CALL FOR PAPERS/PANELS/POSTERS

Anthropology in London 2010
CONTEMPORARY TRENDS IN FIELDWORK & ETHNOGRAPHY

Monday June 14, 2010


Anthropology in London 2010 is being organised by SOAS in collaboration with staff and PGRS representatives from the anthropology departments at Brunel, Goldsmiths, LSE, SOAS, UCL and UEL. We welcome participation for the first time from PGRS from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Based on the success of the scheduling for the 2009 event, we are planning opening and closing plenary sessions by academic members of staff, and three slots in between with a number of panels running concurrently, and a poster session during the lunch break. Once again, UCL has generously offered to furnish the venue.

2010 Conference Theme:
Since its inception, anthropology has been animated by an acute awareness of its own ethical and epistemological practices. The discipline has been enriched by this history in numerous ways, but constant questioning and self-reflexivity can also have other, sometimes debilitating, consequences. In 1988, Clifford Geertz remarked that debates over anthropological knowledge construction and the ‘crisis of representation’ had resulted in an ‘epistemological hypochondria’ among young fieldworkers. To a large extent, the value and worth of fieldwork and of ‘knowing anything’ were undermined.

Over the past two decades, the ‘crisis’ has receded and most believe that the discipline has caught its breath and can once again be confidently interested in the social and the concrete. Questioning and reflexivity nevertheless remain ingrained in the mode of knowing, deeply embedded in anthropological fieldwork practice and ethnographic writing. Anthropology in London 2010 presents a one-day forum for reflecting upon the current state of epistemology in the discipline. The conference invites papers from post-fieldwork PhD students on the emerging diversity of field sites, practices and approaches in British anthropology; on contemporary trends in methodology, note taking and ethnographic representation; and on ethics and the problem of ‘knowing anything’. Research students are encouraged to situate their own personal fieldwork and writing experiences in relation to new and changing currents in the discipline.

Conference Questions for consideration include:
What new and changing concerns face fieldworkers? How are ‘old’ problems of access, ethics and engagement re-examined in present-day debates over fieldwork? What transformations are taking place in practices of participant observation and note-taking? What contribution do changing practices make to the construction and experience of the field? What roles does reflexivity continue to play in the processes of supervision, methodology, writing-up, textual and multimedia forms of representation, and the general construction of anthropological knowledge? In what ways, and to what extent, is our concern with ethics and reflexivity marked by the lifeworlds we study? How do our ‘ethnographic moments’ extend the field? Can anthropology confidently ‘know anything’?

Submission of Abstracts:
The organising committee welcomes 250-word abstracts for individual papers, posters, and proposals for complete panels related to the conference theme. Panel organisers are strongly encouraged to include participation from more than one college. Please note that we are unable to guarantee inclusion for all papers, posters and panels, so early submission is advised. Please download the submission form at http://www.soas.ac.uk/events/event57630.html and send it to Anna Portisch at ap48@soas.ac.uk before the deadline at 5:00 pm on Friday April 16.


For further information, contact Trevor Marchand at tm6@soas.ac.uk or Anna Portisch at ap48@soas.ac.uk