s) and ways of speaking.
Among a variety of initiatives, Ferguson and Siragusa are coordinating a new panel at EASA2020 in Lisbon, entitled Poetics, Aesthetics and Affect in Linguistic Relationality between Humans and/or Other-than-humans. Anyone who is intrigued by its main questions is welcome to join and participate in the Q&A sessions. In fact, at EASA 2020, ELAN is also planning to organize informal meetings for spontaneous mingling, so as to strengthen the network, establish new contacts, and develop ideas for future cooperation among the network members and any other interested parties. We will be sure to send out details of these meetings through both the ELAN and general EASA listservs closer to the time of convening.
European Network for Psychological Anthropology (ENPA)
Led by Thomas Stodulka (Berlin), Keir Martin (Oslo), James Davies (Roehampton), the network was founded in January 2018 and has since continuously grown in membership numbers (over 200), transnational collaboration, and thematic scope. ENPA has since created its own website (including a blog, multimedia online resources and members’ directory) as well as a social media presence. It has formed an organizational team that comprises of three convenors (see above), a communication officer (Suzana Jovicic, Universität Wien), a membership directory officer (Lavinia Tanculescu, Hyperion University Bucharest), a website manager (Andrew Hodges), a blog coordinator (Florin Cristea, FU Berlin), and a conference director (Anni Kajanus, University of Helsinki).
ENPA has established cooperation ties with the Society for Psychological Anthropology (SPA-AAA) through the organization of joint panels and workshops at the SPA conference in New Mexico in April 2019, and during the AAA conference in Vancouver in November 2019. Thomas Stodulka was appointed associate editor of SPA’s flagship journal Ethos (2019 – 2022).
ENPA has also established links to further related and interdisciplinary networks, such as the SIEF BASE Group (Body, Affects, Senses, and Emotions), DGSKA Working Group for Psychological Anthropology, Open Minds Network - East Asian Network for Society, Culture, and Psychology, The Association of European Qualitative Researchers in Psychology (EQuiP) and further EASA networks, such as the EASA Europeanist Network, and the EASA Applied Anthropology Network.
The network organizes a new format of discussion titled ‘ENPA Dialogues’ with the first discussion having taken place in Berlin in September 2019 (Jarrett Zigon, Greg Downey). It brings together contradictive and conflictive theoretical ideas and discusses them from the perspective of a future-oriented Psychological Anthropology.
The first biennial ENPA Conference ‘Mind Embedded and Embodied - Futures of Psychological Anthropology’ will take place at the University of Helsinki, 2-4 June 2020.
European Network for Queer Anthropology (ENQa)
Led by Anika Keinz (E. U. Viadrina) and Hadley Renkin (C. European University), ENQA is in its 6th year of existence and continues to widen its member base and expand its core network activities.
Currently, ENQA has 158 registered members; the membership database is meant to make it possible to create a network mentorship program, foster international research and encourage professional collaboration among members. Registered members represent all academic levels (undergraduate/BA-students (BA), graduate/MA-students, PhD candidates, post-doctoral researchers, Asst./Assoc. and Full Professors) from a broad range of different European and North American countries.
There is an official Facebook page for the network and a Facebook Group which helps reaching an audience beyond EASA and the official network membership; the number of followers for the Group is currently over 750, and posts come from a wide range of disciplines and countries - and to share relevant scholarly information with both our members and wider academic and activist communities.
The goal of the network Workshop “Writing difference, writing differently” was to discuss how a queer anthropology can offer ways of queering the representation of bodies, identities and ways of being, and what it can contribute to writing differently. It took inspiration from both a decolonialised anthropology and recent efforts to experiment with the form anthropological texts take, to redraw and reform ethnographic writing with a queer agenda; it offered a space for the participants to trouble the canonical structures of scholarship, publishing, and forms of writing. Formats included alternative, dynamic, and innovative modes such as roundtables, writing/reading exercises, embodied explorations, and performance. There were also two evening social events for more informal space for networking and mentoring among participants.
