Dear colleagues,
The Environment and Anthropology (EnviroAnt) Network of the European
Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) will hold its inaugural
workshop in December. The workshop will focus on the potential of
anthropology in tackling environmental issues. It is open to both existing
and prospective members of the network, who do not have to be EASA members.
Please see the announcement and call for participants below.
All the best,
Aet Annist
Michaela Haug
Franz Krause
Perspectives and stories in a world of facts and figures?
Exploring the potential of anthropology in tackling environmental issues
*EASA’s Environment and Anthropology Network inaugural meeting*
12-13 December 2019, Cologne, Germany
The EASA Environment and Anthropology Network was founded in 2018 to
provide a platform for exchange among environmental anthropologists and to
function as an outreach tool to policy makers, practitioners, other
disciplines and the wider society to contribute to the understanding and
solving of environmental problems across the world. The network explores
original and creative ways of collaborating outside academia and
disciplinary boundaries, to offer anthropological know-how for dealing with
current environmental problems.
This workshop will provide the opportunity to get to know each other’s
work, develop the purposes and strategies of the network, and plan possible
collaborations. As we are convinced that environmental anthropology can
contribute to alternative and more just futures, we place the exploration
of possible ways to do so at the heart of our first meeting. We aim to
explore the potential for anthropologists, and anthropological insights, in
contributing to public debates and solution attempts for current
environmental issues. We will share diverse experiences of linking up with
policy and practice. We will exchange some of the methods that have proved
useful to this end. And we will critically discuss the potential benefits
and harms that providing our knowledge in these circles may cause.
Environmental and ecological anthropology have an established tradition of
critically exploring current environmental issues. This includes
highlighting the effects of both resource exploitation and conservation
regimes on local people, research on alternative conceptualizations of
nature, and systematic analyses of environmental racism and injustice
reproduced by particular policies and practices, from forestry to
industrial pollution. Anthropologists examine the complexities of
environmental problems and their intertwinement with other realms. As a
result, they describe the predicaments of people struggling with various
manifestations of climate change, as much as analyse the problems in
framing all social and ecological problems in terms of climate change.
While anthropologists often hold valuable insights into disregarded aspects
of environmental degradation and conservation, their role in public debates
and political strategies for abating these issues remains marginal. On the
one hand, this has to do with the popular understanding that environmental
issues are for natural scientists to solve, and if a social scientist
should be consulted, this better be an economist. On the other hand, this
marginal position of anthropologists can be related to the ambivalent
attitude towards political engagement and public presence within our
discipline.
In order to help explore alternative pathways for environmental
anthropology, three keynote speakers will talk about their experiences of
linking up with policy and practice: Liana Chua (UK), on orang-utan related
activism; Michael Bollig (Germany) on work in the federal sustainability
commission; and Dan Podjed (Slovenia) on general challenges and pathways of
applying anthropology. Other participants are invited to present themselves
and their take on applying anthropology in environmental issues in Pecha
Kucha format. This will leave enough time for in-depth discussions on
pertinent topics.
*Preliminary Program*
*Thursday, Dec 12**th*
9.00 Welcome and introduction
9.30 Keynote Bollig plus Q&A
10.30 Coffee break
11.00 Pecha Kucha I (up to 8 presentations)
12.00 Discussion – what can we contribute?
13.00 Lunch break
14.00 Keynote Chua plus Q&A
15.00 Pecha Kucha II (up to 8 presentations)
16.00 Coffee break
16.30 Discussion – why are we not heard/present?
17.30 Visit to a Cologne Christmas Market
*Friday, Dec 13**th*
9.00 Keynote Podjed plus Q&A
10.00 Pecha Kucha III (up to 8 presentations)
11.00 Coffee break
11.30 Discussion – what has (not) worked?
12.30 Lunch break
13.30 Pecha Kucha IV (up to 4 presentations)
14.00 Final discussion – future activities, panels and meetings
15.00 End and farewells
We invite abstract submissions for *Pecha Kucha* presentations (more about
this format here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PechaKucha) focusing on the
speaker’s background, insights, ideas and experiences concerning the
application of environmental anthropology. These presentations can, but
need not, address one or more of the discussion questions for the workshop
(see program).
We have secured funds to *support travel and accommodation* expenses of
8-10 participants who lack institutional funding with 200 € each. If you
would like to apply for this funding, please explain your situation
together with your abstract submission.
*Deadline*: please send your abstracts and funding requests to
[log in to unmask] by *July 15th, 2019*.
If you have any questions, please contact the organizers.
*Organisation:*
Franz Krause, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of
Cologne
Michaela Haug, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University
of Cologne
Aet Annist, Department of Ethnology, University of Tartu
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