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• 01. Anthropology in the Postcolonial Era in the Middle East and North Africa: reality and challenges

  Conveners: Bouchta EZZIANI, Hassan HACHIMI, Ahmed SELIM

  Contact: bouchta.ezziani@gmail.com 

  The workshop will discuss the situation of anthropology in the Mena after the colonial period and to ascertain the most efficacious strategies for advancing the discipline’s prominence within the higher education institutions of these countries in the forthcoming years. This situation, characterised by the disregard or marginalisation of anthropology following independence, can be attributed to the discipline’s association with colonial endeavors. So, the workshop aims to discuss how to overcome the lack of the anthropological production in Arabic, as well as ways that can be adopted to overcome the difficulties of practice and teaching of anthropology; instead, anthropology is often taught within social science or sociology departments, where other disciplines take precedence. The workshop also will discuss the question of the reconstruction of the history of anthropology in local research institutions, in addition to discussing how anthropology can benefit from the experience of the Arab anthropologists in the global north. Furthermore, to undertake the process of decolonizing anthropology in the Arab world, it is imperative to critically reassess certain fundamental concepts and theories. These include acknowledging the influence of the colonial past within anthropology departments and advocating for a comprehensive approach to the declonization of teaching and learning ( Karampampas 2023). Additionally, it is necessary to challenge the prevailing hegemonies in anthropology and break the silence surrounding the Arab world. This entail addressing the absence of activism and the perpetuation of silence that persists within prominent anthropology departments (Nader 2002). Engaging with local communities and placing their aims and objectives at the forefront of anthropological practice is of utmost importance (Abu-lughod 1989). Moreover, it is essential to question the Western-centric scholarship and politics that shape the production of knowledge, while embracing an ethical framework based on reciprocity in anthropological research (Elie 2013).
• 02. Charismatic Islam from the Middle Ages Onwards: Anthropology of Grace in the Studies of Historical Sunnism

  Conveners: Rüdiger LOHLKER, Nikola PANTIĆ

  Content: ruediger.lohlker@univie.ac.at

  Despite the growing scientific trend of revising the role of mystical charisma for the history of world religions, little work has been done on Islam so far. This panel aims to investigate the significance of Weberian and post-Weberian scholarship, as well as of other crucial scholars in comparative religions such as Emile Durkheim, or Pierre Bourdieu, for the studies of socio-anthropology and history of Sunnism during the medieval, early modern, modern, and contemporary era. Scholars from various disciplines in humanities, ranging from anthropology, sociology, history, philosophy, and theology, over to legal and political sciences, are invited to submit papers discussing the role of grace as a mystical quality of fully trained religious professionals, or uninitiated individuals, in historical development of Sunnism until the present. This panel aims to discuss ulamaic circles, Sufi orders, ecstatic saints, and the development of normative theology in Sunni Islam, connecting such topics to politics, sociology, anthropology, law, and gender in regions where the Muslims represented the predominant population through time. The panel will question how was mystical grace in Sunni Islam related to historical and anthropological developments in official religion, jurisprudence, politics and social life, both on the level of the state, and of the various subaltern groups. How did the beliefs in grace influence the history of Sunnism?How were they officially justified and legalized by the theologians and law-makers of historical Muslim empires?How did they influence political and everyday life? Papers offering discussions on these, and other related questions will represent the main focus of this panel.
• 03. Anthropology, loneliness and food practices. Contemporary theories and ethnographies

  Conveners: Lorenzo Mariano JUÁREZ, David Conde CABALLERO, Elena Freire PAZ

  Contact: lorenmariano@unex.es 

  The relationship between culture and food has been widely addressed, including how cultural changes affect eating. In recent years, loneliness has emerged as a central concern on the political agenda in the European context. Most of the research on loneliness has been conducted from psychological or biomedical approaches, but we know less about the cultural construction and diversity of experiences circumscribed under a category that is difficult to delimit. Anthropology has recently approached the phenomenon of loneliness with its methodological proposals. This panel is inscribed in this contemporary trend, focusing on the relationship between Loneliness and Food.

  The analysis of loneliness from food practices or the influence of loneliness on food choices and behaviors are less addressed issues. A widely shared thesis in the discipline assumes that parallels are drawn between culinary complexity and social complexity. By defining food as a field of culture, it has been constructed in relational terms of encounter with the other, re-creating spaces of identity or ritual significance. ating practices express and set in motion social and affective processes and relationships that make sense within a specific historical, social and personal context. Eating alone, unaccompanied, reduces the space of eating, impoverishing and limiting it, turning the food context into "just eating

  Analyses of culture have taken for granted the participation and interaction between people. This panel approaches this relationship from an inverted point of view: we are interested in knowing the cultural reality of these spaces of solitude - of non-encounters with an other - from the analysis of the impact on food practices. We are interested in theoretical or ethnographic works on the processes of supply and use, food preferences, modes of preparation, culinary ideologies or spaces of sociability that are modified by feelings of loneliness or situations of social isolation.
• 04. AI and “The House of One’s Dreams”

  Conveners: Iraj Esmaeilpour GHOOCHANI, Don. KUNZE

  Contact: iradjesmailpour@gmail.com 

  In the era of simulated images and extended machine-interactive conversations, the question of the imagination’s function requires an evermore disciplined theory. This session invites speculative engagement with—and proposals for—new relationships with Artifcial Intelligence that go past the simplistic model of wishfulness to look for meaningful, unpredictable determinacy.

  The idea of the dream-house is ancient. When resources have allowed, as in the case of Nero’s Golden House, the results have proven a rule that applies to the Chinese saying “beware of what you wish for.” Wishfulness in a complex counterpoint to truthfulness, in the sense that imagination does not have full access to foundational desire. Before the child’s fateful encounter, at the "Mirror Stage", within the restrictive conditions of language, family, and society, it had diversifed the places and means of enjoyment in an “autoerotic” universe-building way. Substitutes for this Paradise Lost, money, status, material goods—houses in particular—are dissatisfying because their quantity cannot substitute for the truth-quality of the original.

  This session engages with Artifcial Intelligence to anchor discussion that range across a number of disciplines: anthropology, architecture, psychoanalysis, philosophy, philology … The recent practice of combining the popular Tiny House idea with AI-generated images is a test of this session’s inventiveness: (1) either the imagination is able to construct a proper frame to circumnavigate the candy of wish-generation, or (2) it is held prisoner suspended within an “as-if ideology,” with access to the satisfactions of deep childhood stepping just out of reach with every attempt to recover it.

  Each proposal to engage the architectural manifestation of wishfulness should address this question: Where should this go? Every plan should come with a map, a specifcation for future collaboration and conclusion, ambition with reasoned supports—the framework beneath the daring track of a roller-coaster.
• 05. Artefacts for the Dead: Interdisciplinary Explorations

  Conveners: Mostafa ALSKAF, Isabella BOSSOLINO

  Contact: mostafa.alskaf@ulb.be 

  Archaeology and anthropology are closely related disciplines that study human cultures and societies from different perspectives and methods. A crucial connection that binds them is the use of material culture as a source of evidence and interpretation for understanding human behaviours, beliefs, and values. The term material culture refers to the objects that people make, use, modify, and discard in their daily lives. Material culture shows aspects of human life, like technology, economy, politics, religion, art, and identity. The form, function, distribution, and context of material objects are studied by both disciplines to reveal social and cultural meanings. However, material culture is not static, but a dynamic medium that is shaped by communication, negotiation, and transformation, along with external factors like environmental and historical events, and power relations.

  Death as a transformation phenomenon is one of the areas in which this complexity between these two fields is most evident. The study of artefacts associated with death and the afterlife, including burials, grave goods, monuments, memorials, and rituals, offer insights into human beliefs and practices. They reveal how the living interact with the deceased and how the dead contributed to the vitality of their communities, as Heraclitus (6th-5th BCE) put it: Living each other’s death and dying each other’s life. These artefacts are not passive representations; they express, negotiate, and question status, identity, memory, and ideology. Their meanings evolve in social, historical, and cultural contexts.

