This roundtable discussion\, led by Anna Schmid editor of ‘ Each case is different. Anthropologial Provenance Research at the Museum d er Kulturen Basel’ alongside Fred von Bose (Museum der Kulturen Basel) a nd Zainabu Jallo (Collegium Helveticum\, ETH Zurich\, University of Basel) discusses the implications of anthropological provenance research. Proven ance research involves much more than simply tracing objects back to their origin: it opens up new perspectives on single items as well as entire co llections\, on their histories\, and the multifaceted relations inscribed in them. The Museum der Kulturen Basel is systematically investigating its collections with regard to its coloniality\, a task that highlights how c omplex and challenging the work of anthropological provenance research can be\, but also how essential cooperation with people and communities in th e Global South is.
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20260311T193000 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news432@ethnologie.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20260126T140342 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20260325T161500 SUMMARY:Love\, Porosity\, and the Grammar of Possession in Niger DESCRIPTION:In Muslim-majority Niger\, adolescent schoolgirls have recently become the prime target of vindictive\, jealous jinn. Amid a perceived ep idemic of immorality\, religious authorities and ordinary people alike des cribe the victims' susceptibility to spirit attacks in the language of por osity and sensuality. Meanwhile\, intensifying critiques of practices of b eautification signal acute concerns with the protection of bodily boundari es. In my talk\, I explore how\, as permeable interfaces of active spiritu al traffic\, female bodies in Niger constitute a useful tool in the hands of religious actors yearning to re-moralize society. I trace the multiple demands that a surge of spirit attacks selectively places on female bodies and female aspirations and I consider how Muslim moralities become attach ed to a female capacity for absorption that manifests through diverse expe riences\, including “natural” openness\, impiety\, prettification\, an d emotionality.Adeline Masquelier is Professor of Anthropology at Tulane U niversity. As a sociocultural anthropologist\, she has conducted research in Niger\, West Africa\, for over thirty years on topics such as religion\ , gender\, health\, youth cultures\, education\, and environmental issues and authored three books based on her research. X-ALT-DESC:In Muslim-majority Niger\, adolescent schoolgirls have recent
ly become the prime target of vindictive\, jealous jinn. Amid a perceived
epidemic of immorality\, religious authorities and ordinary people alike d
escribe the victims' susceptibility to spirit attacks in the language of p
orosity and sensuality. Meanwhile\, intensifying critiques of practices of
beautification signal acute concerns with the protection of bodily bounda
ries. In my talk\, I explore how\, as permeable interfaces of active spiri
tual traffic\, female bodies in Niger constitute a useful tool in the hand
s of religious actors yearning to re-moralize society. I trace the multipl
e demands that a surge of spirit attacks selectively places on female bodi
es and female aspirations and I consider how Muslim moralities become atta
ched to a female capacity for absorption that manifests through diverse ex
periences\, including “natural” openness\, impiety\, prettification\,
and emotionality.
Adeline Masquelier is Profes
sor of Anthropology at Tulane University. As a sociocultural anthropologis
t\, she has conducted research in Niger\, West Africa\, for over thirty ye
ars on topics such as religion\, gender\, health\, youth cultures\, educat
ion\, and environmental issues and authored three books based on her resea
rch.
This book launch discusses \; Candomblé's material cultu re and its relationship with the evolving cultural politics of Brazil. The monograph employs artefacts as analytical tools to trace the emergence of a diasporic consciousness. By tracing the historical movements of artefac ts\, the study reveals how Candomblé has transitioned from a secluded sac red tradition marked by discrimination and persecution to its inclusion in the construction of a new cultural character in Brazil. While maintaining its esoteric traditions and contending with ongoing discrimination\, the Candomblé sphere has evolved into a confluence of socio-religious and pol itical expressions in sacred and spectacular contexts. This research highl ights the crucial role of artefacts in the various stages of Candomblé's evolvement. It demonstrates how diasporic communities progressively exerci se political and cultural significance within new societal contexts. The a nticipated readership for this publication includes a diverse group of sch olars\, particularly those engaged in anthropology\, material culture\, ar t history\, history\, and religious studies.
