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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20251205T180000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20251205T180000
DTSTAMP:20260430T120048
CREATED:20251015T170012Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251211T102935Z
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SUMMARY:Huxley Memorial Lecture 2025: The Moral Question by Dr Didier Fassin
DESCRIPTION:The Moral Question by Dr Didier Fassin\n\n					\n									Click here to view the recording\n					 \nFriday 5 December at The London School of Economics & Political Science \nThe lecture will start at 6pm and will be followed by a drinks reception. \n																														 \nThe Venue for The Huxley Lecture this year will be The London School of Economics. \nThe Sheikh Zayed Theatre on the Lower Ground Floor \nCheng Kin Ku Building\, 54 Lincoln’s Inn Fields\, London\, WC3A 3LJ \n			 \nAnthropologists have long been reluctant with regard to the study of morality\, fearing that it would be vitiated by the projection of their own values. The word “moral” is indeed simultaneously and ambiguously descriptive and normative. Yet\, in recent years\, a rich field of research has developed\, mainly in the alternative form of a Durkheimian approach to moral codes inspired by the ethics of duty and a Foucauldian interpretation of moral subjectivation inherited from the ethics of virtue. \nThe lecture will analyse the emergence of these new objects in the study of social life\, its resonance with transient changes in public discourses\, and the discussions to which it gave rise. But a distinct\, critical framework will be presented\, questioning both the normative dimension of the word “moral”\, so as to open to all values and emotions independently of prior evaluation of their merit\, and the consistency of the domain of “morality”\, considering that what is observable are instead moral issues linked to historical circumstances\, cultural sensitivities\, social mobilizations\, and political stakes. \nCase studies from various research on humanitarianism\, immigration\, policing\, punishment\, and violence will serve to reflect on the concepts of moral economies\, moral justifications and moral communities\, and on their heuristic significance to apprehend some of the most vexing questions of our time\, including the unequal worth of lives. \nDidier Fassin is Professor at the Collège de France and at the Institute for Advanced Study. \nEnquiries to: RAI\, 50 Fitzroy St\, London W1T 5 BT; tel 020 7387 0455; email \nThe event is free\, but places must be booked. Please click the button below to book \n					\n									CLICK HERE TO BOOK YOUR PLACE
URL:https://therai.org.uk/events/huxley2025/
LOCATION:London School of Economics & Political Science\, Cheng Kin Ku Building\, 54 Lincoln's Inn Fields\, London\, Greater London\, WC3A 3LJ\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Lecture
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20251023T100000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20251023T170000
DTSTAMP:20260430T120048
CREATED:20250218T135621Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250902T120221Z
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SUMMARY:Folklore and Anthropology in Conversation: Revisiting Oral Narrative
DESCRIPTION:‘Revisiting Oral Narrative: Anthropology\, Folklore and History’\nNinth ‘Folklore and Anthropology in Conversation’ Joint Seminar\nThe Folklore Society and The Royal Anthropological Institute \n\n\nDate: Thursday 23 October\, 2025Time: 10 AM to 5 PMLocation: 50 Fitzroy Street\, London W1T 5BT and online via Zoom \nTo attend in Person please register here(In Person tickets are limited and currently fully booked\, but there is a waiting list. Please follow the link to put your name on it. If places become available people on the waiting list will be notified.) \nTo attend online\, please register here \n\nThe Royal Anthropological Institute and The Folklore Society host jointly an annual conference series ‘Folklore and Anthropology in Conversation’ which encourages empirical and conceptual dialogue between the two related disciplines of folklore and anthropology \nThis year’s conference\, ‘Revisiting Oral Narrative: Anthropology\, Folklore and History’ will explore facets of the debate about oral narrative and its relation to history and the transmission of knowledge. Multiple points of view from various areas of the world will be examined\, including oral narratives and the distant past\, the changing parameters of orality in the digital age\, and the continuing relevance or not of earlier theoretical approaches such as William Bascom’s ‘Four Functions of Folklore’ or Jack Goody’s ideas on the emergence of literacy. \nPresentations will be given in person\, but conference attendees may attend either on-site\, or via ZOOM linkup. \nThere is no registration fee. For on-site attendees\, refreshments and a light lunch will be provided free of charge. \nProgramme \nWelcome and Introduction to the Day 10:00 – 10:15 \nSession 1 10:15 – 11:15 \nPresentation 1 – Ahmed Nur Muse – ‘Whispers of Survival: Oral Narratives\, Maternal Knowledge\, and Spiritual Resilience among Somali Pastoral Nomads’. \nPresentation 2 – Anne Solomon – ‘The Interdisciplinary Ideal and Approaches to Interpreting Khoisan Oral Narratives and Lore’. \nTea / Coffee 11:15 – 11.30 \nSession 2 11:30 – 12:30 \nPresentation 3 – Stéphane Perrin – ‘Folklore in Our Universities: Understanding the Relation between Recent Folklore and Our Institutions’. \nPresentation 4 – Jonathan Roper – ‘Place-name Narratives in Newfoundland’. \nLunch (on site) 12:30 – 1:30 \nSession 3 – 1:30 -2:30 \nPresentation 5 – Rawan Alfuraih – ‘The Epic of the Najd: Historiography and Ethnography as Extensions of Existing Arabian Oral Narrative’. \nPresentation 6 – Elizabeth Rainey – Mediation of an Emirati Voice: Anglophonic Representation of al-Nabati. \nTea / Coffee 2:30 – 3:00 \nSession 4 – 3:00 – 4:00 \nPresentation 7 – Garima Thakuria – ‘Mundhum in Sikkim: Oral Narratives among the Rai Community’. \nPresentation 8 – Roy Ellen –‘Satirical Allusion and Tug-of-Rattan on Seram: Poetic Form and Informal Social Control in Nuaulu Performance of Sung Verse’. \nPlenary Discussion 4:00 – 5:00 \n\n(Image: Rakugo at Sanma Festival\, Japan; via Wikimedia Commons) \n					\n									Click here
URL:https://therai.org.uk/events/folklore-and-anthropology-in-conversation-soundscapes-and-folklore-in-east-asia-copy/
LOCATION:Royal Anthropological Institute\, 50 Fitzroy Street\, London\, state\, W1T 5BT\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Conference
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20250701
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20250705
DTSTAMP:20260430T120048
CREATED:20240724T133756Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250513T134046Z
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SUMMARY:RAI FILM Conference 2025
DESCRIPTION:Where Are We Now?\nVisual and Multimodal Anthropology\n1-4 July\, online \nTo view panels and calls\, and general info about this conference\, please go to our main page \nRAI FILM Conference 2025
URL:https://therai.org.uk/events/rai-film-conference-2025/
LOCATION:Online
CATEGORIES:Conference
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20250611
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20250616
DTSTAMP:20260430T120048
CREATED:20231021T135009Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250513T100152Z
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SUMMARY:RAI FILM Festival 2025 - Bristol
DESCRIPTION:RAI FILM Festival 2025 \nThe RAI FILM Festival is a biennial event providing a leading showcase for the best in groundbreaking and innovative anthropological documentary filmmaking from around the globe. Organised by the Royal Anthropological Institute since 1985\, the festival has created a vital space where cinema\, academia\, and public dialogue intersect. \nThe 19th RAI FILM Festival will take place from 11 to 15 June 2025 at Watershed and Arnolfini\, in Bristol\, a UNESCO City of Cinema\, and will mark the 40th anniversary of this unique celebration of anthropology and filmmaking. With premieres\, filmmaker Q&As\, panel discussions\, and a unique mix of cinema and academia\, it is an intimate and global gathering. \nPasses now on sale – learn how to get yours! \n\nFind Out More Here
URL:https://therai.org.uk/events/rai-film-festival-4/
