Egalitarianism: Forms, Processes, Comparisons*
Workshop in Ascona, Switzerland, 08.-15. March 2016
Host: Prof. Angela Hobart, Centro Incontri Umani.
Convenor:Prof. Bruce Kapferer (Project Leader), EgalitarianismProject, Dept. of
Social Anthropology, University of Bergen.
* = This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no. 340673
Workshop rationale and background
The ERC-funded research project “Egalitarianism: Forms, Processes, Comparisons” aims at a multi-dimensional critical approach to the issue of Egalitarianism.. The concept of Egalitarianism is extraordinarily broad, as is the no less nebulous ideal of equality, having virtually ontological value in modern Euro-American thought, increasingly so globally. While Egalitarianism is conventionally associated with Equality and its opposite Inequality, this Project takes Egalitarianism as an expansive term including going beyond these relatively more reductive terms. These, nonetheless, but especially that of Egalitarianism, are open to a continually expanding fan of meaning establishing the horizons of a great variety of often competing discourses in the philosophies and numerous more grounded domains of everyday practice. Egalitarianism is often virtually synonymous with other ideas, such as advancement and progress. It is quite explicitly the drive behind or the ideological legitimation for the impetus to dynamics of socio-economic and cultural change as well as myriad social and political criticisms and protest.
Workshop aims
Being a project that will be nearing its first two years of existence, the workshop will gather most of its active researchers, as well as a number of those affiliated, on its Advisory Board and relevant external commentators. The overarching aims of the workshop are;
a) to assess the status of the ongoing research within the project,
b) to work actively with presentations and papers presented by all participants within the project,
c) to benefit from comments and discussions from invited guests,
d) to develop new directions for ongoing fieldwork as well as analytical and theoretical directions,
e) to provide a setting for researchers within the project to become familiar with each other’s work and arguments.
Given these aims, the workshop is divided into two parts.
Summary programme
Part I -- 8-11 March: Fieldwork presentations, research updates and research papers
This part convenes as many active researchers on the project as possible, as well as the project’s administrative support. This first part is dedicated to primarily PhDs and postdocs on the project presenting their ongoing research and the status of their individual projects. This will involve oral presentations and discussions will revolve around fieldwork challenges and findings, as well as discuss how the current fieldwork/research relates to core themes of the egalitarianism project. The presentation – ideally around 15-20 minutes – will have such a form as to open for general discussion and around 1 hour will be set aside for discussing each person’s project. In addition to all participants on the Egalitarianism project, a few external commentators and discussants will be present as well. In addition there will be presentations from researchers on the project.
12 March: Day off
We check out possibilities to go for an outing up the mountains – possibly for skiing and/or lunch. More information will be provided before 12 March.
Part II – 13-14 March: Forums on egalitarianism, discussions and summing up
The second part of the workshop will continue with pre-written papers and invited guests to lead the discussion on this. The four postdocs on the project – Alessandro Zagato, Theo Rakopoulos, Anna Szolucha and DinesanVadakkyinil (from January 2016) – have suggested two forums that all in the Egal group will be invited to write a paper addressing. The forums are wholly organized by the postdoc group. In addition to the two for a, there will also be collective discussions in this part on specific themes.
