Activ­i­ties

Diskus­sion­srunde mit Jens Adam (Forschungs­gruppe Soft Author­i­tar­i­anisms, Uni­ver­sität Bre­men) / Čar­na Brković & Sabine Hess (Insti­tut für Kul­tur­an­thro­polo­gie und Europäis­che Eth­nolo­gie, Uni­ver­sität Göt­tin­gen) / Bernd Kas­parek (Insti­tut für Europäis­che Eth­nolo­gie, Hum­boldt Uni­ver­sität zu Berlin)

Der Krieg in der Ukraine macht auch ‚Europa‘ erneut zu einem Gegen­stand öffentlich­er Diskus­sion und poli­tis­ch­er Prax­is: die Ver­schär­fung innereu­ropäis­ch­er Antag­o­nis­men und Grenzziehun­gen, die ras­ante Inte­gra­tion ein­er mil­itärischen Kom­po­nente in EU-Poli­tiken, die sukzes­sive Kap­pung langfristiger tran­skon­ti­nen­taler ökonomis­ch­er Ver­flech­tun­gen im Bere­ich der fos­silen Energie oder die Etablierung par­al­lel­er, höchst ungle­ich­er Migra­tionsregime an der östlichen EU-Außen­­gren­ze sind einige der Felder, in denen wider­sprüch­liche Refig­u­ra­tio­nen Europas aktuell deut­lich zutage treten.
Im Rah­men dieses Round­table möcht­en wir vier Schlaglichtern auf diese Entwick­lun­gen wer­fen und ins­beson­dere in ihren Kon­se­quen­zen für eine anthro­pol­o­gis­che Europäisierungs­forschung disku­tieren. Wie verän­dern sich unsere Begriffe von „Gren­ze“ und dem „Regieren“ ein­er supra­na­tionalen For­ma­tion? Was ler­nen wir über die Grund­la­gen und Mech­a­nis­men von Ein- und Auss­chlüssen in das europäis­che Pro­jekt? Und welche kri­tis­chen Per­spek­tiv­en eröff­nen sich auf diese Gegen­wart, wenn wir sie auf Basis von ethno­grafis­chen Stu­di­en zur EU-Süd­­gren­ze kontextualisieren?

Reg­istrierung per E‑Mail an xiaoling@uni-bremen.de

Out­raged by the bru­tal­i­ty of the Russ­ian government’s mil­i­tary inva­sion of Ukraine, this pan­el will assem­ble anthro­pol­o­gists to reflect about ways and approach­es to react to this war with the means of our dis­ci­pline. It will pro­vide a space to share our obser­va­tions and indig­na­tions, to engage with first care­ful attempts of sense-mak­ing and to debate about pos­si­ble pub­lic action. The pan­elists will focus espe­cial­ly on the fol­low­ing aspects:

• What do we know about the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion on the ground? How does the war affect the con­di­tions of every­day and com­mu­nal life, the social fab­ric and sociopo­lit­i­cal forms in Ukraine? How can we con­tribute to doc­u­ment these con­se­quences of orga­nized violence?
• To which extent can we draw on already elab­o­rat­ed per­spec­tives of an anthro­pol­o­gy of polit­i­cal vio­lence to address and exam­ine this ongo­ing war?
• How does the war and its geopo­lit­i­cal reper­cus­sions chal­lenge our under­stand­ings of Europe and Euro­peaniza­tion as anthro­po­log­i­cal research fields?
• What steps could we take to cre­ate net­works of sup­port and sol­i­dar­i­ty for Ukrain­ian colleagues?

Par­tic­i­pants:
Volodymyr Artiukh (Uni­ver­si­ty of Oxford), Eliz­a­beth C. Dunn (Indi­ana Uni­ver­si­ty Bloom­ing­ton), Taras Fedirko (Uni­ver­si­ty of St Andrews), Daf­na Rachok (Indi­ana Uni­ver­si­ty Bloom­ing­ton), Andrey Vozyanov (Euro­pean Human­i­ties Uni­ver­si­ty Vil­nius), Cather­ine Wan­ner (Penn­syl­va­nia State University)

Con­venors:
Jens Adam (Uni­ver­si­ty of Bre­men), Čar­na Brković (Uni­ver­si­ty of Göt­tin­gen), Sabine Hess (Uni­ver­si­ty of Göt­tin­gen), DGEKW-Kom­mis­­sion “Europäisierung_​​Globalisierung: Ethno­grafien des Poli­tis­chen“, U Bre­men Excel­lence Chair Research Group „Soft Authoritarianisms