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20260415T180000 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news434@ethnologie.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20260126T140304 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20260422T161500 SUMMARY:Making Space in a Tight City: Youth\, Intimacy and Belonging in Lag os DESCRIPTION:Over the past two decades\, metaphors of stasis\, such as “wa ithood”\, “being stuck”\, or “waiting”\, have been mobilized to describe the conditions of prolonged youth that many Africans experience i n the face of economic instability. As urban centers across the continent grow with youthful populations that cannot be absorbed by job markets\, th ere is a lingering sense that young Africans must put their futures on hol d. Yet the overwhelming attention to deferred futures often leaves underex plored\, what lives these young people make in the present. Residents in L agos – Nigeria’s capital – constantly navigate urban precarities to constitute alternative visions and practices of space\, intimacy\, and bel onging in the growing absence of the more normative routes to stability. D rawing on two years of ethnographic field research\, this talk examines yo uth subjectivity in the contemporary urban landscape of Lagos as emergent through everyday practices of negotiating space and re-constituting intima cy. It follows scenes of youth sociality on a street bar\, university camp us\, and church\, to discuss how young Lagosians inhabit the tight and pro visional infrastructures of the city to make a life. By tracing the questi on of “intimacy” through these seemingly contradictory but co-eval sit es\, I ask\, what intimate encounters and practices emerge under the condi tions of spatial tightness and provisionality\, and how do these intersect with more normative imaginaries of intimate life? How do young Lagosians use the body to make stable that which is uncertain and how do these bodil y/intimate practices elicit discourses about youth as a ‘problem-categor y’. The talk argues that while practices of making space on a material and affective level ensure new pathways to intimacy\, they also become the very processes by which youth is recognized and disciplined by the state. \\r\\nDiekara Oloruntoba-Oju is a doctoral student in the Department o f African and African American Studies with a primary field in Anthropolog y. She did her undergraduate degree in German and French at Obafemi Awol owo University\, Ile-Ife and her Masters in African Studies at Cambridge U niversity.Her research interests are around contemporary urban youth cultu res and subcultures in Nigeria with specific attention to themes of resist ance\, textuality\, embodiment\, and intimacy. She has done research aro und the paradoxes of compliance and resistance in West Africa popular musi c as well as figurations of the queer self in contemporary Nigerian youth texts in which she examines how temporal texts and everyday performances o f the body (pointedly\, the young body) intimately and/or precariously rel ate with broader institutions of power such as the State\, religion\, and the economy.Also interested in literature\, Diekara writes fiction and wor ks (now remotely) as an organiser for the Cambridge University African Lit erature Book Club\, run by the Center of African Studies\, Cambridge. X-ALT-DESC:Over the past two decades\, metaphors of stasis\, such as “
waithood”\, “being stuck”\, or “waiting”\, have been mobilized t
o describe the conditions of prolonged youth that many Africans experience
in the face of economic instability. As urban centers across the continen
t grow with youthful populations that cannot be absorbed by job markets\,
there is a lingering sense that young Africans must put their futures on h
old. Yet the overwhelming attention to deferred futures often leaves under
explored\, what lives these young people make in the present. Residents in
Lagos – Nigeria’s capital – constantly navigate urban precarities t
o constitute alternative visions and practices of space\, intimacy\, and b
elonging in the growing absence of the more normative routes to stability.
