Conference Call for Papers – Teaching & Learning Anthropology and Ethnography in Eastern and Southeastern Europe: “Making sense of cultural difference in familiar & unfamiliar contexts”

Conference: MAY 12-13, 2018, Thessaloniki, Greece

Deadline for abstract submissions: March 18th, 2018

Organized by:

Culture, Borders, Gender LAB
and
ΜΑ Program in «History, Anthropology and Culture
in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe»
of the
Dept. of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece

in collaboration with the:
Teaching Anthropology (TA) – A Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute,
EASA Teaching Anthropology Network,
Border Crossings Network

CALL FOR PAPERS

We teach anthropology and ethnography in the countries of Eastern and SE Europe, we try to make our students familiar with the study of otherness and introduce them to alternative ways of understanding social phenomena. Yet, we deal with perceptions of cultural difference shaped by notions of cultural homogeneity.

At the same time, current political, social, cultural and economic phenomena affect and transform the lives of the people living in this part of the world. The necessity of dealing with these issues has intensified the demands for academic knowledge production, increasingly through joint and multi-disciplinary research.

If sociocultural anthropology, as well as ethnology and folklore, are to be seen as considerably useful tools for understanding the contemporary context, they not only have to adjust their research strategies and analytical concepts to the current sociopolitical conditions but also to reconsider the boundaries between science, society and the academia. This implies, among other issues, re-thinking and refining the practices of teaching and learning.

The conference invites papers and other interactive, innovative and experimental multi-media presentations which address aspects of teaching and learning anthropology and/or ethnography in SE Europe, in both discipline-related and interdisciplinary, academic and non-academic contexts. The contributions are expected to reflect on teaching experiences, and discuss key questions related to the following issues:

• What practices, pedagogies, and techniques can be developed to assist the learning and teaching process and meet the demands of the contemporary social research?
• How do we train our students to understand and use various concepts (i.e. theory, culture, representation, ethnocentrism, context, and contextualisation, research questions and objectives, ethnographic data and data analysis, reflexivity, assumptions and stereotypes etc.) within familiar and unfamiliar research contexts?
• How do we face the challenge of the ethnographic method within complex urban, glocal and websited environments?
• How do we accommodate the traditional notion of fieldwork as the long stay and first-hand acquisition of knowledge in a specific location with the increasingly dominant format of short-stay, learning-by-doing, intense research projects (summer/field schools, laboratories, workshops, short trips, interdisciplinary courses etc)?
• How can new technologies, social media, distant learning and e-learning support or advance the teaching and learning of the ethnographic process?
• How camera, imagination and other mediated representations (film, documentary, theater, comics, literature etc), i.e. tools and technologies used in cultural and literary studies (artistic installation, biography, performance etc) could multiply the mirrors and initiate a dialogue with the ethnographic text today?
• How can the context of multidisciplinary and joint research help us improve our teaching and learning methods? What is the impact of ethnography, as a basic method of carrying out grounded research beyond Anthropology (i.e. Oral, social, cultural and regional history, International Relations, Political Sciences, Sociology, Philosophy, Geography etc)?
• How do we teach anthropology and ethnography to non-academic audiences such as policy makers, corporation executives and managers, social workers, journalists, commercial advertisers?
• How do we disseminate anthropological knowledge? How do we teach about ways of representation such as the ethnographic writing? Should anthropologists be trained as bloggers, Twitter users, journalists, YouTubers, social media experts?

Abstract submission 

• Please send an abstract of maximum 300 words to: teachanthropo@gmail.com
• Download the abstract submission form from the following link: https://tinyurl.com/ycq5a65n

Selected contributions will form the basis for a 2018 special issue of Teaching Anthropology and/or will feature on the Teaching Anthropology website.

 For further information, please, contact

• Ioannis Manos, Assistant Prof.: imanos@uom.edu.gr
• Fotini Tsibiridou, Professor: ft@uom.edu.gr
• Georgia Rina, PhD candidate: teachanthropo@gmail.com

Academic committee  

• Eftihia Voutira, Professor of Social Anthropology and Migration, (University of Macedonia-Thessaloniki)
• Dimitra Gefou-Madianou, Professor Emeritus of Social Anthropology (Panteion University-Athens)
• Fotini Tsibiridou, Professor of Social Anthropology (University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki)
• Vassilis Nitsiakos, Professor of Anthropology (University of Ioannina-Ioannina)
• Riki Van Boeschoten, Professor Emeritus of Social Anthropology and Oral History (University of Thessaly-Volos)
• Vintilă Mihăilescu, Professor of Social Anthropology (National School of Political Studies and Administration, Department of Sociology-Bucharest)
• Rajko Muršič, Professor of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology (University of Ljubljana-Ljubljana)
• Ljupco Risteski, Professor of Ethnology and Anthropology ‎(“Ss. Cyril and Methodius” University in Skopje-Skopje)
• Slobodan Naumović, Associate Professor, Dept. of Ethnology and Anthropology, Faculty of Philosophy, (University of Belgrade-Belgrade)
• Jakob Krause-Jensen, Associate Professor of Social Anthropology (Aarhus University-Aarhus)

Co-convenor of the EASA Teaching Anthropology Network

• Patrick Alexander, Senior Lecturer in Education (Anthropology and Sociology), (Oxford Brookes University-Oxford)

Chief Editor of the Teaching Anthropology (TA) – A journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

• Olivier Givre, Assistant Professor of Anthropology (Université Lumière Lyon 2-Lyon)
• Ioannis Manos, Assistant Professor of Social Anthropology, (University of Macedonia-Thessaloniki)

 Organising committee

• Eftihia Voutira, Professor, Dept. of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki
• Fotini Tsibiridou, Professor, Dept. of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki
• Ioannis Manos, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki

Europe regional Editor of the Teaching Anthropology (TA) – A journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

• Eleni Sideri, Post-Doctoral Fellow in Social Anthropology, Dept. of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia and Adjunct Academic Staff, Hellenic Open University, Ma Language Education for Refugees and Migrants
• Georgia Rina, PhD candidate in Social Anthropology, Dept. of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki