Information about Coronavirus / Covid-19 (updated 4/4/22)

Important informations about teaching programme

• The schedule of lectures for the summer term 2022 is online!
• Summer term will be implemented with in-person teaching. FFF2 masks in all courses (lecturers and presenter are excempt!) and on all University premises.
• Students should keep an eye on this homepage and the homepage of the university. Students should also check informations for their individual courses on StudIP.
• We would also like to inform you about the psychological counseling services    provided by the Studentenwerk Halle.
  

Anton Wilhelm Amo Lecture 2022 on 22th June (in attendance and online)

This year's Anton Wilhelm Amo Lecture 2022 by Prod. Dr. Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni (Chair in Epistemologies of the Global South, University of Bayreuth) entitled "Genealogies of Decolonization and Tasks of Decoloniality in the 21st Century" will take place on Wednesday, June 22 at 6:15 p.m. in the lecture hall IV (Ludwig-Wucherer-Str. 2, 06108 Halle-Saale). It will also be streamed live at: BIT.LY/AMO-2022 (password: amo-Lecture22). For more information about the event, see the document below.

War in Ukraine

The Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology condemns Wladimir Putin’s war against the Ukrainian people and territory. We watch the dramatic events unfolding in Ukraine with dismay. The institute supports the “EASA Statement on the Russian war against Ukraine”   . We try to offer support as best as possible for those affected by war. Information for refugees and those who want to provide support in the city of Halle can be found here   . The university has supplied information here and here. The German Anthropological Association has issued information for Ukrainian scientists here   . Inquiries to the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology can be addressed to felix.schiedlowski@ethnologie.uni-halle.de.

Retirement of Prof. Dr. Burkhard Schnepel

After 20 eventful years at Martin Luther University, Prof. Dr. Burkhard Schnepel recently retired with the end of the winter semester 2021/22. As a founding member of the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology since 2002, he was crucial in establishing Social and Cultural Anthropology at Martin Luther University and in making Halle one of the centres of the discipline beyond Germany. His work was not limited to the Institute, however, as he made a significant contribution to anchoring the discipline at MLU by assuming numerous leading positions. Burkhard Schnepel was Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy I (2010-14), Director of the Oriental Studies Centre (from 2007), co-initiator and founding director of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Regional Studies (from 2009), board member of the graduate school "Asia and Africa", and member of the Senate (2014-18). In addition to his institutional commitment, Burkhard Schnepel also led numerous third-party funded projects on research in South Asia and the Indian Ocean, which were supported by the German Research Foundation, the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, the Volkswagen Foundation, and the Max Planck Society, among others. His research interests include topics such as sacred kingship, theories of ritual and performance, personhood, and cultural heritage. He has also made important contributions to the anthropology of the night and of tourism. The main focus of his research in Halle, however, consisted in ethnohistorical studies, with his research initially focussing on Orissa, India, subsequently including Mauritius, and finally extending to the Indian Ocean. Burkhard Schnepel established Halle as the most important German location for Indian Ocean Studies with international appeal. With his Max Planck Fellow Group "Connectivity in Motion: Port Cities of the Indian Ocean", the organisation of several international and interdisciplinary conferences and summer schools, the cooperation with Utkal University in Orissa, the University of Mauritius, McGill University in Canada and New York University Shanghai, as well as numerous relevant publications on the Indian Ocean, Burkhard Schnepel has contributed significantly to the reputation of Martin Luther University. We would like to express our sincere thanks for his significant commitment to the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg and to the social sciences and humanities as a whole, and wish him all the best for his well-deserved retirement.

Just published: The Oxford Handbook of Law and Anthropology

The Oxford Handbook of Law and Anthropology - co-edited by Olaf Zenker with Marie-Claire Foblets (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology), Mark Goodale (University of Lausanne) and Maria Sapignoli (University of Milan) - was recently published. This collection of 49 chapters plus Introduction provides an original and internationally framed conception of the historical, theoretical, and ethnographic interconnections of law and anthropology. Each of the essays in the Handbook provides a survey of the current state of scholarly debate and an argument about the future direction of research in this dynamic and interdisciplinary field. The structure of the Handbook is animated by an overarching collective narrative about how law and anthropology have and should relate to each other as intersecting domains of inquiry that address such fundamental questions as dispute resolution, normative ordering, social organization, and legal, political, and social identity.

You can find out more here about the print edition    as well as the online version    of this Handbook.

Neu erschienen: Unter Uns - Bildproduktion im Mansfelder Land

06.04.2022: Im Sommer 2020 fand das Festival der Werkleitz-Gesellschaft in Hettstedt statt. Unter dem Titel "Unter Uns - Bildproduktion im Mansfelder Land"    befassten sich KünstlerInnen und Studierende der der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, der Burg Giebichenstein  Kunsthochschule Halle und der Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst  Leipzig mit dem Leben im Mansfelder Land. Das Seminar für Ethnologie war mit Asta Vonderau vertreten, unter der Leitung von Kati Illmann haben auch Studierende des SfE am Festival teilgenommen. Aus künsterlischen Ideen, wissenschaftlichen Beobachtungen, dem Input von Akteuren vor Ort sowie dem Blick von außen entstand ein tiefgründiges Bild dieser Region. Eine Dokumentation des Festivals   , darunter auch Beiträge von Kati Illmann und Ethnologie-Studierenden, ist nun im Mitteldeutschen Verlag erschienen (Oktober 2021, 88 Seiten, 12 Euro).

Before the Law - Affective Dynamics in the Digital Transformation of German Immigration Management: An Episode from the Podcast “More than a Feeling - Feelings and Society”

What feelings are at play when a complex, multi-layered and highly politicised process such as immigration to Germany is administered - also and especially on the part of those entrusted with the bureaucratic work? Questions of power and powerlessness are crucial here, as are concerns about the (non-)legality of procedures. Feelings of coldness and harshness, of injustice on both sides, among immigrants and public administrators, as well as bureaucratic sentiments more generally constitute the contested field from which Olaf Zenker and Larissa Vetters (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology) report with regard to their research project "Sentiments of Bureaucracies: Affective Dynamics in the Digital Transformation of German Immigration Management" at the Collaborative Research Centre 1171 "Affective Societies".

You can learn more here    about the project, its challenges under pandemic working conditions and what happens to the digitisers when they are digitised.