As ENQA and its community and base of comparative knowledge grows, it has become increasingly clear to those of us most centrally involved with these that many of the professional obstacles of personal and institutional discrimination facing queer scholars, though often assumed to be long-overcome, are still very present and powerful. With this in mind, ENQA has renewed its core goals of offering a supportive and both politically and intellectually enlightening environment. In order to confront and overcome these still-pervasive conditions, and to foster critical, analytical knowledge crucial to contesting them, the network intends to continue our series of Workshops on a more formal basis, to strive to expand our community, both within and beyond the network itself - including developing closer connections and coordinate planning for future joint events with other, related EASA Networks, particularly the Network for the Anthropology of Gender and Sexuality (NAGS) with whom we will offer a panel in Lisbon. We also hope in the future to provide useful resources for our members and outside queer researchers and students, in three primary ways: 1) by developing an online bibliography of queer scholarship (begun in 2018, and already growing), 2) by coordinating a mentoring system that brings senior queer scholars together with students and young scholars, and 3) by working towards producing a peer-reviewed online blog series dedicated to queer anthropological research, providing a key venue for scholars to overcome many of the difficulties which still face the publication and dissemination of queer research.
The Europeanist Network
The network was established in 2004, on the occasion of the 8th EASA Conference held in Vienna. Its official EASA page can be consulted here: https://www.easaonline.org/networks/europ/ . The last network meeting was organized during EASA 2018 conference, reuniting almost 20 members and future members.
The 2019 Europeanist Workshop, initially scheduled for Bucharest, was rescheduled Ploiești with the partnership of the Museum of Natural Sciences-Prahova and others, under the theme Told and Untold Stories in Europeanist Anthropology/Ethnology . A proposal was made to open a subsection of the network especially for young researchers - ENYR, Europeanist Network Young Scholars, in order to promote Europeanist research and EASA’s activities. The idea will be discussed and voted upon during our next meeting at EASA 2020 conference in Lisbon.
The network proposed an official panel for EASA2020 - P003: World Fairs, Exhibitions and Anthropology: Revisiting Contexts of Post/Colonialism, to be convened by Hande A. Birkalan-Gedik (Goethe Universität), Patrícia Ferraz de Matos (Universidade de Lisboa) and Andrés Barrera-González (Universidad Complutense de Madrid).
Also in 2019, a new volume appeared in the network’s series at Berghahn Books - Anthropology of Europe : Susan Beth Rottmann, In Pursuit of Belonging. Forging an Ethical Life in European-Turkish Spaces (ISBN 978-1-78920-269-4. 216 pages, 7 illus., bibliog., index).
Future Anthropologies Network (FAN)
FAN is led by Débora Lanzeni and Karen Waltorp. The 2019 meeting of the network was held in collaboration with the Energy Anthropology Network, entitled ‘Energy Futures’ and hosted by Nathalie Ortar at Université de Lyon. The seminar included a guided walking-tour of the newly redeveloped Confluences city-area, where evolving ideas about energy futures have been made material in recent years. A meeting was held in September (with some participating via Skype) on a book, planned around the joint event in Lyon. A volume is now in process with an experimental format of 4 co-authored section introductions (with four contributors in each section across FAN and EAN members). The contributors will be meeting in Lisbon for a full-day writing workshop on July 20th, prior to EASA2020.
May 28-30th 2019 a PhD course on Experimental Collaboration with 30 international phd-students was held at Aarhus University with FAN co-convener Karen Waltorp and EASA #Colleex network co-convener Adolfo Estalella.
The volume An Anthropology for Technologies and Futures, which grew out of the 2018 FAN panels at EASA 2018 in Stockholm, with additional contributions by FAN members new and old, is going to be published soon, edited by Lanzeni, Waltorp, Pink and Rachel Charlotte Smith.
Three panels have been accepted in the EASA2020 programme. The network is continuing its tradition of walking into the city space where the EASA conference and our network meetings are held with two ‘sister labs’ proposed and accepted for EASA2020: Multimodal FAN Lab: Exploring the (post)colonial city on foot and Performance FAN Lab: Exploring the (post) colonial city on foot.
In spring 2020 both conveners are at the Emerging Technologies Research Lab, Monash University, preparing an application for a Wenner Gren grant, focused on widening the network and with the aim to create synergy and common research ground for FAN members new and old.