Detailed programme
Part I – 08-11 March: Fieldwork presentations, research updates and research papers
Tuesday 08.03
Venue:Hotel la Perla, Via Collina 14, Asconalaperla.ch/
Arrival and check-in at hotels before lunch
13:00-14:00Lunch at Hotel la Perla
14:00-14:15Welcome to the Centro IncontriUmani
Prof. Angela Hobart
14:15-14:30Welcome and presentation of workshop programme
Prof. Bruce Kapferer
14:30-15:303-5 minute presentations of ongoing research from all project participants
15:30-15:45Coffee break
15:45-16:45Presentation of research paper from Alessandro Zagato
16:45-17:45Presentation of research paper from Theodoros Rakopoulos:
“Paranoid no more: Conspiracy “theory” in the Greek crisis”
17:45-18:45Presentation of research paper from DinesanVadakkyinil
19:30Dinner at Grotto Madonna della Fontana, Losone
Wednesday 09.03
Venue:Hotel la Perla, Via Collina 14, Asconalaperla.ch/
09:00-10:00Presentation of research paper from Anna Szolucha:
“At the intersections of grassroots resistance and a shale gas democracy: Navigating the politics of knowledge, time and representation in Lancashire, UK”
10:00-11:00Presentation of research paper from Marina Gold:
“Human rights: Structures and practice”
11:00Coffee break
11:15-12:15Presentations and fieldwork updates/findings from Jacob Hjortsberg
12:15-13:00Lunch at Hotel la Perla
13:00-15:00Presentations and fieldwork updates/findings from Mohammad Tareq Hasan
and Axel Rudi
15:00-15:30Coffee break
15:30-16:30Presentations and fieldwork updates/findings from MariaDyveke Styve
16:30-16:45Break
16:45-17:45Afternoon presentation by K. Ravi Raman, Nehru Memorial Museum &
Library New Delhi:
“DalitFeminitude: Corporate-State-Trade Union Hegemony and Struggles for Egalitarian Existence”
17:45-19:30Individual meetings between individual PhD students and supervisor(s).
20:00Dinner at Ristorante da Gina, Ascona
Thursday 10.03
Venue:Hotel la Perla, Via Collina 14, Ascona laperla.ch/
09:00-11:00General discussion 1: Comparison, methodology, Eurocentrism
What is the relation between anthropological reasoning and fieldwork as a methodology within the Egalitarianism project? Is egalitarianism irredeemably a Eurocentric concept? How can we rethink comparison within such schemes? Which avenues for and forms of comparison are rendered methodologically and analytically possible through the lens of egalitarianism?
Discussion leaders: Bruce Kapferer, Knut Rio, Annelin Eriksen
11:00-11:30Coffee break
11:00-12:30 General discussion 1: Comparison, methodology, Eurocentrism (cont.)
12:30-13:30Lunch at Hotel la Perla
13:30-15:30General discussion 2: Wealth and the Restructuring of Capital, Cosmologies of Wealth
Discussion leaders: Knut Rio, Theodoros Rakopoulos and Bruce Kapferer
15:30-15:45Coffee break
15:45-16:30General discussion 2: Wealth and the Restructuring of Capital, Cosmologies of Wealth (cont.)
16:30-17:30:Afternoon presentation by Mark Goodale, University of Lausanne:
TBA
17:30-19:00:Individual meetings to sort out administrative and economic issues pertaining
to travel, employment and fieldwork – contact Gro Aase and Marianne Soltveitin advance to book time.
20:00Dinner at Ristorante Osteria Nostrana, Ascona
Friday 11.03
Venue:Sala Eranos, Hotel Monte Verità, Strada Collina 84 - monteverita.org/
09:00-11:00General discussion 3:
Gender, egalitarian possibilities and the unconstraining of identity
Discussion leader: Annelin Eriksen
11:00-11:30Coffee break
11:30-12:30General discussion 3:
Gender, egalitarian possibilities and the unconstraining of identity (cont.)
12:30-13:30Lunch at Hotel Monte Verità
13:30-15:30General discussion 4:
The universalization of the urban and the ending of peasant society: New domains of egalitarian struggle
Discussion leaders: Bjørn Enge Bertelsen, Bruce Kapferer, Knut Rio
15:30-15:45Coffee break
15:45-16:30General discussion 4:
The universalization of the urban and the ending of peasant society: New domains of egalitarian struggle (cont.)
16:30-17:30Afternoon presentation by SundarSarukkai, Manipal Centre for Philosophy and Humanities, Manipal University:
“The sociality of caste and the challenges to egalitarianism”
19:00Dinner at Monte Verità
20:00-Public event at SalaEranos, Hotel Monte Verità with Alessandro Zagato:
“The Virgin of Cancuc and Subcomandante Marcos. A parallelism between symbolic constructions in past and current indigenous rebellions in Chiapas.
Saturday 12.03: Day off – no organized programme and possibilities to make trips in the area and region
Bosco Gurin, 42 kilometres from Ascona --
Part II – 13-15 March: Forums on egalitarianism, discussions and summing up
Sunday13.03
Venue:Sala Eranos, Hotel Monte Verità, Strada Collina 84 - monteverita.org/
09:00-11:00Forum 1: Egalitarian Paradoxes. Presentations of papers – comments by
guests and all other participants
11:00-11:30Coffee break
11:30-12:30Forum 1: Egalitarian Paradoxes. Presentations of papers – comments by
guests and all other participants (cont.)
12:30-13:30Lunch at Hotel Monte Verità
13:30-15:30General discussion 5:
Activism and humanitarianism: Resistance, revolution, or connivance with power?
“What tensions exist between political activism, activist anthropology and anthropological research on egalitarianism?”
Discussion leader: Bruce Kapferer, Anna Szolucha, Marina Gold
15:30-16:00Coffee break
16:00-17:00Afternoon presentation by Don Kalb, Central European University:
“Scale, class, and contestation in postsocialist Europe: explaining the Victory of the new Right”
17:00-19:00:Film session: Science fiction, cosmology, egalitarianism
Chaired by Rolf Scottand Knut Rio
20:00Dinner – venue to be announced
Monday14.03:
Venue:Sala Eranos, Hotel Monte Verità, Strada Collina 84 - monteverita.org/
09:00-11:00“Forum 2: Why is egalitarianism just a concept and when is it not?”
Presentations of papers – comments by guests and all other participants
11:00-11:30Coffee break
11:30-12:30“Forum 2: Why is egalitarianism just a concept and when is it not?”
Presentations of papers – comments by guests and all other participants (cont.)
12:30-13:30Lunch at Hotel Monte Verità
13:30-14:30Afternoon presentation by Penny Harvey, University of Manchester:
“Connectivity and Autonomy: the illicit economies of infrastructural investment”
14:30-15:00Coffee break
15:00-17:00General discussion 6:
State and Corporate reconfigurations: Syriza, Podemos, Corby and Trump
Discussion leaders: Theodoros Rakopoulos, Bruce Kapferer
17:00-19:00Individual meetings between individual PhD students and supervisor(s).
OR
17:00-19:00Showing of the film “Palio”?
20:00Dinner – venue to be announced
Tuesday 15.03:
Final day – summing up and looking forward
Venue:Sala Eranos, Hotel Monte Verità, Strada Collina 84 - monteverita.org/
09:00-10:30Planning upcoming events (workshops, conference participation, collaboration with other projects and intitiatives)
Discussion led by Bruce Kapferer
10:30-10:45Coffee break
10:45-12:00Programming for individual and collective publications coming out of the
Project
Discussion led by Bruce Kapferer
12:00-Departure
Practicalities
Travel
After confirming your attendance to the contact person, travel arrangements will be worked out and tickets generally bought in Bergen through the contact person. As Ascona is close to Milan(see ) and Zürich (see ), international connections through either of these might be the easiest option, taking a train or bus from there to Ascona.A flight to Locarno is also an option.
Accommodation
All attendees will have received information in advance about their site of accommodation in one of these two places:
CentroIncontriUmani/ Centre for Studies of Society and Culture
Via Signore in Croce 9
6612 Ascona
Telephone: +41-91-791-88-41
Hotel la Perla
Via Collina 14
6612 Ascona
tel.: + 91 791 35 77
Workshop venues
On 8, 9, and 10 March, the workshop is held at Hotel la Perla. On 11, 13, 14 and 15 the workshop is held at Hotel Monte Verità. The institutional workshop host is Centre for Studies of Society and Culture, Ascona, Switzerland
Dates
The full workshop runs from mid-day 8 March 2016 to departure 15 March 2016 in the afternoon.
