Colleex event - Unsettling experimentation in anthropology: introducing a network of problems
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Adolfo Estalella
Nov 11, 2024, 2:00:32 AM11/11/24
to #Colleex | Collaboratory for Ethnographic Experimentation
Dear all,
I hope this first event organized by the new Colleex convenor team may be of your interest.
There will be online access, we'll send the link in the coming days.
Best regards
Adolfo
Colleex - Collaboratory for ethnographic experimentation (an EASA network)
invites to:
Unsettling experimentation in anthropology: introducing a network of problems
15 November 2024
14.30 - 17.30 pm
Room 408, Institute for European Ethnology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Experimentation is increasingly becoming a subject and practice in anthropology. It has the potential to unsettle and test traditional observational practices, to open pathways for radically novel forms of representation, and to challenge anthropology’s fixation on a limited notion of anthropos. While experimentation is not a universally applicable or representative practice within the discipline, it signals a significant response to what we see as challenges of the contemporary. Despite being imbued with various virtues, we remain cautious about the promises and expectations vested in experimentation, which often produces and stabilises asymmetries of power, processes of purification, and has historic associations with medical, fascist, and colonial abuse. Ethnographic experimentation differently conceived contributes meaningfully to a broader debate about the current state of anthropology, problematising its empirical forms of engagement, modes of representation, and analytical practices. In this first workshop organised by the new Colleex convenors team (formed this year at EASA 2024 in Barcelona), we aim to trace tentatively the different lineages and “styles of experimentation” present in this experimental moment of our discipline. Although such experimentation unsettles some of anthropology’s foundational principles, we believe this reorientation is valuable, as it opens up a crucial network of problems and possibilities for the field.
The workshop is organised in in two parts. First, the new convening team and two invited speakers reflect upon possibilities and challenges of mobilising ‘the experimental’ in different research context. Then we shall discuss pathways for the network’s future trajectories with the general public and the host laboratories at the Institute for European Ethnology.
Convenors: Adolfo Estalella, Elisabeth Luggauer, Maka Suarez, Jonas Tinius
Co-organised by Stadtlabor for Multimodal Anthropology & Laboratory Anthropology of Environment | Human Relations
Talks
Francisco Martínez
Mutual Redefinitions: Anthropology as a Practice and as a Discipline
This paper provides a new take on the possibilities – and limits – of experimental collaborations for ethnographic research and how they might lead to shifts back in the disciplinary core. By showing how exhibitions can be used for knowledge-making, it expands the notion of field and fieldwork. The series of ethnographic experiments outlined here help us rethink and, eventually, unlearn our own tools and protocols of relevance in anthropology. Unlearning, however, is not what researchers are supposed to do in the field. Too-often boundary-work removes what gives rise to wonder in order to secure what counts as valid knowledge and by whom. A more inclusive take on fieldwork could benefit practitioners and the discipline itself, as anthropologists are seeking to reach wider publics and navigate the contemporary complexities of authority and representation.
Kiven Strohm
(I want to live on an) Experimental Plane: Diffracting art and anthropology collaborations
When two practices or disciplines come together, whether formally or informally, too often one is subordinated to the other, or worse, they are asked to produce a bastard transdisciplinary child that blurs the boundaries between their different skills and modes of thought. For some years, those of us working in art/anthropology collaborations have sought to counter this tendency, proposing different approaches, such as “of/with/and” (Clarke). Working through these efforts, what I wish to share with all of you is an experiment. I want to further explore art/anthropology collaborations through two angles. First, I wish to elaborate on these collaborations by way of a diffractive “method” (Haraway, Barad) to consider the interference patterns that emerge when reading these different practices through each other. My plan is to maintain and heighten the distinct skills and modes of thought in these practices, and, in so doing, consider how this might produce new forms of inquiry that engenders creative and unexpected outcomes. Second, I want to then consider how this might inform an art/anthropology research practice as a ‘plane of experimentation’ for what art and anthropology can do, together/apart. It will be a bit of adventure, and, I hope, the opening of a new terrain.
