Contributions are warmly invited for the AAA panel entitled‘A Return to Life: Anthropologies of Regeneration, Resurgence and Visions ofthe Future.’
The call closes on 10 April 2018
Marc Brightman (University College London), Vanessa Grotti(European University Institute) and Maja Petrovic-Steger (Research Centre ofthe Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts)
The panel invites contributions that explore various lived understandings ofthe notion of healing, regeneration and rebirth (Barker 1991; Guyer 2017). Byfocusing on the cases where life - in ideologically, politically,environmentally, economically, biomedically trying and exhausting times - seemsto flourish against the odds, we would like to engage nuanced anthropologicalreflections on themes like hope, the good and imagination of futures. Incontrast to the definition of regeneration in the natural sciences as anautogenous process based on organisms’ innate regenerative potentialities, manyprocesses of social or ecological regeneration require the introduction ofexternal elements (Vilaça 2010). These can stimulate a return to life aftercrisis or disaster. But as Henri-Georges Clouzot powerfully illustrates in thepostwar film Retour à la vie (1949), the return to life can be traumatic,messy, and prone to failure, challenging the optimism of utopian visions ofresurgence.
Conscious of the weight of the passage of time and its transformativecapacities, we invite papers that explore the moral and practical entanglementsthat processes of regeneration entail. These may include discussions of thetensions and contradictions produced by visions or projects for the future thataim to return to idealised past or previous states (e.g. re-wilding orrestoration projects); the resonances of a life which returns against the odds;the role of ecological processes and the passage of time in soothing andhealing social tensions; the ritual dimensions of catharsis, sacrifice, and therelationship between death and the regeneration of life (Jeffrey and Rotter2016; Bloch and Parry 1982; Tsing 2015). In which settings or conditions canlife begin anew or be revived? How do people living in times fraught withnotions of crisis, precarity and violence view and practice “better" and"new" lives and selves? How do they think the notions of ‘care’,‘trust’, ‘responsibility’ and ‘creativity’ on an individual and collectivelevel? How do they imagine their future? How do they use their feelings andperceptions to order the present and to bring a more trusting and responsiblefuture into being? What difference do contexts that are often simultaneouslyprecarious, depressing and restrictive make to the psychology of creativity andrisk taking? We welcome proposals offering insights into the ways in whichcontemporary demands of the present and visions of the future are valued,confronted, transformed, or transcended.
References:
Barker, P. 1991. Regeneration. London: Viking
Bloch, M. and J. Parry 1982. Death and the regeneration of life. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.
Clouzot, H-G. 1949. Le retour de Jean. In H-G. Clouzot, A. Cayatte, G. Lampin,J. Dréville (dir.) Le retour à la vie. Les films Marceau (Paris).
Guyer,J. 2017. Aftermaths and recuperations in anthropology. Hau 7 (1): 81–103.
Jeffrey,L. and R. Rotter 2016. ‘Sustenance, nourishment, and cultivation: plants asliving cultural heritage for dispersed Chagossians in Mauritius, Seychelles,and the UK’. JRAI 22, 296-313
Tsing,A. 2015. The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life inCapitalist Ruins. Princeton: Princeton.
Vilaça,A. 2010. Strange Enemies: Indigenous Agency and Scenes of Encounters inAmazonia. Durham: Duke.
We welcome proposals for papers in response to thesequestions.
Please send your abstracts (maximum 250 words) to VanessaGrotti ([log in to unmask]),Marc Brightman ([log in to unmask])and Maja Petrovic-Steger ([log in to unmask])by Wednesday, 10th of April 2018.
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