  This session is intended as a forum for researchers working on all types of funerary contexts, without geographical or chronological boundaries. We seek contributions that illustrate the advantages of combining archaeological and anthropological methods, case studies that use an interdisciplinary approach to investigate mortuary practices, burial sites, objects, and rituals. This workshop encourages discussions on the best practices to study this phenomenon through its relevant objects.
• 06. Anthropology of Creativity – East Asia through the Lens of Artistic and Everyday Creative Practices

  Conveners: Klaus J. FRIESE, Anna-Maria STABENTHEINER

  Contact: klausjfriese@hotmail.com 

  Creativity is a fundamental aspect of human activity – it is, as Hallam and Ingold put it, “intrinsic to the very processes of social and cultural life” (2007:18). With the growing influence of new technologies and artificial intelligence, questions regarding the very nature of being human and its relationship to creativity are resurfacing in anthropological discussions. This workshop examines various forms of artistic, vernacular, and cultural creativity in East Asia to contribute to this discussion, asking: What do we mean when we speak of ‘creativity’? Who is (not)(considered) creative and why?

  The focus on East Asia hopes to draw participants’ attention beyond ‘Western’ narratives of creativity, which frequently focus on attributes such as modernity, “anti-tradition” and individuality (Hallam and Ingold 2007:16f). By engaging with East Asian perspectives, we hope to construct a broader understanding of creative practice, encompassing the manyfold and vibrant expressions of creativity to be found in this region – both contemporaneously and historically. By fostering a critical and interdisciplinary dialogue, we further aim at challenging the persistent, inaccurate stereotype characterizing Asian countries as mere “imitators” lacking in creativity.

  To foster an intensive group discussion, this workshop invites participants to participate in two distinct ways:

  • Short interventions of 5 to 10 minutes showcasing practical examples of creative practice in East Asia (both current and historical). Herein, we encourage participants to not only discuss creativity, but also to become creative themselves and include different types of media – video, photography, drawing, performance etc. – in combination with short comments in their presentations.
  • Longer presentations of 15 to 20 minutes, focused on presenting and advancing theoretical and methodological discussions including creative research methods in the field of the anthropology of creativity.

  Reference:

  Hallam, Elizabeth, and Tim Ingold, eds. 2007. Creativity and Cultural Improvisation. Oxford: Berg.
• 07. Hard to Digest. Ethnographic Research on Agrifood Systems in the Age of Polycrisis

  Conveners: Paul SPERNEAC-WOLFER, Stefan VOICU

  Contact: paul.s-wolfer@web.de 

  Government institutions across Europe and in Brussels covered in manure, sprayed with milk or having small bonfires blazing in front of them, while long lines of tractors block their streets. This scenery stands exemplary of the polycrisis of agriculture, rendering agrifood systems as key, yet highly polarizing subjects to study in today's world. Recent social theory brought forward different ways to study agrifood systems, either through an examination of the underlying capitalist logic of appropriation of "cheap natures"; or an exploration of multispecies entanglements structured by global commodity chains. Indeed, anthropological modes of explaining agrifood systems might require a balancing of approaches from political economy, political ecology, or new materialism. Moreover, although ethnographically rich, agrifood systems can be hard to digest at times if researched alone. In this panel, we wish to come together and delve on the theoretical toolkits appropriate to make sense of the complexities of agrifood systems in the current age and see how ethnographic research can contribute to understand them better. We are looking for contributions that address these following questions:

  • Where do agrifood systems start and where do they end, and who draws the boundaries of what is visible and what remains invisible?
  • How do we account for different practices of food production, circulation, and consumption while doing methodological justice to the expansive characteristics of agrifood systems as multi-scalar, multi-sited, and multi-species systems?
  • How can solitary ethnographic work account for multi-layered global agrifood systems and what kind of collaborative work can be envisaged as alternative?

  To find some answers to these challenges, we invite ethnographic work that stretches from the point of production to the act of consumption and reflects theoretically and methodologically on the diverse values that bind and unbind diverse sites along food commodity chains amid crises.
• 08. Transition in Health

  Conveners: Eva-Maria KNOLL, Malgorzata RAJTAR

  Contact: eva-maria.knoll@oeaw.ac.at 

  Anthropology has long been preoccupied with transition. Transitions, famously captured by Van Gennep’s “rites of passage” or Turner’s concept of “liminality”, punctuate human life, which is embedded in culture and society. Transition may also serve as a lens to analyze change and adaptation in society (e.g. Hasan 2023) and was extensively used in the context of postsocialism (e.g. Buyandelgeriyn 2008). Building on this long-standing tradition of anthropological engagement with the concept of transition, this workshop invites social science, in particular ethnographic contributions focusing on spatial, structural, and temporal aspects of transitions in the medical field. In medicine, transition is e.g. understood as a “multi-dimensional process, involving patients, caregivers, providers, and the medical system as a whole” (Cheng et al. 2021). Due to the development of medical technologies and treatment modalities, an increasing number of people with chronic and/or rare diseases reach adulthood and experience a transition from pediatric to adult care (Jae 2018). In some instances, this is uncharted territory for both patients and care providers. Transitions, as passages of change, may also be experienced on a mundane level by patients who change their dietary and/or drug regimens or by health personnel who climb the medical career ladder. We encourage ethnographically grounded analyses that address both large-scale transitions and mundane moments of transition in health and healthcare. We are also interested in papers examining failed transitions or transitions that had to be abandoned.
• 09. More-than-text, less-than-? Reflections on Multimodality in Mobility and Migration Studies

  Conveners: Paul SPERNEAC-WOLFER, Piotr GOLDSTEIN

  Contact: paul.s-wolfer@web.de 

  Multimodality is a buoyant trend in current anthropology. It positions itself as a fundamental reaction against text-centric representations underlying the legacy of anthropological authority. Multimodality encompasses for the diverse ways of knowing the human experience through visual, auditory, and other modalities. However, the move beyond textual representations allows for, but also poses challenges to new forms of ethnographic knowledge production. This workshop reflects on this tension as it figures from the perspective of researchers who work with groups who are mobile, ir/regularized, under-/documented or possess some other form of cross-border experience. What does it mean to produce images, sounds, objects beyond or in addition to texts about and with these groups? How do we position ourselves vis-á-vie our interlocutors, academic as well as public worlds, and what issues - epistemological, methodological, ethical - are dealt with in the process? In what ways does multimodal research (fail to) overcome the unwritten boundaries of conventional academic knowledge production?

  With this workshop, we aim to provide a platform to mutually learn about various approaches that employ non-textual approaches with mobile/migrant populations. While we share a general optimism about the promises of the multimodal turn, we also move beyond its celebratory framing and are interested in the full spectrum of promising, pragmatic, and problematic dynamics of more-than-textual research endeavors. We invite presentations that reflect on, but are not limited to the following topics:

  The theoretical and methodological advancements and challenges of multimodal research in contrast to textual representation;

  The ethical implications of conducting multimodal research with mobile and sometimes irregularized or under-/undocumented groups;

  The ubiquity of multimodal research in research landscapes and its in-/efficencies in the dissemination of knowledge to public audiences;

  The implications of multimodal research for early/mid-career researchers and how it interacts with personal commitments, time management, as well as publication pressure;
• 10. Everyday Activism and Citizenship from Below: Responses to EU Border and Migration Regimes

  Conveners: Monika PALMBERGER, Elissa HELMS

  Contact: monika.palmberger@univie.ac.at 

  This panel delves into the realm of everyday activism, volunteering, and forms of resistance (Dickinson et al. 2008; Nolas et al. 2017), understood as citizenship from below (Isin 2008) and as a response to the EU border and migration regimes (Rosenberger et al. 2018). Building on a feminist perspective, we understand citizenship as constructed, gendered and as a process (Lister 1997). In this panel we explore everyday activism - online and offline - by migrants and non-migrants alike in which citizenship is enacted through struggles for rights, regardless of individuals' legal status.

  Within the intricate fabric of activism, individuals from various backgrounds, including migrants, civic activists and those without any form of institutional affiliation or connection, partake in diverse forms of activism, broadly defined. These may include the appropriation of public spaces and virtual realms as well as the appropriation of private homes, which may be reconceptualized as political spaces (Merikoski 2021. We will thus consider forms of 'lived citizenship' (Kallio et al. 2020) - drawing attention to embodied practices in which individuals navigate rights, responsibilities, identities and a sense of belonging through everyday interactions with others in physical proximity and virtually - into account as well as other forms of political activism and solidarities, including social media campaigns and protests at the EU's external borders.

