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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260407T160000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260407T180000
DTSTAMP:20260331T234524
CREATED:20250617T134406Z
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SUMMARY:Artistry@Work: Robert Simpkins
DESCRIPTION:Tuesday 7 April 2026\, 4.00-6.00pm (BST) \nThis is an online event. Register for the Zoom here:\nhttps://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_SQ38aYNZStiWN28Czjw0Zw#/registration \n\nBetween Notes:\nsound\, self\, and the unfolding present in the careers of Tokyo’s independent musicians\nSpeaker:\nRobert Simpkins\, social anthropologist and musician\, Oxford \nInvited Discussant:\nChristine Guillebaud\, anthropologist\, CNRS LESC-CREM \n \n\nAbstract:\nThis talk explores the working lives of independent musicians in Tokyo who navigate artistic careers outside of formalised institutional structures – neither embedded in the music industry nor integrated into Japan’s canonical employment system. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork\, Robert’s research considers how these musicians negotiate recognition\, legitimacy and self-worth in the absence of conventional scripts. The practices of his interlocutors often reflect ambivalent forms of moral positioning and aspiration\, and contain moments of tension and creativity that speak to how artistic careers are sustained in the gaps between legitimacy and marginality\, hope and cynicism. Increasingly\, his research also asks what role sound itself – not merely as representational layer\, but as generative medium – might play in shaping the narrative processes through which these artists make sense of their lives. \nBiographical note: \nRobert Simpkins is a social anthropologist interested in how we engage with the world through creative practices. His passion for music and sound shapes his research on performance and the relational life of sound in public space. His ethnographic work\, conducted primarily in Tokyo\, explores sound and self\, the dynamics of urban space\, and the role of the body\, gender\, affect and wellbeing. He co-founded the Sound Loss Collective and co-produces Artery\, an AHRC-supported podcast on art\, authorship\, and anthropology. He is currently developing new projects on sound as method\, including a short film about unhoused music. \nChristine Guillebaud\, an anthropologist and an ethnomusicologist\, is a Research Fellow at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS)\, and former Director of the Centre for Research in Ethnomusicology (CREM-LESC) located at the University of Paris-Nanterre. She also teaches in the Department of Musicology at the University of Geneva. Her academic interests include anthropology of sound\, the study of urban ambiances\, and the ethnography of local noise management politics in India\, where she has conducted long-term fieldwork. She is currently leading the MILSON research program (milson.fr)\, dedicated to the study of sound environments in their sociocultural context of production and perception. She has edited the book Toward an Anthropology of Ambient Sound (Routledge\, 2017)\, co-edited Worship Sound Spaces. Architecture\, Acoustics and Anthropology (Routledge\, 2020)\, and Singing the Past (Nanterre University Press\, 2023). Previously\, she published numerous volumes and articles on musical creation\, multimodality\, danced knowledges\, cultural policies\, sound humour and intellectual property. She has also coproduced sound creations for radio\, including the series Écouter le monde (Radio France Internationale). \n_____________________________________________ \nArtistry@Work is an online Seminar Series in the Anthropology of Artists & Artisans\, running 2024–2026 \nMaison des Sciences de l’Homme–Université Clermont Auvergne\, in collaboration with the Royal Anthropological Institute \nOrganisers:  Dr Raphaël Blanchier & Professor Trevor Marchand \nThis seminar series in anthropology explores the situated practices of ‘artistry at work’ and\, more broadly\, the working lives and career trajectories of artists and artisans plying their trades in regions around the globe. The scope of the series also encompasses studies of occupations not conventionally categorised as “artistic” but that nevertheless foster creativity among (some) practitioners and even accommodate the development of “artist” identities. \nFind all events in the series here: https://therai.org.uk/series/artistrywork/
URL:https://therai.org.uk/events/artistrywork-robert-simpkins/
CATEGORIES:Online Event
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260414T160000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260414T180000
DTSTAMP:20260331T234524
CREATED:20260310T160406Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260319T101930Z
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SUMMARY:Kinship Trouble: Cambridge Archaeological Journal Special Issue Launch
DESCRIPTION:This virtual launch is co-organized with the Archaeology and Gender in Europe (AGE) Network of the European Association of Archaeologists. \nTuesday 14 April 2026\, 4-6pm (BST) \nTo join on Zoom\, please register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_AIj41HC-Q-uN5dyYFK9VrA#/registration \n\nKinship Trouble:\nTraversing Interdisciplinary Boundaries between\nArchaeology\, Archaeogenetics and Socio-cultural Anthropology\n  \nSpeakers: \nSabina Cveček (Field Museum of Natural History\, Austrian Academy of Sciences) \nMaanasa Raghavan (University of Chicago) \nPenny Bickle (University of York) \nAlex Bentley (University of Tennessee) \nKrystal Tsosie (Arizona State University) \nSandra Bamford (University of Toronto) \nRosemary Joyce (University of California\, Berkley) \n  \nWhat is “kinship trouble”? When and where did it emerge\, and why does it matter now? This virtual launch introduces an interdisciplinary special issue of the Cambridge Archaeological Journal that places these questions at the center of contemporary debate. Kinship Trouble: Traversing Interdisciplinary Boundaries between Archaeology\, Archaeogenetics and Socio-cultural Anthropology\, co-edited by Sabina Cveček\, Maanasa Raghavan\, and Penny Bickle\, brings together leading socio-cultural anthropologists\, archaeologists\, biological anthropologists\, and ancient DNA scientists to address the conceptual\, methodological\, and ethical challenges of reconstructing past kin relations. The term kinship trouble captures both the tensions sparked by recent archaeogenetic breakthroughs and the limits of reducing kinship to biological relatedness\, while also opening space to rethink kinship as a social\, relational\, and ethical phenomenon. Developed from interdisciplinary sessions at the American Anthropological Association (Toronto 2024) and the Archaeological Institute of America (Chicago 2025)\, the issue models sustained dialogue across fields that do not always share the same conceptual language by grounding the discussion in theoretical underpinnings and multi-regional case studies from the constituent fields. The virtual launch will offer an accessible overview of its central themes: ethical collaboration\, integrating biological and social approaches\, and understanding kinship as an act of care and (non)mutuality of being. Scholars across anthropology\, archaeology\, and the life sciences are warmly invited to join this conversation about how we study relatedness and why it matters for understanding human diversity past and present. \n\nIllustration caption: Four ways forward to address the kinship trouble through ethics\, training\, contexts\, and interpretations (Cveček\, Raghavan\, and Bickle 2026\, Fig. 3).
URL:https://therai.org.uk/events/cambridge-archaeological-journal-special-issue-launch-kinship-trouble/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260429T160000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260429T180000
DTSTAMP:20260331T234524
CREATED:20260317T180029Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260327T105511Z
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SUMMARY:RAI Research Seminar: James Rose
DESCRIPTION:RAI Research Seminar \nWednesday 29 April\, 4-6pm BST \nThis is a hybrid event.\nTo join online\, register here.\nTo join in Person at the RAI (50 Fitzroy Street\, W1T5BT)\, register here. \n\nThe Science and Philosophy of Social Anthropology\nJames Rose\, The University of Melbourne \n  \nSince its inception in the 1870s\, the field of social anthropology has been riven by internal philosophical debates about its object of study\, parameters of study\, and causal models of explanation. However\, there is a divergence between these philosophical debates\, which are mostly restricted to the academy\, and the scientific implementation of social anthropological expertise outside the academy. Following World War II\, which was triggered initially by racist anti-science philosophies\, the United Nations drew directly on social anthropological expertise to develop a series of scientific statements on race\, clarifying the distinction between human social culture and biology. This expertise formed part of the subsequent underpinning for the 1972 UN Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage\, and later the 2003 UN Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage\, and 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. All three