Participants
Adolfo Estalella is Associate Professor at the Complutense University of Madrid (Spain), his work explores the knowledge production practices of activism and the transformations of ethnography in the contemporary.
Elisabeth Luggauer is a researcher and lecturer at the Institute for European Ethnology (IfEE) at the Humboldt University of Berlin. In experimental multispecies and multimodal modes of doing ethnography she explores intersections and frictions between (concepts of) ’the urban’ and ’the environmental’.
Francisco Martínez is an anthropologist dealing with contemporary issues of material culture through ethnographic experiments. In 2018, he was awarded with the Early Career Prize of the European Association of Social Anthropologists. Currently, he works at Tampere University, as part of the ERC project WasteMatters.
Kiven Strohm is Senior Lecturer at NUS College, National University Singapore. My research has largely focused contemporary art practices in Palestine and, more recently, Indonesia. Throughout I’ve been interested in the relation of art and politics, with occasional adventures in collaborations between art and anthropology. In my recent work in Yogyakarta, I’m working with a group of curators and artists-in-residence to explore the intersections of art, culture, and nature in the region through an arts-based research practice. I want some new terrain.
Maka Suarez is assistant professor of Anthropology at the University of Oslo. Her work on multimodality focuses on collaboration, interdisciplinarity, and critical pedagogies. She studies the relationship between democracy, finance, and energy, with an emphasis in the right to housing and environmental justice.
Jonas Tinius is postdoctoral researcher in cultural and social anthropology and scientific coordinator of the ERC Project Minor Universality. Narrative World Productions After Western Universalism (Saarland University). His work is concerned with the negotiation of difficult heritage spectres across public culture and its institutions.
invites to:
Unsettling experimentation in anthropology: introducing a network of problems
15 November 2024
14.30 - 17.30 pm
Room 408, Institute for European Ethnology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Experimentation is increasingly becoming a subject and practice in anthropology. It has the potential to unsettle and test traditional observational practices, to open pathways for radically novel forms of representation, and to challenge anthropology’s fixation on a limited notion of anthropos. While experimentation is not a universally applicable or representative practice within the discipline, it signals a significant response to what we see as challenges of the contemporary. Despite being imbued with various virtues, we remain cautious about the promises and expectations vested in experimentation, which often produces and stabilises asymmetries of power, processes of purification, and has historic associations with medical, fascist, and colonial abuse. Ethnographic experimentation differently conceived contributes meaningfully to a broader debate about the current state of anthropology, problematising its empirical forms of engagement, modes of representation, and analytical practices. In this first workshop organised by the new Colleex convenors team (formed this year at EASA 2024 in Barcelona), we aim to trace tentatively the different lineages and “styles of experimentation” present in this experimental moment of our discipline. Although such experimentation unsettles some of anthropology’s foundational principles, we believe this reorientation is valuable, as it opens up a crucial network of problems and possibilities for the field.
The workshop is organised in in two parts. First, the new convening team and two invited speakers reflect upon possibilities and challenges of mobilising ‘the experimental’ in different research context. Then we shall discuss pathways for the network’s future trajectories with the general public and the host laboratories at the Institute for European Ethnology.
Convenors: Adolfo Estalella, Elisabeth Luggauer, Maka Suarez, Jonas Tinius
Co-organised by Stadtlabor for Multimodal Anthropology & Laboratory Anthropology of Environment | Human Relations
Talks
Francisco Martínez
Mutual Redefinitions: Anthropology as a Practice and as a Discipline
This paper provides a new take on the possibilities – and limits – of experimental collaborations for ethnographic research and how they might lead to shifts back in the disciplinary core. By showing how exhibitions can be used for knowledge-making, it expands the notion of field and fieldwork. The series of ethnographic experiments outlined here help us rethink and, eventually, unlearn our own tools and protocols of relevance in anthropology. Unlearning, however, is not what researchers are supposed to do in the field. Too-often boundary-work removes what gives rise to wonder in order to secure what counts as valid knowledge and by whom. A more inclusive take on fieldwork could benefit practitioners and the discipline itself, as anthropologists are seeking to reach wider publics and navigate the contemporary complexities of authority and representation.