LOCATION:Watershed Cinema\, Bristol\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Film
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250506T160000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250506T180000
DTSTAMP:20260430T120048
CREATED:20240920T171529Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250730T093030Z
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SUMMARY:Artistry@Work: Hélène Neveu-Kringelbach
DESCRIPTION:This is an online event. Register here: \nhttps://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_zhcIqGJVQoKM1j_dtDkKEQ \n\n\n\nLivelihoods of West African Performers\nSpeaker: Dr Hélène Neveu-Kringelbach\, University College London \n\n\n\nDiscussant: Dr Thomas Chambers\, Oxford Brookes University \n\n\n\nAbstract:In the 1990s and early 2000s\, much of the scholarship on the performing arts celebrated the new insights afforded by the transnationalism paradigm and the ‘mobilities’ turn. There was both enthusiasm and concern about the intensified global circulation of people\, things\, ideas and capital\, as well as art forms. New research questioned whether these ‘mobilities’ reinforced the postcolonial world order\, or whether they had the potential to make more visible previously marginalized artistic forms. Since then\, there has been growing recognition that a focus on mobility in its multiple forms risked obscuring important aspects of the ‘social life’ of art worlds. There is a need to reconsider the relationship between mobility and immobility\, between moving and ‘staying put’ at different stages of artistic lives. How have migration regimes\, which have increasingly aimed at keeping people from the Global South away from the Global North\, shaped what performing artists do? How have West African dancers and choreographers in particular addressed the migration issue? Do we need to rethink the temporality of our studies? Drawing on ongoing research with performing artists in West Africa and in migration contexts since 2002\, this presentation interrogates the longer-term strategies deployed by performing artists to navigate a world in which their work is valued\, but from which their bodies are often excluded. \n\n\n\nBiographical note: \n\n\n\nDr Hélène Neveu Kringelbach is an Associate professor of African Anthropology at University College London (UCL). She teaches in both SELCS (the School of European Languages\, Culture and Society) and the Anthropology department. In 2019-22\, she served as Vice-Dean EDI (Equality\, Diversity and Inclusion) for the Arts & Humanities Faculty. She is the author of the monograph ‘Dance Circles: Movement\, Morality and Self-Fashioning in Urban Senegal’\, winner of the RAI’s 2013 Amaury Talbot Prize in African Anthropology. Her current book project focuses on ‘mixed’ marriage and transnational family relationships between Senegal and Europe\, exploring\, in particular\, how these relationships are shaped by colonial histories as well as by racialised and gendered European immigration policies. Aside from this work\, she has an enduring research and teaching interest in music\, performance and popular culture in African cities. \n\n\n\nThomas Chambers is a Senior Lecturer in Social/Cultural Anthropology at Oxford Brookes University and has a PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Sussex. He is the Editor in Chief of Contemporary South Asia (Taylor & Francis) and Secretary for the British Association of South Asian Studies (BASAS). Thomas’s research focuses on India\, the broader South Asia Region\, and the Gulf. He has published widely in a range of academic journals and is the author of an ethnographic monograph titled Networks\, Labour and Migration among Indian Muslim Artisans (2020\, UCL Press). Thomas’s work engages with broad thematic areas including migration\, labour\, supply chains\, Indian Muslims\, gender\, paid domestic labour\, care work\, caste\, class\, urban space\, conviviality\, state bureaucracies\, digitisation\, subjectivities\, Islam\, and artisanship. \n_____________________________________________ \n\n\n\nArtistry@Work is an online Seminar Series in the Anthropology of Artists & Artisans\, running 2024–2025  \n\n\n\nMaison des Sciences de l’Homme–Université Clermont Auvergne\, in collaboration with the Royal Anthropological Institute \n\n\n\nOrganisers:  Dr Raphaël Blanchier & Professor Trevor Marchand \n\n\n\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-helene-neveu-kringelbach/
CATEGORIES:Online Event
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20250423
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20250425
DTSTAMP:20260430T120048
CREATED:20240730T154146Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241016T114032Z
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SUMMARY:Health\, Environment\, and AnThropology 1 (HEAT1)
DESCRIPTION:Health\, Environment\, and AnThropology 1 (HEAT1)\nAs the world is getting fuller\, faster\, hotter\, and sicker\, HEAT1 asks how can anthropologists contribute to unfolding debates around health and environment on a changing and unequal planet? In what ways can medical and environmental anthropology work together and with other disciplines\, communities\, and stakeholders to help support the development of knowledge and resources for responding to environmental destruction and global heating? \nAs environmental and climate transform societies and ecologies around the world\, it is imperative that anthropologists continue to seek new ways of thinking and speaking among themselves and with others about the relationships among humans\, other-than-humans\, the environment\, and the planet. By examining the intricate web of interdependencies between societies\, ecosystems\, and environmental processes\, anthropologists have an important role to play in understanding and addressing the complex challenges faced by our planet. \nPanel proposals are invited in the following and related areas: \n\nChanging patterns and profiles of health\, illness\, and disease in response to environmental and climate change\nChanging human and more-than-human entanglements in relation to environmental and climate change\nSocial movements and new forms of sociality arising from concerns about planetary health\nEnvironmental justice\, inequality\, and marginalized communities\nDemographic anxieties and the effects of migration\, displacement\, and armed conflict in the context of changing environments\nImpacts of climate change on reproductive health and rights\nDiverse ecological knowledges and indigenous perspectives on planetary health\nSustainable food systems\, agriculture\, and nutrition\nUrbanization\, globalization\, and the transformation of human-environment relationships\nHealth impacts of extractive industries and resource exploitation\nEthical and/or methodological considerations in planetary health research and interventions\nPolicy interventions and governance for planetary health\nTechnological and design innovations for improving planetary health and dealing with the health impacts of environmental destruction and global heating\nMental health and wellbeing in the context of climate change\nInterdisciplinary connections\, including engagement with the Overlaps and contention between the frameworks of Planetary Health\, Global Health\, and One Health.\n\nPanel proposals should include a title and 250 word abstract. The deadline is 30 September 2024. A Call for Papers will then follow. \nTo submit an abstract\, follow this link: https://pay.durham.ac.uk/event-durham/health-environment-and-anthropology-heat-2024 \nEmail the conference organisers at anthro.heat.conference@gmail.com \n  \nRegistration fees \nRegistration fees include full access to conference events\, breaktime refreshments\, and a packed lunch on both days. Upon registration\, participants will have the option of including a ticket for a drinks reception on the 23rd evening\, and the conference dinner on the 24th. Participants will also have the opportunity to book accommodation in university accommodation for the nights of the 22nd\, 23rd\, and 24th. \n\nRAI\, ASA\, EASA Fellows – £320\nRAI Members – £390\nNon-Members – £420\nConcessions – £150
URL:https://therai.org.uk/events/health-environment-and-anthropology-1-heat1/
LOCATION:Durham University\, state
CATEGORIES:Conference
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250408T160000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250408T180000
DTSTAMP:20260430T120048
CREATED:20240920T170142Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250730T093030Z
