Short Abstract:

Financial crisis, housing crisis, ecological crisis, health crisis… the concept of crisis has become a lens through which our social worlds are described and our very existence is conceptualized in recent times.

Long Abstract:

Crisis means an alternation of normality and the expectation of transformation, an exceptional moment in history that produces anxiety but at the same time offers an opportunity. It is the situation in which our social worlds are undone and may be redone.

The notion of crisis is certainly not alien to anthropology which for a long time has imagined itself as a discipline experiencing a perpetual crisis. From the discussions about the specific object of anthropology to debates about its modes of inquiry, the discipline addresses these uneasy critical times with the prospects of renovating its modes of doing and the expectation to produce relevant contributions to the world we are inhabiting. No less important than this transversal state of crisis, the precarious conditions of many professionals are an indicator of the critical state of academia.

This round table approaches the concept of crisis as an exceptional locus to reflect on the relevant contributions that anthropology may offer in current times in our worlds. Three Spain-based scholars in the early stages of their careers will share their field insights about the crisis they are investigating. The roundtable is organized and promoted by ASAAE, the Association of Social Anthropology of Spain.