DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY
Forthcoming Conference
Anthropology in London: Current Research (II)
A One-Day Conference
13th June 2008
Small Hall, Main Building, Goldsmiths College,
University of London, New Cross, London SE14 6NW
www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/find-us/
The Anthropology in London: Current Research conference brings together postgraduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and staff from anthropology departments across the capital. Four themed panels demonstrate both common research interests and the breadth of current research. The event provides a vibrant forum for networking and developing potential research collaborations. This is the second annual conference, and we hope to generate further events bringing together London anthropologists.
Please register your attendance and any special dietary requirements as soon as possible with Cauvery Shelat, at c.shelat@gold.ac.uk, and no later than 1st June. Registration is free, and a Middle Eastern lunch will be provided for those registered by 1st June. Refreshments can be purchased in Loafers Café across the hall from the conference venue.
The Anthropology in London: Current Research programme is available to download.
For further information contact Lia Philcox at lia.philcox@gold.ac.uk or Cauvery Shelat at Goldsmiths Anthropology department on 020 7919 7800.
Anthropology in London: Current Research (II) is sponsored by the anthropology departments at:
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Recent Conferences
 The Pitch of Ethnography (including the 2008 ASA Firth Lecture)
Conference at the LSE Anthropology Department
(in association with the Association of Social Anthropologists of Great Britain and the Commonwealth)
The Pitch of Ethnography conference successfully took place at LSE on 17 and 18 March 2008.
Outline
Ethnography, and ethnographic fieldwork, are at the heart of anthropology as a discipline, and increasingly valued as an investigative tool in neighbouring disciplines, and by business and policy-makers. We wish to build on recent work both on ethnography as a research method, and on the nature of ethnographic evidence (see Engelke (ed.) Objects of Evidence, special issue, JRAI 2008) and to explore ethnography as a form, and practice, of knowledge. We shall address the following questions:
• how does ethnography shape the object of anthropological knowledge and conversely how is it shaped by shifting conceptions of that object?
• have these relationships transformed in recent years and how do they look from the perspectives of neighbouring disciplines?
• how is the problem of intersubjectivity (or other minds) filtered through ethnography as practice or genre?
• what are the virtues (and vices) of ethnography?
• what are the relations between ethnography as practice, genre, and knowledge?
• what is the (proper) object of ethnography?
Speakers
Janice Boddy, University of Toronto (ASA Firth Lecture)
Rita Astuti Anthropology Department, LSE
Karin Barber Centre of West African Studies, University of Birmingham
Joshua Barker Anthropology Department, University of Toronto
Dominic Boyer Anthropology, Cornell University
Michael Carrithers Anthropology Department, Durham University
Nancy Cartwright / Sophia Efstathiou Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Sciences, LSE
Paloma Gay y Blasco / Huon Wardle Anthropology, University of St Andrews
Penelope Harvey Anthropology Department, University of Manchester
Caroline Humphrey Anthropology Department, University of Cambridge
Heonik Kwon Anthropology Department, University of Edinburgh
Mao Mollona Anthropology Department, Goldsmiths College
Knut Myhre Nordiska Afrikainstitutet
Anna Portisch Anthropology, SOAS / Human Sciences, Brunel University
Nanneke Redclift Anthropology Department, UCL
Nate Roberts Anthropology Department Columbia / LSE
Lisa Wedeen University of Chicago
Please follow the above links to see individual paper titles and abstracts.
Click through for the Pitch of Ethnography conference programme.
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Rethinking Economic Anthropology:
A human centred approach
This conference took place successfully at SOAS and LSE on 11th and 12th January 2008.
Keynote: Keith Hart
Plenary speakers: Kalman Applbaum, Stefan Ecks, Jane Guyer, Barbara Harriss-White, Jean-Louis Laville, Bill Maurer, Hirokazu Miyazaki, Sandy Robertson, Janet Roitman, Richard Wilk, Caitlin Zaloom.
This conference aims to rethink economic anthropology. As the concluding event in the UK’s ESRC-funded series "Rethinking Economies", its objective is to build on the traditional strengths of economic anthropology, connecting the complexities of local situations to the grand sweep of global movements.
We challenge the idea that the neo-liberal model of capitalism corresponds to a singular version of empirical reality. To this end we will explore how capitalism functions in several key sites of both "core" and "periphery" from an ethnographic perspective, juxtaposing the actions and beliefs of people with the effects of money and machines. A variety of forms and relations will be explored in marketplaces, corporations, factories and fields. Questions of economic ‘transition’ will be confronted with a variety of local histories and specific responses to global shifts.
These ethnographically grounded explorations will fuel an engaged critique of mainstream economics and, we hope, will help us establish a robust agenda for understanding the lived economies of the world. This means moving beyond anthropological nostalgia, engaging with developments in the discipline outside Britain, connecting with other voices of dissent and providing a coherent intellectual alternative to the neo-liberal, formalist consensus.
See the Rethinking Economic Anthropology web page for for schedule, abstracts, papers and previous seminars in the series. ^
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