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SUMMARY:Artistry@Work: Dorothee Hemme
DESCRIPTION:This is an online event. Register here:\nhttps://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_8pOX1wpMRuSczwVQyyjDZw\n\nOn the Art of Being a Female Entrepreneur in the Skilled Trades\nSpeaker: Dorothee Hemme\, anthropologist & entrepreneur\, Göttingen\nDiscussant: Myriem Naji\, University College London\nAbstract\nThe exhibition project “Women in Crafts from Here!” aims to show the diversity of female craftsmanship in the region of South Lower Saxony through personal portraits of 19 craftswomen from various trades. These women\, most of whom own their own businesses\, represent the growing number of women in leadership and ownership roles in Germany’s craft sector. The seminar will present the overall project and cross-sectional results from encounters with these craftswomen\, delving into their motivations for learning their craft\, the paths they have taken\, the significance of being a woman in their trade both technically and entrepreneurially\, their daily lives\, and their hopes for the future. Participants are invited to discuss the artistry of female business management in the craft sector. \nBiographical note\nDorothee Hemme\, cultural anthropologist and owner of HandWert\, has a longstanding focus and passion for craftsmanship. With a background in folklore and art history\, she has worked in open-air museums\, with a particular interest in architectural culture. Her academic tenure at the University of Göttingen was marked by two interdisciplinary research projects on craftsmanship: “Objects of the Skilled” explored the relationship between experiential knowledge and innovation in traditional crafts like clay and organ building\, while the “Craftsmanship Pride & Happiness” research project investigated the link between life satisfaction and craftsmanship. Since 2021\, she has led HandWert\, a startup realising projects that shed light on the world of craftsmanship and convey the indispensability of craftsmanship. \nMyriem Naji is an honorary research fellow at the Department of Anthropology\, University College London\, where she earned a PhD in 2008. She is interested in productive and creative processes and their significance for livelihood\, identity and ways of living. Her current project\, for which she received an Endangered Material Knowledge Programme (EMKP) grant\, aims to research textile knowledge systems in southern Morocco. She is interested in the impact of craft and heritage on livelihood and knowledge transmission. In prior research on organic farmers in the south of France she also explored the relationship between production\, economy and activism. \n__________________________________ \nArtistry@Work is an online Seminar Series in the Anthropology of Artists & Artisans\, running 2024–2025 \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-dorothee-hemme/
CATEGORIES:Online Event
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250324T160000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250324T180000
DTSTAMP:20260430T120048
CREATED:20240920T170541Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250730T093031Z
UID:10004300-1742832000-1742839200@therai.org.uk
SUMMARY:Artistry@Work: Julien Debonneville (cancelled)
DESCRIPTION:“Becoming a Dancer\, Becoming Mobile”:\nNavigating mobility regimes in the field of European contemporary dance\nThis event had unfortunately be cancelled due to unforeseen circumstance. \nSpeaker: Julien Debonneville\, Haute École Spécialisée de Suisse Occidentale \nDiscussant: Robert Simpkins\, social anthropologist \nAbstract\nThis seminar will examine the way in which mobility acts to structure artistic careers in the transnational field of contemporary dance. It shows how mobility regimes constitute a professional norm in which dancers are socialised\, but also how they are closely linked to the acquisition of a symbolic capital that is a determining factor in the construction of their careers. Finally\, it highlights the tensions resulting from these mobility regimes in terms of precariousness and constraint\, especially towards the end of the dancer’s career. \nBiographical note\nJulien Debonneville holds a Ph.D. in social sciences from the University of Geneva. During his Phd\, he was also a visiting scholar at the University of the Philippines – Diliman\, and at the University of Berkeley. Following a postdoctoral stay at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Göttingen\, he worked as a senior researcher at the Institute of Gender Studies of the University of Geneva. Since 2023\, he works at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Western Switzerland. His research has primarily focused on transnational mobilities\, globalized domestic work\, inequalities\, contemporary dance\, public spaces\, and access to social policies. His recent books include Devenir travailleuse domestique. Perspectives philippines (Seismo 2023) and L’industrie mondialisée du travail domestique aux Philippines : Recruter\, former et exporter l’altérité (2023\, ENS Éditions). \nRobert Simpkins is a social anthropologist interested in our engagement with the world through creative practices. His passion for music and sound drives his research\, focusing on performance and relations of sound in public space. His ethnographic research is largely conducted in Tokyo\, Japan\, and deals with interrelations of sound and self\, the conflicts and complexities of urban space\, the body\, gendered space\, affect and wellbeing. He is co-founder of the Sound Loss Collective\, a group dedicated to the exploration and representation of sound in social research\, and producer of Artery\, an AHRC supported podcast on art\, authorship and anthropology\, which he runs with Dr Iza Kavedžija (Cambridge). Robert is currently crafting new projects\, including an exploration of sound as artistic and anthropological research method\, and a short film about unhoused music. \n______________________________________________ \nArtistry@Work is an online Seminar Series in the Anthropology of Artists & Artisans\, running 2024–2025 \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-julien-debonneville/
LOCATION:Online
CATEGORIES:Online Event
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250304T040000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250304T180000
DTSTAMP:20260430T120048
CREATED:20250221T160921Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250730T093031Z
UID:10004325-1741060800-1741111200@therai.org.uk
SUMMARY:Artistry@Work: Michele Feder-Nadoff
DESCRIPTION:This is an online event. Register for the Zoom here:https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_VPYV9hSISeWUg8Cx6WCmsQ#/registration  \n\nThe Incommensurability of Making: Learning from long-term apprenticeship in Santa Clara del Cobre\nSpeaker: Michele Feder-Nadoff\, artist & anthropologist \n\n\n\nDiscussant: Dr Lydia Arantes\, University of Graz \n\n\n\nAbstract:What is the incommensurability of making? How and under what circumstances can craft production be seen as a practice of care\, a kind of love? And\, how does this inversion of careful and caring labor become a method of hope? These questions emerged through my mentor-apprenticeship as an artist-anthropologist with the master coppersmith artisan\, Maestro Jesús Pérez Ornelas (1926-2014) and his sons in Santa Clara del Cobre\, Michoacán\, Mexico. Reflecting upon this fieldwork\, this talk will present the concept of incommensurability topologically winding through defining making as a continuum of art and craft; proposing artisan agency-ing\, crafting care\, labor and love; to how making becomes a method of hope. The incommensurability of making is a model of production that matters beyond measure to resist neoliberal global markets despite operating within these capitalist structures. Incommensurability challenges dominant concepts of value and confronts the positional problematics of interpretation and quantifications of labor and productivity. \n\n\n\nBiographical note: \n\n\n\nMichele Feder-Nadoff is an artist and anthropologist whose practice and research centers on the meaning of making. In addition to her art\, she conducted longterm apprenticeship-based ethnography with master coppersmiths in Santa Clara del Cobre\, Michoacán\, México\, initiated in 1997 and was founding-director of the arts and culture non-profit\, Cuentos Foundation\, 