Anthropological insight into conflicts over urban space

Wraz z Kołem Naukowym Antropologii Publicznej i Zaangażowanej IEiAK UW i Instytutem Etnologii i Antropologii Kulturowej UW zapraszamy serdecznie na wykład i dyskusję o konfliktach związanych z przestrzenią miejską oraz o antropologii zaangażowanej.

Gośćmi spotkania będą prof. Michael Herzfeld (Harvard University) i dr Kacper Pobłocki (UAM).

czwartek, 23 maja, godz. 18
Pracownia Duży Pokój

Wykład i dyskusją odbędą się w języku angielskim. Szczegółowe zaproszenie poniżej.

The Interdisciplinary Scientific Circle of Public and Engaged Anthropology (IKNAPiZ, IEiAK UW), the Ethnographic Laboratory Association (Pracownia Etnograficzna) and the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology (IEiAK UW) present a lecture and open discussion:

Evictions, housing, heritage and property:
Anthropological insight into conflicts over urban space.
Is engaged anthropology the future of the discipline?

Drawing on the fieldwork experience and outcomes provided by engaged anthropologists Michael Herzfeld and Kacper Pobłocki we will examine today’s conflicts over urban space around the world.

  • Do evictions in major Polish cities have anything to do with the goals of neoliberal modernity?
  • How does the concept of heritage preservation impact on tenants’ rights?
  • What can we learn by paying attention to urban conflicts taking place in Bangkok?
  • Do we all share the same notion of development and private property being promoted by state and municipal authorities as an excuse for gentrification?

The second part of the event will be devoted to examining the dilemmas connected with engagement in anthropology. As a discipline, anthropology is gaining more and more public attention in Western Europe and North America but at the same time this public visibility causes an enduring set of dilemmas. Engaged anthropologists may often confront a considerable amount of academic skepticism and can only refute it if they balance their ethical commitments with an equally strong commitment to scholarly standards and expertise.

  • Should social researchers actively participate in informants’ lives or does engagement already arise from ethnographic methodology?
  • What is the difference between engaged and applied anthropology?
  • How can we make engaged anthropology a valid sub-discipline in academic discourse?
  • What other questions come to mind when you think of conflicts over urban space and engaged anthropology?

Come and ask them, take part in the discussion on engaged social research!

plakat_herzfeld_netGuests:
Prof. Michael Herzfeld, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University
Dr Kacper Pobłocki, Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, Adam Mickiewicz University

Moderator:
Monika Sznel, MA student in the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Warsaw

May, 23rd 2013; 18:00
Pracownia Duży Pokój, ul. Koszykowa 24/12

Lecture and discussion will be held in English.
Facebook event here.

Report from the lecture on youtube.

Michael Herzfeld
Professor of Anthropology at Harvard University. He was educated at the Universities of Cambridge Athens, Birmingham and Oxford. Before moving to Harvard, he taught at Vassar College and Indiana University. Editor of American Ethnologist during 1994-98 and is now Editor at Large with specific responsibility for the feature „Polyglot Perspectives” in Anthropological Quarterly. He has conducted ethnographic research in Greece, Italy and Thailand, focusing on a range of issues, to name a few: functioning of nation state, evictions, conflicts over urban space, housing rights, bureaucracy, globalization’s and colonization’s impact on local communities. In addition to numerous articles and reviews, he has authored the following books; many of them appeared in other languages: Ours Once More: Folklore, Ideology, and the Making of Modern Greece (1982), A Place in History: Social and Monumental Time in a Cretan Town (1991), Cultural Intimacy: Social Poetics in the Nation-State (1997; pol. 2007), Anthropology: Theoretical Practice in Culture and Society (2001; Polish edition 2004), and Evicted from Eternity: The Restructuring of Modern Rome (2009).

Kacper Pobłocki
Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the Adam Mickiewicz University. Graduate of the University College Utrecht and Central European University. In 2008/2009 a visiting fellow at CUNY’s Center for Place, Culture and Politics (directed by David Harvey). In 2011 he received the Polish Prime Minister’s Award for Outstanding Doctoral Dissertations. Between 2009 and 2013 he was involved in organizing urban social movements in Poznan and Poland at large. His research is devoted to the nexus of class, uneven development and space. Currently he works on comparing urban regimes in Eastern Europe and the Global South, predatory gentrification in Poland, the politics of scale, in-between-city and the historical geography of Polish space. Some of his most recent publications include a chapter in the edited volume “Communism Unwrapped” (2012).

Monika Sznel
MA student in the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Warsaw, member of the Interdisciplinary Scientific Circle of Public and Engaged Anthropology.

Spotkanie zorganizowane przez Stowarzyszenie „Pracownia Etnograficzna” im. Witolda Dynowskiego we współpracy z Instytutem Etnologii i Antropologii Kulturowej UW. Spotkanie jest organizowane w ramach cyklu „Pracownia Koszykowa” finansowanego ze środków Ministerstwa Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego. Lokal przy ul. Koszykowej 24 jest wykorzystywany na cele kulturalne dzięki pomocy Dzielnicy Śródmieście m.st. Warszawy.
Prof. Herzfeld gości w Polsce w ramach programu Nowoczesny Uniwersytet realizowanego przez Instytut Etnologii i Antropologii Kulturowej UW.