Invitation and Call for Papers
SIEF Conference 17th -21st April 2011 in Lisbon
Workshop W101: ‚Shaping students‘
Studying a discipline such as ethnology is not just about generating knowledge in a specific academic field, it also influences the everyday life of its participants and defines their identities.
The workshop seeks to address what ‚ethnology‘ means or entails in particular national scholarly contexts and how change affects its contours. Considering from a neutral perspective, we can state the reducing or disestablishing of national singularities to the benefit of transnational compatibility during the process of harmonizing the different national systems. In the course of the ‚econimization‘ of administrative structure and academic culture in the universities, the life as a student changes, too.
In addition to the severe impact on how higher education works – leading to significant changes in the formal process of degree work – this educational Europeanisation also influences the ways in which we study and teach ethnology, and therefore it has a large impact on students‘ everyday lives. Extensive student protests in numerous European countries are a result of this massive restructuring. Are those protests affected or caused by the Bologna reforms in all countries, or is the process also understood as beneficial for the quality of academic instruction, and research?
Graduates and students of ethnology all over Europe and beyond are connected with ‚their‘ discipline, working with its distinct approaches and methods. Some move on to the more or less free economy, others rise as the next generation of scholars and lecturers. Therefore, today’s student culture offers perspectives on where ethnology is headed. Considering a European perspective, we can compare our different national experiences and observations to unfold gaps and divides within Europe, but also to reveal similarities which might point the direction of tomorrow’s European ethnology.
This discussion-based workshop aims to achieve an overview of how students perform and feel ‚their‘ ethnologies in Europe and beyond and how this affects students‘ everyday lifes in their local, regional and national context. Who are we as students of ethnology and where do we take the field? Modern instruments and techniques of moderation will be used intensively during the workshop. Therefore, we welcome papers with a strictly localized perspective as well as comparative ones that give an analytical overview on how the discipline is reacting to the Bologna accords.
This workshop especially invites participants below PhD level in order to give younger students the opportunity to take part in an international conference. A publication of the workshop’s results is intended.
Please propose papers using the following link until 15th of October 2010. http://www.nomadit.co.uk/sief/sief2011/panels.php5?PanelID=770
Christoph Bock & Hendrik Oberwinter, University of Göttingen