1998-2009\, Fulbright Scholar\, 2010-2011\, and received a PhD from El Colegio de Michoacán\, 2017. Her seminar-labs train researchers in multimodal and collaborative methods. Recent publications include editor of Performing Craft in Mexico: Artisans\, Aesthetics and the Power of Translation\, 2022 and An Anthropology of Making in Santa Clara del Cobre: Presence of Absence\, 2024. \nLydia Maria Arantes is a musician and cultural anthropologist. She was a Visiting Researcher at UCL Anthropology\, held Honorary Fellowships both at UCL and the University of Aberdeen and was recently appointed to the Austrian UNESCO expert committee on Intangible Cultural Heritage. A former Assistant Professor at the Department of Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology at the University of Graz (2019-2024)\, she continues to teach at the very same department.Currently she is leading a multimodal memory culture outreach project about the Burtscher family and their acts of resistance during the Nazi regime at the vorarlberg museum in Western Austria. Furthermore\, she is a project member at the Centre for the Anthropology of Technics and Technodiversity (UCL). Her research and teaching interests include technical activities such as (textile) craft practices\, material culture\, sensory ethnography\, ethno-psychoanalysis as well as ethnographic writing. As an avid maker and proponent of technical engagement\, she argues in favour of technodiversity not only in everyday life but\, more concretely\, also in Higher Education pedagogy as a means of reconciling body and mind through tools. \n_____________________________________________ \n\n\n\nArtistry@Work is an online Seminar Series in the Anthropology of Artists & Artisans\, running 2024–2025  \n\n\n\nMaison des Sciences de l’Homme–Université Clermont Auvergne\, in collaboration with the Royal Anthropological Institute \n\n\n\nOrganisers:  Dr Raphaël Blanchier & Professor Trevor Marchand \n\n\n\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. Find all events in the series here: https://therai.org.uk/series/artistrywork/ 
URL:https://therai.org.uk/events/artistrywork-michele-feder-nadoff/
CATEGORIES:Online Event
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250204T160000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250204T180000
DTSTAMP:20260430T120048
CREATED:20240920T170021Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250730T093031Z
UID:10004298-1738684800-1738692000@therai.org.uk
SUMMARY:Artistry@Work: Sónia Mota Ribeiro
DESCRIPTION:Clay Figuration in Barcelos\, Portugal: Crafting futures by re-imagining the past\nThis is an online event. Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_DihhqB12QZSXzF-fuIUsaQ  \nSpeaker: Sónia Mota Ribeiro\, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa \n\n\n\nDiscussant: Stephanie Bunn\, University of St Andrews \n\n\n\nAbstract\nThis seminar will focus on the practice of a group of artisans from the Barcelos region\, in the north of Portugal. These “barristas” (clay artisans) inherited the knowledge of clay figurine moulding from their parents and grandparents\, who were the most renown generations of clay figurine artists in the country and whose notoriety was due in part to the appropriation of popular culture by the Estado Novo dictatorship during the 1930s and 1940s\, particularly the clay figurines of Barcelos. The seminar will examine how the contemporary artisans address the different temporalities and narratives present in the work by balancing the preservation of the traditional themes transmitted by their ancestors with the introduction of new forms and ideas in the figure-making process. The seminar will also investigate how their work has captured the attention of contemporary artists and designers\, inspiring creative relationships and their own clay figuration practice. \n\n\n\nBiographical note\nSónia Mota Ribeiro is an anthropologist and an artist\, researching in the areas of the anthropology of art\, environmental anthropology and cultural heritage. She is currently a PhD candidate in anthropology in the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences\, NOVA University of Lisbon\, where she is studying the world of clay figuration practices in the regions of Barcelos and Estremoz\, Portugal\, and focusing on the relationships between the local institutions and the artisans. \n\n\n\nStephanie Bunn is Leverhulme Emeritus Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of St Andrews\, UK. She curated the first ever British Museum exhibition of Central Asian felt textiles\, and is author of Nomadic Felt (2010)\, editor of Anthropology and Beauty (2016) and co-editor of The Material Culture of Basketry (Bloomsbury\, 2020). \n\n\n\n_________________________________________________ \n\n\n\nArtistry@Work is an online Seminar Series in the Anthropology of Artists & Artisans\, running 2024–2025  \n\n\n\nMaison des Sciences de l’Homme–Université Clermont Auvergne\, in collaboration with the Royal Anthropological Institute \n\n\n\nOrganisers:  Dr Raphaël Blanchier & Professor Trevor Marchand \n\n\n\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. 
URL:https://therai.org.uk/events/artistrywork-sonia-mota-ribeiro/
LOCATION:Online
CATEGORIES:Online Event
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250107T160000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250107T180000
DTSTAMP:20260430T120048
CREATED:20240920T164531Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250730T093032Z
UID:10004297-1736265600-1736272800@therai.org.uk
SUMMARY:Artistry@Work: Geoffrey Gowlland
DESCRIPTION:This is an online event. Register here: \nhttps://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_5ATz3WvLQC6VvZmbRb90tg \n\nCrafting Indigeneity in Taiwan\n\n\n\nSpeaker: Geoffrey Gowlland\, University of Geneva \n\n\n\nDiscussant: Michele Feder-Nadoff\, artist & anthropologist \n\n\n\nAbstract\n\n\n\nWhy is it that the revitalisation of forms of art and craft has\, for Indigenous peoples around the world\, taken such a significance in self-presentations and political engagements? What is it about the power of things\, and the power of making things\, that fits so well with the agendas and needs of contemporary Indigenous peoples? In other words\, what is the relationship between crafting Indigenous objects and crafting Indigenous selves? This seminar addresses some of the political\, experiential\, educational and spiritual dimensions of making objects using materials that connect Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples to their ancestral lands\, with a particular focus on the material culture of the Paiwan people. Since the 1990s\, Paiwan artists and craftspersons have been pioneers in the revitalisation of Indigenous material culture in Taiwan; the paper will present the trajectories\, aspirations and philosophies of some of those creators. \n\n\n\nBiographical note\n\n\n\nGeoffrey Gowlland is a Researcher in the Department of Education Sciences\, University of Geneva\, Switzerland. An Anthropologist by training\, he is interested in processes of acquisition of material knowledge and skills\, and in initiatives of revitalisation of material culture practices. He has conducted ethnographic fieldwork on craft practices including ceramics\, wood carving\, and dry-stone walling\, in China\, Taiwan and Switzerland. \n\n\n\nMichele Avis Feder-Nadoff is an artist and cultural anthropologist. Her recent monograph\, An Anthropology of Making in Santa Clara del Cobre: Presence of Absence\, 2024\, shares the story and analysis of her long-term apprenticeship to Maestro Jesús Pérez Ornelas (1926-2014)\, a master coppersmith in Santa Clara del Cobre\, Michoacán\, México. Her critical approach to making and aesthetics bridges the gap between socio-economic-political critiques of craft and more formalist technical-aesthetic analysis by incorporating onto-epistemology\, performance and phenomenology. As an educator\, she designs workshops in multi-modal research methodologies. Feder-Nadoff’s art is included in private and public collections worldwide. \n\n\n\n________________________________ \n\n\n\nArtistry@Work is an online Seminar Series in the Anthropology of Artists & Artisans\, running 2024–2025  \n\n\n\nMaison des Sciences de l’Homme–Université Clermont Auvergne\, in collaboration with the Royal Anthropological Institute \n\n\n\nOrganisers:  Dr Raphaël Blanchier & Professor Trevor Marchand \n\n\n\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. 
URL:https://therai.org.uk/events/artistrywork-geoffrey-gowlland/
LOCATION:Online
CATEGORIES:Online Event
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241203T160000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241203T180000
DTSTAMP:20260430T120048
CREATED:20240920T163749Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250730T093032Z
UID:10004296-1733241600-1733248800@therai.org.uk
SUMMARY:Artistry@Work: Alice Aterianus-Owanga
DESCRIPTION:The art of ‘vitesse’: ntcham music\, banditry\, and the digital fabric of a pirate industry\nThis is an online event. Register here: \nhttps://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_zSf_DZ4zTl266_Tv7cby2g \nSpeaker: Alice Aterianus-Owanga\, Université de Neuchâtel \nDiscussant: Jamila Dorner\, SOAS \nAbstract\n“Vitesse” (speed)\, “vivacité” (liveliness) and “rapidité” (quickness): the texts and videos of Ntcham music are filled with references (textual\, musical and gestural) to rhythm and its apparent acceleration. In this recent musical genre\, often labeled as a Gabonese-style Afropop\, vitesse takes on ambiguous dimensions. It refers\, in one sense\, to the vigilance\, offensiveness and responsiveness required to survive in the urban worlds of banditry depicted by Ntcham artists. These attitudes and values\, characteristic of the ndoss (bandits of Libreville) culture\, were capitalized on by Ntcham artists and became a trademark of the genre\, provoking both rejection by some and fascination by others. An ironic and disillusioned replication of the daily lives of young people grappling with illegality\, Ntcham offers a thrilling reflection of the ongoing crisis that affects the daily lives and aspirations of African urbanites (Roitman & Mbembe\, 1995)\, particularly in Gabon following the economic\, electoral and political crises of recent years. The vitesse of Ntcham artists is thus inseparable from money\, which is the key value that they depict and pursue\, and thus the ultimate goal of this intensification. \nSimultaneously\, this aesthetic of vitesse echoes a dynamic of accelerated musical production displayed by these artists (singers\, video directors\, beatmakers)\, who ‘do not sleep\,’ make one studio recording after the other\, shoot multiple music videos\, and use trends and digital interventions to increase their public presence. In this sense\, they establish a break with the slow production processes of previous generations and circumvent traditional media outlets and underlying mechanics of political control. Following the rapid deployment of a series of new audiovisual production tools and connectivity to streaming platforms\, the world of Ntcham is both a product of acceleration “from below” and the resonance of the intrusion of monetization and digital quantification in African music scenes. \nExtensively discussed by sociologists and critical philosophers inspired by the Frankfurt School\, acceleration has been theorized as a “totalitarian force” that engenders alienation and a loss of time in modern societies (Rosa 2010). It has also been described in the context of Africa as an ideology linked to the technocapitalism of multinational firms and a developmentalist paradigm that elevates technical progress\, inventiveness and entrepreneurship as a way out of poverty (Pollio 2022). While drawing on this literature\, my discussion takes a step aside to explore this art of vitesse as a domain of “friction” (Tsing\, 2011) between different forces and a “poetics of acceleration” (Pollio 2022) through which young urbanites both exploit and contradict technocapitalist scripts in order to recompose the social orders in which they evolve. By following the networks of relations and economies built around this art of vitesse\, I show how Ntcham is developed as an efficient technology of evasion and illusion\, where the race for money accumulation often fails but is converted into social and symbolic capital. Through this art of vitesse\, the youth of Libreville reinvent modes of subjectivation\, social recognition and integration into local systems of interdependence. \nBiographical note\nAlice Aterianus-Owanga is assistant professor in anthropology at the University of Neuchâtel. Over the course of her PhD and postdoc research\, she worked on popular music (hip-hop)\, politics and identity in Gabon; on Senegalese dance circuits between Europe (France and Switzerland) and Senegal; and\, finally\, on Afro-Latin dances and racial/gender boundaries in Cape Town. Her first single-authored book was inspired by her PhD research on rap in Gabon\, and received a prize from the Académie Charles Cros. Her second single-authored book\, published in 2024 by Paris Nanterre University Press\, deals with the post-exotic encounters of Senegalese dancers and their students in France and Switzerland. She has also directed four documentary films and currently supervises a SNF team project on music digitalization and power dynamics in Central African cities. \nJamila Dorner is a social anthropologist trained at SOAS and a postdoctoral researcher at the UCL Ear Institute. Her journey into human knowledge\, learning and theories of intelligence began at the University of Geneva where she worked as a research assistant in cognitive and school education. An accomplished performer and Bharatanatyam dancer\, Jamila was awarded a Swiss artistic residence in India. Her doctoral research on Bharatanatyam enskilment\, which explored the onerous process of gaining performative skills as a dancer in contemporary urban India\, received a Royal AnthropologicaI Institute Sutasoma award. She is currently working on her first monograph entitled The Sound of the Tattukali: Embodied and Digital Knowledge in a Bharatanatyam Community. \n_______________________________________________ \nArtistry@Work is an online Seminar Series in the Anthropology of Artists & Artisans\, running 2024–2025 \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. \nSee the other Artistry@Work events here: https://therai.org.uk/series/artistrywork/
URL:https://therai.org.uk/events/artistrywork-alice-aterianus-owanga/
LOCATION:Online
CATEGORIES:Online Event
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241128T170000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241128T190000
DTSTAMP:20260430T120048
CREATED:20241115T161104Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241129T140747Z
UID:10004307-1732813200-1732820400@therai.org.uk
SUMMARY:Anthropology of Play and Games: Early Career Researcher Showcase
