The “Anthropology and Geography: Dialogues Past, Present and Future” conference is jointly organized by the Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI), the Royal Geographical Society, the British Academy, the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at SOAS-University of London, and the British Museum’s Department for Africa, Oceania and the Americas. The conference was originally planned as a face to face conference to be held in June 2020, but it will now be an online conference to be held September 14-18, 2020. It will feature a wide range of speakers on issues concerning the relationships between anthropology and geography, both past and present. Bruno Latour will deliver the keynote address.

The RAI believes that anthropology and geography should be close, all the more so as the two disciplines have so much in common, both today and in the past. It hopes very much that through this conference, existing dialogues can be explored and further conversations take place on a host of vital issues including the Anthropocene, definitions of ethnology, methodology and fieldwork, contemporary understanding, education and public awareness, and the place of our disciplines in the modern world. The conference organizers hope equally that this will lead to a shared intellectual understanding of our past and the emergence of the two disciplines, and an even closer engagement in the future, particularly in terms of emerging fields of mutual interest: e.g. digital media, geospatial mapping, and satellite photography.

Registration is now open through the conference website. A full conference program can also be viewed online. Advance registration is required in order to attend sessions. Any questions about the conference can be sent to info@therai.org.uk.

Authors
Sarah Pickman: contributions / sarah.pickman@yale.edu