  We invite ethnographic and theoretical contributions that shed light on the multifaceted dynamics of everyday activism and forms of resistance, particularly in response to border and migration regimes at the EU external borders. We welcome diverse perspectives and methodologies that illuminate the complexities of activism across different contexts and settings and across online and offline environments, including the appropriation of public space, the reconceptualization of private homes as political arenas, and actions that trouble the very concept of activism in relation to state practices.
• 11. Communities, Digitalisation and its Challenges: Perspectives from South Asian countries

  Conveners: Pratisha BORBORAH, Jyoti DAS

  Contact: pratisha.borborah@cottonuniversity.ac.in 

  Fast growing internet speed and advanced digitalization has changed the way people connect, creating new forms of social groups and communities in new-age digital media led world of virtual existence. From interaction with friends and families to sharing photos, memes and reels, individuals participate in community building and community relations through online mode. Digitalisation has entered every sphere of our everyday life bringing a new form of online culture where messages, gifts, money etc can be sent virtually through digital applications. While study of concepts such as groups and communities have been a significant part of both anthropology and sociology, these emerging online groups with shared and conflicting interests need to be analyzed from multiple perspectives in contemporary period. Thus, media is a part of our everyday culture and hence need to be investigated using new methodological tools and theories. Nevertheless, in a South-Asian country like India where advancement of digitalization is creating further binaries and hierarchies in an already stratified society, it becomes important to analyze the scope as well as limitations of community building in the backdrop of changing online culture.

  In this context, the workshop will address pertinent issues related to human-computer interaction in South Asian countries where scholars will deliberate on larger questions like: (a) How do online communities participate in formation of micro-level family groups to macro-level nation building processes? (b) How do individuals perceive trust and solidarity in online communities? (c) What kind of anthropological and sociological methodologies can be used to study these new forms of community building in today’s digital age? (d) How has the development of visual narratives accelerated the growth of social networks built through online communities?
• 12. Stories, Sounds and Sentiments - Exploring ‚Relational Aesthetics‘ of Social Worlds

  Conveners: Martin BÜDEL, Daniel JÁKLI

  Contact: buedelma@uni-mainz.de 

  With the turn towards approaches labelled as ’more-than-human‘, ’relational‘ or ’new-materialist‘, anthropology's attention is shifting anew towards those forces in the world that transcend but often affect human agency. This allows a fresh perspective on social worlds, that can be aligned with certain conceptions of the aesthetic. As such, aesthetics can be a window onto those dimensions of social life that escape a one-sided abstracting and rationalizing view of social processes and provide insights into those areas of human coexistence that are shaped by different forms of sensual experience and ways of knowing the world.

  Proposing the notion of ‚relational aesthetics‘, we want to reflect on these tendencies and discuss them in the workshop by looking at empirical findings from various social worlds. The concept of ’relational aesthetics‘ has been coined and critically discussed in art criticism and theory, where it refers exclusively to the creation of relations in the context of experiencing art. However, the concept could also be developed in a different way, by overcoming the narrow focus on art and by rethinking the original idea of the aesthetic as a reflection on the ways that we perceive and know the world and its objects and phenomena through the senses, in alignment with or alongside rational cognition.

  We welcome contributions that engage with these perspectives, regardless of whether they deal with the ways that certain social or political stances are formed or acted upon, with processes of differentiation and exclusion/inclusion, with the role of music, theater or other art forms in society or with any other possible topic of current research that allows to reflect upon the different ways that non-human objects or phenomena affect social relationships and processes.
• 13. Innovative ways of approaching prehistoric rock depictions

  Conveners: Neemias Santos Da ROSA, Ran BARKAI

  Contact: neemias.sdarosa@gmail.com 

  The production of rock depictions is generally considered a landmark in human evolution, as it facilitated the storage and transmission of symbolic information that was paramount in the creation and maintenance of prehistoric societies. Over the past decades, technological advances in archaeometry, computational methods, and cognitive science have enabled archaeologists to explore new dimensions of these cultural manifestations. Additionally, collaborations between scholars and Indigenous communities have provided important insights into the performances, rituals, and other social practices through which they acquire meaning. However, most studies in this field are still conducted according to Western ontologies that focus on the representative qualities of such images, often leading to a biased and reductionist view of the archaeological record. In this session, we aim to address recent advancements in rock depiction research and critically examine their potential and limitations as a source of information for constructing archaeological and anthropological interpretations regarding these images and their creators. Also, we intend to debate the relevance of the epistemological framework and the analytical categories currently used to study this type of material culture, bringing to light a series of questions such as: Is it possible to dissociate rock depictions from the cultural practices that permeate their production and use? Are our theoretical perspectives evolving in tandem with methodological advances? What are the implications of using Indigenous knowledge to interpret prehistoric rock depictions? In this way, we aim to contribute to the collaborative construction of a more holistic approach to understanding these representations, their cultural meanings and their role in the behavioural development of our species.
• 14. Digital Ethnography in Post-Pandemic Times: Reflections, Implications, and Innovations

  Conveners: Suzana JOVICIC, Philipp BUDKA, Monika PALMBERGER

  Contact: suzana.jovicic@univie.ac.at 

  Since the COVID-19 pandemic has revitalised and boosted interest in digital ethnography, the question arises as to what remains in its aftermath. Has digital ethnography entered the mainstream, and the digital merged with ethnographic research in an obviously profoundly digitised and digitalised world? Or has it disappeared back into the fringes, unphased by the short-lived interest? What do we actually mean when we talk about digital ethnography: online, remote, post-digital and should we discard these terms altogether? What methodological and ethical insights, movements, setbacks, reflections, innovations and (inter)disciplinary cross-references have emerged in the wake of global developments that have forced ethnographers to rethink their research in unprecedented ways? In this panel organised by the Digital Ethnography Initiative (DEI), we explore the state of digital ethnography (defined as ethnographic research with and through the “digital” and not limited to remote/online) as it emerges from turbulent but perhaps also fruitful times. We invite a wide range of contributions discussing methodological issues, conundrums, dilemmas, twists and turns of contemporary digital ethnography, based on original research. The contributors will be invited to subsequently write a short blog entry for the DEI blog, based on the papers presented at the panel.
• 15. From “Frontier Orientalism” to Anti-Occidentalism: How Does Populism in East Central Europe Engage with Colonial Past?

  Conveners: Tatyjana SZAFONOVA, Juraj BUZALKA

  Contact: tvsafonova@gmail.com 

  The workshop will explore the relationship between "frontier orientalism" and the emergence of Anti-Occidentalism in the Visegrád Group. Andre Gingrich's concept of “frontier orientalism” refers to countries that did not possess colonies but were constantly interacting with the Oriental world. Over the last decade, we have observed a re-emergence of anti-Western sentiment in these countries. This workshop aims to discuss how the unique position of East Central European countries in the colonial power structure nurtures these anti-Western sentiments. Additionally, we will examine how frontier colonialism relates to the rejuvenation of self-orientalism, which is promoted by populist politicians in these countries. The workshop will focus on cases from social anthropological fieldwork.
• 16. Ecologies of Conflict: Exploring the Nexus of Violence, Environment, and [More than] Human Relations

  Conveners: Annika SCHMEDING, Dat NGUYEN

  Contact: annika.schmeding36@gmail.com 

  Throughout much for the 20th and into the 21st century, mass violence and warfare wreaked havoc on the environment, including its human and more-than-human inhabitants, across the globe as different military superpowers tested new destructive explosive and chemical weapons. In the aftermath of these episodes of mass violence, humans and non-humans have had to confront the long-lasting political, cultural, and biological/genetical impact of war toxicities and destruction. Taking an anthropological approach to the notion of “slow violence,” this workshop examines the various nexuses, relations, and pathways connecting different forms of violence and the environment across various socio-political contexts. Participants are encouraged to explore and reflect on the following sets of themes and questions:

  1. Genocide-Ecocide Relations: What are the linkages between genocide and ecocide in the participants’ regions of study? How is the destruction of the environment and ecologies connected to the systematic destruction of a group of people’s cultures, societies, and identities?
  2. Human and More-than-Human Relations: How have the various episodes of mass violence and warfare reconfigured the relationships between the human and more-than-human actors? What new and unexpected forms of relations—as they are expressed in ritual activities, economic relations, technologies, etc.—have emerged?
  3. Slow Violence and the ‘Military-Industry’ Complex: How have the military and corporations worked in tandem in reshaping and extracting local ecologies and the environment in various regions? What forms of violence—both slow and spectacular—have been enacted by both ‘corporate’ and ‘war-crime’ perpetrators on the environment and its human and more-than-human inhabitants?

  The workshop will be held in a hybrid format. We welcome papers based on research in all regions of the world, with particular interest in Asia and the Middle-East.
• 17. Tracing Legal Artifacts in Contexts of Violence

  Conveners: Talia KATZ, Anna WHERRY

  Contact: tkatz1@jhu.edu 

  This panel invites scholars to unbind the study of law and its material instruments from the courtroom space in contexts of violence. How might documents, objects, and other artifacts that are excluded from trials or legal proceedings leave traces throughout the life course of a case, for instance, in war tribunals, truth and reconciliation proceedings, or asylum cases? How do the artifacts that fail to find a foothold continue to echo through archives, households, neighborhoods, and the weave of social life? Anthropologists have described the methodological challenges of studying how mass violence transforms the social (Navarro 2020), pointing to the ways that “fragments of subjective experience” (Rechtman 2006) fail to fit the demands of law’s sharp-edged categories (e.g. criminal legal elements, categories of civilian and combatant, and definitions of harm) and notions of procedurally legitimate evidence (e.g. hearsay exclusions). In a burgeoning literature on documents, anthropologists note the central importance of case files as a device that gathers and excludes certain documents in constructing legal cases (Latour 2010, Oorschot and Schinkel 2015). In the face of these exclusions, scholars demonstrated how people create “counter archives” (Hakyemez 2017) while striving to render their experiences of violence legally visible, collating documents that become, at once, tools for contesting state narratives and forming memories within kinship (Hussain 2019; Cronin-Furman and Krystalli 2021; Sehdev and Haldar 2022). Bringing this concern with documents and legal proceedings to bear on the study of violence, this panel asks scholars to move beyond equating absence with exclusion. We encourage tracking how exclusions of certain materials that speak to violence continue to produce echoes in legal institutions and beyond. We welcome papers charting these circulations and their political and ethical stakes across empirical contexts.
• 18. Digital narratives: Exploring digital dimensions of shared experiences and collective memory

  Conveners: Daniele KARASZ, Sladana ADAMOVIC

  Contact: daniele.karasz@univie.ac.at 

  Our proposed panel aims for the examination of the impact digital technologies have on preserving, disseminating, and interpreting collective memory and shared experiences. Through an interdisciplinary lens, we want to discuss how digital platforms and memory archives are changing the character of shared narratives, concerning migration, forced migration, war, natural disasters etc. We especially welcome contributions that inquire the phenomenon of intergenerational storytelling within families and communities. We are interested in discussing how digital platforms serve as dynamic catalysts for preserving and sharing collective memories especially on war, flight and migration.

  In so doing, we rediscuss the role of digital “museums” (be they explicit or implicit) in challenging dominant national narratives by providing alternative perspectives and amplifying marginalized voices. In the context of the digital era, where social media plays a pivotal role in shaping geopolitical narratives, we underscore the importance of examining the role of youth in sharing their experiences and acquiring knowledge about collective experiences, such as wars, forced migration etc. This acknowledgment prompts reflection on the evolving nature of storytelling virtually – through social media, museums and other digital platforms – and its impact on collective memory in contemporary society.

  Our panel therefore offers a nuanced exploration of the intersections between digital technologies, memory archives, and the ongoing disruption of national narratives. Therefore, the panel invites original ethnographic informed research in various fields, such as digital anthropology, museum anthropology, peace and conflict studies, migration studies, pedagogical research, public anthropology as well as experiences of museum practitioners.
• 19. Building Tomorrow: Exploring Infrastructures and Futurities

  Conveners: Philipp BUDKA, Giuseppe AMATULLI, Ria-Maria ADAMS

  Contact: philipp.budka@univie.ac.at 

  Infrastructures have become prominent research fields in anthropology and in the humanities and social sciences more generally (e.g., Buier, 2023; Harvey & Knox 2015; Star 1999). Questions that link infrastructures to development, sustainability, and transformation point to the importance of temporalities - not only the (ethnographic) present, but also the (historical) past and the (sociotechnical) future - as a key analytical lens. Infrastructures are planned, approved, built, operationalized, or renovated with the anticipation that they will, for example, create economic growth and improve the socioeconomic well-being of local populations. Consequently, one way to explore infrastructure development is to look at the broad range of desires, hopes, and fears toward the future of these “sociotechnical spaces” (Mason, 2004).

  Such sentiments or feelings are particularly strong towards infrastructural “mega-projects” which are very cost intensive, involve a variety of stakeholders, and affect millions of people (Flyvbjerg, 2017). Among such projects are motorways, airports, seaports, spaceports, rail lines, submarine cable systems, dams, wind farms, offshore oil and gas facilities. This workshop invites contributors to discuss the relationships between specifically large-scale infrastructures and futurities - affective and ideologically loaded desires or fears of being in the future - by reflecting on the following two questions: (1) What role do futurities play in the imagining, conceiving, and making of infrastructures and their futures? (2) How do infrastructural futurities shape the relationship between infrastructure development and sociocultural lifeworlds? The workshop will be structured by these two questions and participants will be asked to discuss them in at least two “tour the table” rounds, which are then followed by open discussions.
• 20. Towards an anthropology of honour: Theory, praxis and practice of honour crimes

  Conveners: Sadiq BHANBHRO

  Contact: s.bhanbhro@shu.ac.uk 

  Honour crimes are hypersensitive and politically charged issues involving violence and abuse, including murder, committed by people who want to defend or restore an individual or a social group's supposedly tarnished honour, which can be a family, caste, community, or kinship group. It is an umbrella term that includes a range of harmful practices, from forced marriage to honour killing.

  Anthropological literature on honour dates to 1950, mainly from the Mediterranean region. Still, this body of literature did not explicitly discuss honour crimes but indicates the enforcement of honour through violence in different cultures. This workshop discusses anthropological theorising and intersections among honour, dishonour, and shame and how these notions are enforced through violence. The proposed workshop engages anthropologists and social scientists towards developing an empirical understanding and shaping of honour and its enforcement through violence. The critical question to be explored is how honour operates through social structures within a social group and is enforced in honour crimes.

  I argue that cultural and social structures make up the honour system of power and embody specific rules and practices that drive honour crimes. Honour crimes are patriarchal violence, and patriarchy is not a product of nature but a set of fictional stories, including family honour, that can be questioned, modified, and abolished.
• 21. Transitional justice and (il)liberal peacebuilding – Ethnographic perspectives

  Conveners: Sina EMDE

  Contact: sina.emde@uni-leipzig.de 

  Transitional justice mechanisms refer to various approaches and processes that address past suffering and injustices that occurred during periods of violent conflict, authoritarian rule, and/or repression. They aim to address past violence and foster reconciliation. Originally implemented after the end of the Cold War as part of liberal peacebuilding efforts, often aiming at a transition from authoritarian to democratic states and governance, the last decade has seen a return to more authoritarian practices, theorized as authoritarian conflict management and illiberal peacebuilding. These policies and practices are implemented to consolidate power and suppress dissent and are often justified by state actors as necessary to maintain stability.

  This panel invites ethnographic perspectives on these dynamics at the intersection of transitional justice and (il)liberal peacebuilding in post-conflict settings. Of special interest are long-term insights that follow transitional justice and peace-building efforts in post-conflict settings that may have changed from more liberal to illiberal frameworks and conditions or vice versa. The panel is interested in these processes on different levels: International, state, and communities. Possible questions include:

  What are the strategies employed by illiberal regimes to co-opt or subvert transitional justice mechanisms, and what are the responses of involved actors and civil society in navigating these challenges? How do these dynamics intersect with local notions of justice and peace?