Drawing on two years of ethnographic field research\, this talk examines
youth subjectivity in the contemporary urban landscape of Lagos as emergen
t through everyday practices of negotiating space and re-constituting inti
macy. It follows scenes of youth sociality on a street bar\, university ca
mpus\, and church\, to discuss how young Lagosians inhabit the tight and p
rovisional infrastructures of the city to make a life. By tracing the ques
tion of “intimacy” through these seemingly contradictory but co-eval s
ites\, I ask\, what intimate encounters and practices emerge under the con
ditions of spatial tightness and provisionality\, and how do these interse
ct with more normative imaginaries of intimate life? How do young Lagosian
s use the body to make stable that which is uncertain and how do these bod
ily/intimate practices elicit discourses about youth as a ‘problem-categ
ory’. \;The talk argues that while practices of making space on a ma
terial and affective level ensure new pathways to intimacy\, they also bec
ome the very processes by which youth is recognized and disciplined by the
state. \;
\;
Diekara Oloruntoba-Oju is a doctoral student in the Department of African and African American
Studies with a primary field in Anthropology. \; She did her undergrad
uate degree in German and French at Obafemi Awolowo University\, Ile-Ife a
nd her Masters in African Studies at Cambridge University.
Her resear
ch interests are around contemporary urban youth cultures and subcultures
in Nigeria with specific attention to themes of resistance\, textuality\,
embodiment\, and intimacy. \; She has done research around the paradox
es of compliance and resistance in West Africa popular music as well as fi
gurations of the queer self in contemporary Nigerian youth texts in which
she examines how temporal texts and everyday performances of the body (poi
ntedly\, the young body) intimately and/or precariously relate with broade
r institutions of power such as the State\, religion\, and the economy.
Also interested in literature\, Diekara writes fiction and works (now r
emotely) as an organiser for the Cambridge University African Literature B
ook Club\, run by the Center of African Studies\, Cambridge.
This talk is based on a book project on the ways in which ind
ustrial enclaves and largescale commercial agricultural projects establish
ed in the midst of rural landscapes affect agrarian livelihoods. In areas
previously occupied by peasant communities of subsistence farmers\, whose
experience of spacetime was shaped by the seasonal alternation of manually
cultivated and rotated food crops\, and the longer periodicity of fallows
that produced a mosaic of cultivated plots and secondary forest growth\,
and farming was supplemented by hunting and gathering\, “new enclosures
” are dramatically reshaping relations with time and place\, including r
emoval of ancient villages to new locations\, and abandoning ancestral gra
ves and sacred ritual forest groves. Local peasants have adopted a number
of different strategies to accommodate\, modify\, or resist these changes\
, and several cases from Sierra Leone and Liberia will be examined here.&n
bsp\;
Mariane C. Ferme is a sociocultural anth
ropologist whose current research focuses on the political imagination\, v
iolence and conflict\, and access to justice in West Africa\, particularly
Sierra Leone. She received her PhD in Anthropology from the University of
Chicago\, after studying Political Science at the University of Milano\,
Italy\, and majoring in anthropology at Wellesley College.
The chapter began as an attempt to write from a photograph ta ken in a hospital room in Tehran shortly before the death of a friend. In the process of writing\, the text shifted its own orientation\, moving tow ard an address in the second person. What emerged was not a description of scenes\, but a way of writing to someone who cannot answer. Beginning fro m this address raises a question about how an ethnographic book might begi n – not with a field\, a problem\, or an argument\, but with the ethical force of a relation that resists response.
\nMirco Göpfert is professor for social and cultural anthropology. He received h is doctorate in anthropology from the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in 2014 and taught at the University of Konstanz before coming to the Goet he University in 2018.
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20260506T180000 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news437@ethnologie.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20260126T140200 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20260513T161500 SUMMARY:MA Theses Presentation DESCRIPTION:Anthropology students present their ongoing MA theses X-ALT-DESC:Anthropology students present their ongoing MA theses DTEND;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20260513T180000 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news438@ethnologie.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20260126T140143 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20260520T161500 SUMMARY:Fieldwork Course Presentation: “Neighbors” DESCRIPTION:Students of the fieldwork course "Neighbors" present their rese arch outcomes.\\r\\nThe event will be followed by a end of semester apéro . X-ALT-DESC:Students of the fieldwork course "Neighbors" present their re search outcomes.
\nThe event will be followed by a end of semester a péro.
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20260520T180000 END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR