Anthropology and the politics of engagement

5th Royal Anthropological Institute Postgraduate Conference

University of Manchester

4-5 June 2015

What is the position of engagement within anthropology and academia as a whole? While in a European context anthropologists have long debated the extent to which their discipline should critically engage with issues beyond academic discourse, in other cases, such as Latin America, the foundations of anthropological practice have long been rooted in national intervention projects and the defence of indigenous group rights and identities. Ethics and engagement are constantly renegotiated and redrawn throughout the social sciences, within a wide range of scholarly practices, such as fieldwork, writing, collaborative and applied projects, public engagement and activism. As a discipline which continues to scrutinise power relations in the 21st century, we believe that the politics of engagement is a critical theme for anthropologists to further consider and develop.

This year’s RAI Postgraduate conference encourages contributions from anthropologists as well as from researchers in other related disciplines whose engaged practices involve an ethnographic approach. We also invite participants to contribute work using audio-visual media as subject, method and/or product of their research.

Call for Papers

We welcome abstracts for proposed papers related to (but not limited to) the following themes:

• The potential and application of anthropology and ethnography as sites and tools of  engagement
• Political intervention and activism
• Environmental concerns, land-grabbing, resource extraction and food security
• Ethics of engagement
• Collaborative anthropology and/or collaborative film/art practice
• Public or digital anthropology
• Health and well-being
• Critical perspectives on poverty, development and human rights
• Crisis, Inequality and Neoliberalism
• Moral and grassroots economies

The call for papers is now open. All submissions should include:

• a title
• a short summary of up to 300 characters (including spaces)
• an abstract of no more than 250 words
• your name, institution and email contact

For people who would like to present films or media outputs as part of their research, we welcome trailers, teasers or tasters as part of the presentation of their papers in the panels.
Please send your proposals to raipgconference2015@gmail.com, by 15 March 2015.

“Research Shots”: Call for 5-min research presentation open to the public

The RAI Postgraduate Conference this year will include a number of short-format panels focusing on the question “What is your research about?” and inviting presenters to answer as though they are addressing non-anthropologists and non-academics. Participants must prepare a 5-minute slide presentation about the research they are currently carrying out, whether for their PhD thesis, a chapter, a paper, or engaged research project. In order to “open up” the discussion we invite wider audience, including industry professionals, NGO’s etc. to attend the 5-min research presentations.
Guidelines:

• time will be strictly kept to no more than 5 minutes long.
• presenters must only use images in their slides (no text): between 1 and 10 image slides per presentation.
• a presentation must focus on only one of the following research initiatives: thesis, paper, chapter or engaged project
• the session will be followed by a Q&A/discussion

This call is separate from the call for panel papers but you can submit for both. If you are interested, please send a 300 word abstract to raipgconference2015@gmail.com by 15 March 2015 using “5-min” as the email subject line.