Contact persons
Laura Simona, Centro Incontri Umani. , +41 91 791 88 41 (office) and +41 79 581 32 41 (mobile).
Bjørn Enge Bertelsen, Egalitarianism Project, Dept. of Social Anthropology, University of Bergen. / , +47-55589322 (office), +47-41103883 (mobile)
Abstracts
Forum 1:Egalitarian paradoxes
In the interest of emphasizing comparative aspects of egalitarian processes, we focus on what can be termed paradoxes, oxymora and contradictions here. Egalitarianism is stranded with paradoxical makings. If egalitarianism is an ideological plain, surely it is inhabited by contradictions, but also the very perception of its bearing contradictions can be a product of its ideological making.
There are egalitarian processes leading to inegalitarian effects, as, most unambiguously, the modern system itself, where liberal institutions reflect political representation with nominal equality, while capitalism is itself premised on stratifying systems of political economy. There are also surprising reverses, as for instance cases where the otherwise inegalitarian institution of caste becoming a potentiality to challenge continuing inequality. If egalitarianism is an ideological plain embodied of contradictions, are the contradictions a product of its ideological making? Is the very making of the paradox, questioning whether encountering “contradictions” an outcome of a certain normativity of egalitarianist ideologies that pertains our own analytical inquiry?
But when we say paradox of egalitarianism, do we assume that egalitarianism must be something having some definite structures/attributes wherein a deviation from it leads to a paradoxical situation? If egalitarianism is more than equality, and indeed comprises an array of institutions and practices that extend into and unsettle the idea of idealised non-stratification, then how do we account for the very notion of paradox?
This forum would invite explorations of the above overlapping problematics. On the one hand, we aim to tackle how the dialectics of egalitarianism lead to unexpected occasions. On the other, we shall debate, in a reflective turn, that very making of the paradox, questioning whether encountering “contradictions” is an outcome of a certain normativity of egalitarianist ideologies that pertains our own analytical inquiry.
Forum 2: Why is egalitarianism just a concept and when is it not?
Aporia of egalitarianism: it is just a concept – a theoretically complex and excessively or vaguely normative invention that is largely ignorant of or separate from messy empirical realities. Yet, it is a concept that one can't do without and the question this forum poses is why?
Why do so many radically different social actors and thinkers come back to this idea so often and for so many divergent reasons? Egalitarianism (in its different guises: equality, solidarity etc.) has an expedient political/ideological and practical value. As an ideal or an essentially contested concept, it could be used and abused in virtually all shapes or forms for a particular strategic gain (that is readily apparent or not by being an indirect effect of a technological innovation, for example).Generally speaking, material expressions of egalitarianism could always be seen as somehow betraying the purity of the abstract concept, and therefore tending to its opposite – inequality and domination. Consequently, this type of critical approach may be employed in an ideological way to work against any egalitarian aspirations.
The problem is, however, that seeing egalitarianism in this way, making this kind of (unkind) judgements about egalitarianism itself presupposes a privileged position of somebody outside of the power play. The position that is often embodied by the figure of the academic, who, as a researcher tends (in the current ideology) to analyse phenomena from a seemingly “neutral” point of view, one that is materially, ideologically, and emotionally separated from concrete situations, perhaps even somewhat cynical. Such an attitude leads the academic to approach concrete expressions of egalitarianism as curious aberrations – similarly to the way the “occidental subject” sees cultures from her peculiar position.