DESCRIPTION:Early Career Researcher Showcase: Choosing Fun\, Becoming Through Storytelling and Cruel Play\nA seminar series organised by Hazel Andrews (Liverpool John Moores University)\,\nKellynn Wee (UCL) and the RAI \n \nThis is an online event. Please register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Pg6csvrWT2Ggc6NlWLLxLQ#/registration \n\nSpeakers\nken tianyuan Ge\, PhD Candidate\, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill\nKellynn Wee\, University College London\nAdriano De Francesco\, University of Auckland \nChair tbc \n\n\n\nAbstracts and Bios \nChoose Fun™: Sound\, Seasickness\, and Coercion in Cruise Tourism’s Oceanic Postcolonial \nken tianyuan Ge\, PhD Candidate\, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill \nThis paper develops three critical concepts (seasickness\, coercion\, and oceanic postcoloniality) that frame my dissertation research on musical labor and affectivity in the contemporary global cruise tourism industry. As a music scholar\, I deploy seasickness—a dysphoric condition resulting from the inner ear’s misalignment with its surroundings—as an organizing metaphor for how tourist subjects apprehend (or fail to apprehend) the modalities of racial capitalism buoying up the cruise industry. Seasickness figures prominently in my analysis of David Foster Wallace’s 1996 essay\, “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again.” Wallace’s nausea\, I suggest\, forms the tonal center of his critique\, which is directed simultaneously at the industry’s imperative of “mandatory fun” and his fellow cruisers’ ability to ignore or rationalize the starkly racialized and transnational dynamic between labor and leisure onboard. Sonic coercion\, embodied in both the blasting of the ship’s horn and the discursive maneuvers of Wallace’s cruisers\, thus reveals itself as a compensatory technique by which the cruise industry’s postcolonial condition is drowned out (at least\, for some) by the sounds of vacation. My discussion concludes with an analysis of the spate of viral cruise marketing that followed in the wake of Pharrell Williams’s 2013 hit\, “Happy\,” in which I demonstrate the ability of Western popular music to operate coercively within leisure capitalism\, ultimately arguing that turning a seasick ear toward such techniques offers a crucial—if uncomfortable—platform for critique. \nBio \nKen Ge (he/him) is a PhD candidate in musicology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His dissertation investigates issues of labor and social stratification in the global cruise industry’s live music sector. Blending ethnographic\, music-analytic\, and affective methodologies\, the project theorizes Western popular music as a postcolonial structure of feeling within the contexts of global labor migration and leisure capitalism. More broadly\, Ken’s research and teaching interests center on affect as it manifests at the intersection of musical performance\, aesthetic judgment\, and political economy. \n\n\nThe right place at the right time: Being and becoming through playful collaborative storytelling in tabletop roleplaying games  \nKellynn Wee\, University College London  \nTabletop roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons are opportunities for people to engage in an improvisational practice of collaborative storytelling. In tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs)\, outcomes are mediated by dice\, but also by the intersubjective and dynamic process of a narrative shaped by multiple authors engaged in a project of shared oral storytelling. This paper focuses on how people in Singapore create characters that strive to be in the right place at the right time. This permits players to find consequentiality in action as they pursue objectives such as being able to be good people in ways that are otherwise restricted in their everyday lives. Selves multiply\, layer and proliferate within a sociocentric context as players’ characters are witnessed\, ignored\, judged\, and reshaped by other storytellers at the table. As one of my interlocuters puts it: a story put forth at a gaming table is a proposal rather than a finished narrative. This paper explores the construction of the self in play\, particularly narrative play\, and connects this to other domains of everyday life\, such as broader orders of determinacy and indeterminacy in Singapore’s highly rule-bound and tightly-scripted society. \nBio \nKellynn is a PhD student at University College London’s Department of Anthropology. Her research examines play and narrativity in tabletop roleplaying games\, with a particular focus on sociality\, collaborative storytelling\, and materiality\, and situates the everyday project of play within the cultural and political context of Singapore. She also convenes the AnthroPlay network and co-organises the RAI Seminar Series on the Anthropology of Games and Play. \n\n\nCruel play: Return to the ambiguity of play \nAdriano De Francesco\, University of Auckland  \nAbstract: Anthropology is experiencing bourgeoning interest in play\, with much research capturing how play opens avenues toward community building\, activism\, and political contestation. The theme of play as a liberating force resonates with the psychological-educational tradition framing (children’s) play as a positive context of cognitive and moral development. This paper aims to complicate this picture by returning anthropology to an analysis of the “ambiguous” ontology of play (Sutton-Smith\, 1997). I draw on my ethnographic fieldwork at an intermediate school in Italy\, which focused on interpersonal humiliation between students. In my observations\, victims\, perpetrators\, and bystanders tapped into the semiotic spheres of “violence” and “play” to describe the humiliations they partook in. Scholarship on bullying draws a line between “playful” and “real” aggression and reduces the bully’s use of the “play” descriptor to a strategy of self-deception and/or moral disengagement. By contrast\, I suggest the humiliations I observed represented real forms of “cruel play” – practices of degradation that stripped the victim of their full personhood but simultaneously exhibited the fundamental attributes of play. This analysis unsettles the modern rhetoric that constructs play as the quintessential expression of freedom\, potentially advancing our understanding of the complexity of play as a pan-human imperative. \nBio \nAdriano De Francesco is a Ph.D. Candidate in Social Anthropology at the University of Auckland. His dissertation explores the ordinary ethics of interaction during Physical Education at a high school in Aotearoa New Zealand. His previous research was based in Italy and concerned interpersonal humiliation and bullying in a middle school. Adriano serves as the Graduate Student Representative for the Anthropology of Children and Youth Interest Group (ACYIG) of the AAA and is an Editorial Assistant for American Ethnologist.