History of Anthropology Network (HOAN)
HOAN is led by Frederico Delgado Rosa (Lisboa) and Han F. Vermeulen (MPI Halle/Saale). Since its reactivation in 2016, following the EASA conference in Milan, the network HOAN has experienced a steady expansion as regards its global connections, the number of members and the activities in which they participate. This is related to the rising interest in the subject in Europe and worldwide, as the history of anthropology subdisciplinary field passes from the margins to the centre. By 2020, the network has over 200 members.
HOAN is set up to facilitate research among and communication between anthropologists, historians and other scholars interested in the history of anthropology. The Network also has an Advisory Board and a Circle of Correspondents in nine European countries as well as in the USA and in New Zealand. A new subpage in the EASA Website is dedicated to the HOAN Newsletters . This subpage also reflects the connections with the following key partners: (1) History of Anthropology Review (HAR); (2) History of Anthropology Interest Group within the American Anthropological Association (AAA); (3) Histories of Anthropology Annual ; (4) World Anthropologies Network (WAN); (5) German Anthropological Association; (6) Royal Anthropological Institute; and (7) BEROSE International Encyclopaedia of the Histories of Anthropology . HOAN keeps enabling scholars based in numerous countries and at various institutions to work together, exchange the results of their research, and reflect on changing methodologies and theorical insights of the discipline's historiography.
HOAN Newsletters with over 50 attached resources have been shared with members of HOAN by E-mail – representing a tremendous, collective effort of network convenors, correspondents, and members in terms of collecting and sharing relevant and updated information on developments in the subdisciplinary field of the history of anthropology not only in Europe but also in other continents, particularly regarding recent publications, recent and upcoming conferences and workshops, calls for panels and calls for papers. The newsletters are also online on HOAN’s subpage and, thanks to EASA’s IT department, are uploaded as soon as they have been distributed.
https://www.easaonline.org/networks/hoan/newsletters
The newsletters and history of anthropology panels reflect the variety of themes discussed as well as the dynamics of the network and the increasing interest in the subject. New members are welcome to join by contacting the network convenors and sending a short bio including a list of recent publications.
https://www.easaonline.org/networks/hoan/
Humans and Other Living Beings (HOLB)
The 2109 network conference/workshop “Arts of Coexistence: Care and Survival in the Sixth Extinction” was held in Oslo in collaboration with the recently established OSEH (Oslo School of Environmental Humanities); it explored diverse forms of care across difference that people develop (or fail to develop) in the context of species disappearance. Participants addressed how are ways of coexistence threatened, erased but also still maintained in time of the sixth extinction; skills, practices and ideas of care in multispecies, interspecies and more-than-human contexts; what forms of care are the chaos and violence of the present moment calling forth, their limits, risks, dangers, potential for destruction; how does care travel and may be transposed to novel objects, settings and domains; how is care undone, destroyed, eradicated, restored; and how can researchers root practices in forms of care that do justice to the future, and envisage possibilities of more-than-human care.
The outcome of the workshop will be submitted to a journal.
HOLB members will be reaching out for new conveners during the Lisboa 2020 meetings.
LAW NET
LawNet is led by Nora Fabritius. The 2019 network meeting “Concepts, paradigms and slogans – From human rights to human dignity and sustainability” was held at Helsinki and brought together anthropologists working in the anthropology of governance, rights and law to discuss, generate and, where appropriate, define/redefine key concepts, paradigms and familiar slogans that frame practices and performances of governance. Extractivism, environmental sustainability, transnationalism, power and security were among the key concepts that were discussed. ‘Sustainability’ constitutes one exemplary case of a discourse that in recent years has become increasingly central within global governance, prompting the question: what is entailed in the apparent shift from human rights toward human dignity and sustainability? What changes can be identified, where do they come from, and what do they express? More generally, what and who are such new or subtly shifting paradigms serving? The workshop offered an opportunity to consider ethnographically grounded explorations on the meanings and consequences of concepts, paradigms and slogans as they endure or alter. The discussions offered new insights and the event resulted in new plans for collaboration and joint publications.
