Boasblogs

The boasblogs are a series of topic-related blogs that take up current topics relating to the anthropological sciences, discuss them in their controversy through a wide circle of contributors, and at the same time ask about the public role and social relevance of anthropological knowledge.

All boasblogs, in the sense of a public anthropology, aims to make scientific findings accessible to a broader public in order to make a critical-constructive contribution to current social debates and to help shape social relations at various political, social and everyday levels.

Every single boasblog is published and organized by different and independent editors. Suggestions for new topics and editorial teams are continuously requested at: info@boasblogs.org

Editors of the blog series are: Christoph Antweiler (Bonn), Michi Knecht (Bremen), Ehler Voss (Bremen) & Martin Zillinger (Cologne)

The blog series is jointly financed by the Collaborative Research Center (CRC) Media of Cooperation at the University of Siegen, the Department of Anthropology and Cultural Research (IFEK) at the University of Bremen, the Global South Studies Center at Cologne University (GSSC) & the Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften.

About the blogs

So far, four blogs have been released, each of which was supervised by different editorial boards.

The first – “Cultural Relativism and Enlightenment” – was published in December 2016 as a reaction to an article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, in which social and cultural anthropology was accused of justifying inhuman practices and of having a lack of distance from its subject matter. The contributions are mainly in German.

Editorial Board: Christoph Antweiler (Bonn), Ehler Voss (Bremen), Martin Zillinger (Köln)

This blog was superseded in October 2017 by a second blog, which is still running today. Under the title “How to move on with Humboldt’s legacy? Rethinking ethnographic collections“ – Wie weiter mit Humboldts Erbe? Ethnographische Sammlungen neu denken” it deals with the opposite accusation of colonialism and, on the occasion of current discussions about the concept and design of the Humboldt Forum in Berlin, also asks about innovative and contemporary approaches to ethnographic collections. The blog is bilingual in German and English.

Editorial Board: Anna Brus (Universität Siegen), Larissa Förster (Berlin), Gabriel Schimmeroth (Hamburg), Michi Knecht (Bremen), Verena Rodatus (Berlin), Ehler Voss (Bremen) & Martin Zillinger (Köln)

The third blog was prompted by the controversy surrounding the recent renaming of the “German Ethnological Society / Deutsche Gesellschaft für Völkerkunde (DGV) ” to “Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie (DGSKA) (the English title of this association had since long been „German Anthropological Association“). Under the title “What’s in a name”, the blog asked what this renaming stands for, i.e. what it conveys about the history, present and future of this discipline in German speaking countries. The contributions are mainly in German. The blog ran from April to August 2018.

Editorial Board: Christoph Antweiler (Bonn), Michi Knecht (Bremen), Ehler Voss (Bremen), Martin Zillinger (Köln)

A fourth blog ran from October 2018 to February 2019 concerning the question “Why Anthropology? Current Student Views”. The editorial work was done by a group of anthropology students at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, who designed the blog as part of a seminar offered by Ehler Voss on the topic of “Publishing in Online Media” and were responsible for supervising it. The contributions are mainly in German.

Editorial Board: Clarissa Bach, Alexandra Ditscher, Charlotte Kaiser, Christopher Klapperich, Judith König & Matthias Merbitz-Zahradnik (alle Mainz)

In September 2019 a new blog with the title “The end of negotiations!?” will be launched. The blog aims to critically discuss current processes in which the potentially unlimited dynamics of social negotiations are brought to an end by acts of closure or opened to new negotiations after a temporary closure. The blog prepares for the conference of the same name of the German Society for Cultural and Social Anthropology, which will take place in Constance at the end of September.

Editorial Board: Thomas Kirsch (Konstanz), Michi Knecht (Bremen), Ehler Voss (Bremen)