URL:https://therai.org.uk/events/anthropology-of-play-and-games-chika-watanabe-copy/
CATEGORIES:RAI Research Seminar
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241115T173000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241115T190000
DTSTAMP:20260430T120048
CREATED:20241114T120910Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250730T093656Z
UID:10004305-1731691800-1731697200@therai.org.uk
SUMMARY:RAI 2024 Blacking Lecture
DESCRIPTION:BORDER LISTENING: ETHNOGRAPHY AND PERFORMANCE BEYOND NATION\nTHE 2024 BLACKING LECTURE will be given by Professor Rachel Harris (School of Arts\, SOAS University of London)\n~ with live music by Ozan Baysal and Shohret Nur \nOn 15 November 2024\, 5.30-7pm GMT at Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre\, SOAS. \nTo book an in-person ticket please go to: \nhttps://www.tickettailor.com/events/royalanthropologicalinstituteofgreatbritain/1432554 \nDrawing inspiration from research at the intersection of sound studies\, ethnomusicology and anthropology\, Rachel Harris considers how listening at the borders can inform our ethnographic and creative practice. In the lecture she will reflect on interviews with Uyghur exile Sufis\, and a maqām-based musical collaboration at SOAS. What kinds of affective re-orientation are required by these Sufi exiles’ insistence on listening as sohbet / companionship? How might a focus on the micro-details of puraq / style shift our understanding of modal practice? If the interviews with exiles demand a particular embodied ethics of attention\, musical collaborations across borders require another particular set of listening techniques and orientations\, but they are both forged in embodied and dialogic practice. The lecture will showcase some of the creative initiatives underway within the Maqām Beyond Nation project\, with live music by Ozan Baysal and Shohret Nur. \nRachel Harris\nRachel Harris teaches ethnomusicology at SOAS\, University of London. Her research focuses on musical life in China and Central Asia\, especially religious and expressive culture among the Uyghurs\, heritage and cultural policy in China. Her latest book Soundscapes of Uyghur Islam (Indiana University Press 2020) won the 2022 BFE book prize. Her research projects include Sounding Islam in China\, and a British Academy Sustainable Development Project to revitalise Uyghur cultural heritage in Kazakhstan. She currently leads Maqām Beyond Nation\, working with a team of musicians and researchers on musical border crossings across Central Asia and the Middle East. \nOzan Baysal\nOzan Baysal completed his Ph.D. at Istanbul Technical University\, Centre for Advanced Studies in Music (MIAM) and postdoctoral research at SOAS as a visiting scholar. Ozan’s music is a synthesis of traditional Anatolian bağlama repertoire and jazz. He has performed throughout Europe and the USA\, including the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence\, Nuoro Jazz Festival\, Making Tracks\, and OneBeat Music Exchange. \nShohret Nur\nShohret Nur is a Research Assistant at SOAS. He is a prize-winning performer\, trained in the Xinjiang Arts Institute and Istanbul Minar University\, specialising in Uyghur rawap and dutar plucked lutes. He is also a teacher\, composer\, and musical analyst with a particular focus on the Uyghur Twelve Muqam repertoire.
URL:https://therai.org.uk/events/rai-2024-blacking-lecture/
LOCATION:SOAS\, Thornhaugh Street\, London\, state\, WC1H 0XG\, United Kingdon
CATEGORIES:Lecture
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241105T160000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241105T180000
DTSTAMP:20260430T120048
CREATED:20240920T155345Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250730T093032Z
UID:10004294-1730822400-1730829600@therai.org.uk
SUMMARY:Artistry@Work: Chloé Paberz
DESCRIPTION:Drawing: Cultivating freedom in South Korea’s highly standardised creative industries\nThis is an online event. Register here:\nhttps://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_R0eAIhcxSSimZfEUVGHyoA  \nSpeaker: Chloé Paberz\, INALCO\, Institut Français de Recherche sur l’Asie de l’Est \nDiscussant: Jenn Law\, social anthropologist & artist \nAbstract\nWith the growing global success of manga\, anime and video games\, East Asia has become a key player in the production of global collective imaginaries. This production requires a massive and highly skilled workforce\, including thousands of workers with excellent drawing skills that are used mainly to copy a style imposed by companies for commercial purposes. In South Korea\, these “artists” do not generally see their work as creative\, but as temporary positions within highly standardised industries. They tend to find value in the process itself\, rather than in the result: firstly\, in its learning potential; secondly\, in their sense of belonging\, and thirdly\, in the pleasure of the movement. While the content is highly standardised\, the workers’ movements seem to remain free of any standardisation. My seminar presentation will question the relationship between this freedom and the pleasure of their work experience and put it into perspective with the new training programmes designed to meet the needs of the creative industries. \nBiographical note\nChloe Paberz is a social anthropologist and associate professor at INALCO Paris. Her research focuses on work culture in South Korea\, particularly in the “creative industries” of video games\, anime and manga. By describing local practices and their entanglements with international networks\, she studies the changes brought about by information technologies and the culture of innovation in East Asia\, and explores the ideal and material relationship between people and their work. Through ethnographies of game companies\, manga classes\, contemporary art studios and carpentry workshops\, her research aims to understand the collective imaginaries and bodily techniques associated with non-human beings. \nJenn Law is a multi-disciplinary artist\, writer\, and editor based in Toronto. Working across print-based media\, Law’s practice explores cultural ecologies and processes of material storytelling. She holds a PhD in Anthropology from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)\, University of London\, and publishes on contemporary art and print culture\, working as a lecturer\, curator\, and editor in Canada\, the UK\, and South Africa. Law is the co-founder of the publishing platform Arts + Letters Press and is currently working on a book and digital archive project with Jillian Ross Print focusing on collaborative print culture in Canada. \n_________________________ \nArtistry@Work is an online Seminar Series in the Anthropology of Artists & Artisans\, running 2024–2025 \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.
URL:https://therai.org.uk/events/artistrywork-chloe-paberz/
LOCATION:Online
CATEGORIES:Online Event
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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241028T140000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241028T160000
DTSTAMP:20260430T120048
CREATED:20240730T155219Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241017T093429Z
UID:10004290-1730124000-1730131200@therai.org.uk
SUMMARY:Anthropology of Play and Games: Chika Watanabe
DESCRIPTION:This is a hybrid event. Registration links to be added soon. \nDr Chika Watanabe (University of Manchester)  \nChaired by Prof Daniel Miller (University College London) \nIn preparing for the possibility of mass disasters\, preparedness educators often use fun and playful methods to help people be ready and survive potentially catastrophic events. Based on ethnographic research among preparedness educators in Japan and Chile\, in this paper\, I examine the cultural logic and mechanism of fun in orienting people toward a fearful future. While scholarly analyses tend to frame preparedness and disaster management as techniques of governance and discipline\, preparedness educators in two of the most seismic countries in the world indicate that a more light-touch approach is needed to coax people to become prepared citizens. Ultimately\, this paper shows that an anthropology of play is critical in understanding processes of subject-making in an age of disasters and climate breakdown. \nBio\nChika Watanabe is Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester. Her current book project examines how playful methods of preparedness such as the use of games orient people toward the future based on what she calls a logic of fragility\, a commitment to make survival possible for as many people as possible while accepting that life can fall apart at any moment\, despite all efforts. She also continues to work on the project Voces de Resiliencia\, a collaboration with researchers and practitioners in Chile to transform life histories and intergenerational relations into resources for disaster education. She is also co-lead of the project Patchwork Ethnography.