Medical Anthropology Young Scholars (MAYS)
Led by Francesca Cancelliere (Lisbon) and Ursula Probst (Berlin), MAYS organized its 10th annual MAYS meeting “Being there. Medical Anthropology in action” in Turin (Italy). Keynote Gilles Bibeau addressed the theoretical challenges for junior medical anthropologists today and pointed out the need to speak of medical anthropologies in plural, as different theoretical, methodological and epistemological traditions in this field exist in different parts of the academic world. The meeting provided an opportunity for young scholars at different stages in their academic career (MA and PhD students as well as postdocs) to discuss their work among peers and in a friendly and constructive atmosphere. In informal and formal feedback on the MAYS meeting, participants reported that they enjoyed the discussions within their parallel groups, but also those had over lunch, dinner and workshops. Many reported that these groups and workshops provided helpful and specific feedback on their own work and project proposals, but also opened up broader questions about the application methods and ethnography in Medical Anthropology.
A special issue of the journal Anthropology in Action on the theme “Being there. Medical Anthropology in Action. Junior Scholars’ perspectives on contemporary challenges in the field” is being negotiated.
Anthony Rizk (Geneva) will replace Ursula Probost for the next term.
Media Anthropology Network
The network is, currently led by Philipp Budka, Sahana Udupa, and Elisabetta Costa, exists since 2004 and is committed to continue its established networking activities, such as the e-seminar series and network panels at EASA conferences. It is also constantly aiming to organise new events and initiatives that will bring together international researchers interested in the anthropology of media to discuss pressing issues. The aim has to been to consolidate the network’s role as a leading professional forum for anthropological approaches to media as well as bring a global audience to the network’s activities by incorporating different views, perspectives and traditions of research within the scope of anthropology of media. Mindful of the vast technological changes that are unleashed by digitalization, we aim to develop a robust expert forum for critical perspectives on this topic and to see these changes as an opportunity for a connected world.
From 29 January to 21 February 2019, the Media Anthropology Network organised and hosted its 64th e-seminar via its mailing list which currently has 1,542 subscribers. During this online event participants discussed the working paper “Mobile Technology, Mediation and Social Change in Rural India” by Sirpa Tenhunen (University of Helsinki). All e-seminar documents are open and freely available: https://easaonline.org/networks/media/eseminars
On 11 October 2019, the workshop “Decoloniality and the Digital Turn in Media Anthropology” brought together an international group of anthropologists, media scholars and postcolonial theorists to discuss questions of decoloniality and digitality in relation to an anthropology of media at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) Munich. The meeting was opened and closed with keynotes by Daniel Miller (UCL) and John Postill (RMIT Melbourne).
Resulting from a previous Network workshop held in Vienna 2015, the edited volume Theorising Media and Conflict (eds. Philipp Budka & Birgit Bräuchler, 2020) was published by Berghahn Books in its Anthropology of Media series ( https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/BudkaTheorising ).
For more information see
https://easaonline.org/networks/media/
https://twitter.com/medianthro
Medical Anthropology Europe (MAE)
MAE is currently led by Hansjörg Dilger, Berlin (Co-Convenor); Bernhard Hadolt, Vienna (Co-Convenor); Rikke Sand Andersen, Aarhus (Representative for Teaching); and Natashe Lemos Dekker, Amsterdam (Public Engagement).
Taking up former discussions among network members and in line with the particular role and function of the network in the European context the new board decided to change the network’s name from originally Medical Anthropology Network to Medical Anthropology Europe (in short: MAE).
Board members discussed over two different meetings the overall vision of the network for the coming years and the particular role and function it can play in the European context, for instance with regard to its potentials for becoming more involved in public debates, e.g. on health and migration and Global Health. In addition, the board discussed the visibility of the network with regard to its website and its presence on social media and explored possibilities for future collaboration with the Medical Anthropology Young Scholars (MAYS), one of our network’s most active interest groups.
Eventually, there will be three EASA2020 panels linked to MAE: Shifting Grounds: Emerging Medical Realities since the 1990s and into the Future [MAE]; Moving Terrains in Care and Biomedicine: Affective Modes and Vulnerable Positions [MAE], and Ethical concerns: Envisioning ethnographic fieldwork across generations with cognitively impaired people [Joint panel: Age and Generations Network and MAYS].
