The European association of social anthropologists (EASA) mediterraneanist network (MedNet) will held its 2017 workshop in cooperation with the University of Lisbon. Focusing on circumstances and conditions of change, the 2017 MedNet Workshop will bring together members of the EASA MedNet Network in an open forum with scholars and colleagues from the european anthropological community.

University of Lisbon, 2nd – 4th November 2017

Argument

Politics in a broad sense (referring to the Greek term politika, "affairs of the cities") belong to the most relevant fields for studying processes of transformation and change. Anthropologists interested in the study of changing political practices (f. e., clientelism and patronage) and shifting relations of power (formal, informal, new forms of resistance, protest or civil actions) within the Mediterranean as a comparative frame are invited to the workshop. Contributions to the workshop may critically reflect these processes or present current research based on participant observation in the region.

Starting from a basic understanding of the economy as an important field of human practices and transactions, recent experiences since 2008 have made us thinking of crisis - and not growth - as a rule governing economic developments. Countries of the European South have experienced shockwaves of economic and fiscal changes affecting the everyday life of millions of people. Contribution to the workshop are invited to investigate and elaborate the meaning of crisis from a bottom-up perspective, analyzing the manifold ways of responding to the economic crisis in Mediterranean countries through changing social and cultural practices of individuals, families and social groups.

Ethnicity can be seen as another feature central to most societies bordering the Mediterranean Sea. Following Frederik Barth, ethnicity has to be understood as continuously negotiated and renegotiated by both external ascription and internal self-identification. The forthcoming 2017 MedNet workshop in Lisbon therefor welcomes contributions related to changing interconnectedness in the Mediterranean region and to ethnic group formation related to processes of migration, movements for regional autonomy and/or other social processes of exclusion and incorporation.

Submission guidelines

If you wish to present a paper at the 2017 MedNet workshop, please send a title and summary of 300 words

until 31st of July 2017

to both:

• Jutta Lauth Bacas, email: jutta.lauth.bacas@gmail.com
• Murilo Guimarães, email: murilorguimaraes@gmail.com

Workshop convenors

Dr Jutta Lauth Bacas, Fellow, Royal Anthropological Institute Murilo Guimarães, Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon (ICS-UL).