  How do local communities and actors engage with, resist, or adapt to these changing dynamics?

  By pursuing these questions the panel hopes to shed light on how these shifting dynamics from liberal to illiberal peacebuilding are experienced and perceived by individuals and communities and how these processes interact with broader sociopolitical dynamics and power structures within societies undergoing transition. What happens to transitional justice and peacebuilding endeavors amidst shifting political landscapes?
• 22. Arctic Sustainability Revisited: Mixing Methods to Study Communities in Transition

  Conveners: Olga POVOROZNYUK, Mia LANDAUER

  Contact: olga.povoroznyuk@univie.ac.at 

  In recent decades, social science discussions on sustainability in the Arctic have been revolving around the impacts of climate change, infrastructural development, energy production and consumption and natural resource extraction on human well-being. Social anthropologists, who, more than other social scientists, have been preoccupied with the local socio-economic and socio-cultural consequences of these global and pan-Arctic processes are well-versed in ethnographic research. Yet, the challenges they face, especially in large-scale, comparative, and interdisciplinary projects, is how to synthesise different approaches, data, and types of knowledge to make sense of the multiple drivers of change and multidimensional transitions and uncertainty that Arctic communities are going through.

  This roundtable will discuss challenges and best practices of anthropological and social science research on Arctic sustainability and communities in transition. What kinds of configurations and combinations of ethnographic research and quantitative approaches are considered most useful for a comprehensive understanding of social, economic and environmental changes? How to best engage local communities, stake-, rights- and knowledge holders in the co-design of research, the co-production of knowledge, and social learning? What is the potential of innovative - such as art- and software-based methodologies - as analytical lenses and science communication tools? This roundtable will assemble anthropologists and other social scientists to discuss these and other ethical and methodological questions drawing on their research practices in the Arctic and beyond.
• 23. Museums, Ethnographic Collections and Indígenous People: Repatriation, Problems and Perspectives

  Conveners: Renato ATHIAS, Anna BOTTESI

  Contact: renato.athias@ufpe.br 

  This workshop seeks to debate papers in the field of anthropology on the main current issues that are related to ethnographic objects from the indigenous peoples of the Americas that are found in national museums, in the Americas and in Europe. Most of these objects are part of ethnographic collections that were looted from the lands of original peoples in the Americas. In recent years, indigenous peoples have been debating this issue and expressing their interest in being able to participate in the collaborative process of museological documentation and even curating in museum exhibition spaces, as well as proposing the repatriation of these objects to their places of origin. There are several ongoing requests for repatriation of objects and remains held in national and international museums. From a critical perspective, demands for repatriation of indigenous purposes often include a nationalist logic according to which some are considered the true heirs of the artifacts – while others are disinherited. Are these artifacts specifically heritage and do they belong to the “heritage of humanity” or to local communities? Where should the limit be drawn? Is it even possible to draw that line? It is possible to be politically correct in all situations. Therefore, this working group intends to advance the debate in both the fields of anthropology and museology on how to guarantee greater participation of indigenous peoples in this process. Works that can point out elements that museums generally of a national nature can appropriate in order to promote decolonization in their exhibition spaces will be welcome. Papers that analyze the naturalized discourse on the connection between matter, place, object and origin, and the idea that objects have a “home of origin”, as well as the different angles of the discourses on restitution that are invoked in the debate on repatriation.
• 24. The Epistemic Erasure of Palestine in Austrian Academia

  Conveners: Klaudia WIESER

  Contact: wieser_k@icloud.com 

  "Where survival is a matter of not being assimilated, positionality is not just central to the issue – it is the issue. In a settler-colonial context, the question of who speaks goes far beyond liberal concerns with equity, dialogue or access to the academy."

  Patrick Wolfe- Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology

  Following Ramón Grosfoguel, the Palestinian scholar Abdulla Moaswes defines epistemicide – the destruction of knowledge systems and the knowledge that they generate – as an essential military strategy in perpetuating settler colonialism. In the most recent Israeli war on Gaza, Israel has practiced epistemicide through deliberately erasing universities, educational institutions, UN-funded schools, libraries, and museums. Since January 2024, all universities in Gaza have been partly or completely destroyed, including Al-Azhar University and the Islamic University. While both institutions had or have ongoing academic partnerships with Austrian universities, Austrian academia is either silent about or in support of the increasing attempts to censor events, lecture courses, and colleagues speaking out against what is happening in Gaza and in Palestine.

  Denying colonized people the permission to narrate (Said 1984) is not new, on the contrary, it has a long history in the context of European settler-colonial occupation of Palestine and beyond. Yet, today’s attacks against Palestinian anthropologists and social scientists of the region at Austrian higher education institutions must be contextualized within the epistemic erasure of the Palestinian question in Europe at large.

  This workshop provides needed space to discuss these alarming developments beyond what Patrick Wolfe defined as liberal concerns with equity, dialogue, or access to the academy. Considering the current need for decolonization in academia, we invite participants to explore the (im)possibilities of creating and teaching anthropology that acknowledges and confronts colonial presence/present.
• 25. History of an Opening and Handling of a Closure: Possible Ways of Social Anthropological Research on Russia Today

  Conveners: Stefan KRIST, Elena DAVYDOVA, Olga POVOROZNYUK, Peter SCHWEITZER

  Contact: stefan.krist@univie.ac.at

  The termination of cooperation with Russian institutions and travel restrictions after February 24, 2022, have closed access to the Russian field for social anthropologists based in Western countries, affecting both individual careers of researchers and entire projects. Diverse methodological, ethical and organizational issues have challenged anthropologists with expertise on Russia since this historic collapse.

  So, what are the possible directions for the future of social anthropological research on Russia by researchers based in the West? Can we find ways of handling the closure and the subsequent impossibility of going on with the classical ethnographic fieldwork on the ground by doing research “from a safe distance”? Or, should we rather turn our attention to what has been done by Western anthropologists during the opening of Russia in the roughly three decades between the fall of the Soviet Union and the beginning of the war against Ukraine?

  This panel intends to provide an opportunity to continue the much-needed discussion about possible ways of social anthropological research on Russia, that has been in focus of several previous academic events and publications in the recent two years. The organizers invite contributions that reflect on own experiences of switching to and applying alternative approaches to “being there” methods, on epistemological effects of such methodological shifts, on the role of digital media/technologies for the continuation of research, as wel” as ’n reassessments of data collected in Russia before that war and/or dwell on the history of countries’ openings and closures to “outside” inquiries in general.
• 26. Ecomusicology, Nature and Extractivism in Africa

  Conveners: Olusegun TITUS

  Contact: segungeneral@gmail.com 

  The discovery and production of natural resources in different African countries has brought unimaginable environmental crisis. to the Niger Delta area where the oil is extracted. Environmental degradation through oil exploration as a global phenomenon raises some fundamental questions about the safety of human, animals and insects, such as honeybees. Environmental pollution and related health hazards for all life are prevalent in modern society. Recent studies of environmental degradation through extractions have revealed that oil spillage, gold extraction Uranium among others are becoming the greatest environmental disasters that causes forced relocation and mobility. Music as an art of resistance has therefore cemented a synergy between activists and enclaves of extraction in an attempt at creating awareness and promoting environmental sustainability. The representation of oil, Uranium, Gold Copperbelt and other extractive resources that brings environmental degradation in Niger Delta of Nigeria, South Africa, Niger, Sudan Zambia among other countries in Africa popular music has not been adequately analyzed. The proposed study is motivated by the desire to fill this gap and, in the process, provide an informed critical assessment of music about this narrative and its concomitant effects.