The board is committed to re-launch the network website: https://www.easaonline.org/networks/medical/ ; a Twitter account was set up ( https://twitter.com/medanteurope?lang=de ; @MedAntEurope), in addition to its Facebook account ( https://www.facebook.com/MedAntEurope/ ).
MAE also maintains a mailing list that serves as discussion forum and announcement list. The list is a very active platform and it has currently 825 members. It disseminates discussion contributions and information both from network members and from beyond about conferences, workshops, fellowships, job openings, PhD posts etc. concerning the field of medical anthropology. The mailing list is managed by Natashe Lemos Dekker.
MAE also highlights the importance of MAYS as EASA network’s most active special interest group, for their sites: https://mayseasa.org/ and https://www.facebook.com/groups/310791529039234/
Mediterraneanist Network (MEDNET)
MedNet is led by Jutta Lauth Bacas (Malta), Carlo Capello (Torino), and Panas Karampampas (Paris)
The 2019 network workshop The future(s) of the Mediterranean between uncertainties and resilience, with a keynote by Pier Paolo Viazzo, was held at the university of Turin. The theme was chosen to introduce a fresh approach into the studies of the Mediterranean region. In contrast to other academic discourses, which focus mainly on the current economic and political crisis in the Mediterranean, the 2019 MedNet workshop wanted to investigate the Mediterranean as a place in which new ideas and understandings of future(s) are arising as people are trying to find ways to face the uncertainties in their lives. Participants had the innovative walking tour “Migrantour: The city through the eyes of migrants.”
Convenors of MedNet are checking possibilities to prepare a publication of a selection of manuscripts focusing on future(s) and resilience in the Mediterranean region.
Network For Anthropology Of Gender And Sexuality (NAGS)
NAGS is led by An Van Raemdonck (Amsterdam) and Monika Baer (Wroclaw).
In October 2018, NAGS and the European Network of Queer Anthropology (ENQA) wrote a letter of concern to the EASA Board on the threat against gender studies across Europe, after Hungary’s leader Viktor Orban withdrew the accreditation of gender studies programs in his country. The conveners are concerned with current crucial changes in the European political, social and academic landscape vis-à-vis the scientific study of gender and sexuality, and vis-à-vis academic freedom at large. NAGS has continued to show interest in those contemporary developments concerning gender studies and organized its 2019 annual Network Meeting around a similar theme, and welcomes all new members and volunteers who want to contribute, share their work, thoughts and ideas on the anthropology of gender and sexuality in current times.
The Network 2019 workshop “Is Gender Dangerous? Unravelling anti-gender and anti-migrant movements and reflecting on the current challenges of doing research on gender” was held in Amsterdam. With a keynote by Joanna Mishtal on the backlash against gender scholars from different generations, the contributors aimed to interrogate the roles of anthropologists and other scholars working on gender and sexuality in changing social landscapes marked by heightened nationalism and the rise of populist and right-wing thought. In particular, the discussed issues comprised entanglements of nation states, liberal democracy, anti-gender movements and political power; on- and offline forms of anti-feminism and anti-migrant practices; and femo- and homonationalism and its critiques. It provided a platform for inspiring discussion, brought new and strengthened the already existing networks out of which future initiatives, both personally and institutionally based, will certainly emerge.
A special issue resulting from the workshop is planned with the Journal of Diversity and Gender Studies (DiGeSt), an open access, bi-annual, peer-reviewed international journal, for April 2022.
The photographic documentation of the event can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/events/557490601688759/?active_tab=discussion
Network for Ethnographic Theory (NET)
NET is led Scott MacLochlainn and Sonja Moghaddari, who build up a web presence for the NET, with monthly guest reading lists and posts from international junior and senior scholars, monthly digests, and a website (now with a new domain, www.ethnotheory.com ); the Facebook group, which now has more than 1000 members, as well as the twitter account, reach a large public.