URL:https://therai.org.uk/events/anthropology-of-play-and-games-chika-watanabe/
CATEGORIES:RAI Research Seminar
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241024T180000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241024T210000
DTSTAMP:20260430T120048
CREATED:20240925T112410Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250730T093815Z
UID:10004303-1729792800-1729803600@therai.org.uk
SUMMARY:THE HUXLEY MEMORIAL LECTURE - Alex de Waal
DESCRIPTION:John Snow Lecture Theatre\, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine\, Keppel Street Building\, Keppel Street\, London\, WC1E 7HT and on Zoom. \nFamines have returned\, most prominently in Sudan and Gaza. Mass starvation challenges political leaders\, the public and the academy. Drawing on these and other cases\, this lecture places social anthropologists in the centre of the story of how we have come to understand humanitarian emergency\, famine and mass starvation. Three fields of study frame how we represent and respond to famine\, each having distinct methods and frameworks\, but each owing much to anthropology. One is positivist metrics for measuring food security\, malnutrition and mortality\, exemplified by the United Nations-accredited Integrated food security Phase Classification initiative\, which is today’s authoritative mechanism for determining ‘famine.’ Second is legal\, political and economic analysis of policies\, especially criminal acts\, that cause mass starvation. Third is the ethnography of famine as experienced\, also drawing upon history\, memory studies and literature. Social anthropology is uniquely positioned to synthesize these approaches\, leading to insights into famine as societal trauma\, with implications for the academy\, for policy\, and listening to the voices of the hungry. \n  \nBooking\nPlaces for the Huxley Lecture must be booked in advance. \nTo book an in person ticket for the Huxley Lecture please go to https://www.tickettailor.com/events/royalanthropologicalinstituteofgreatbritain/1364588 \nThe link for Zoom participation is: https://lshtm.zoom.us/j/92427341118 \nLocation: John Snow Lecture Theatre\nKeppel Street Building\nThe London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine\nKeppel Street\nLondon\nWC1E 7HT \nIf you have accessibility requirements\, please email info@therai.org.uk \nIf feeling unwell especially if showing respiratory symptoms or having an itchy\, blister-like rash\, please do stay at home. You will be able to join the AGM virtually as well.
URL:https://therai.org.uk/events/huxley-lecture-alex-de-waal/
LOCATION:John Snow Lecture Theatre\, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine\, Keppel Street Building\, Keppel Street\, London\, WC1E 7HT\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Lecture
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241024T143000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241024T210000
DTSTAMP:20260430T120048
CREATED:20240730T153919Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241017T095929Z
UID:10004285-1729780200-1729803600@therai.org.uk
SUMMARY:RAI AGM followed by the Huxley Lecture
DESCRIPTION:The 2024 AGM will take place on Thursday 24 October 2024 at 2.30 pm at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and on Zoom. \nIt will be followed by the 2024 Huxley Lecture by Prof Alex de Waal on ‘Anthropology and the Humanitarian Encounter’. \nAll are welcome. Only RAI Fellows may vote at the AGM. Formal notification of the AGM has also been published in Anthropology Today and on the RAI website. \nBooking\nTickets for the two parts of the event should be booked separately. \nAGM\nIn person tickets for the AGM can be booked here https://buytickets.at/royalanthropologicalinstituteofgreatbritain/1364657 \nThe link for online participation via Zoom will be available closer to the event. \nHuxley Lecture\nIn person tickets for the Huxley Lecture can be booked here\nhttps://www.tickettailor.com/events/royalanthropologicalinstituteofgreatbritain/1364588 \nThe link for online participation via Zoom will be available closer to the event. \nAGM AGENDA\n1.    Minutes of the Annual General Meeting of 7 November 2023 \n2.    Annual Report of the Council for 2023 \n3.    Appointment of Auditors (Current auditors: Friend-James\, Chartered Accountants) \n4.    Election of Officers and Council for the year 2024-2025 (see Annual Report for House List) \n5.   Announcement of elections of the Huxley Memorial Lecturer and Curl Lecturer for 2025 \n6.    Rivers Memorial Medal for 2024 \n7.    Marsh Awards for 2024 \n8.    Public Anthropology Award for 2024 \n9.    President’s Lifetime Achievement Award for 2024 \n10.   Lucy Mair Medal and Marsh Prize for 2024 \n11.   Any other business
URL:https://therai.org.uk/events/rai-agm-followed-by-the-huxley-lecture/
LOCATION:London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine\, Keppel St\, London\, WC1E 7HT
CATEGORIES:Meeting
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241024T100000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241024T170000
DTSTAMP:20260430T120048
CREATED:20231128T105224Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241017T103129Z
UID:10004260-1729764000-1729789200@therai.org.uk
SUMMARY:Folklore and Anthropology in Conversation: Soundscapes and Folklore in East Asia
DESCRIPTION:The seminar series ‘Folklore and Anthropology in Conversation’ encourages empirical and conceptual dialogue between the two related disciplines of folklore and anthropology \nThe symposium is a one-day event held at the offices of the Royal Anthropological Institute and The Folklore Society at 50 Fitzroy Street\, London on Thursday 24 October 2024.  Presentations will be given in-person\, but conference attendees may attend either on-site\, or via ZOOM. \nIn this year’s conference\, we will explore a range of topics in the areas of folk music studies\, ethnomusicology\, oral folklore\, ritual\, and performance. New approaches in social\, cultural and political interpretations are invited. \nGeographically\, the conference will be focused on East Asia broadly defined\, including China\, Korea\, Japan and Vietnam\, but not excluding adjacent areas. \nAnyone interested in making a presentation should contact Prof James H. Grayson at j.h.grayson@sheffield.ac.uk \nAnyone wishing to submit a proposal should write a 200-word abstract including paper title\, author’s name and contact details.  The proposal should be submitted to j.h.grayson@sheffield.ac.uk. The submission date for paper proposals is 30 June 2024. \nPaper proposers will be notified by 31 July 2024.
URL:https://therai.org.uk/events/folklore-and-anthropology-in-conversation-soundscapes-and-folklore-in-east-asia/
LOCATION:Royal Anthropological Institute\, 50 Fitzroy Street\, London\, state\, W1T 5BT\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Conference
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20241018
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20241019
DTSTAMP:20260430T120048
CREATED:20240308T143903Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241017T103221Z
UID:10004274-1729209600-1729295999@therai.org.uk
SUMMARY:London Anthropology Day
DESCRIPTION:The London Anthropology Day is an annual university taster day for Year 12\, 13\, FE students\, careers advisers and teachers. \n\n\n\nThe event is held at the British Museum’s Education Clore Centre. On the day\, participants get to learn what anthropology is about\, the types of careers anthropologists do\, as well as gain hands-on experience of what it is like to study the subject at university. Anthropology lecturers from all over the UK provide interactive workshops on the day. Students are able to learn about the different types of university degrees and the various specialisations of different universities. The event also provides participants with the opportunity to look around the Museum’s “ethnographic” (anthropological) galleries and interact with anthropology students who are volunteers for the day. The day is free and open to Year 12\, 13 and FE Students\, UCAS Advisers\, AimHigher co-ordinators and teachers interested in using anthropology in the classroom. \n\n\n\nYou can find more details about the event on the dedicated website www.londonanthropologyday.co.uk
URL:https://therai.org.uk/events/london-anthropology-day-6/
LOCATION:The British Museum’s Clore Centre\, Great Russell Street\, London\, state\, WC1B 3DG\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Education
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