Anthropology in/of contemporary Europe: the approach of critical Europeanization studies
- 17 Вересня, 2018
We kindly invite you to participate in our Methodological seminar, organized by the Department of Social Anthropology (Ethnology Institute, National Academy of Science of Ukraine). Our guest Dr. Jens Adam, PhD, assistant professor at the Institute for European Ethnology at Humboldt-University in Berlin, will present his research topic “Anthropology in/of contemporary Europe: the approach of critical Europeanization studies” on 21 September 2018, 14:00, Ethnology Institute, Pr. Svobody 15 (round hall, fourth floor).
In the paper he will discuss several disciplinary steps that led to the emergence of an anthropological interest in “Europeanization” as one relevant contemporary contribution to an Anthropology in/of Europe. Dr. Adam will present analytical and empirical potentials of this approach as well as some conceptual shortcomings. Based on that, he will propose a perspective that was developed under the title “Decentering Europe”. This approach aims at leaving EUrocentric frames clearly behind by systematically integrating the global entanglements of the continent in an anthropological research on “Europeanization”. From this perspective “Europe” comes into view as a heterogeneous, multiple and uncompleted formation, which cannot be narrowed to the emergence and policies of the European Union. In fact it is equally positioned in the world as a crossing point of different “imperial formations”, through its less visible histories, through its mobilities and migrations, as well as through counter hegemonial initiatives and imaginations of European alternatives.
In the presentation he will concentrate on the consequences of this approach: (1) for the conceptualization of “Europe” as an object of study; (2) for the further development and reorientation of the more established anthropological research traditions on “Europe” and “Europeanization”; (3) and for possible empirical research strategies in post-socialist Europe.
Jens Adam holds a position as assistant professor at the Institute for European Ethnology at Humboldt-University in Berlin. His research interests include public policy, political violence, cities as well as processes of Europeanization and Cosmopolitization. For his most recent book “Ordnungen des Nationalen und die geteilte Welt. Zur Praxis Auswärtiger Kulturpolitik als Konfliktprävention” (Bielefeld 2018) he conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Berlin, Ramallah, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Sarajevo to study practices and formats of translating the German Foreign Office’s official policy to “prevent conflicts via culture”: http://www.transcript-verlag.de/978-3-8376-4262-9/ordnungen-des-nationalen-und-die-geteilte-welt/. He is currently developing a research project on urban development, configurations of statehood and processes of Europeanization in Lviv, taking Ann Stoler’s notion of “imperial debris” as one ethnographic starting point.
Working language – English.