  This panel therefore call for the following subthemes:

  Situating the concepts of Ecomusicology/Musicology and Ethnomusicology in Environmental studies; Ecomusicology Food production and security in Africa; Ecomusicology, Oil and blood in Niger Delta popular music; Ecomusicology and nature narratives in African Music; Ecotheology/ Ecomusicology and the Gospel tunes for environmental sustainability; Ecomusicology and Sustainable Development Goals; Ecomusicology Curriculum and Africa’s Higher Institution of Learning; Ecomusicology Farmers Pastoralist conflicts and Land grapping; Ecomusicology and Afrofuturism; Ecomusicology/ Ecofeminism land as mother/father narrative; Ecomusicology and the concept of Anthropocene, Oilocene, Capitalocene Plantlocene and Plaintainlocene; Any other areas are also welcome.
• 27. Education and language as socio-cultural capital in contexts of migration

  Conveners: Magdalena SUERBAUM, Asli Ikizoglu ERENSU

  Contact: magdalena.suerbaum@uni-bielefeld.de 

  This workshop centers on education and language in contexts of migration and forced displacement and questions whether and how language features as socio-cultural capital.

  The rhetoric and policies of many nation-states vis-à-vis migrants promote language-learning as a path to self-sufficiency and social mobility. However, scholarship demonstrates that the transformation of a new language into linguistic capital is not straightforward. Following Bourdieu (1977), language needs to be understood as bound to the speaker’s position in a social structure. Language is worth what the speakers are worth in terms of their respective capitals of authority. Where one language dominates the market, it becomes the norm against which the price of other modes of expression are valued.

  Based on this notion of language as capital, we are interested in language-learning as a practice of attempted capital acquisition in migratory contexts. This might involve learning the official language in a country of (temporary) settlement, but also strengthening skills in one’s heritage language, or studying an additional language. While migrants’ learning of dominant languages in destination countries is often politically debated, mastering of heritage languages provides migrants with linguistic capital that is recognized and valued among family, kin and solidarity networks.

  We are interested in papers that focus on questions including:

  • How do migrants learn the hierarchy of different languages as they socialize into a new country? What role do educational institutions play?
  • How do migrants resist and/or subvert differential valuation of language use?
  • Who mediates access to linguistic capital? How does this mediation work in the cases of adults and children?
  • How do language testing and certification shape access to linguistic capital?
  • How does the labor market condition the use of linguistic capital?

  We particularly welcome presentations based on ethnographic research that has been conducted in the Global South.
• 28. Going digital and ‘the politics of visual representation’- questions, pitfalls, promises

  Conveners: Maria SIX-HOHENBALKEN

  Contact: maria.six-hohenbalken@oeaw.ac.at 

  To critically approach the colonial past of European museums, collections and research institutions, in the last two decades, scientists, curators and artists discussed ways of restitutions of material as well as visual and art collections. Barnard and Spencer argued that, appropriation and politics of representation are “closely connected to exercise control over the content and context of images and interpretations“ (2003: 383).

  Digitization and open access publishing of multimedia collections allow a plethora of possibilities in digital restitution, but visual images are the most easily accessible and ready-made images of other cultures (Morphy/ Banks 1999). Is a full open access strategy and equal access a solution out of the politics of representation, or is it a strategy in which we do not care enough about ethical questions and long-term consequences.

  How do we deal with these dilemmas? How do we avoid pitfalls like e.g. contributing to a single historic metanarrative or purporting to follow an approach of an assumed realism? How can we contribute to a “more particularised and multicultural construct of plural pasts” (Zimmermann 2008) and avoid the pitfalls of power and representation. How can we follow various developments and “lives of representations” when we contribute to the digital publication of visual collections? How can we collaborate with the people depicted and the upcoming generations, to (mediated) transcultural memories?

  Based on the experiences of the ongoing project ZOZAN "Approaching mobility via multi-media documentations, art interventions, art-based research and (re)presentations" we would like to discuss strategies of visual representation, of ethical concerns, of the interconnectedness between the visible and the speakable/ expressible as well as of the circulation and mobility of images.
• 29. Anthropology and climate change: The potentials and pitfalls of Anthropocene engagements

  Conveners: Alexandra MEYER, Susanna GARTLER

  Contact: alexandra.meyer@univie.ac.at 

  Climate change has emerged as a central research topic in anthropology. Not only does anthropology have a lot to contribute to the study of climate change both methodologically and theoretically (Barnes et al. 2013), but climate change and the Anthropocene more broadly have also driven recent theoretical developments within the discipline. The environmental changes we are witnessing re-actualize fundamental questions about the relationship between nature and culture that have contributed greatly to the development of the discipline (Dove & Carpenter, 2009), while urging us to think in new ways about human-environment relations. In the words of Hulme (2010), climate change is “performing valuable work”, by dissolving contested distinctions between nature and culture, the local and the global, and between matter and discourse. At the same time, critics warn that this dissolution of categories might prevent us from arriving at scientific insights and is unable to recognize the specific configurations of human agency responsible for the current environmental crises (Malm 2017). Addressing the ambiguous contribution of the Anthropocene to Anthropology, Bruno Latour (2014) has called the concept a “poisonous gift” to the discipline, due to its potential for rethinking the human in the Earth system (and thereby increasing the relevance of Anthropology), while running the risk of overemphasizing human agency.

  This session seeks to explore what Anthropology can gain from grappling with climate change and the Anthropocene. We welcome both conceptual and empirical contributions examining the theoretical and/or methodological opportunities and challenges inherent in such engagement.
• 30. "Which way we ought to go from here?" Reflections on current trends in Russian anthropology

  Convener: Dmitri FUNK

  Contact: d_funk@iea.ras.ru 

  Some 30 years have passed since Russian ethnography - after many decades of Soviet insularity - began to learn to use anthropological optics. Internships, congresses, access to English-language literature, joint fields, publications, projects, new university chairs and visiting scholars, anthropological summer schools in Russia and other countries in the 1990s-2010s - all of this has significantly changed the face of a discipline that until recently looked at the world exclusively through ethnic lenses. The year 2022 was the year of yet another division of the scientific world in which Russian anthropology (and ethnology) was left with almost no contact with the outside world, almost no scientific literature, no opportunity at all to make a joint field with foreign colleagues ... The list of "almost or quite without" could go on. We propose to analyse the speed and directions of organisational and ideological changes, including on the basis of changes in the topics and vocabulary of Russian anthropology after February 2022. The panel is supposed to be open for participation of both insiders and outsiders, which will allow for a more detailed discussion of the peculiarities of the perception of the ongoing changes when looking at this phenomenon from outside and inside.
• 31. Making Sense of Climate Change in Context of Individual Ageing: Linking Local Experiences to Global Issues.

  Conveners: Lucie Galčanová BATISTA

  Contact: galcanov@fss.muni.cz 

  The social sciences are currently experiencing a wave of engagement in studying the links between population and individual ageing and climate change. Anthropology has yet to see such a spike in this field of interest. This workshop aims to explore this theme and discuss the intersection of everyday local experiences of individual ageing in changing environments with narratives, repertoires and framings of the global climate crisis available in various cultural contexts.

  The relationship between these two simultaneous phenomena - intensified climate change and accelerated population ageing - is ambivalent. On the one hand, population ageing may contribute to the acceleration of environmental degradation; the prevailing lifestyle of the "Western" older generations has been identified as one of the sources of the worsening situation. Older adults, together with other "disadvantaged" groups, are also seen as the most probable victims of the impacts of climate change. On the other hand, ageing is associated with hope - a biographical perspective can increase sensitivity to change; ageing can contribute through generativity to the intergenerational transmission of conservation-oriented values, knowledge and practices; and older people can feel a sense of responsibility towards their children's generations.

