Dear colleagues,
A gentle reminder that *today (Tuesday 27/02/2014) is the final deadline* for
submitting abstracts to our EASA2014 panel *Destiny, fate, predestination:
Ethnographies of changing forms of political and intimate
life.*<http://www.nomadit.co.uk/easa/easa2014/panels.php5?PanelID=3111>
* (P092). *The panel will be held at the upcoming EASA conference in
Tallinn, 31 July-3 August 2014.
*Convenors:*
Alice Elliot (University College London) & Laura Menin (Zentrum Moderner
Orient)
*Short abstract*
What qualities, efficacies and affordances are accorded to destiny, in a
world marked by increasing imaginative possibilities and uncertain futures?
The panel traces ethnographic conceptions of 'destiny', 'fate', and
'predestination' in contemporary forms of political and intimate life.
*Long abstract*
Notions of 'destiny', along with their complex relations with ideas of
personal agency and freedom, are pervasive in people's everyday lives and
existential quests in many ethnographic settings, as well as being at the
core of numerous theological traditions. Yet, anthropology has often left
the concept of destiny as the hazy background for its ethnographic and
theoretical discussions. This panel aims to reconstitute destiny as
ethnographic object in its own right, unpacking the fundamental role it
plays in political and intimate transformations in a world of increasing
imaginative possibilities and uncertain futures.
What qualities and efficacies are accorded to destiny, both in mundane
routines and historical upheavals? How is destiny related to conceptions of
'chance' and 'luck'? How are political and personal transformations,
desires, and life-trajectories imagined and actualised when transcendent
and immanent forces mingle with human agency? These questions forcefully
arise at a historical moment marked by increasingly restrictive migration
policies, severe economic crisis, revolutions and political unrest, when
the contrast between attempts to effect change and the experience of being
part of a chain of events beyond one's power, becomes acutely poignant.
Attending to ethnographic specificities and ambivalences, the panel aims to
redraw destiny's salience in contemporary forms of political and intimate
life, developing novel avenues for its ethnographic theorisation. We
welcome ethnographic contributions tracing different conceptions and
affordances accorded to destiny in different social contexts and religious
traditions, particularly at significant focal events (marriage, migration,
illness) and historical conjunctures (financial crisis, political turmoil).
To submit an abstract and/or contact convenors:
http://www.nomadit.co.uk/easa/easa2014/panels.php5?PanelID=3111. Deadline
for abstract submission is 27 February 2014.
With best wishes,
Alice Elliot & Laura Menin
***
Dr Alice Elliot
Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow, Department of Anthropology, UCL
Honorary Research Fellow, IMMRC-Anthropology, University of Leuven
[log in to unmask]
Department of Anthropology
University College London
14 Taviton Street, London, WC1H 0B
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