Pan­el at the con­fer­ence: “New Author­i­tar­i­anisms in the Con­tem­po­rary World”

Albert Hirschmann Cen­tre on Democ­ra­cy, Grad­u­ate Insti­tute Geneva

A spec­tre is haunt­ing the world – the spec­tre of new author­i­tar­i­anisms. From Brazil to Hun­gary, from Poland to the Philip­pines, from India to the Unit­ed States, a new wave of author­i­tar­i­an lead­ers, par­ties and move­ments has been under­min­ing democ­ra­cy from with­in and threat­en­ing its exis­tence. Until quite recent­ly, author­i­tar­i­an­ism was a phe­nom­e­non iden­ti­fied with the South. Today, how­ev­er, author­i­tar­i­an ide­olo­gies, move­ments, and par­ties, and the threat they pose to democ­ra­cy, are also very much a fea­ture of pol­i­tics in the West. The work­shop aims to bring togeth­er inter­est­ed grad­u­ate stu­dents and post-docs to explore this phe­nom­e­non from mul­ti­ple dis­ci­pli­nary and method­olog­i­cal perspectives.

With per­spec­tives from researchers around, this work­shop aims to share per­spec­tives on cur­rent author­i­tar­i­an regimes, the events that lead to author­i­tar­i­an­ism and the impact of the same on states. The work­shop brings spe­cif­ic exam­ples of research con­duct­ed in coun­tries around the world explor­ing the con­di­tions that fos­ter a vari­ety of author­i­tar­i­an sen­ti­ments, the links between var­i­ous  ide­olo­gies and the cur­rent sce­nario, and final­ly the strate­gies and tac­tics of these regimes. 

Sign up by email at democracy@graduateinstitute.ch

Book pre­sen­ta­tion and dis­cus­sion with Didi­er Fassin:

Death of a Trav­eller. A Counter-Inves­ti­­ga­­tion. Poli­ty 2021.

In his last book, Didi­er Fassin exam­ines a bla­tant case of police vio­lence and insti­tu­tion­al racism. A young man, belong­ing to the Trav­eller com­mu­ni­ty, fails to return to prison after a tem­po­rary release. The search oper­a­tion of a spe­cial unit of the French gen­darmerie ends with the fugi­tive shot dead on his par­ents’ farm. After­wards con­tra­dic­to­ry accounts of the fatal event are giv­en. The gen­darmerie speaks of inevitable self-defense; the fam­i­ly reports of a sequence of exag­ger­at­ed bru­tal­i­ty that cul­mi­nates in the exe­cu­tion of their rel­a­tive. Dur­ing the fol­low­ing judi­cial inves­ti­ga­tion, the family’s account is mar­gin­al­ized and even­tu­al­ly dis­re­gard­ed; the offi­cers’ ver­sion prevails.

Based on inter­views as well as a care­ful read­ing of offi­cial doc­u­ments and judi­cial reports, Didi­er Fassin car­ries out a “counter-inves­ti­­ga­­tion”. Giv­ing each ver­sion of the nar­ra­tive the same cred­it, he expos­es the incon­sis­ten­cies that the court rul­ing, final­ly dis­charg­ing the offi­cers, had ignored. As a result, Fassin coun­ters the author­i­ta­tive “judi­cial truth” with an alter­na­tive “ethno­graph­ic truth” that aims at re-open­ing a legal­ly closed sto­ry and here­by return­ing respectabil­i­ty to the vic­tim and his family.

In this online meet­ing Didi­er Fassin will dis­cuss with mem­bers of the com­mis­sion “Ethno­gra­phies of the Polit­i­cal” about the par­tic­u­lar gen­e­sis of the book, its main con­cepts, argu­ments and tex­tu­al­i­ty. A spe­cif­ic empha­sis will be put on “counter-inves­ti­­ga­­tion” as a method­ol­o­gy to inter­vene into polit­i­cal and judi­cial process­es via ethnog­ra­phy. We will explore the char­ac­ter­is­tics and poten­tials of “counter-inves­ti­­ga­­tion” in rela­tion to fur­ther approach­es and strate­gies of a Pub­lic Anthropology.

Please reg­is­ter by send­ing an email to Natasha Deasy (Deasy@uni-bremen.de). You will receive a zoom-link the day before the event.

Didi­er Fassin is the James D. Wolfen­sohn Pro­fes­sor at the Insti­tute for Advanced Study in Prince­ton and a Direc­tor of Stud­ies at the École des hautes études en sci­ences sociales in Paris.

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion about the book “Death of a Trav­eller”, please con­sult this recent review (in Ger­man).