Certainly egalitarianism is just a concept but it isn't just that for a lot of people in a lot of places and a lot of the time. How do we deal with this disjuncture? Do we cautiously suspend our judgement? Positing an actor's equality and solidarity as 'true', 'real' etc. is usually what treating egalitarianism as more than a concept means in practice. Should we then dismiss all claims to 'real' equality, freedom or solidarity as spurious or ignorant of other historical and spatial contexts since we 'know' that this cannot be 'egalitarianism'? Or do we (consciously or unconsciously) take these claims at their face value, embrace manifestations of 'real' egalitarianism with wide eyes, get overwhelmed, lulled into self-justified satisfaction or become involved in political activism? Or should we consider egalitarianism as a praxis, as a concept necessarily related to concrete situations, to singular forms of thought, and therefore exposed to contradiction and openendedness? How are social movements, state formations and various other forms of social and political initiative negotiating and dealing with this aporia? What can their experience contribute to the theoretical legacy of the idea of egalitarianism?
This forum aims to bring together a rigorous investigation of this conceptual aporia with a critical re-thinking of one's own position (as a researcher in our case) in relation to egalitarianism as a concept and as a real practice.
In order to do that, we are calling for papers/presentations dealing with ethnographic cases where this aporia of egalitarianism becomes tangible – situations where the researcher has to deal with the concrete, ambiguous and contradictory outcomes of a necessary idea.
Marina Gold, University of Bergen:
“Human Rights: Structures and Practice”
Key terms within the Western world tend to be assumed as self-explanatory: freedom, equality, humanity – more generally, human rights – are some such terms. An essential instrument of egalitarianism within the west is the discourse of human rights. After all, by the mere virtue of being human, we have rights. The perpetual humanitarian crises, continuous human rights violations and increasingly escalating conflicts point to a contradiction. If human rights are so self-evident, why are they always steeped in conflict? My project looks at the discourse of Human Rights, from an anthropologically critical perspective, as an ideological discourse of the Western world that rests on Egalitarian principles. The project has two aspects: a theoretical one, which considers the literature on human rights and interrogates the main tendencies underlying human rights theories; and a analysis of human rights as applied in practice. This second element of the project has, in turn, two aspects: the analysis of the refugee crisis in Europe as an event that highlights the crisis of human rights institutions and ideologies within Europe; and an analysis of those institutions that articulate humanitarian assistance in the name of human rights. This presentation will focus on this last element of the project. After briefly outlining the theoretical implications of human rights discourse, I will focus mostly on my recent fieldwork within humanitarian international NGOs in order to present a brief glimpse at articulations between humanitarian projects, the discourse of human rights and the emergence of new state formations of a corporate kind.
Penelope Harvey, University of Manchester:
“Connectivity and Autonomy: the illicit economies of infrastructural investment”
The common articulation of economic growth and infrastructural investment is an expression of a basic understanding of how value accrues through the unimpeded flows of persons, products, resources, information and money. Investments in public infrastructures are routinely justified in these same terms. Infrastructural projects for social development (such as roads, water, sanitation and refuse disposal systems) are widely assumed to be generative of both social welfare and economic growth. However it is also the case that despite popular support, infrastructural interventions are also routinely assumed to involve the illicit generation of wealth for some at the expense of others. Such assumptions, often articulated as accusations of corruption and foul play, or suspicions of hidden agencies and interests, do not necessarily undermine a more diffuse faith in the generative capacity of infrastructural systems, but they do draw attention to negative externalities, including their differential and differentiating effects. Indeed it is especially in relation to their unrealisedeconomic promise that public infrastructures comprise a deeply ambiguous public ‘good’. This tension is heightened by the neoliberal insistence on privatization and the emergence of infrastructures as capital assets that can be traded as financial objects with no concern for their specific uses as material substrates supporting complex livelihood practices. Furthermore the pervasive sense of global financial and environmental crisis, exacerbated by the threat to existing infrastructural provision, provokes a paradoxical desire for further infrastructural investment and securitization as the optimum way to ensure a sustainable and socially inclusive future. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in the Peruvian Andes this paper explores how dynamics of connectivity and autonomy characterize an attempt to bring a new sanitation infrastructure into being.