The Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology and the Department of
Science and Technology Studies invite applications for:
*Relating Risks.***
6th Vienna Ethnography Lab, September 28-30, 2022
In societies deeply permeated by uncertainties, risk has long become a
buzzword. Old and novel risks seem to be lurking everywhere and are
increasingly interrelated. The pandemic has once again revealed that
individual health risks have long become deeply intertwined with
political risks. But such related risks exist in other realms as well,
e.g. agrochemicals constitute risks for the environment, but their ban
might entail economic risks, establishing kin can mean sharing health
risks, but also extend to political exclusion. Concerns about who, what,
in what combination constitutes a "risky relation" transform individual
relations and societies. While the notion of risk inadvertedly concerns
time horizons and visions of the future, it has important consequences
for the present. The understanding of social, political, economic or
medical relations in terms of risk translates into forms of governance
and power differentials, but also impacts everyday life. How do people
deal with diverse environmental, political, social or health risks? What
is described as a risk in which contexts, and with which consequences?
Which practices (of knowledge production, quantification, etc.) and
experiences produce “risk” as a meaningful category for collective and
individual actors? Which technologies, organisms or models transform how
different risks are related and/or their relations obscured?
35 years after the publication of Ulrich Beck’s risk society and a
resurgent interest in the concept of risk, the laboratory’s goal is to
bring diverse strands of ethnographic research together and provide a
forum for intensive discussions of early career scholars’ ongoing or
recently completed research around risk related topics. Among them are:
environmental hazards and toxicity, novel technologies, political
instabilities, demographic developments, mobilities. Specifically, we
invite research that focuses on various actors ranging from patients,
becoming parents, tenants and other ordinary citizens to managers,
experts, scientists and politicians, all of whom relate risks thereby
challenging and/or reproducing hierarchies and inequalities.
The laboratory offers a selected group of advanced PhD students and
early post-doctoral scholars (max. 12 participants) the unique
opportunity to discuss their work with two distinguished guest scholars
and present their findings and ideas at an interdisciplinary forum.
Guest Scholars 2022
Prof. Michelle Murphy (Department of History, University of Toronto)
Dr. Michael Guggenheim (Department of Sociology, Goldsmiths University
of London)
Conveners
Prof. Tatjana Thelen (Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology,
Vienna)
Prof. Janina Kehr (Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Vienna)
Prof. Maximilian Fochler (Department of Science and Technology Studies,
Vienna)
Application
We invite prospective participants to send us their application by March
15 2022. Applications should include a short motivation letter, a short
CV, an abstract (250 words maximum) and an outline of research results
(approx. 3-4 pages) to be presented at the laboratory.
Please send your application to: hanna.vietze@univie.ac.at
All applicants will be notified of the selection outcome by early April,
2022.
Format and Organization
The laboratory is based on the discussion of pre-circulated papers,
additionally to the guest scholars’ input presentations. Participants
should hand in their full papers (up to 8000 words excluding the
bibliography) to be distributed among all participants by September 1.
Participants are expected to read all papers in advance and comment –
together with one guest scholar – at least on one of them during the
workshop in order to initiate and open up an intense discussion. Coffee
breaks and lunches are provided. There are no participation fees;
however please note that the organizers cannot cover travel expenses or
accommodation costs.
Venue
Department of Science and Technology Studies, University of Vienna.
