Past events
SAE Sponsored Events at the 2024 AAA Annual Meeting
SAE Special Events:
Wednesday, November 20
SAE Visit to Tarpon Springs: A Multi-sensory and Embodied Introduction to the Greek-American Community’s Cultural Life and Histories
2 PM – 10:30 PM
Tarpon Springs, with its large Greek community and ongoing ties with the Aegean islands, is renowned for its sponge economy, innovative musical traditions, dance education, popular religious practice and vibrant social life. On this interactive excursion, participants will learn about the changing technologies of sponge diving, undertake a walking tour of Greek Town, and meet and hear from community leaders. Over Greek food and drink, we’ll hear musical histories, learn a dance or two and join in Greek-American sociability, accompanied by local musicians. A cultural experience and a networking opportunity. Pre-registration is required. Deadline November 12.More information and the registration link are available here.
Friday, November 22
William A. Douglass Distinguished Lecture in European Studies
07:30 PM – 09:00 PM / TCC 125
The 2024 William A. Douglass Distinguished Lecture will be given by Professor Stef Jansen, Professor at the University of Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina) and Honorary Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester (UK). Preceding the lecture, SAE president-elect Dorothy Zinn will announce the winner(s) of 2024 William A. Douglass Book Prize. A reception will follow the lecture. All are welcome. Title and Abstract of the lecture:
Everyday geopolitics: perspectives from the European semiperiphery
Stef Jansen (University of Sarajevo)
In many countries of the Western core, most people can live their everyday lives largely oblivious to geopolitical dynamics. To many others such obliviousness may sound like a luxury. This lecture offers reflections developed from research in a contemporary setting in the European semiperiphery shot through with particularly sharp geopolitical intensities: the supervised and contested polity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It addresses two main questions. First, through the notion of ‘everyday geopolitics’, I ask how we can approach vernacular engagements and entanglements with geopolitical dynamics and hierarchies as an object of ethnographic analysis. I discuss one modality grounded in non-elite reasoning and affect, and another one tracing historical processes through which geopolitics serves as the infrastructure for everyday practices of social reproduction that sustain certain social formations. Second, in light of calls to provincialise Europe, including ‘decolonial’ perspectives, I explore the critical potential of conducting such ethnographic analysis specifically in the European semiperiphery. While both subjected to and complicit in Western coloniality, I argue, lives in the Balkans facilitate a heightened attunement to interimperial constellations of power. How can such a vantage point contribute to our understandings of sovereignty, agency and empire? Overall, my aim is to think through some of the ways in which the ethnography of everyday geopolitics in the European semiperiphery can sharpen the kind of anthropological questions we can ask about Europe.
Friday, November 22
Society for the Anthropology of Europe Reception
09:00 PM – 10:00 PM / TCC 125
The Society for the Anthropology of Europe Reception will follow the William A. Douglass Distinguished Lecture in European Studies. All are welcome.
Saturday, November 23
Society for the Anthropology of Europe (SAE) Business Meeting
12:45 PM – 02:45 PM / TCC 125This is the official business meeting of the SAE.
SAE Invited Sessions
Wednesday, November 20
Roundtable: Thinking with Alberto Toscano about Late Fascism Today
02:30 PM-04:00 PM / Marriott WS Room 1 Roundtable/Town Hall – In-Person
Critical Urban Anthropology Association
Don Nonini, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Department of Anthropology; Ida Susser, CUNY, Hunter College, Department of Anthropology
Don Kalb, University of Bergen, Department of Social Anthropology; Maddalena Gretel Cammelli; Greg Feldman, University of Windsor; Alberto Toscano, Simon Fraser University; Svati Shah; Don Nonini, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Department of Anthropology; Ida Susser, CUNY, Hunter College, Department of Anthropology
Friday, November 22
From Post-Socialism to Post-Capitalism? Revisiting Post-Cold War Expectations in the Time of Poly-Crisis
12:45 PM-02:15 PM / Virtual VR 3 Roundtable/Town Hall – Virtual Live
Organizers: Samantha Fox; Christina Schwenkel, University of California, Riverside, Department of Anthropology
Presenters: Felix Ringel, Durham University; Smoki Musaraj, Ohio University, Department of Sociology & Anthropology; Larisa Kurtovic, University of Ottawa; Catalina Tesar; Samantha Fox
SAE Sponsored Session
Wednesday, November 20
Iceland as a Space of Exceptionalism
10:15 AM-11:45 AM / TCC 101-102 Oral Presentation Session
Organizers: Kristin Loftsdottir, University of Iceland and Christopher Marcatili, Australian National University, Department of Anthropology
Presenters: Kristin Loftsdottir, University of Iceland; Goda Cicenaite, University of Iceland; Charlotte Christiansen; Christopher Marcatili, Australian National University, Department of Anthropology; Anna Runarsdottir; Mar Wolfgang Mixa, University of Iceland; Andrea Smith, Lafayette College, Department of Anthropology & Sociology
Poster Sessions
Friday, November 22
Back to the Land, Back to the Local: Recent Protests by Farmers and Others in France and Germany Provide Fresh Fodder for Right Wing Extremists
08:30 AM-10:00 AM / TCC West Hall Poster – In-Person Live
By Patricia Heck, University of the South, Sewanee
Environmental Conservation and Linguistic Heritage: Exploring the significance of imagined landscapes and identity in the Western Isles of Scotland
08:30 AM-10:00 AM / TCC West Hall Poster – In-Person Live
By Genevieve Soucek
Temporalities of the Borderscape: Irregular Migration and Rurality Along the Slovenia/Croatia Border
08:30 AM-10:00 AM / TCC West Hall Poster – In-Person Live
By Matthew Porges
Thinking about Participation: How Do Romanian Orphans Participate into “Family”?
08:30 AM-10:00 AM / TCC West Hall Poster – In-Person Live
By Naoki Asada
“Hors Place”: Discursive Identity Formation of the FrancoKabyle Diaspora and the Post-Kabyle
08:30 AM-10:00 AM / TCC West Hall / Poster – In-Person Live
By Zacharia Arifi
