Graduate Student Paper Prize Competition

Deadline: June 15, 2020

The Society for the Anthropology of Europe is pleased to announce the annual call for submissions for the SAE graduate student paper prize competition. Between Brexit, the coronavirus, and the refugee crisis, Europe is undergoing significant transformations, which compel anthropologists and other ethnographers to rethink old paradigms and to develop new ones that better address current realities of the region. Submitted manuscripts must engage with some aspect of the anthropology in/of Europe and/or Europeanist anthropology’s contribution to the broader field of anthropology, addressing any number of past, present, or future challenges that the region is facing today. This rule will be interpreted liberally to include papers of a comparative, theoretical, and/or empirical nature.

The winning paper will receive a $400 award and will be automatically submitted for publication in the journal Social Anthropology. Candidates should therefore send their most mature and original work in article format. Word limit is 7,000, inclusive of abstract, main text, and references. Manuscripts must be written in English (original or translation) and must not have previously appeared in print or online media. Limit of one submission per person. The committee will evaluate originality, contribution to the field, inclusivity of diverse perspectives, and writing style appropriate for a manuscript in preparation for publication.

At the time of submission, authors must be graduate students in anthropology or related fields in a university anywhere in the world. There is no citizenship requirement, and women, gender nonconforming, and underrepresented scholars are strongly encouraged to apply. Candidates will be notified by early August of the review committee’s decision. The winner will be publicly announced at the general business meeting of the Society for the Anthropology of Europe, and finalists will be invited to present their work at the SAE-sponsored roundtable “Café Europa” during the 2020 annual meeting in St. Louis, Missouri.

Interested graduate students are invited to submit their previously unpublished work, along with a title page that includes contact information and affiliation, via email to Prof. Julie Kleinman ([email protected]) by June 15, 2020, with the subject line “SAE Paper Prize Submission.”

 

Graduate paper prize winners and panel members, 2013

 

Chelsi West of University of Texas-Austin was awarded the 2014 SAE Paper Prize for her paper entitled, “The Anthropologist Takes the Stand: Thoughts on Race, Belonging, and Ethnography in Albania.” Vividly ethnographic and theoretically engaged, West’s paper captures how race is imagined in post-communist Albania by honing in on its underlying tensions and frictions in everyday encounters and in the media. The author transforms her appearance and charged interrogation on an Albanian television talk show into a vector for nuanced analysis of racialization and exclusion. West’s investigation yields a newfound appreciation for ethnographic methodologies, especially for how the researcher’s subject position in the field becomes a locus of inquiry and insight.

Student paper prize finalists:

Rachel Ceasar of University of California, Berkeley, “Te Molesta el Moro? Does the Moor Bother You? Berber Bodies, Moroccan Bones, Spanish Soil.”

Emanuel Moss of CUNY Graduate Center, “Fishing and Tourism on the Black Sea Coast: Leisure and Labor in the Post-Socialist Transition.”

Andris Saulītis of the New School University, “Performing Glasnost: The Letters to the Broadcast Labvakar, Latvija! 1988-1993.”

Jennifer Carlson of University of Texas-Austin, “Capacitating Women: Gender and Idioms of Flourishing  among Germany’s Renewable Energy Citizens.”

The reviewer committee included Noelle Molé Liston of New York University (Chair), Jana Rehak of Townson University, Jennifer Patico of Georgia State University,  and Kim Arkin of Boston University.