conventions\, administered by the United Nations Educational\, Scientific and Cultural Organization\, directly reference a formal and coherent scientific definition of human social culture\, apparently free of the philosophical uncertainty still plaguing the academy today. At the present moment\, as anti-science philosophies are once again leveraged to justify a possible world war\, the divergence between the science and philosophy of social anthropology appears increasingly anachronistic. Can contemporary social anthropology contribute to international peace and stability in the 21st century as it did in the aftermath of World War II? \nDrawing on the author’s two decades’ experience working in forensic and expert social anthropology on issues of customary law and legal pluralism\, this seminar traces the decoupling of the science and philosophy of social anthropology over the past 50 years. The seminar sets out a possible pathway out of this decoherence by elaborating on the work of UNESCO and the International Labor Organization to define professional standards for the field. The seminar highlights the value of social anthropology as a well-defined and coherent social science grounded in international law\, and capable of contributing to equitable peace and stability among the world’s diverse cultures. \n  \n\n \nDr James Rose is Senior Fellow with the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Melbourne\, Australia. He is a member of the Royal Anthropological Institute’s Committee on Forensic Anthropology\, and Senior Consultant Forensic and Expert Social Anthropologist in private practice in Australia. He holds a PhD from the University of Melbourne and BA(Hons) in Social Anthropology from the University of Sydney\, and has worked in academia\, government\, and private industry for 24 years
URL:https://therai.org.uk/events/46661/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260505T160000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260505T180000
DTSTAMP:20260331T234524
CREATED:20250617T134335Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250718T075051Z
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SUMMARY:Artistry@Work: Raphaël Blanchier
DESCRIPTION:Tuesday 5 May 2026\, 4.00-6.00pm (BST) \nThis is an online event. Register for the Zoom here:\nhttps://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_VrjHFAS2SmaANh7ISeCrhA#/registration \n\n  \n\nLives of Talent:\nan ethnography of dancers’ work/life in Mongolia\nSpeaker:\nRaphaël Blanchier\, anthropologist\, Université Clermont Auvergne and IFRAE-CNRS\, LESC-CREM \nInvited Discussant:\nCassis Kilian\, anthropologist and performer\, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt \n\nAbstract:\nIn Mongolia\, recognised dancers\, professional or otherwise\, are viewed as special individuals endowed with an innate quality called av’’yaas (“talent”). A dancer’s av’’yaas allegedly includes a variety of aptitudes\, which include physical capacities (i.e. being flexible\, have suitable bodily proportions)\, perceptual skills (i.e. feeling the music) and motor skills (i.e. moving with fluidity\, expression and musicality). However necessary\, av’’yaas is not sufficient on its own for making a dancer. Being born with av’’yaas engages a person to prove themself worthy of their gift to become a successful dancer. By contrast\, a “talented” (av’’yaastai) person may be accused of “wasting” their talent. From childhood to old age\, a dancer’s life therefore presents a series of challenges that publicly tests their av’’yaas\, ability and life choices to live up to their expectation. This\, I argue\, follows what E. Goffman called ‘line of conduct’: an accumulation of situations confirming (or denying) the public acknowledgement of their distinctive nature. \nGrounded in an immersive style of ethnographic fieldwork among Mongolian dancers\, as well as in comprehensive interviews and self-learning\, this presentation discusses a position endorsed by French sociologists according to which “talent”\, or its correlate “vocation” should be seen as a deceitful notion crafted to exploit artists in a capitalistic world. I argue that “artistic work” should be considered as something more than mere “work” in itself and\, consequently\, that the notion of “artistry” merits closer anthropological examination. \nBiographical note: \nRaphaël Blanchier is an associate professor in the anthropology of dance (Université Clermont Auvergne\, ACTé Research Center)\, and associate researcher at IFRAE-CNRS Research Center\, and at LESC-CREM. Trained in social anthropology\, dance studies and humanities\, he conducts research on Mongolian dances\, cultural transmission and national identity in the