Kiven Strohm
(I want to live on an) Experimental Plane: Diffracting art and anthropology collaborations
When two practices or disciplines come together, whether formally or informally, too often one is subordinated to the other, or worse, they are asked to produce a bastard transdisciplinary child that blurs the boundaries between their different skills and modes of thought. For some years, those of us working in art/anthropology collaborations have sought to counter this tendency, proposing different approaches, such as “of/with/and” (Clarke). Working through these efforts, what I wish to share with all of you is an experiment. I want to further explore art/anthropology collaborations through two angles. First, I wish to elaborate on these collaborations by way of a diffractive “method” (Haraway, Barad) to consider the interference patterns that emerge when reading these different practices through each other. My plan is to maintain and heighten the distinct skills and modes of thought in these practices, and, in so doing, consider how this might produce new forms of inquiry that engenders creative and unexpected outcomes. Second, I want to then consider how this might inform an art/anthropology research practice as a ‘plane of experimentation’ for what art and anthropology can do, together/apart. It will be a bit of adventure, and, I hope, the opening of a new terrain.
Participants
Adolfo Estalella is Associate Professor at the Complutense University of Madrid (Spain), his work explores the knowledge production practices of activism and the transformations of ethnography in the contemporary.
Elisabeth Luggauer is a researcher and lecturer at the Institute for European Ethnology (IfEE) at the Humboldt University of Berlin. In experimental multispecies and multimodal modes of doing ethnography she explores intersections and frictions between (concepts of) ’the urban’ and ’the environmental’.
Francisco Martínez is an anthropologist dealing with contemporary issues of material culture through ethnographic experiments. In 2018, he was awarded with the Early Career Prize of the European Association of Social Anthropologists. Currently, he works at Tampere University, as part of the ERC project WasteMatters.
Kiven Strohm is Senior Lecturer at NUS College, National University Singapore. My research has largely focused contemporary art practices in Palestine and, more recently, Indonesia. Throughout I’ve been interested in the relation of art and politics, with occasional adventures in collaborations between art and anthropology. In my recent work in Yogyakarta, I’m working with a group of curators and artists-in-residence to explore the intersections of art, culture, and nature in the region through an arts-based research practice. I want some new terrain.
Maka Suarez is assistant professor of Anthropology at the University of Oslo. Her work on multimodality focuses on collaboration, interdisciplinarity, and critical pedagogies. She studies the relationship between democracy, finance, and energy, with an emphasis in the right to housing and environmental justice.
Jonas Tinius is postdoctoral researcher in cultural and social anthropology and scientific coordinator of the ERC Project Minor Universality. Narrative World Productions After Western Universalism (Saarland University). His work is concerned with the negotiation of difficult heritage spectres across public culture and its institutions.
Adolfo Estalella
Anthropology / Cities / Experimentation / Digital Cultures [http://estalella.eu]
xcol. An Ethnographic Inventory [http://www.xcol.org]
Sofía Belén Ceresuela Del Valle
Nov 11, 2024, 8:20:45 AM11/11/24
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Sent: Monday, November 11, 2024 7:00:00 AM
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Subject: [colleex] Colleex event - Unsettling experimentation in anthropology: introducing a network of problems
Sent: Monday, November 11, 2024 7:00:00 AM
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Subject: [colleex] Colleex event - Unsettling experimentation in anthropology: introducing a network of problems
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https://colleex.wordpress.com/
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Adolfo Estalella
Nov 14, 2024, 9:09:06 AM11/14/24
to #Colleex | Collaboratory for Ethnographic Experimentation
Dear all,
Here is the link for tomorrow0s event.
Topic: Unsettling experimentation in anthropology
Time: Nov 15, 2024 02:30 PM Amsterdam, Berlin, Rome, Stockholm, Vienna
Join Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 650 0129 1070
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+496938980596,,65001291070# Germany
Dial by your location
+49 69 389 805 96 Germany
Meeting ID: 650 0129 1070
Find your local number: https://hu-berlin.zoom-x.de/u/cekEEw2t13
Best regards
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