The goal of this workshop is: to explore what are the most relevant themes in Europeanist research; to demonstrate how these would be enhanced by the engagement of Anthropology's unique resources in theory, method and epistemology; to contribute in the advancement of collaborative research agendas.
Long Abstract:
We start with a broad definition of 'Europeanist' research. The field certainly pertains to a range of diverse disciplines, mainly within the divisions of the Humanities and the Social Sciences. We are set to discuss what Europeanist research means for Anthropology; and to present what individual anthropologists and ethnologists are effectively doing under this conceptual umbrella. One main goal of this workshop is to demonstrate how the engagement of Anthropology's unique resources in theory, method and epistemology contribute to enhance these research endeavours.
We invite papers that broach the subject from any of its many facets and dimensions. Not to constrain but to facilitate your initiative, we advance a tentative and open list of research issues which may be addressed in your papers:
- The ethnography of Europe and European institutions.
- Ideas and images of Europe in travel writing, literature and 'high culture'.
- Europe's lore and media narratives.
- Politics and policies of European building and identity.
- Citizenship in multinational entities and ethnically diverse polities.
- Global migrations and social cohesion at the national and supranational levels.
- Anthropology and development. The role of non-governmental organisations.
One expected outcome of this workshop is the drawing of research agendas on Europeanist issues; which may become the baseline for the setting up of multidisciplinary research teams, and for the development of cooperative research programmes.
The paper is an invitation to reflect on how the development of an institutional European arena in the domains of higher education and scientific research is affecting the status of the discipline in Europe. It also conveys a call for a more determined engagement as anthropologists in the shaping of these new scholarly landscapes.
Paper long abstract:
The stepping up of the processes of European convergence is having a decisive impact also in the fields of higher education and scientific research, particularly in countries that belong to the European Union. This shows, for instance, in the rising budgets and the broadening of research programmes under the so called Framework Programmes. The establishment in 2007 of an autonomous funding body, the European Research Council, marks a decisive turn in these developments. What is the position that anthropology and European anthropologists hold in this emerging competitive arena for research funding and policy formulation?
Research policy and funding at the EU level is a factor of growing importance in itself, and also because it is shaping developments at the national level significantly. Therefore, we run the risk of being marginalised as a discipline if we do not adequately face the challenges issuing from these institutional changes. Anthropology has on its side some unique and quite impressive scholarly assets; and it holds a great potential to act as a catalyst for interdisciplinary endeavours. Yet, anthropologists may have to make serious efforts in adapting some cherished principles in their practice, method and epistemology, if they are to become principal actors in this new scenario. This paper stands for a more integrated approach in our educational and research endeavours, for the unreserved engagement with neighbouring branches of knowledge in true and consistent interdisciplinary work. Lastly, and as Europeanist anthropologists in particular, I am of the opinion that we’ve got to get involved in the working out of collaborative research agendas, on issues that are socially relevant, policy oriented when appropriate, and responsive to practical application; which should not run counter to methodological rigour and high theoretical profile.
The paper proposes an anthropological framework for the study of the church as a hegemonic institution in European countries with a history of Catholic Church dominating the religious field, based on a discussion of Gramsci's notion of hegemony and Bourdieu's approach to the sociology of religion.
Paper long abstract:
Catholicism offers itself as a classical - yet comparatively understudied - topic of a comparative Europeanist anthropology.My paper draws upon a theoretical framework designed as part of an ongoing research project on the role of the church as a social institution and the Catholic faith as an individual habitus in postsocialist Lithuania and proposes some general lines of inquiry for Catholic majority societies across Europe.
Key inspirations of my approach are (1) Gramsci's notion of hegemony, which serves to analyze how culture and consciousness are the product of power inequalities, class experiences and historically accumulated understandings of the social order; and (2) Bourdieu's theorizing of the 'paradox of the doxa', the fact that the established order of things perpetuates itself easily, rather than being challenged or subverted by those disadvantaged under the existing conditions. A church that dominates the religious field can thus be understood as a particularly effective means of promoting hegemony and the misrecognition of elite domination as the natural order of things, by supporting the reproduction of an individual religious habitus or a collusio shared by the members of a social group as their collective understanding of the doxa.
Based on such theoretical reflections, I propose to study the role of the Catholic Church with regard to four interrelated fields: sites of the production of hegemony; occasions of the expression of common-sense, 'popular' religiosity; the church as an institutional focus of belonging; and sites of contestation or religious indifference.
Participatory and deliberative forms of policy-making are on the rise in Europe today. The paper presents a project of such networks in Sweden and proposes European multidisciplinary comparative research.
Paper long abstract:
A reoccurring idea in debates on public policy is that governing has become a more complex task, demanding broad mobilization of resources and competence. When a single authority and hierarchical decision-making fail, solutions are sought for across formal divisions of authority, across sectors in the public sphere, and often in co-operation with private actors. Such organizations may be called functional networks. Thus, citizen participation is increasingly called upon to serve as a democratic anchorage in functional networks. Such networks, however, are not easily reconciled with representative democracy. It is difficult to exercise political control over more or less independent actors who work in co-operation with each other.
My presentation has two targets. One is to present a newly started research project about such functional networks in the Stockholm metropolitan area. The other is to invite anthropologists to discuss a European multidisciplinary comparative study of functional networks in a number of European cities.
The Swedish study combines an anthropological understanding of culture with a political science focus on strategic actors. These new forms of governance have few formal rules and the fieldwork focuses therefore on the ways working rules are subject to negotiations and re-negotiations together with participants' efforts to make sense of the interaction and their positions. In order to understand the interactions and new (political) identities emerging in the networks, the participants' negotiations and the interaction are situated and examined in the context of the surrounding world of formal and informal relations.
The paper presents a critical review on migration studies in the Bulgarian social sciences, posing questions of Europe-wide methodological interest (categorizations, local policies of mutuality and integration, cross-discipline approaches).
Paper long abstract:
The paper will present a critical overview of the study of migration and transnational mobility in the Bulgarian social sciences. Having emerged recently at the margins of different social sciences, this field of research interest calls for evaluation and systematization in regard with theory and method. The case of migration studies in Bulgaria will be further used to discuss the role of anthropology in this interdisciplinary field of study. In such a perspective, issues of broader significance will be discussed, such as reconsideration of migration and transnational mobility-related categories, as well as methodological bridging between migration studies and studies in other subjects of interest (e.g., ethnic relations, religious diversity, community studies). Special attention will be paid to the role of local strategies of mutuality and policies of cultural diversity in the incorporation and integration of migrants.
Transatlantic migration taken from the anthropological perspective enhances to explore politics of how ‘Europeanist’ identities are handled. The case of ‘newly discovered’ belonging to the descendants of the ancestors of ‘New-Europeans’ in Texas is in focus. Our aim is to answer how the 'reclaim' of heritage, by using of genealogy and history, and also how family re-union networks of mutuality are practiced.
Paper long abstract:
Transnational migration is one of the most relevant themes in 'Europeanist' research today, which might be applied for the exploration of multiple 'Europeanist themes' in politics of identity in the non-European world. Transatlantic migration taken from the anthropological perspective enhances us to explore politics and practices of how 'Europeanist' identities are handled. The case of 'newly discovered' belonging to the descendants of the ancestors of 'New-Europeans' in North America, could be one of it.
The interest in local and family histories and cultural heritages in the nowadays USA refresh and re-frame cultural identity processes and even evoke local politics of identity. Especially after the fall of the Berlin wall and Singing Revolution in the Baltic States such identity processes are enhanced by the reclaim of the 'overlooked for generations' cultures and histories, and do provoke identity politics focused on the New European heritages in local areas of the US.
It is in particular true in East Texas, where since early 1990s a group of descendants of early Lithuanian immigrants created network of 'searching for the roots and ancestry'.