This event is orga­nized by the com­mis­sion “Europeanization_​​Globalization: Ethno­gra­phies of the Polit­i­cal” (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Empirische Kul­tur­wis­senschaft) in coop­er­a­tion with the U Bre­men Excel­lence Chair Research Group “Soft Author­i­tar­i­anisms”.

With Ste­fano Har­ney (Pro­fes­sor of Trans­ver­sal Aes­thet­ics, Acad­e­my of Media Arts, Cologne) and Shali­ni Ran­de­ria (President/​​Rector, Cen­tral Euro­pean Uni­ver­si­ty, Vien­na; Senior Vis­it­ing Fel­low, Albert Hirschman Cen­tre on Democ­ra­cy, The Grad­u­ate Insti­tute of Inter­na­tion­al and Devel­op­ment Stud­ies, Geneva)

Con­vened by Samia Hen­ni, Albert Hirschman Chair 2021/22, the Insti­tute for Advanced Study of Aix Mar­seille Uni­ver­si­ty (IMERA)

Amer­i­can Anthro­po­log­i­cal Asso­ci­a­tion Annu­al Meet­ing 2021: Truth and Responsibility

Anthro­po­log­i­cal research on con­tem­po­rary Europe has to deal with pow­er­ful epis­te­molo­gies: the ‘colo­nial divide’ between ‘Europe’ and the colo­nial ‘oth­ers’, the monop­o­liz­ing effects of the process­es of EU-inte­­gra­­tion on visions about the continent’s shape, bor­ders and future or the close link between ‘moder­ni­ty’ and ‘Europe’ are just three such epis­temic tra­di­tions that play out in polit­i­cal debates, fields of prac­tice and dai­ly life. Tak­ing the rel­e­vance of these epis­te­molo­gies for the cur­rent work­ings of pow­er into account, a crit­i­cal research on ‘Europe’ and ‘Euro­peaniza­tion’ seems indis­pens­able. But how can we do so with­out repro­duc­ing such epis­temic tra­di­tions and their hier­ar­chi­cal effects?

Based on ethno­graph­ic mate­r­i­al in Lviv (West­ern Ukraine) – a city locat­ed at a cross­ing point of dif­fer­ent ‘impe­r­i­al for­ma­tions’ (Stoler/​​McGranahan/​​Perdue 2007), right behind the EU’s cur­rent exter­nal bor­der – I will demon­strate, how these epis­te­molo­gies can be decen­tred by the ‘won­ders of urban life’. Sur­round­ed by the man­i­fold traces and remains of divers empires, nation states and polit­i­cal sys­tems, Lvi­vians have become dai­ly experts in relat­ing the stuff left behind. They still recall the unful­filled promis­es of bygone projects of urban moder­ni­ty. They take part in re-arrang­ing these remains into man­i­fold forms of con­tem­po­rary city­ness. And nav­i­gat­ing the city, they expe­ri­ence the errat­ic effects of con­tem­po­rary process­es of Euro­peaniza­tion, gen­er­at­ing new infra­struc­tures, con­nec­tions and capa­bil­i­ties as much as rup­tures, voids and ruins. The spaces in between these par­tial re-arrange­­ments and errat­ic effects invoke sur­prise as a con­sis­tent con­di­tion of city mak­ing – sur­pris­es about the dys­func­tion­al­i­ty of infra­struc­tures, about the close­ness of con­nec­tion and dis­con­nec­tion, about the co-pres­ence of revi­tal­i­sa­tion and dis­so­lu­tion, about the qual­i­ty of bygone projects of urban moder­ni­ty or about the fact that the ram­shackle mate­r­i­al struc­ture does not just collapse.

In my paper, I will take such sur­pris­es as ethno­graph­ic start­ing points to trace the simul­ta­ne­ous enact­ment and decen­tring of dom­i­nant Euro­pean epis­te­molo­gies in dai­ly prac­tices of city mak­ing. I will exam­ine how these won­ders of urban life can inform counter-nar­ra­­tives about ‘Europe’ as a muta­ble and frag­ile, inter­nal­ly diverse and glob­al­ly entan­gled formation.

This nine-day inter­dis­ci­pli­nary Autumn Research School aims at map­ping the dif­fer­ent forms of extrac­tivist cap­i­tal­ism across transna­tion­al spaces and emerg­ing rela­tion­al geo­gra­phies includ­ing cur­rent devel­op­ments in finance, logis­tics and dig­i­tal economies.