  The workshop aims to explore this dynamic and ambiguous relationship in the context of the diverse repertoires of ageing, the varied everyday experiences of seniors in climatically changing places, and through the lens of available cultural repertoires framing the sense-making of the climate crisis.
• 32. Informal economy and migrant workforce in cities: Assessing Risk, Insecurity and Vulnerability among the urban poor in Post-Pandemic world

  Conveners: Jyoti DAS, Pratisha BORBORAH

  Contact: jyoti.das@cottonuniversity.ac.in 

  More than half of the world’s population today reside in cities. At one level of understanding this may denote economic growth. At another level, rapid urbanisation has introduced mankind to newer concepts of risk and vulnerability, challenging mainstream notions of growth and development. Rising population in cities include large number of migrated people who face multiple kinds of insecurities including health, income and housing as witnessed during Covid-19 pandemic. This rising urban population does not match the number of employment opportunities generally found in formal sector. Consequently, urban spaces have become breeding grounds of informal economies that quickly absorb the urban poor. It becomes pertinent to find out who are these urban poor and what are the mechanisms and processes that sustain this strata of society. Post covid work seems to have somehow come to its normal terms, though it still remains a question as to how do we make sense of informal workforce on the backdrop of continuously increasing job risks and other insecurities. Access to public space can be crucial for their livelihood activities but this access is controlled by state, market and wider society in diverse ways. In this context, the workshop will address following important questions (not limited to):(a)How do informal labours negotiate with different actors of development including state to achieve upward mobility?(b)What are the new methodologies that can aid multi-dimensional studies of urban poor? (c) How does intersectionality of class, caste, gender and ethnicity lead to formation of their community support systems, network and trust groups? The objective is to determine relevant methodologies to analyse the urban poor and also highlight the importance of considering these marginalised groups in both preventive and corrective policy formulations.
• 33. In the Midst of Messiness: Emotional and Ethical Challenges in Conflict Zone Ethnography

  Conveners: Sarah RÜLLER, Konstantin AAL

  Contact: sarah.rueller@outlook.com 

  This workshop seeks to create a forum for anthropologists, ethnographers and other researchers using ethnographic methods to explore the intricate challenges and ethical considerations of conducting ethnography in areas affected by war, political conflict, and occupation. Recognizing the unique difficulties of accessing such volatile areas, this session aims to foster in-depth discussions and share valuable insights on navigating the complexities of entry, building trust within communities under duress, and ensuring the safety and well-being of both participants and researchers.

  Participants are invited to submit presentations and case studies that explore innovative methods and strategies for engaging in these sensitive environments. Emphasis will be placed on ethical research practices that respect the dignity and autonomy of local communities, while also addressing the practical aspects of conducting fieldwork in such challenging conditions. Contributions that reflect on negotiating access, building, and maintaining fieldwork relationships, and adapting research designs in response to unpredictable circumstances are particularly welcome.

  In addition, this workshop seeks to open a frank dialogue about the emotional and psychological toll on researchers who immerse themselves in these stressful contexts. Papers that offer reflections on personal experiences, coping mechanisms, and support systems for emotional resilience will enrich the conversation and provide a comprehensive understanding of the multifaceted impact of conducting ethnography in conflict zones.

  By bringing together a diverse range of perspectives, this workshop aims to equip researchers with the tools and knowledge to conduct ethnographic research effectively and ethically in places of war, political conflict, and occupation. It is a call to explore the boundaries of ethnography, to support one another in these challenging endeavors, and to contribute to a deeper understanding of the human condition in the shadow of conflict.

  Each contributor will be provided with a 10-15-minute slot (depending on # of presentations) for their presentation followed by discussion.
• 34. Back in the closet? Doing ethnographic fieldwork as a queer person

  Conveners: Anonymous Organizer

  Contact: queer.ethnographers@gmail.com

  This workshop aims to delve into the multifaceted experiences and challenges encountered by queer ethnographers engaged in fieldwork, particularly within contexts permeated by queerphobia. By examining the intricate interplay of sexuality, gender, race, class, and ethnicity, the workshop seeks to unravel the complex dynamics shaping data collection, reflection, and interpretation in research settings. Building upon the notion of participant observation as an embodied activity (Coffey 1999; Okely 2007), we explore how queer researchers navigate their identities within the field, often facing initial categorization based on gender and sexuality. Despite extensive literature on the female experience in fieldwork, the perspectives of queer ethnographers remain relatively overlooked.

  Central to our discussion is the exploration of what it means to conduct ethnography as a queer person, especially when immersed in environments hostile to queer identities. We interrogate how gender and sexuality influence the researcher's positionality. Drawing upon La Pastina's (2006) notion of returning to the closet during fieldwork, we delve into the complexities of negotiating visibility and safety while maintaining academic integrity.

  The workshop invites contributions that critically engage with questions of ethics, rapport-building, and research strategies employed by queer ethnographers to navigate their fieldwork. Emphasizing intersectional perspectives, we aim to foster a dialogue that recognizes the entanglement of sexuality and gender with other axes of identity and power.

  To cultivate a safe space for discussion, all participants will remain anonymous in public communication, including the names of conveners. The workshop welcomes diverse theoretical and methodological contributions from both younger and experienced scholars, including papers, field experiences, performances, and other creative forms of expression.
• 35. Dialogue and participation: a multivocal representation of women

  Conveners: Veronika LAJOS, Blanka BARABÁS, Isabela BOTEZATU, Noémi FAZAKAS

  Contact: veronika.lajos@uni-miskolc.hu 

  In our 90-minutes interactive workshop, we will collaboratively explore with participants the images of women and the contemporary socio-cultural challenges they face in a space of collective reflection. The workshop offers participants a collaborative form of knowledge production to create a space of shared interpretation. We will use the method of Silent Floor Discussion, which creates opportunities for open dialogue and debate through the use of written and non-verbal creative activities (e.g. drawing). The aim of the workshop is to learn about the participants' perceptions of women and contemporary challenges, and then to interpret them in the same framework as the self-representations that emerged from a particular participatory linguistic ethnographic research (2020-2021). The self-representations are multimodal research results in the form of memes and will be shared with the conference participants by Isabela Botezatu, the local project leader. Our workshop, being participatory and dialogue-based, promises multivocality (Clifford 1988): it allows for challenging the dominant narratives of cultural, linguistic and other social practices that present minority women mainly as specialists in folklore, healing and sacred communication. Our workshop challenges the dominant narratives by 1) not only creating a space for the self-representation of young women from the Moldavian region of Romania, but also 2) building the questioning process on dialogue and negotiation of interpretations among the workshop participants. On the one hand, the workshop provides an opportunity to partially explore the different perspectives and, on the other hand, allows the participants to represent the shared knowledge in the form of memes at the end of the workshop. We invite people to share their knowledge in our collaborative space being interested in women in minority settings and participatory approach.
• 42. Decolonising and sharing ethnographic materials

  Conveners: Igor EBERHARD, Wolfgang KRAUS, Birgit KRAMREITHER

  Contact: igor.eberhard@univie.ac.at 

  The demands on research and research data are becoming ever greater, not least due to the ongoing digitisation of all aspects of academic practice. In social and cultural anthropology, a discipline generating its data in dialogue and collaboration with research participants, developments connected to notions such as open data, research data management and scientific accountability come with specific challenges, many of them to do with research ethics and the sensitive character of most kinds of ethnographic data. In short, producing, handling and using ethnographic materials entails specific forms of responsibility and raise questions that significantly overlap with those raised in current debates on decolonial science and knowledge production and the digitisation of academia, including the FAIR and CARE data principles.

  By using the term ethnographic materials rather than data, we wish to suggest that such questions are best considered not only with regard to the production of research data in the narrow sense that has been dominating much of the research data management discourse of recent years. Instead, we propose to discuss research data in its widest sense together with other forms of dealing with items and objects deemed to carry ethnographic knowledge, such as collections, archives and libraries, as well as all forms of “publicly” sharing ethnographic knowledge in the digital sphere beyond academia. In this workshop we welcome contributions in English or German dealing with these and similar practices in relation to the challenges of ethical knowledge production and the decolonisation of ethnographic perspectives.

