|
Dear Anthropology Matters Subscribers,
*Please be reminded of the upcoming call for papers:*
The Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, the University of
Warsaw, invites *paper and audiovisual presentation proposals *for the
conference *"Materializations of the Political"* to be held i*n Warsaw on
23-24 March 2018*.
*Keynote speaker**: Dr Hannah Knox, University College London*
Politics and the political have long been a crucial area of anthropological
inquiry. In its broadest sense, the term ‘political’ refers to a
contentious dimension present in, or indeed constitutive of, all social
relations (Foucault 1982; Mouffe 2005). More narrowly, ‘politics’ is used
to describe the specific strategies social actors use to achieve their
goals in competition with others, or modes of intervening, ‘arts of
government’ (e.g., Gledhill 2000; Vincent 1994, 2005). Anthropology’s key
contribution to the multi-disciplinary study of the political rests with
our discipline’s hallmark method: ethnography. The power of ethnography to
pin down that elusive object, ‘the political’, to feel for its boundaries
and substance in ways more tactile, more concrete, and at once more open to
serendipity and surprise than allowed for by other kinds of sociological
inquiry, is widely recognized today across the neighbouring disciplines
(e.g., Schatz 2009). In this conference, we invite ethnographers –
anthropologists and not only – to join a conversation on how the political
variously materializes in social life.
We understand the political broadly: as that relational realm where ‘social
aggregates, patterns of relations, values and horizons of the possible are
defined, defied and defended; where experiments in structuring social life
can be carried out, fail and be taken up again’ (Laszczkowski 2016: 3).
Materializations, in turn, refer in our usage to diverse ways the political
is rendered concrete in everyday life. These include, but are not limited,
to the political agency of bodies and materials. We ask: how is the
political variously enacted through the body and the senses (e.g., Linke
2006)? How does it take shape in people’s relations with the environment
and non-human, living and non-living material entities (e.g., Bennett and
Joyce 2010)? How does the political become tactile and visceral through the
elusive materiality of affect (e.g., Thrift 2007; Laszczkowski and Reeves,
fc)? Likewise, our understanding of ethnography as method is also open to
creative interpretation. We invite papers that explore the above and
related questions through conventional ethnographic ‘thick description’, as
well as through other, more innovative or experimental literary styles and
media, for instance audio-visual ethnographic projects.
The conference will begin with a special thematic session in memory of
Georges Balandier, with invited guest lectures. This session will be held
in Polish (otherwise, the conference’s working language is English).
Please send your abstract of maximum 250-words, plus your name, e-mail
address and institutional affiliation to political.materializations@
gmail.com by *21 January 2018*. Selected authors will be notified of the
acceptance of their proposals by mid-February. Those wishing to submit a
visual or audiovisual presentation, please bear in mind presentation length
should be kept to roughly fifteen minutes.
Regards,
--
Dr Mateusz Laszczkowski
Instytut Etnologii i Antropologii Kulturowej
Uniwersytet Warszawski
------------------------------------------------------------
Mateusz Laszczkowski, PhD
Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology
University of Warsaw
*NEW BOOKS:*
*Affective States: Entanglements, Suspensions, Suspicions
<http://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/LaszczkowskiAffective>, co-edited with
Madeleine Reeves, FORTHCOMING DECEMBER 2017*
*'City of the Future': Modernity, Built Space and Urban Change in Astana
<http://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/LaszczkowskiCity> (2016)*
*Download the Introduction
<http://www.berghahnbooks.com/downloads/intros/LaszczkowskiCity_intro.pdf> here
for free.*
*************************************************************
* Anthropology-Matters Mailing List
* http://www.anthropologymatters.com *
* A postgraduate project comprising online journal, *
* online discussions, teaching and research resources *
* and international contacts directory. *
* To join this list or to look at the archived previous *
* messages visit: *
* http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/Anthropology-Matters.HTML *
* If you have ALREADY subscribed: to send a message to all *
* those currently subscribed to the list,just send mail to: *
* [log in to unmask] *
* *
* Enjoyed the mailing list? Why not join the new *
* CONTACTS SECTION @ www.anthropologymatters.com *
* an international directory of anthropology researchers
*
* To unsubscribe: please log on to jiscmail.ac.uk, and *
* go to the 'Subscriber's corner' page. *
*
***************************************************************
|
