Events
Call for Papers: * Media Anthropology Network workshop: The rewards of media *
11th EASA Biennial Conference: Crisis and Imagination
Maynooth (Ireland), 24-27 August 2010
Convenors:
John Postill (Sheffield Hallam University, UK)
Philipp Budka (University of Vienna, Austria)
Discussant:
To be announced
Short abstract:
The workshop explores the rewards (social, economic, symbolic, sensory, etc.) derived from engaging in specific media practices in different sociocultural settings.
Long abstract:
This workshop is a sequel to the Media Anthropology Network workshop on media practices held at the EASA conference in Bristol in 2006 that led to the edited volume “Theorising Media and Practice” (Braeuchler and Postill, in press). Whilst on that occasion the aim was to explore and theorise media practices in general, this workshop will focus on a single but crucial aspect of mediated practice, namely its rewards (cf. Warde 2005). As contemporary social worlds become ever more media-saturated – particularly after the huge surge in mobile phone uptake in both rich and poor countries – questions arise about the considerable amounts of time and money that many individuals and groups appear to spend using, learning, sharing and making all kinds of media technologies (mobiles, blogs, wikis, radio, social networking sites, YouTube, etc.). Presenters may wish to address (but are not limited to) questions such as:
* What are the rewards (cultural, social, economic, symbolic, sensory, etc.) that people derive from engaging in specific media practices?
* Why do people around the globe devote scarce temporal and financial resources to certain media practices and not others?
* In keeping with the conference theme of ‘Crisis and Imagination’, how do people caught up in the global turmoil use old and new media technologies to seek or create new job opportunities, imagine future economic scenarios or perhaps ‘forget’ their financial woes?
References:
Bräuchler, B. and J. Postill (eds) (in press). Theorising Media and Practice. Oxford and New York: Berghahn.
Warde, A. 2005. Consumption and theories of practice, Journal of Consumer Culture 5: 131-53.
Papers should be proposed via NomadIT’s online system. Please note that this year EASA is requesting a single abstract of 150 words which will be displayed both online and in the conference book.
Submission of abstracts:
http://www.nomadit.co.uk/easa/easa2010/panels.php5?PanelID=648
Deadline: 1 March 2010
General information on the conference:
http://www.easaonline.org/conferences/easa2010/index.htm
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact either of the panel convenors.
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EASA Media Anthropology Network, e-Seminar Series19 May – 1 June 2008. Erkan Saka (Rice University, USA): Blogging as a research tool for ethnographic fieldwork.
Discussant: Mary Stevens (University College London)
Venue: Media Anthropology Network mailing list
(free and open to anyone with a legitimate interest in the anthropology of media)
Écriture & Literacy: the constitution of a field of research in Great Britain and France, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) Paris, 25 June 2007
A meeting organised by Béatrice Fraenkel and Aïssatou Mbodj-Pouye (both at EHESS) that brought together French and British scholars working on literacy studies aimed at comparing the two national traditions and exchanging information on recent trends. The meeting threw up some interesting parallels as well as contrasts between the two traditions. Some false friends were in evidence, e.g. whereas for the British the notion of ‘literacy events’ (derived from speech events) refers to any observable slice of everyday life mediated by texts, the French reserve the term événement for major historical ruptures such as September 11. My own contribution was a paper in which I suggested we abandon the English notion of ‘literacy’ as a theoretical concept (but retaining it as a useful emic notion) and explored some possible areas of future international collaboration between literacy studies and media studies. Participants agreed that the day was a great success and hope that a follow-up meeting will take place in Britain in the near future.
Old and new reconceptualizations of sociality, a Canadian Anthropology Society (CASCA) Annual Conference workshop, Toronto University, 8-12 May 2007.
The second in a series of meetings organised by Vered Amit (Concordia University) aimed at finding ways of conceptualising contemporary social life, including its more fluid and ephemeral manifestations, but without relying too heavily on bounded notions of sociality such as community or group. On this occasion participants turned their attention to the anthropological genealogy of sociality concepts, grounding again their discussions in contemporary ethnographic research. My paper reviewed the history of anthropological concepts such as ‘action-set’, ‘action-group’, ‘coalition’ and the like, assessing their contemporary relevance for the study of Internet activism and so-called ‘smart mobs‘.
New mediators: culture, policy and practice in electronic governance and government, an EASA Biennial Conference workshop, Bristol, 21 September 2006
A session organised by Monika Rulfs (Bremen) and Tom Wormald (Manchester) arising out of the work of Netcultures, a team of social anthropologists that researched the uses of digital technologies for ‘local governance’ in multiethnic neighbourhoods of several countries in 2002-2005. One key finding from all case studies was the critical importance in each locale of a handful of creative individuals with a rare mix of political acumen and technical skills. I presented a paper on just such individuals based on my fieldwork in Subang Jaya, a suburb of Kuala Lumpur.
