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- Convenors:
-
Jeanette Edwards
(University of Manchester)
Susana Narotzky (Universitat de Barcelona)
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- Chair:
-
Jeanette Edwards
(University of Manchester)
- Formats:
- Roundtables
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 21 July, -
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
Short Abstract:
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Long Abstract:
One of us was in Germany on the day the results of the UK referendum on membership of the EU was announced. A German colleague pointed out, somewhat ominously, and to a bemused, and in some cases dismayed, interdisciplinary and international audience: 'But …. we all have our Brexits'.
Is this true? Are the compulsions to leave the EU, and the conditions which delivered the result of the referendum in the UK, shared across Europe? And what of the yearning to remain or to join? In the intervening three years, British politics has been turned inside out, with one parliamentary crisis after another and a sense that, amongst the general population, identities of 'remainer' and 'leaver', that cross 'traditional' party political lines, have hardened. The UK referendum has been analysed, amongst other things, as a protest: protest against the Cameron government, policies of austerity, successive and cumulative 'neoliberal' reforms to work and welfare since the 1970s, the hegemony of the 'liberal, cosmopolitan elite', and more. Joined by relatively well-healed, conservative Eurosceptics who have been agitating for 'sovereignty' since the 1970s, and the far left whose vision of a radical socialist future necessitates the 'freedom' to forge different and alternative alliances, Brexit continues to reveal profound divisions in the body politic. The roundtable will draw on ethnographic examples from across Europe that illuminate and interrogate the contemporary relationship between the EU (as both institution and concept) and the people within and at its borders.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 21 July, 2020, -Paper short abstract:
What if leaving or staying in a relationship can tell us about history, moral selves and social worlds of a place?
Paper long abstract:
What if leaving or staying in a relationship can tell us about history, moral selves and social worlds of a place?
Paper short abstract:
I reflect on the challenge to make social and environmental struggles in France converge, to identify their common roots, to propose mobilization strategies and to reflect together on new political structures to strengthen democracy.
Paper long abstract:
2019 has been a year of all-out mobilisation in France. The Gilets Jaunes occupied the roundabouts and toll bridges of mayor highways and staged massive unauthorized demonstrations in all major and minor cities. Few called for Frexit, most challenged the arrogance of power in the person of Macron protesting against unemployment and against the government neglecting and abandoning social and transport infrastructures in the French country-side. In the spring, high school students went on school strike and took to the streets to demand action on climate change, inciting the adults to follow suite. Since December the country is in the grasp of a massive strike against the dismantlement of the national pension schemes based on the principle of solidarity between the generations. The mobilisations encounter coordinated police repression and Orwellian attempts to quell critical voices. In my contribution I will reflect on the challenge to make these struggles converge, to identify the common roots of environmental and social problems, to propose mobilization strategies and to reflect together on new political structures to strengthen democracy.
Paper short abstract:
Southern European countries specialize in providing space and infrastructure for leisure and conference tourism, northern Europe's retirees, and agricultural produce. UK's exit from EU common circulation regulation will affect the economy and lives of many southern European residents.
Paper long abstract:
Southern European countries increasingly specialize in providing space and infrastructure for leisure and conference tourism, northern Europe's retirees, and agricultural produce. The UK's exit from EU common circulation regulatory framework will affect the economy and lives of many southern European residents.
Paper short abstract:
From three locations of marginality within the EU (a home town in Wales, a field site in rural Hungary, and a workplace in a poor corner of rich Germany) the contribution will explore varying forms of populism, which has comparable contemporary salience in all three places.
Paper long abstract:
The tensions that have resulted in Brexit take different forms elsewhere in the European Union, but comparisons can be instructive, e.g. between postindustrial South Wales and postsocialist rural Hungary. Even within Germany, the dominant power of the EU, the distribution of populist "countermovements" (Karl Polanyi) can be at least partially explained in terms of political economy. Anthropologists need to grasp emotional dimensions as well as material causalities. When studying those who support populist forms of protest we need to proceed with empathy (Einfühlung), as with other subjects: even if this risks academic colleagues in other disciplines suspecting our own values.
Paper short abstract:
Reactions to Brexit in the Portuguese public space seem to oscillate between moral judgements of cultural traits, on the one hand, and pragmatic economic considerations regarding tourism and migration, on the other.
Paper long abstract:
Reactions to Brexit in the Portuguese public space seem to oscillate between moral judgements of cultural traits, on the one hand, and pragmatic economic considerations regarding tourism and migration, on the other.