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Paper short abstract:

What can we learn from sleep, and its failure, about contemporary academia? I discuss not only how academic stress, performance pressure and precarity can cause insomnia, but also how the skills and attitudes one needs to succeed in academia are diametrically opposed to those needed for sleep.

Paper long abstract:

Insomnia is a highly prevalent health concern among anthropologists, and academics more generally. It is often related to (or even caused by) performance pressure and precarity, and it negatively affects people’s ability to perform well and to cope with stress. Moreover, the very skills and attitudes that anthropologists learn to succeed in academia (being self-responsible, hard-working, ambitious, and even vigilant towards superiors, competitors, and peers) are fundamentally opposed to those that are needed to achieve sleep (i.e. patiency, trust, surrender). Academic insomniacs thus often find themselves in a vicious, and seemingly inescapable, cycle of stress and sleeplessness which, over time, often results in depression, burnout, and in severe cases even suicide.

Drawing on ongoing research with people suffering from insomnia (many anthropologists among them), who often experience sleeplessness as a situation of existential crisis and powerlessness, my paper analyzes the manifold links between mental health and contemporary academic research. In particular, I seek to complexify the links between agency, ambition, and achievement. Sleep has a paradoxical relation to intention, and it fundamentally challenges the idea of mastery and self-control: the more one actively tries to sleep, the less possible it becomes. Once it has “chosen to arrive”, sleep is unstoppable. But often people desperately wait for it – and it doesn’t come. In my paper, I take the latter situation – the insomniac’s quintessential dilemma – as a starting point to think about the problems, and failures, of neoliberal academia.

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The paper addresses the difficulties of doing fieldwork on witchcraft and demonic possession in Romania and Russia and of living as academic migrants with family, dealing constantly with stress and insecurity.

Paper long abstract:

Are we choosing our research topics, or they are choosing us? Is there any relationship between our life history, family background and our research?

As a young doctoral student, I spent years studying witchcraft in a Romanian village, where my family lives. Later on, as a postdoc, I went to study demonic possession, exorcism and conversion in Russia, together with my anthropologist husband and two small children. We divorced after this fieldwork and I continued my life as a single mother, being employed by research institutions and university departments, moving several times with the children.

While the difficulties of studying witchcraft and demonic possession were problematic only for myself, migration and insecurity were constantly challenging the mental health of the family members. Writing up past research, engaging in new ones for the sake of survival, and caring for mental health went hand in hand in the last fifteen years. The paper aims to share empowering experiences and related reflections.

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Paper short abstract:

Trauma can come into tension with anthropological methods in many different ways. Based on a survey conducted among anthropologists in 2023, we argue for the integration of trauma into methods training, presenting ideas to enable a shift in attitudes towards trauma in Anthropology departments.

Paper long abstract:

Trauma can come into tension with anthropological methods in many different ways. In this paper, we revisit Pollard’s (2009) survey of the emotional experiences of fieldwork among anthropology PhD students, entitled ‘Field of Screams: Difficulty and ethnographic fieldwork’, which is to our knowledge the first systematic study of emotional and psychological impacts of anthropological fieldwork on the researcher. We then discuss our research into the experiences of anthropologists engaged in fieldwork, drawing from a survey conducted in 2023, in which we sought to understand: (1) preparation for fieldwork, including personal preparation, formal support and the ethics process; (2) fieldwork experiences, including forms of trauma exposure and other aspects of context which may have heightened vulnerability or reactivity to traumatic stressors; (3) researcher responses to accumulated distress of fieldwork; and finally (4) how supervisory relationships and institutional culture shape and influence researchers’ experience. We argue for the integration of trauma into research methods training, presenting ideas to enable a shift in attitudes towards trauma in Anthropology departments. This paper draws from an article co-authored with Maureen Freed, UKCP-accredited practitioner and supervisor of psychotherapy, specialising in trauma who has led a Trauma Clinic treating fieldwork-related trauma at a university in the UK, and trains researchers to help prevent and mitigate the emotional and psychological impact of research.

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Paper short abstract:

In order unsettle hierarchies of knowledge and challenge paternalistic attitudes that have often been adopted by institutions in possession of archival materials, the paper discusses the ethnographic engagement with sensitive archival sound and the epistemic potentialities of a multiple listening.

Paper long abstract:

In the midst of World War II Soviet citizens from Central Asia had their voices recorded at the Phonogrammarchiv of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna. The protocols, written for each recording session, also contain photographs of the recorded individuals, most of whom are portrayed in uniforms of the SS and the Wehrmacht, suggesting their collaboration with the Nazi regime. For more than 75 years this material stayed almost untouched in the Phonogrammarchiv. Consequently, within Central Asia these recordings have for the most part remained unheard and the photographs and protocols gone unseen.

