Call for Papers for the IUAES (International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences) Inter-Congress, “World Anthropologies and Privatization of Knowledge: Engaging Anthropology in Public,” Dubrovnik, 4-9 May 2016
“The History of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences in Academia and in Public” (Panel 461, Topic #1: World Anthropologies: Peripheries Strike Back)
[Editor’s note: this panel was cancelled]
Convenor: Dr. Han Vermeulen, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle (Saale), Germany, vermeulen@eth.mpg.de
Short abstract: This panel will focus on the interrelations between the anthropological and ethnological sciences from the 1700s on. Did these change from a parallel development during the 18th century to shifting alliances during the 19th and the early 20th century and the keeping of boundaries after World War II?
Long abstract: In a fast changing world with globalizing and localizing tendencies it is important to explore world anthropology and its various incarnations in all possible directions and time periods. In line with the idea of the “World Anthropologies Network” (WAN), the focus is no longer only on the history of anthropological theories and practices in the USA, Great Britain and France but also on traditions from the North Atlantic fringe including Germany, Russia, Spain, China, Japan, Australia, Africa, South America, etc. Recent work shows that a decentering from British and American traditions can be achieved by focusing on German and Russian research traditions that took off during the eighteenth century. The ethnography and ethnology produced by German-speaking historians in what was then Germany, Russia and Austria developed parallel to anthropology, both medical and physical (Vermeulen 2015). The aim is to invite scholars from the fringe to comment on these traditions and bring in primary material from their national traditions to reexamine the history of ethnography, ethnology and anthropology. Questions to be considered include the following: How were the relations between anthropology and ethnology shaped during the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries? What differences or similarities existed between these disciplines in the various countries of the world? In what ways were their objects of study defined (as culture, ethnicity, otherness, races)? To what extent did practitioners see a relation between these objects of study? Were there any alliances or avoidances? What place for ethnology in world anthropology?
Keywords: ethnography, ethnology, history of anthropology, paradigm shifts, plurality of local/national traditions of knowledge, world anthropologies
Deadline: The Call for Papers is now open and will close on January 31, 2016. Paper proposals must include a paper title, the name/s and email address/es of author/s, a short abstract of fewer than 300 characters, and a long abstract of fewer than 250 words. To submit an abstract, please sign up and use the online form.
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