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- Convenors:
-
Marco Di Nunzio
(University of BIrmingham)
Elizabeth Storer (Queen Mary University of London)
Nikita Simpson (SOAS)
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- Discussants:
-
Ajmal Hussain
(University of Warwick)
Charis Boutieri (King's College London)
- Format:
- Panel
- Transfers:
- Open for transfers
Short Abstract:
What does an anthropology of a city like Birmingham look like? And how does conducting anthropology in Birmingham expand and shape both the practice and theory of the discipline?
Long Abstract:
Birmingham is many things at once. It is a superdiverse and majority-minority city, but also a city marked by exclusion, discrimination, and segregation. It is a booming city, yet also one experiencing economic stagnation and bankruptcy. It is a hub of activism and community organization, while also grappling with a significant democratic deficit. What does an anthropology of a city like Birmingham look like? And how does conducting anthropology in Birmingham expand and shape both the practice and theory of the discipline? This panel invites papers that document and reflect on how research in Britain’s second city can not only expand our understanding of ongoing urban processes and the lives of communities in Britain and beyond, but encourages us to consider what anthropology can do in the face of severe austerity, corporate capture of urban spaces, the underfunding and cutting of social services, environmental degradation, racism, and the changing geographies of segregation.
Accepted papers:
Paper short abstract:
Drawing on an ethnographic study of the proposed redevelopment of the Ladywood Estate in Birmingham, UK, This paper examines the potential contributions of anthropology to struggles against large-scale urban regeneration projects.
Paper long abstract:
This paper examines the potential contributions of anthropology to struggles against large-scale urban regeneration projects. Drawing on an ethnographic study of the proposed redevelopment of the Ladywood Estate in Birmingham, UK, I argue that anthropology, when practiced as a form of engaged and activist research, can play a crucial role in supporting community resistance, exposing the workings of power, and contributing to the development of alternative visions for urban development. By situating anthropology as a tool for scrutinizing the opacity surrounding regeneration projects and the attempts by residents to imagine and implement strategies and tactics to influence decision-making, the study calls for a more engaged and activist approach to anthropological research—one that recognizes the ethical imperative to support communities facing dispossession and to contribute to the development of radical demands and alternative urban futures.
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores practices of slow activism in Birmingham, UK, and asks what this way of working makes possible in a city experiencing monumental and fast-paced change.
Paper long abstract:
This paper explores practices of slow activism: long-term, relational work decoupled from “temporalities of success” (Shange 2019) and definitions of progress that require goals, impact statements, and quantifiable results. Taking as ethnographic sites spaces in Birmingham, UK that bring together anti-poverty activists, third sector professionals, community leaders, and policy makers, this project seeks to understand how change is conceptualized, followed, and translated where privilege is given to the often uncomfortable attentiveness of slowness. These anti-poverty groups are working to create lasting social change through slowly building durational relationships—enacting new worlds in the present. This sits in marked contrast to the embattled urgency of traditional activist work, based in narratives of immediacy, with powerful, visible, overwhelming action, and the focus of anti-poverty policy, which pushes for the quickest and most efficient solutions. As Birmingham sits in the contradictory position of bankruptcy and rapid urban expansion, it has emerged as a pivotal site to investigate the politics of poverty and the necessary materialization of radical new anti-poverty strategies within more mainstream discourse. Additionally, this paper centers methodological questions around the cross-pollination of ethnographic and activist methodologies.