Looking at archival sound collections as more than just products of specific recording practices, this paper will disclose the epistemic potentialities of sensitive archival sound collections. As recordings “are audible visitors from the past, and the subjective reality of hearing” (Diettrich 2019: 162), the restitution process envisions a shared remembering, hearing and learning from these “visitors”, which is foundational to understanding the collaborative and reciprocal potential of the sound recordings. When treating restitution as ethnographic work or an ethnographic method (Schorch 2020), the "ethnographic restitution" engages with the multiple listening of the descendants of recorded individuals and the local communities. By making the long unheard voices heard, the paper investigates modes of listening beyond the script for which these recordings were originally produced.

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Paper short abstract:

My paper aims at addressing questions related to the links between the difficulties and challenges encountered by ethnologists and anthropologists nowadays and mental health in specific post-covid crisis, in conflictual times, as well as under the pressure of neoliberal academia requirements.

Paper long abstract:

My paper aims at addressing questions related to the links between the difficulties and challenges encountered by ethnologists and anthropologists nowadays, and mental health, in specific post-covid crisis, conflictual times, as well as under the pressure of neoliberal academia requirements and debatable competitive frames.

Mainly, I attempt to focus on the case of ethologists and anthropologists working in Cluj-Napoca (Romania), part of them in a research institute, the other one at the University, documenting the main professional problems they face at present, as well as the ways their mental health is affected in and by recent micro and macro contexts (the new academic demands, their inadequacies, the new political, economic, social contexts characterised by uncertainty and unrest).

My intention is also to underline and assess how the interviewed ethologists/anthropologists’ entire perspectives on fieldwork, work motivations, ethics, habits, flow have been reshaped in these turbulent times, what kind of crises have been triggered by all these changes produced in a relatively short period of time, and how all these challenged mental health.

Specifically, through in depth interviews, as well as life histories, I also attempt to investigate the current meanings of competitions, newly created solidarities, the power relations as they are redefined in the framework of the focused on institutions.

Meanwhile, valuing the interviewees' narratives, I aim at approaching the specific dynamics of New Normal, Great Resignation and Quiet Quitting as concepts but also as social/cultural realities.

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Paper short abstract:

The paper proposes personal and collective reflections on mental health derived from doing anthropology today in the EU and LA. A particular focus is on vicarious trauma in migration studies and alternative strategies applied in and outside the fieldwork to face and politicise the well-being needs

Paper long abstract:

University pedagogy has historically lacked the integration of self-care and psychological aid, particularly in disciplines like anthropology, where researchers typically navigate complex fieldwork alone. While there is a growing academic acknowledgement of psychological struggles, substantial improvements are imperative.

As starting research, this paper endeavours to apport insights derived from personal and collective reflections and practices in European and Latin American academic contexts.

By exploring common individual experiences, the paper delves into the far-reaching contemporaneous impacts on psychological well-being and career trajectories resulting from inadequate psychological preparation, tools, and services in neoliberal universities, investigating the origins. Particular emphasis is placed on the aftermath of vicarious trauma, coupled with the helplessness and frustration experienced by researchers in the field of migration.

Furthermore, the analysis sheds light on the prevalence of two responses: individual psychotherapy and group clinical supervision in those few universities and European projects implementing a mental health approach. Subsequently, the paper maps various examples of alternative strategies—both collectively and personally developed—to face the taboo, create new possibilities and socialise challenges. These strategies draw inspiration from field results and several movements and approaches, such as feminist practices, non-violent communication, community psychology, the theory of care, and peer-to-peer education… They enrich the academic research well-being when applied and could be integrated into anthropological curricula and works.

Conclusively, the paper advocates for politicising this issue, asserting the need for a holistic transformation in anthropological study and job conditions rather than relying solely on psychotherapeutic support.

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Paper short abstract:

Universities are not adequately addressing postgraduates’ (PGs) mental (ill)health. Institutions are aware that PGs have concerning levels of mental ill-health yet why is it not declining? My research during COVID challenges PGs and universities to undo how they think about students’ mental health.

Paper long abstract:

We write and publish ethnographies on other people’s mental (ill)health, but often not our own. My research with social science postgraduates (PGRs) during COVID-19 amplifies how academic culture can cause mental ill-health yet does not adequately seek to undo it. I question whether academia is serious about tackling mental ill-health. There is an overriding emphasis on ‘measuring’ mental ill-health and institutions put in place well-being workshops, seminars and promote their support services. Yet, despite statistics continually evidencing that student mental ill-health is a problem it does not appear to be resolving. The quantitative understanding of student mental health has to be undone. New ways to interrogate what student mental (ill)health is, what is causing it and how it can be mitigated are urgently needed. As anthropologists, we are mindful that society is heterogeneous and that is true of a university’s student body. My paper will address the following: if we are to undo the repetitive narrative that mental unwell-being perpetually exists among students based on quantitative data we must seek alternative ways of effectively managing and asking, how are students mentally (un)well, what is causing this and how can they be mentally well?

