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| Semester | spring semester 2024 |
| Course frequency | Once only |
| Lecturers |
Serena Dankwa (serena.dankwa@unibas.ch)
George-Paul Meiu (gp.meiu@unibas.ch, Assessor) |
| Content | Ethnographic research requires us to listen closely to what our interlocutors say and engage astutely with what they do in order to decenter ourselves jointly and transcend rigid boundaries between “them” and “us.” Organized by the Institute of Social Anthropology at the University of Basel, Switzerland, the Anthropology Field School pursues the transformative potential of “thick listening” (Mtarangwi 2023) and attunes us to alternative ways of perceiving and knowing. In collaboration with scholars, activists, artists, and members of the communities in which the school will be held, we will listen and write around and against dominant modes of constructing the world. We seek to interrupt (anthropological) boundaries between “home” and the “field”–indeed, pursue ways to “free our imaginations” (Wainaina 2006) by exercising a question-driven ethnographic attention to the world we collectively inhabit. The first edition of the Anthropology Field School takes on the topic of inheritance as a key locus for understanding emerging forms of intimacy, mobility, hierarchization, and racialization, among other things. Over seven days in the Transylvanian village of Criț, Brașov county, Romania, MA students and faculty from Basel and Bucharest and Eastern European anthropologists will be in conversation with local NGO workers, activists, artists, and community members. We will explore inheriting as not only the process of passing down property, rights, and status, but also a key mode of subject formation that involves class, gender, ethnicity, and race as key modalities of belonging. Questions pertaining to how houses, land, and goods are passed down tie thus centrally to broader questions of cultural and environmental transmissions and to the possibility of building different (and differentiated) kinds of futures. Since 2000, the region, historically associated with a multicultural population, including the distinct Germanic culture of the so-called “Transylvanian Saxons” (German: Siebenbürgen Sachsen), Hungarians, Romanians, and Roma has emerged as a global tourist destination. Villages became UNESCO-registered heritage sites, prompting domestic and international tourists to visit these villages drawn by the romantic fantasy of a pre-communist rural Saxon culture. In the late post-socialist context, a growing desire for the consumption of the material memories of a glorified pre-communist past has also generated new antagonisms and exclusions. Unemployed peasant youth who, since the early 2000s, have migrated seasonally to work in Germany, Italy, and Spain, return home to claim homes and property in ways that fuel conflicts with emerging elites invested in heritage preservation. The ensuing tensions have made question of inheritance central to emerging inequalities with their distinct forms of sexualization and racialization. Ultimately, questions about how and what we inherit are questions about the futures we build and how we reimagine the world. The stay in Criț (24.-30. June 2024) is preceded by 3 short preparatory meetings throughout Spring semester (February-May 2024), on selected Friday mornings (held in hybrid format in Basel and on Zoom). During these initial meetings, we will discuss readings offering some background as well as logistical issues related to travel. |
| Learning objectives | During the field school research seminar in Romania, students will explore the politics and poetics of inheritance through a combination of daily lectures and discussions (by anthropologists from Romania, Bosnia, Ukraine, and Switzerland); engagements with local social actors and organizations; film screenings; and excursions. |
| Bibliography | Anghel, Remus Gabriel. 2013. Romanians in Western Europe: Migration, Status Dilemmas, and Transnational Connections. Lanham: Lexington. Grama, Emanuela. 2019. Socialist Heritage: The Politics of Past and Place in Romania. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Kideckel, David A. 2008. Getting By in Postsocialist Romania: Labor, the Body, and Working-class Culture. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Pavelescu, Anca and Manuela Boatcǎ. 2022. Creolizing the Modern: Transylvania across Empires. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Verdery, Katherine. 1999. The Political Lives of Dead Bodies: Reburial and Postsocialist Change. New York: Columbia University Press. |
| Course application | This is a field school research seminar that will take place in the village of Criț, Romania, between 23.-30. June 2024. Students can register for this seminar only on the basis of application (following formal acceptance to the summer field school program). The seminar is only open to MA students with a very strong background in social anthropology. The Selection Committee will assign 3-4 spots to MA students from the University of Basel and 3-4 spots to MA students from universities in Romania. To apply, please submit (i) a short CV and (ii) a letter of intent (max. 1-2 pages, single-spaced), detailing your training in the concepts and methods of social anthropology and other critical approaches. You may also include embodied knowledge/experience and expertise. Applications are due 10. January 2024 to ethnologie@unibas.ch. Results will be announced within a week from the deadline. The Institute of Social Anthropology at the University of Basel will cover the travel costs and arrange lodging and meals for all students involved. |
| Language of instruction | English |
| Use of digital media | No specific media used |
| Interval | Weekday | Time | Room |
|---|
No dates available. Please contact the lecturer.
| Modules |
Modul: Theory and General Anthropology (Master's degree subject: Anthropology) |
| Assessment format | continuous assessment |
| Assessment registration/deregistration | Reg.: course registration; dereg.: not required |
| Repeat examination | no repeat examination |
| Scale | Pass / Fail |
| Repeated registration | no repetition |
| Responsible faculty | Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, studadmin-philhist@unibas.ch |
| Offered by | Fachbereich Ethnologie |