age of globalisation. He has been granted the GIS Asie (Asian Studies Network) Award for his PhD. He has directed the Erasmus Mundus Master’s Programme Choreomundus: International Master in Dance Knowledge\, Practice and Heritage\, and he has been the editor-in-chief of the academic journal Lectures anthropologiques. His books and papers interrogate transmission and apprenticeship among dancers\, the making of a sense of community through dance (Mongolian dance\, bourrée auvergnate)\, Cultural Heritage making policies in Mongolia today and during the socialist era\, the use of digital media in the circulation of dance forms\, and\, more recently\, the “work of hope” in post-socialist urban contexts in Mongolia. \nCassis Kilian is a postdoctoral fellow in the research project “NoJoke” which studies humour as an epistemic practice of the political present [www.nojoke.net]. She was an actress before writing her PhD on African film and teaching at the Department of Anthropology and African Studies at Mainz University. Her publications focus on cosmopolitanism\, senses\, perception and methodology. Her most recent book is entitled “Attention in Performance: Acting Lessons in Sensory Anthropology” (Routledge\, 2021). \n_____________________________________________ \nArtistry@Work is an online Seminar Series in the Anthropology of Artists & Artisans\, running 2024–2026 \nMaison des Sciences de l’Homme–Université Clermont Auvergne\, in collaboration with the Royal Anthropological Institute \nOrganisers:  Dr Raphaël Blanchier & Professor Trevor Marchand \nThis seminar series in anthropology explores the situated practices of ‘artistry at work’ and\, more broadly\, the working lives and career trajectories of artists and artisans plying their trades in regions around the globe. The scope of the series also encompasses studies of occupations not conventionally categorised as “artistic” but that nevertheless foster creativity among (some) practitioners and even accommodate the development of “artist” identities. \nFind all events in the series here: https://therai.org.uk/series/artistrywork/
URL:https://therai.org.uk/events/artistrywork-raphael-blanchier/
CATEGORIES:Online Event
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20261015T100000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20261015T170000
DTSTAMP:20260331T234524
CREATED:20260203T122845Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260203T142740Z
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SUMMARY:Folklore and Anthropology in Conversation: When loud rumour speaks
DESCRIPTION:‘Folklore and Anthropology in Conversation’ \nThe Tenth Folklore Society – Royal Anthropological Institute Joint Seminar \nThursday 15 October\, 2026\, 10:00-17:00\, at 50 Fitzroy Street\, London W1T 5BT \n\nCall for Papers \n‘When Loud Rumour Speaks’:\n      Informal communication in the modern online world \n  \nAnthropologists know what it is to deal with networks of informal communication. Field research in small-scale\, face-to-face social situations\, be they villages\, neighbourhoods or organisations\, has always entailed coming to grips with this in one way or another. Folklorists\, whether collecting ‘traditional’ oral material of various sorts or documenting urban and contemporary legends and the online world of memes and viral narratives\, have always recognised the fundamental importance of informal communication. Anthropology and folklore meet here in shared and long-standing interests in rumour\, which have only been sharpened by the rise and rapid expansion of the Internet. This meeting will explore what the two disciplines have in common in this respect\, what they can learn from each other\, and how\, if at all\, rumour has changed in the online era: are we witnessing the emergence of a new mode of communication\, somewhere between the face-to-face/oral and the literate? Papers are invited that consider the social roles of rumour in the broadest senses\, whether comparatively or in case studies. Analyses of the linguistic and conceptual categories of ‘rumour’ are also welcome. \n\nPlease send your proposals for papers to Prof. Richard Jenkins r.p.jenkins@sheffield.ac.uk by the deadline of 30 June 2026 \nPresentations will be given in person\, but conference attendees may attend either on-site\, or via Zoom. There is no registration fee. For on-site attendees\, refreshments and a light lunch will be provided free of charge. \n\nImage: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/yarn-phone-communication-network-2091195/
URL:https://therai.org.uk/events/folklore-and-anthropology-in-conversation-when-loud-rumour-speaks/
CATEGORIES:Conference
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