RAI RESEARCH SEMINAR

SEMINAR SERIES AT THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE

Meeting Anthropology, or how to talk to chairs

Dr Simone Abram, Durham University and Leeds Beckett University

Wednesday 1 April at 5.30 pm

Almost anyone working in a university, in a political party, in government at any level, or in any large-scale organisation, knows what a ‘Meeting’ is. The many hundreds, if not thousands of guide books to ‘better meetings’ suggest that meetings are a learned social skill, but how do we actually learn how to do meetings? How do we know how to talk to the ‘Chair’, minute actions, shape agendas, and converse in the language of Meetings? And if it so hard to do meetings well, why do we persist in the attempt?

In this talk, Simone Abram discusses the adoption of meeting-rituals, and asks what it means to turn Meetings into an ethnographic object of enquiry. Based on fieldwork over two decades in the UK and Norway, she will attempt to meet Anthropology coming back.

This event is free, but tickets must be booked. To book tickets please go to http://simoneabram.eventbrite.co.uk