Short Abstract:

What are the boundaries of the classroom and what happens when we undo them? We want to explore practices that allow us to tear down the barriers between the world ‘out there’ and the classroom. This is an invitation to exchange, experiment and develop un/common approaches to teaching.

Long Abstract:

With the need to open spaces of discussion, debate and critical knowledge production and exchange, how do we make anthropological knowledge accessible and practicable? How do we make anthropological knowledge matter? In this lab we want to look at the classroom, a centre stage of anthropology - one often neglected amidst the increasing neoliberalisation of universities. What are the boundaries of the classroom and what happens when we undo them? Students and teachers, the main actors of the classroom, are both positioned intersectionally, as pedagogies of the oppressed teach us. We already act as public anthropologists in our everyday lives, what tools can we develop together to make the knowledge we produce accessible to the diverse publics? As researchers, teachers, writers, artists, activists we develop modes of knowledge production and exchange that we need to synergize and to apply in our everyday teaching and learning practice. While exploring new approaches and methods in anthropological teaching and learning, such as the use of social media or art, we want to develop practices that allow us to tear down the barriers between the world ‘out there’ and the classroom.

This lab (“Ideenwerkstatt”) is an invitation to exchange, experiment and develop un/common approaches to anthropological teaching that aim to transcend the boundaries of the discipline and the classroom. We invite contributions that explore ways of challenging the classroom/public divide. In the first session we will present and discuss these, and in the second session, we will apply some of the collected formats together.

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