Their activities are in the focus of this, based on fieldwork in 2002-4, presentation, which aims to answer the question of how do they 'reclaim' their socio-cultural background by using genealogical and historical frameworks, and how they build mutuality based on family re-unions' networks.
The study of African migrants to Russia (still innumerous but already noticeable) has been launched recently by the papergiver together with his students. The methods employed and points addressed, the obstacles met and the results yet obtained by now are discussed.
Paper long abstract:
While Western Europe has a long-lasting experience of facing and studying the problems of migration, they are still recent for the ex-socialist states where they have not been pinpointed and studied sufficiently yet. In the meantime, the «closed» nature of the socialist societies, the difficulties of the transitional period reforms predetermine the problems in communication between the migrants and the population majority, the specific features of the situation with the forming diasporas and of their probable position in the accepting societies. The recently launched study of African migrants in Russia falls into two interrelated parts: The sociocultural adaptation of Africans in Russia on the one hand, and their perception by the Russian society on the other. One of the core points eventually addressed is that of the formation or non-formation of diasporas as network communities, as a means of both more successful adaptation and identity support. The basic methods employed are interviewing, distributing questionnaires and observation (participant when possible) both among Africans and original Russian citizens. The obstacles on the way to the research's conduction and the results yet obtained in the course of this work in progress are discussed.
In Europeanist research tourism deserves detailed anthropologists' analysis which would allow linking institutional frameworks, cultural policies, business exchange and fashions to individual practices of meaning-making.
Paper long abstract:
In Europeanist research tourism deserves detailed anthropologists' analysis which would allow linking institutional frameworks, cultural policies, business exchange and fashions to individual practices of meaning-making.
How Europeanness is defined through the bodily practices, images, people met, material settings, articulated and implied values, narratives and contrastive institutional settings that are encountered and/or constructed during travel experiences - are intriguing questions.
In my paper I would like to address these question on the basis of the analysis of narratives of young Poles traveling to former Soviet Union. In rapidly modernizing and Europeanizing (Westernizing) post-communist Poland the Europeanness is a very old and at the same time ever renewing idea and identity. Political changes after 1989 in Poland have influenced the imaginary of the former Soviet Union, also as a tourist destination. I will analyze the young people's incentives to travel, images of the people encountered as well as the narratives of natural/material, institutional and personal obstacles to traveling. I aim at studying the processes of experiencing and (re)constructing Europeanness among Poles of the generation for whom "real socialism" is still a personal yet fading memory.
In applying an anthropological approach to the politics of memory in post-communist Europe, as a form of constructing a 'European identity', the paper proposes a case study on contemporary Romania's ways of remembering the past, more precisely its pronatalist one.
Paper long abstract:
In January 2006, PACE voted upon the Resolution 1481, or 'Need for international condemnation of crimes of totalitarian communist regimes'. Although it did not receive the necessary of votes, the resolution determined a long debate all over Europe. In short, a need for coming to terms with the communist past was and still is a problematic issue on the Europe's agenda, giving birth to different politics of memory at the level of each member state and strongly influencing the intra-European relations.
In applying an anthropological approach on the contemporary politics of memory in Europe, regarding our communist past, my intervention intends to analyze those memo-politics in nowadays Romania, taking as a case study the present remembering of pronatalism and Ceausescu's demographic policies. From 1966 to 1989, the Romanian Communist Party prohibited by law the right of pregnancy interruption, all in the name of the sanctity of the Romanian communist nation. The social memory of those times constitutes, over the years, an alternative discourse to the Party's pronatalist propaganda. But, in the public sphere of contemporary Romania, those memories are as absent as in its Communist times, fact which has its influence on Romanian's reproductive health.
The main aim of my paper will thus be to discuss the ways by which remembering, as a social phenomenon, can and often influences the identity of societies. The analysis is based on an extensive fieldwork started in 2003, as well as related documentation, and has as theoretical background the interdisciplinary field of Memory Studies.
has 5 downloads
5