Anthropology. Activism. Power. Celebrating 10 years of boasblogs

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Keynote by Prof. Dr. Shalini Randeria (U Bremen Excellence Chair Worlds of Contradiction): Soft Authoritarianisms & Politics of Hope

boasblogs (founded in 2016) are a series of topic-related blogs that take up current issues related to anthropology, discuss them in their controversiality, and ask about the public role and social impact of anthropological knowledge. All boasblogs, as public anthropology, aim to make scientific findings accessible to a broader public in order to make a critical-constructive contribution to contemporary social and political debates. boasblogs share anthropological knowledge with non-academic audiences in the broadest possible way but also see themselves as a space for intra-academic learning at the intersection of research and teaching. As a result, boasblogs have become an interdisciplinary, intergenerational, and increasingly international forum with numerous editorial teams and a diverse group of currently more than 550 authors, bringing together different institutions and perspectives and inviting readers to take the liberty of adding nuance to established conversations, raising objections or proposing their own topics.

At this conference, to celebrate our tenth anniversary, we focus on three current topics that assess the relation between anthropology, activism, and power in Germany and beyond. These topics will be introduced in individual boasblogs published in the run-up to the conference and will then be discussed during the conference in roundtables and interactive workshop formats.

The conference addresses a broad audience interested in the social and political relevance of anthropological research and perspectives and we look forward to the attendance of  past and future authors as well as members of the institutions in Bremen, Cologne, and Siegen that generously fund boasblogs.

Panel 1 | Roundtable | Inspecting Germany 

Ethnographically generated knowledge makes social processes visible and actively shapes them. Yet in Germany, its public reach often remains limited. This roundtable panel presents scholars working in the anthropology(ies) of the present to reflect on their own ethnographic research in Germany and its societal contribution. The roundtable aims to discuss what ethnographic research can teach us about contemporary social processes and how this work can contribute to ongoing debates, both within academia and in the public sphere. Anthropologists conducting research in Europe, in particular, often navigate the tension of being closely embedded in the “field” while simultaneously being part of the very social contexts they seek to study. In this panel we want to place these experiences at the center of the discussion. Thus the panel focuses on ethnographic research conducted in and about Germany and discusses relevant questions for a current public anthropology: How does anthropological research contribute to our understanding of contemporary social processes in Germany and beyond? What insights emerge through ethnographic fieldwork? And how can these insights be brought into ongoing societal debates?

Panel 2 | Live Commentary | Beyond Activism 

In this panel, we will examine the widespread science and activism-dichotomy and aim to challenge the distinction between activist and non-activist science that is repeatedly made within anthropology as well as other disciplines, and that usually evokes the possibility that knowledge practices with an agenda can be distinguished from knowledge practices without an agenda.

We will thus focus on the topic of “activist science” and “scholar-activism”, and invite a debate that addresses questions such as the following: Who calls whom an “activist” and for what reason? What epistemological and ethical assumptions are implicit in such a decision? How are the opposites of, or alternatives to, activist research conceptualized? Is such a distinction even possible? And what are the consequences of such conceptions for anthropological research and teaching?

In his Theses on Feuerbach Karl Marx wrote the famous sentence that the philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, was to change it. Vijay Prashad offers a twist with the quip that it would be impossible to know anything about the world without wanting to change it in some way. So now we would like to raise the question: Those who want to understand the world without wanting to change it: what do they claim to do? 

For each contribution, pre-selected quotes are displayed. Participants have the opportunity to comment on these quotes through a digital platform. After the comments are posted, an open discussion takes place in which authors and participants engage directly with each other. 

Panel 3 | Multimodal | Power Struggles: Academia 

This panel addresses recurring patterns in academic life that many experience but few can openly name: how power within academia is structured unevenly, opaquely, and often elides accountability. It shapes careers, produces legitimacy, and determines who is heard, cited, hired, promoted, or quietly pushed out.

Selection procedures for professorships that are formally transparent yet ethically opaque, hiring practices that often depend on informal endorsements rather than explicit criteria, and tightly knit networks that reproduce themselves under the guise of meritocracy, all point to these enduring conditions. In the German context, these dynamics are further shaped by the WissZeitVG, which produces structurally precarious career trajectories, and by the highly concentrated power and resources embedded in professorship appointment procedures. They are not simply matters of institutional framework but constitutive of the university’s ongoing neoliberal transformation, where intensified managerial regimes reorganise academic life and recast what counts as knowledge and who is authorised to produce it.

In practice, academic trajectories are rarely determined by formal criteria alone; they are also shaped by lineage, patronage, and alignment with established networks. Processes of evaluation, such as job interviews, grant reviews, and promotions, feel hard to predict, as they also involve dynamics of recognition, affective economies, and situated judgment. Under these conditions, belonging remains contingent while exclusion is routinely produced in ways that are systemic yet hard to articulate, sustained through subtle practices of censorship and self-censorship.

This panel will not only unpack these dynamics but also propose actionable points for redress. What forms of refusal, solidarity, or intervention are possible within and against these structures? How might accountability be meaningfully enacted, and how might academic life be organised otherwise? The panel will work through these questions collectively, using embodied and sensorial activities alongside discussion.

Schedule

12:30 Arrival

13:15–14:30 Panel 1 | Inspecting Germany

14:30–15:00 Break

15:00–16:15 Panel 2 | Beyond Activism

16:15–16:45 Break 

16:45–18:00 Panel 3 | Power Struggles in Academia 

18:30–20:00 Keynote | Shalini Randeria: Soft Authoritarianisms & Politics of Hope

20:00–22:00 Reception

Organizers

Franziska Fay (U Mainz), Ferdiansyah Thajib (U Erlangen-Nürnberg), Ehler Voss (U Bremen), and Martin Zillinger (U Cologne)

Contact

Franziska Fay <franzifa@uni-mainz.de>
Ferdiansyah Thajib <ferdi.thajib@fau.de>
Ehler Voss <ehler.voss@uni-bremen.de>
Martin Zillinger <martin.zillinger@uni-koeln.de>

Website

https://boasblogs.org

Funding Institutions 

The conference will be funded by the interdisciplinary and collaborative research platform Worlds of Contradiction (WOC) at the University of Bremen, the Collaborative Research Center (CRC) Media of Cooperation at the University of Siegen, the Global South Studies Center (GSSC) at the University of Cologne, and the ICI Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry.