Message posted on 11/05/2021

CFP reminder: Environmental Anthropology 2021: Hope, Ruination and Environmentalism

Dear colleagues,

Please see below a reminder for the second biannual meeting of the Network for Environment & Anthropology of the EASA (EnviroAnt):

Environmental Anthropology 2021: Hope, Ruination and Environmentalism14-15 October 2021, School of Humanities, Tallinn University (possibly hybrid or digital)

Please send your abstract (max 200 words) and a short bio (max 50 words) to EnviroAnt.Network@gmail.com by May 15 2021.

The workshop focuses on the interplay between hope and ruination in the politics of making and remaking landscapes. Environmental degradation has been a key concern to activists, but equally to artists, anthropologists and scholars in related disciplines. Taking contested landscapes as its starting point and material anchor, this workshop explores stories of environmental destruction, but invites the participants to also attend to the related hopes for ecological transitions and sustainable futures. How do humans inhabit ruined temporalities and spatialities of Anthropocene landscapes? How do the undercurrents of hope and ruination present themselves in art and activism, creating future landscapes?

This workshop provides a forum for anthropologists, activists and artists to explore these themes and related questions through bringing their different approaches and experiences into conversation. This will be facilitated through three blocks, each consisting of a keynote address, a series of Pecha Kucha presentations and an extended discussion. Each block focuses on one of our three keywords: environment, ruination and hope.

  1. Contesting the relations of landscape, art and environment (keynote presenters: Rasa and Raitis Smite, RIXC the Center for Art and Science, Latvia)
  2. Ruined pasts, ruined futures (keynote presenter: Annika Lems, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Germany)
  3. Hope and activism across boundaries (keynote presenter: Andreas Malm, Lund University, Sweden)

With its cross-sectorial scope, the event hopes to foster collaborations between participants from different backgrounds, develop the relevance of anthropology in addressing the challenges of environmental crises, and imagine possible solutions. Alongside contributions from within anthropology and related disciplines (e.g. environmental humanities, sociology, critical geography, etc.) we welcome submissions from artists and people with experience in ecological activism that correspond with the thematic focus of the conference, focussing on hope and ruination in contested landscapes across the globe or in post-Soviet contexts in particular.

If you work in anthropology, activism, art or a related field and would like to contribute to this workshop with a Pecha Kucha presentation, please send a proposed title, an approx. 200-word abstract and a 50-word bio note to enviroant.network@gmail.com by 15th of May 2021.

This event is organised by the Environment and Anthropology Network ( EnviroAnt) of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) in collaboration with the Estonian Centre for Environmental History KAJAK (Tallinn University) and the Ethnology Department and UNESCO Chair of Applied Studies of Intangible Heritage (University of Tartu). For more information, please visit www.environmental-anthropology.com

As much as possible, this event will take place in Tallinn; depending on the development of the Covid19 pandemic, it will have hybrid elements or may be held online entirely. Updates on the final format should be distributed by July 2021.

Hosted in Tallinn, exactly 30 years after its independence from the Soviet Union, the workshop will draw specific attention to Soviet, post-socialist, and capitalist regimes of landscape (trans)formation. How does the allocation also contestation of private, military, and public spaces shape environmental relations? How do ruined landscapes come into being and transform, and how do they continue to exist in relation to shifting mechanisms of power? What role do past socialist and colonial rule, stipulations and aftermaths play in contemporary environmental degradation and exploitation, activism and conservation?

Pecha Kucha is a presentation format in which the presenter has 20 slides that are displayed 20 seconds each. This provides the speaker with a total of 6 minutes and 40 seconds to present their work and allows for quick and effective transmission of ideas when meeting in person. It is also particularly suitable for hybrid and online meetings, as people’s attention spans tend to be shorter when looking at a screen. The Pecha Kucha presentations will be thematically clustered in groups of four, allowing ample time for discussion. All presentations will be plenary and there will be no parallel sessions.


Dr. Arvid van Dam Anthropology | Environment | Design University of Bonn | arvidvandam@uni-bonn.de


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