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****************************************************** * http://www.anthropologymatters.com * * A postgraduate project comprising online journal, * * online discussions, teaching and research resources * * and international contacts directory. * ****************************************************** Dear all, We have received some really exciting papers for our panel for the upcoming AAA, but not enough to make it a full double panel, therefore we want to make a last attempt to fill a second panel. Anyone who is interested please let us know immediately. We are looking for people that are interested to participate in our panel "Transgressing research relationships: moving dangerously or exploring alternative modes of feminist practice?" for the upcoming AAA. This panel will be submitted to the Association of Feminist Anthropologists (AFA). If you are interested please let us know as soon as possible and then submit your abstracts no later than 11th of April to Lorraine Nencel [log in to unmask] and Karin Willemse [log in to unmask] Transgressing research relationships: moving dangerously or exploring alternative modes of feminist practice? Lorraine Nencel (VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands) Karin Willemse (Erasmus University Rotterdam The Netherlands) This panel intends to discuss the research relationship as the locus where reflexivity, positionality and textual representation merge. Feminist anthropologists pride themselves on their critical stance as engaged anthropologists. In today's anthropology, engagement has become a comforting buzzword that blends politics, morality and ethics into a multitude of researcher positions that can and should be taken in the post-colonial ethnographic project. This engagement as researcher, advocate, activist, interpreter, interlocutor and even at time spokesperson hinges on the epistemological construction of the research subject as competent, agentic and able to voice her/his own stories, needs and desires. When enacted successfully, these ontologically pre-defined roles assigned the different actors keeps the power dynamics in balance. The projection of the research relationship as such brings to the foreground several pressing issues that question the longevity of this conceptualization. Despite the acknowledgement by feminist scholars that the intersubjective process of knowledge production is partial, situated and therefore context bound the question can be posed whether this singular representation of power in the research relation creates sufficient space to explore alternative modes of research practice and representations that reflect the contemporary socially connected complexities of globalization, transnationalism and social media. In addition, it infers that feminist research practice produces specific types of knowledge that reflect this singular, epistemologically grounded, ontologically pre-defined research relation. What are the implications for knowledge that does not fit into this box? For example transformative knowledge, definitely feminist in character, would be considered by some knowledge for knowledge sake. How are these different types of knowledge represented in the ethnographic text, a text which more often than not - with exception of participatory/collaborative research - is still written up by the engaged anthropologist? Intimately related to this are issues concerning self-reflexivity, the analysis of the relation between self and other and vice versa and how these are represented in the 'resulting' knowledge. What alternative modes of representation enable an analysis of the intersubjective research relationship without being solipsist? We are looking for papers that use ethnographic examples to discuss methodological and epistemological alternatives that transgress the pre-defined research relationship and destabilize the existing borders of feminist practices but nonetheless, enrich these same practices as well as tackle new challenges that arise in doing feminist anthropological research in the contemporary globalized world of communities, relations, groups and people. ************************************************************* * Anthropology-Matters Mailing List * * 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 * ***************************************************************