NET sponsored and organized a multimedia double-session panel at the Biennial Conference of the Finnish Anthropological Society 29-30 August 2019, in Helsinki.
In looking forward to 2020, NET will continue to invest energies in the Network’s website, as well as organize a panel in continuation of our discussion at the FAS Conference 2019 at the EASA meeting in Lisbon in 2020 (P135 “Conflicting temporalities in the anthropology of the future”).
Peace and Conflict Studies in Anthropology Network (PACSA)
PACSA is currently led by Fiona Murphy and Katja Seidel.
The 7th biennial PACSA conference “Creativity, Resistance and Hope: Towards an Anthropology of Peace” was held in Belfast. Discussions addressed theoretical and methodological insights on peace from anthropological research – bringing them together with concepts of creativity, imagination, hope and artistic articulations in conflict, resistance, memory and peacemaking. With 9 panel sessions with more than 50 paper presentations, two keynote lectures by Prof. Victoria Sanford and Prof. Richard Baxstrom, and various non-traditional conference formats (performances, workshops, the screening of a film, a handbook-workshop) the 2019 meeting created a space for interaction, exchange of thought and discussions that allowed EASA members to build new alliances and tease out ideas for mutually beneficial future projects. The conference encouraged participants to work with creative formats that go beyond traditional ways of anthropological knowledge production and unpacked the meaning of visual, bodily and spatial representations of and resistance to violence, as well as creative ways of writing about peace and conflict. Additionally, there was a guided walking tour of Belfast.
The book of abstract is attached and the detailed programme can be accessed via the website under the following link: https://pacsa-web.eu/2019/09/08/pacsa-2019-conference-creativity-resistance-and-hope-towards-an-anthropology-of-peace/
The Anthropological Handbook on Peace and Conflict, presented by Andreas Hackl during the 2018 network meeting in Stockholm, is under processing The editors of the book will hold another meeting during EASA Lisbon and soon thereafter will hand out a call and invite authors.
Three out of four proposed PACSA Panels have been accepted for the EASA2020 conference in Lisbon.
Pilgrimage Studies Network (PILNET)
Pilnet is led by John Eade (Roehampton) and Mario Katić (Zadar). During 2019 ‒ PILNET’s second year ‒ the network pursued three directions: promoting the Network, attracting new members and organising the first PILNET workshop. PILNET sponsored the panel “The changing character of pilgrimages” in the SIEF conference in Santiago de Compostela.
The first PILNET “Approaching Pilgrimage: Methodological Issues Involved in Researching Routes, Sites and Practices” was held at the University of Zadar, Croatia. The paper selection was very rigorous which resulted with high quality papers and plans for a publication with Routledge.
PILNET supports the panel proposal “Pilgrimage and the Politics of Presence and Absence: Anthropological Horizons on Sacralizing Locality, Visibility and Invisibility in the Contemporary World”, submitted to the EASA conference in Lisbon in 2020.
Visual Anthropology Network (VANEASA)
Vaneasa is led by Beate Engelbrecht and Paolo SH Favero. The main activity of the network is the publication of the online-journal AnthroVision: http://anthrovision.revues.org/ .
In 2019 two issues were publish, both on a special topic.
Vol. 6.1. ( https://journals.openedition.org/anthrovision/2989 ) was on “Film in Ethnographic Exhibitions”, edited by Anne Mette Jørgensen and Nadja Valentinčič Furlan.
Vol. 6.2. ( https://journals.openedition.org/anthrovision/3668 ) was on “Visual Anthropology From Latin America”, edited by Angela Torresan and Carlos Y. Flores.
In September 2019 the workshop “Crafting the Future of the Visual Essay” took place in Antwerp. Eight early career scholars presented their work, mostly still in progress, which were critically commented by eight experts. The aim was the present need to look further into the way in which new audio-visual technologies and communication tools are triggering off not only new ways of producing ethnographic material but also to disseminate research results – creating a space of reflection upon the possible ways in which visual anthropologists (and visual scholars at large) can today move beyond established linear, flat, text-driven forms of visual narration. The workshop will lead to a special issue of the journal.
VANEASA has at the moment more than 770 members on the mailing list which is used constantly for diverse information.
