Dates: 11-12 June 200

Venue: Department of Anthropology and Ethnography, AarhusUniversity

Workshop language: English

Resource persons and lecturers:
 Bruce Kapferer, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Bergen

 Lotte Meinert, Dep. of Anthropology and Ethnography, Aarhus University

ECTS: 3

This workshop focuses on the nature of anthropological ethnography and its centrality to the distinctiveness of anthropological analysis, explanation and understanding.

The Workshop centres on the notion that anthropological ethnographic material primarily concerns the description and documentation of practices.  These are frequently concentrated in what may be described as events and situations.  Much significant anthropology concentrates on events and situations and through these establishes general analytical understanding. It is through attention to practice and to its organization in events and situations that anthropologists begin to change a diversity of accounts or observations on practice into more coherent ethnographic analysis that form the dissertation or monograph.

The Workshop will examine several major anthropological approaches to practice and the analysis of ethnographically recorded events and situations which may include particular fieldwork encounters of the anthropologist as well as happenings or occurrences of a formal or informal kind (e.g. marriages, deaths, calendrical celebrations, sudden outbreaks of dispute, unanticipated calamity etc.).

The major scholars addressed will be Gluckman and the ManchesterSchool, Clifford Geertz, Marshall Sahlins, and Pierre Bourdieu. Some recent philosophical ideas on the event will also be addressed, namely those of the post-structuralist Alain Badiou (see his Ethics, and Being and Event).

Some of the Critical Questions that will be addressed will include:

1. Field notes as the documentation of practice.
2. The nature of the event and the situation and their relation to context.
3. Events and situations as representations or illustrations of practice and their role as the basis of theorization.
4. The empirical status of events and situations: construction and selection.
5. The status of general description in ethnography.

Each participant is asked to submit:

1. A presentation of his or her research project, including the present state of affairs (max. 2 pages in English).

2. A description of a situation / event from fieldwork, including some of the context relevant for the analysis of this situation/event (max. 4 pages in English) 

Presentations and questions will be read in advance by Kapferer and Meinert and the lectures will be planned in accordance with students’ needs in order to provide a constructive and inspiring exchange of experiences.

As a common ground for discussion each participant will receive a set of texts to be read in advance (max. 150 pages).

If you would like to participate in the course, please send the above described documents, your contact information and institute affiliation to line.jorgensen@anthro.ku.dk no later than Friday May 15^th 2009.

Max. number of participants: 12

Participation of PhD students from other Research Schools
PhD students in anthropology and related disciplines, who are not enrolled at the Danish Research School in Anthropology and Ethnography, are welcome to participate in the Research School’s courses, if places are available. Teaching is free, but a fee of Dkr. 250 per course day is charged to cover extra administrative and residual expenses. 

Guidelines for the application for and organisation of course activities
PhD students who are enrolled at the Research School are encouraged to suggest thematic course activities. Guidelines for submitting proposals and organising course activities can be found here (in Danish)