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• 36. Re-Search?! Critical reflections on the co-creation of knowledge in participatory research projects

  Conveners: Tina WALTHER

  Contact: tina.walther@fu-berlin.de 

  The current debates on innovative and transformative solutions for a sustainable and liveable future have recently triggered a new trend towards the co-creation of knowledge. Corresponding references can be found, for example, in the literature on agroecology, medicine and health or migration, as well as in the curricula of study programs such as the postgraduate program "International Cooperation for Sustainable Development" at the Seminar for Rural Development (SLE) in Berlin. Co-creation of knowledge refers to collaboration in inter- and transdisciplinary teams as well as cooperation with all kinds of stakeholders, from local communities to renowned specialists. The approach recommends the use of participatory research methods and the provision of public access to research results. The ideal of this research approach is not new in social and cultural anthropology - at least since the Writing Culture debate of the 1980s, there have been calls for greater reflection on one's own research process and the active involvement of research assistants and other "accompanying persons". In practice, however, the ideal still reaches its limits both within and outside the discipline. Difficulties arise, for example, in the agenda setting and funding of corresponding projects, in the search for a common language and common goals (in terms of outcomes and outputs) or in the “granting” of expertise and (co-)authorship. This workshop invites participants to reflect together on their own experiences with the possibilities and shortcomings of the co-creation of knowledge approach, to collect best practices (methods, procedures and contents) and to develop recommendations for future anthropological teaching and research.
• 37. I’m still standing: Creating a safe space for an exchange about sexist and other discriminatory experiences in our discipline

  Conveners: Tina WALTHER

  Contact: tina.walther@fu-berlin.de 

  A guest lecturer who intentionally misgenders and otherwise discriminates students over a period of several semesters; a professor who doesn't think it would be appropriate to cover his bare torso when his female student assistant enters his office; a supervisor in a large German welfare association who lets the junior researchers under his supervision do the work for him and then claims sole authorship for himself; a female post-doc who regularly asks a student assistant to look after her baby while she herself attends project meetings; a research associate who is criticized by colleagues for talking to her students about violent and sexualized border crossings "in the field"... These are just a few examples of inappropriate sexist, discriminatory or at least negligent behavior that junior anthropologists in the German-speaking region have been exposed to in the past and continue to be exposed to today. While there are fortunately some institutes and single initiatives who pay attention to the physical and mental suffering of those affected by corresponding misconduct, other institutions avoid a critical reflection of the structural circumstances that enable problematic behavior towards junior researchers in our discipline. This workshop intends to create a safe space for junior anthropologists to exchange about questions like: How can I communicate my personal boundaries and what can I do when they are violated? Whom can I talk to and where do I get additional support? How can we contribute to a supportive network and community based on intersectional solidarity that clearly positions itself against any kind of discrimination and offers mutual support? Please note: This workshop is an open peer-to-peer exchange that does not provide therapeutic intervention.
• 38. Suicide, exploitation, and pleasure in the cultural uses of self-inflicted bodily harm. Ethnographies and contemporary theories.

  Conveners: Luis LÓPEZ-LAGO

  Contact: luislopezlago@unex.es 

  The body has been a classic theme in anthropology. Mauss, Douglas, Turner or Le Breton, among others, have addressed in depth how symbol and ritual shape the body and how these same bodies are the main element of the individual's relationship with the world. Likewise, "the other" is also a body, subject to our sensitive experiences, we can hear, feel, smell or see him, and from this field of bodily interaction we reflect on him, we imagine him, we prejudge him, we propose the codes with which we communicate and in a broader sense we build culture.

  Particularly the violence exercised on one's own body is not a new topic for ethnography, especially as far as the symbolic framework of ritual is concerned. However, inserted in the context of hypermodernity, there are cultural forms of self-inflicted harm that demand to be studied under the focus of new interpretative frameworks, where desire, performativity, hybridizations and the rupture with dualities and the introduction of epistemologies built from the margins allow us to have more fluid dialogues and deeper looks at these practices.

  This Workshop aims to reflect on the meanings of those practices that stress bodies, take them to the extreme through pain or behaviors harmful to health from contemporary analysis. To this end, we propose the submission of papers that address a wide range of manifestations: mortification and sacrificial ideas in the religious sphere, extreme discipline and risky behaviors in gym culture, desire and BDSM practices, self-injurious behaviors and suicide, ideological expressions of protest with bodily harm -hunger strike, immolation-, behaviors associated with eating disorders, addiction to plastic surgeries, self-violence in the context of assisted reproduction, etc.
• 39. Images as Evidence (of what)? The Body at the Intersection of Science and Art

  Conveners: Sophie WAGNER, Barbara GRAF

  Contact: sophie.wagner@univie.ac.at 

  Scientific images of the human body hold a distinct status as being reliable mediums, even though we often don’t know, or partially ignore, what kind of image it is and how it has been made (Canals 2020). This is true for visualizations that serve as referential witness – micro photography, x-rays, MRI, CT-scans or endoscopic images – and “visual strategies” that put together data on the basis of synthesis, ordering knowledge in “abstract tableaus”, transforming it into calculable figures, graphs or diagrams (Mersch 2006). They serve as evidence in clinical decision making, as tool for governmental practices, and legitimize policies. Bodies are dissected, screened and measured, promising transparency (Strathern 2000), creating a sense of “hyper certainty” (Fox 2000), and fostering the idea of medicine as “exact science”. With this panel we aim to discuss current modes of engaging with the human body visually, examining this framing of bodies, beings – and lives in general – as calculable and predictable. We want to examine the terrain of both – the visualizations of diseases, and articulations of individual illness experiences, which have proven to be particularly useful in supporting the patient-doctor communication. We ask: how can we critically engage with image-making embedded in discourses of certainty and trust? Following the Images of Care collective’s manifesto (Pieta and Favero 2023), we understand visual culture - “how we see, how we are able, allowed, or made to see, and how we see this seeing or the unseen therein” (Foster 1988:ix) – as being shaped by ongoing dialogues between biology, culture and politics. We invite scholars and practitioners to present works, which explore bodily processes, corporeal sensations and illness experiences. We highlight an interdisciplinary perspective, hoping to inspire dialogue across professional boundaries, inviting anthropologists who follow collaborative and experimental approaches (Fortun et al. 2021), visual artists, health-care professionals, and patient advocates.
• 40. (De-/Post-)Coloniality in Anthropology

  Conveners: Julia BERNEGGER, Elisabeth Sarah STEINER

  Contact: julia.bernegger@univie.ac.at 

  With our workshop, we want to open up a space to discuss and learn about coloniality within the discipline of anthropology and discuss various approaches to de- and postcolonial praxis. We will engage with the topic from various perspectives –be it theoretical engagement, methodological techniques or personal experience. In the course of doing fieldwork in rural Mexico for our master’s theses, we ourselves, as white students of anthropology, have recently been challenged to put to practice our theoretical knowledge about colonial power structures and decolonial methodologies. Therefore, and because our workshop ties in with current debates about (anti-)racism at the University of Vienna Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, we wish to organise this workshop to exchange ideas with like-minded young scholars.

  In a round-table discussion, we want to include different views, approaches and struggles focusing on the attempt of doing de- and postcolonial fieldwork within colonial structures, but also offer space for general discussions around coloniality as well as our (and the discipline’s) role within it. The setting of the round-table allows for profound engagement and exchange of ideas at eye level –which is important in a discussion on (de-/post-)coloniality. Furthermore, the Young Scholar’s Forum at the VANDA Conference provides an opportunity to raise critical voices among the student body and open a stage for a crucial debate within and about our discipline. As experienced discussant, we are able to reckon on the support of Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Janina Kehr.

  We look forward to a profound discussion with young scholars who have engaged with the coloniality of the discipline and/or ways to counter it –be it personally, practically or theoretically. We aim at including a wide range of perspectives, and therefore especially encourage BIPoC, first generation, queer, and FLINTA students to participate in our workshop.
• 41. Culinary Duress: Multimodal explorations of imperialism, colonialism, and racial capitalism

  Conveners: Elise FERRER, Thurka SANGARAMOORTHY

  Contact: ef8388a@student.american.edu 

  This workshop explores food in the context of long-term historical change through multiple, overlapping violent registers. We will examine the varied dimensions of food experience under duress, namely through colonialism, imperialism, racial capitalism, war, and displacement. We theorize the complex set of adaptations, choices, and exchanges that are made and the consequences faced by those whose lives unfold and are lived in turbulent times. We consider the diverse ways by which people navigate foodways—from production to consumption, and how legacies of violence are resisted, refused, and acted against in intimate and taken-for-granted spaces.

  Workshop participants will center food as an entry point through which to understand the often-invisibilized and naturalized trajectories of colonial, racialized, and other violent contexts. In theorizing food, participants will highlight the impacts of and resistance to the structures and processes of violence with an attention to the intimate, mundane, and quotidian. We invite participants to reimagine recipes and foods through film, photography, art, poetry, and soundscape not only as static cultural artifacts, but also as displaced and living materials and practices, inhabiting many times and spaces which, far from being neatly bounded, bleed into and mutually constitute each other.