In this pan­el, we would like to shed light on the inter­re­la­tions between extrac­tivism, ter­ri­to­r­i­al frag­men­ta­tion and (soft) author­i­tar­i­an rule. Based on ethno­graph­ic obser­va­tions and case stud­ies from Brazil, Hun­gary, Turkey and West­ern Europe we will dis­cuss the fol­low­ing ques­tions: Why and how do extrac­tive cap­i­tal­ism and new forms of author­i­tar­i­an rule coin­cide in the present moment? To which extent are zones of extrac­tivism enabled by the nor­mal­iza­tion of (soft) author­i­tar­i­an prac­tices, rhetoric and tech­nolo­gies of gov­er­nance? Is there a spe­cif­ic (soft) author­i­tar­i­an way to address and respond to process­es of frag­men­ta­tion evoked by neolib­er­al cap­i­tal­ism? And what can we learn about con­tem­po­rary forms of labour, dis­pos­ses­sion and cap­i­tal accu­mu­la­tion by focus­ing on these interrelations?

The pan­el is orga­nized as a fish­bowl for­mat. After intro­duc­to­ry state­ments by Erdem Evren (Berlin), Eliane Fer­nan­des (Ham­burg) and Kristóf Szom­bati (Budapest) and first com­ments by Andrea Müh­le­bach (Bre­men) the audi­ence is invit­ed to join in a live­ly and inter­ac­tive discussion.

Round table orga­nized by the RG „Europe”

Dif­fer­ent epis­te­molo­gies of impe­r­i­al dom­i­na­tion res­onate in con­tem­po­rary notions of Europe: the ‚colo­nial divide‘ between Europe and its ‚exter­nal oth­ers‘, the mar­gin­al­iza­tion of social­ist moder­ni­ty or the monop­o­liz­ing effects of EU-inte­­gra­­tion on visions about the continent’s shape, bor­ders and future are just three such epis­temic tra­di­tions that con­fig­ure Europe as a polit­i­cal project and object of knowl­edge. I would like to cen­ter my inter­ven­tion around the ques­tion of how we can do anthro­po­log­i­cal research on Europe and Euro­peaniza­tion with­out repro­duc­ing these epis­te­molo­gies and their hier­ar­chi­cal effects. For that pur­pose, I will pro­pose an ana­lyt­i­cal approach that aims at exam­in­ing Europe as a het­eroge­nous, mul­ti­ple and uncom­plet­ed for­ma­tion by apply­ing a twofold ana­lyt­i­cal move: fore­ground­ing Europe as an object of crit­i­cal study in order to simul­ta­ne­ous­ly decen­ter it through an explic­it focus on its glob­al entan­gle­ments and impe­r­i­al „world-mak­ing projects“, on its inter­nal fric­tions and margins.

Ein Gespräch mit Car­o­la Lentz, Präsi­dentin des Goethe-Instituts

Seit Novem­ber 2020 ist die Afri­­ka-Eth­nolo­­gin Car­o­la Lentz Präsi­dentin des Goethe-Insti­­tutes. Wir nehmen diese Beru­fung zum Anlass, um über Schnittmen­gen und Berührungspunk­te zwis­chen Kul­­tur- und Sozialan­thro­polo­gie und (auswär­tiger) Kul­tur­poli­tik zu disku­tieren: Welche Erfahrun­gen und Kom­pe­ten­zen ein­er Eth­nolo­gin sind im im kul­tur­poli­tis­chen Feld aktivier­bar? Welchen Nieder­schlag find­en postkolo­niale Kri­tiken in der The­menset­zung, der Pro­gram­mar­beit und den Koop­er­a­tions­for­men des Goethe-Insti­­tuts? Lässt sich auf die gegen­wär­tige glob­ale Welle von nation­al­is­tis­chen Pop­ulis­men und Autori­taris­men mit den Mit­teln der Kul­tur­poli­tik reagieren? Besitzen Ethnolog_​​innen einen spez­i­fis­chen Blick auf aktuelle außen­poli­tis­che Krisen und Kon­stel­la­tio­nen, auf die kul­tur­poli­tis­che Akteure eventuell zurück­greifen kön­nen? Und welche Beruf­s­möglichkeit­en bietet Kul­tur­poli­tik für Absolvent_​​innen unser­er Diszi­plin? Diese Fra­gen ste­hen im Zen­trum des DGS­­KA-Gespräch­es von Prof. Dr. Car­o­la Lentz, Präsi­dentin des Goethe-Insti­­tuts, sowie mit Dr. Jens Adam und Prof. Dr. Michi Knecht, Insti­tut für Eth­nolo­gie und Kul­tur­wis­senschaft der Uni­ver­sität Bremen.