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Paper short abstract:

How can we prepare ourselves, our students, and colleagues for the ways in which the 'good life' fantasies continue to ensnare us in anthropology? The forming of ‘anxious solidarities’ around mental health might lead towards a more equitable distribution of recognition and security in anthropology.

Paper long abstract:

There has been much talk of a rising mental health crisis in anthropology in recent years. In the “Precarity Report”, Fotta et al. (2020) outline a couple of factors that could help us understand the impact of working conditions on mental health and well-being: only 42.7% of surveyed EASA members covered their living expenses solely from wages and from one full-time job; 53% experienced discrimination, unfair treatment, harassment, bullying, physical and emotional abuse. Last but not least, while 68% think it is unlikely they will get a permanent post within the next 5 years, only 4% are seriously planning to get out of academia. This keeps academics into a deadlock: the uneven distribution of security and stability re/produces the existential precarity of academics, including the inability to plan the future. How have rising rates of academic precarity and the incessant push towards mobility have contributed to mental health issues and lack of social support? These insecurities impact the doing of both teaching and research in anthropology. However, anthropologists have a duty of care towards themselves, their students, colleagues and supervisors to talk about the impact of academic precarity on mental health. As Eli Thorkelson (2018) put it, how can we prepare ourselves, our students, colleagues, and supervisors for the ways that our fantasies of a good life continue to ensnare us in anthropology? The forming of ‘anxious solidarities’ (Kingsmith 2023) and alliances around mental health and academic precarity can hopefully lead towards a more equitable distribution of recognition and security.

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Paper short abstract:

The paper introduces the term “vexed intimacies” to consider personal and methodological challenges of navigating interactions with potentially dangerous interlocutors while aiming to do emancipatory and inclusive knowledge gathering in the field of residential psychiatry in Denmark

Paper long abstract:

As a junior researcher doing ethnography in residential psychiatry for people living with severe mental illness and substance use, I have wavered when considering the anthropological professionalism of building genuine relationships in the field. By the unbearable idea of potentially reproducing a marginalization of people I long to help, if adding my occasional suspicion to the equation, I have been reluctant to write about how I felt when I was told to always wear an assault alarm during fieldwork. I have disallowed myself to think, or let alone speak, about my fear, when a man suspected me of stealing his amphetamine during the night, or when a woman, who the day before had smashed a thermos into the face of another resident, screamed at me for not opening her door in a timely fashion.

Following contemporary methodological discussions within feminist or decolonial theory, I describe the dilemma of navigating interactions with potentially dangerous interlocutors while aiming to do emancipatory and inclusive knowledge gathering, what I suggest to be understood as 'vexed intimacies’. Similar considerations of professionalism reappear in an emic mirror by staff. Behind closed doors, safety concerns, boundary issues, compassion fatigue, non-disclosure of personal information, and involvement in police complaints and trials consistently occupy the office space.

This paper explores a parallel hesitancy to consider one's mental well-being when working with individuals perceived as dangerous, as both an autoethnographic contribution to the discourse on methodology and researcher position in anthropology and an emic discussion of mental healthcare in Denmark.

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Paper short abstract:

Drawing on my recent fieldwork experience in Japan during the covid pandemic, the paper discusses how mental distress in the field must be understood as a symptom of a complex intersection of unfavourable structural conditions, as well as personal predicaments.

Paper long abstract:

In dialogue with the growing number of social anthropologists, mostly women, who have recently engaged with this topic, I will discuss my ethnographic experience in Japan during the coronavirus pandemic and the mental health issues I faced while in the field. 

In late autumn 2019, I moved to Tokyo to conduct my postdoctoral research. Full of enthusiasm, I quickly immersed myself in reading the relevant literature. But when the coronavirus hit Japan in early 2020, my professional work came to a complete halt. Instead, I desperately searched for information on how to protect myself and my family from infection. Living far away from a reliable social network did not help with my worries. As a result, I gradually found myself in an undesirable situation, feeling anxious and depressed. This disturbed mental well-being strongly influenced my research decisions and consequently the research design throughout my stay in Japan.

In retrospect, however, I am well aware that my mental health problems in the field were not only caused by the pandemic, but also by the wider structural situation. I am not referring to inadequate institutional support per se, but to the precarious economic situation I found myself in after completing my PhD. I will argue that the neoliberal academy, with its demanding working conditions, combined with the precarious economic situation faced by early career researchers in particular, takes its toll on our mental well-being and negatively impacts both our professional and personal selves.