About Conference [EN]

The University of Silesia

Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology

Faculty of Ethnology and Educational Sciences

Invitation to an international conference:

“Anthropology in use – from global perspective to local practices”

Cieszyn, 13^th -14^th May 2015

We are pleased to invite you to an international conference “Anthropology in use – from global perspective to local practices”, which will be held in Cieszyn, in the conference room of Faculty of Ethnology and Educational Sciences of the University of Silesia. We hope that the location of our centre, in the border region of Cieszyn Silesia, will constitute a good starting point to our fruitful discussions and strengthen the interdisciplinary bonds.

The final point of reference for an anthropologist is always the field practice. At least since 1960s it has been more and more often emphasized that practice is not limited only to an ordinary observation, but it is connected with stronger or weaker engagement, creativity, re-enactment and embedding the subject in the field. In the contemporary world no one even pretends that the researcher in the field is “transparent” or that his/ her presence does not affect the cultural realities.

The multitude of paradigms, so called turns and theoretical views requires an ongoing reinterpretation of anthropological position and role of our practice.

Modern world dynamics, ongoing actualization of politics, economy, social issues and many others strongly influence and constantly change the dimension of the research practices. This also ultimately refers to the engagement in the position of the subject. Therefore, during our conference we would like to take another look on the researcher’s position in the field, especially within the following areas:

1.       Cross-division fields – blurring of traditional anthropological fields

2.       Anthropology as politics – anthropology as reshaping modes of cultural reality

3.       Between anthropology and multicultural education – possible connections and consequences

4.       Theoretical aspects of engaged anthropology

5.       Anthropological practice as performance and performance as anthropological practice

6.       Anthropology-economics-politics – between economic bases and cultural superstructure in the contemporary world

7.       Cognitive work–from precariat to commercial, government and non-government social research

8.       City movements, rural activism and anthropologists

 Not only anthropologists, but everyone who looks at the research activity as a transformation and intervention into cultural reality is welcome to participate in our conference.

Please submit you abstract (up to 500 words plus name, institutional affiliation, degree level, email, and phone number) by 30^th February to the following email addresses: grzegorz.studnicki@us.edu.pl; michal.rauszer@us.edu.pl

The post-conference materials will be published in our “Studia Etnologiczne i Antropologiczne” (“Ethnological and Anthropological Studies”) journal.

The cost of participation is 400 zł. (92 E)