Borrowing the title from Michael Taussig’s (1997) book The Magic of the State, this seminar addresses some of the often unquestioned assumptions which animate our understandings of the state, power and politics. It aims at looking into this “magic” that we often assign to the State, i.e. the “spirit” or “life of its own” which it is assumed to have independently of the people and their actions that in fact shape it.
From early on, anthropology has been interested in how societies are organised, how decisions are made, what hierarchies and political structures exist. Statehood was thereby often taken as the implied yardstick against which these societies were portrayed, and key to what anthropologists regarded as political. Problematizing this bias helps us both to appreciate the various possibilities of social and political organization beyond the state as well as turn our analytical interest on how states actually function, the relations that they forge, the different forms of violence that they assume, and the myths and imaginaries that they generate.
This seminar aims at providing an introduction to the different ways in which anthropology has over time engaged with questions of the political. Focusing on key debates, questions and concepts, the seminar begins by looking into some early examples of anthropological writings and the crucial critique against them, before discussing research of contemporary scholars. In doing so, the seminar addresses the shifting approaches toward state and statelessness, hierarchies and inequalities, colonialism and transnationalism, nationalism and citizenship, power and resistance, borders, policing and surveillance.
This seminar will be held in English, but assignments can also be handed-in in German.

In this seminar, we explore the reproduction of everyday power through intersecting categories of race and gender. This course provides an introduction to theoretical and anthropological approaches to gender, sexuality and race and shows their value for ethnographic exploration of different aspects of everyday power and inequality. While acknowledging that race and gender often mutually constitute each other, this course does not assume them to be universal or neutral categories based on nature. Rather, we critically analyze the way in which these categories are politically, societally and historically reproduced through power, practice and discourse. Moreover, by placing race and gender in one analytical field, this course explores how these categories are together crucial to constituting, challenging or maintaining social inequalities and (global) power formations. From the establishment of the (post)colonial order, to sovereignties, global economies, governmentalities, and populist and illiberal movements, we will trace how race and gender are pivotal in studying and understanding these dynamics.

This course introduces students to the anthropology of democracy and to (1) the concepts of citizenship, participation in governance and transparency; (2) the nature, philosophy and future of autonomy which is important for democracy; and (3) the concepts of free time and utopia. The course will consist of three different parts. The first part will focus on preparation (introducing the course, planning,
etc.) and the conceptual framework. In the second part I will focus on autonomous organizations and grassroots movements. In this context, I will focus on experiences in Latin America (Porto Alegre and Landless Rural Workers), India, Europe and the Middle East (Israel, Rojava and Kurdish neighborhood assemblies in Turkey). Lastly, the course will be followed by reflection phase.

This seminar is designed as a hands-on workshop to learn the key techniques of doing research. Over the course of the seminar, you will work through the entire research process from designing the research, to data collection, analysis and presentation of the findings in written form. You will learn about the specific qualitative methods, including their difficulties, ethics and practicalities, as well as how to code, interpret and write-up the data you have generated. This seminar aims at enhancing your practical skills by a series of exercises for each step of the research process. Besides this, you will be learning “by doing” research in an instructive and supportive environment, which provides space for learning, practicing and reflecting on the methods of qualitative research.
This seminar will be conducted in English, as it is meant as an opportunity for all those who enjoy doing their studies in English or just want to try it out. Don’t worry that your research will be taking place here in Bremen/Germany. Often participants experience doing this course in English as a possibility to distance themselves at little more from the contexts that they might be quite familiar with. But, you may also hand-in your assignments in German. No requirements regarding the level of language proficiency are needed, however, participants should be interested in doing the exercises in English.

Brief description:

Research ethics are integral to the entire process of knowledge production: from conceptualising and designing a research project and gathering, analysing, and managing data, to writing and other forms of representation and engagement. Research ethics not only provide a set of guidelines on research methodology and conduct. They are also integral to anthropology's epistemology and are deeply intertwined with power and the politics of knowledge production. As such, it is also necessary to reflect on one's positionality as part of ethical consciousness, discernment, and behavior. In this seminar, we discuss the importance of research ethics and reflexivity in anthropology. Employing a critical stance on dominant research ethics paradigms, we tackle as well feminist, indigenous, and decolonial research ethics. This is not a mere theoretical exercise. Rather, the aim is to equip students to identify ethical issues, reflect on how to address these issues, make ethical choices, and ethically respond to varied research contexts and demands. Through inputs, guest talks, discussions, and exercises on reflexivity, ethics case studies, principles, and assessment, the seminar aims to develop students' knowledge and skills on ethical discernment and ethical research design and praxis.

Skills and knowledge targets:

1. Understand what research ethics are, including feminist, indigenous, and decolonial approaches, in relation to qualitative research and more specifically to anthropology
2. Become familiar with key ethical debates and dilemmas in anthropology
3. Develop reflexivity in relation to one's positionality and how this relates to the ethical intricacies of one's research project
4. Assess case studies on ethical dilemmas and learn how to make ethical choices
5. Become equipped with 'how-tos' for citation, informed consent, anonymity, data management, and internet research ethics
6. Develop ethical consciousness as a student, not just specific to one's research, but more generally in relation to academia and knowledge production

An Introduction to the Anthropology of the Senses (online), with practical elements (offline).

In cooperation with University of East-Finland (UEF). This is an English-speaking course, which is offered in cooperation with students and teachers from the University of East-Finland.


Short description:
The course is an introduction to the field of Sensory Studies. We will explore some important theories on the senses but mostly on the sense of listening and smelling. So, our ears and our nose will have some “sidekicks” from the other senses. This implicates the idea how much our memories are connected to sounds, odours, visual sensations or sensations of touch. We will travel through the Eurocentric bias why we used to focus on the visual sense or why we tended to classify our senses in better or worse ones.

The course is explorative, so you’ll be trained on using your senses, because it has become central in the field of sensory studies to use our human body with all the different sensory potentials. But how does it work to focus on only one sense? What happens if you follow the daily sounds and try to document them? Or if you try to catch the smells in your kitchen? How do you look at certain locations in your neighbourhood after contemplating on them just by gazing?

The central approach will be listening and smelling, but you will have also the possibility to feel, to watch, to touch and taste or whatever you are able to discover, e.g. your “seventh” sense?

A main methodological tool of the course is the use of podcasts: as instructions to smell or to listen, to go on a soundwalk or exploring smellscapes. At the end you have the possibility to produce your own podcast on your personal experience or to produce another media-project as for example a map of your childhood-sensations, your food trek on the market or whatever.

First Readings:
Howes, David (Hg. 2005): Empire of the senses. The Sensual Culture Reader, Oxford/New York: Berg.
Pink, Sarah 2009: Doing Sensory Ethnography. Los Angeles: Sage.
Sterne, Jonathan (ed. 2012): The Sound Studies Reader. London: Routledge.

The seminar is canceled!

This seminar intends to focus our attention on the current energy experience as well as its political economics. What is the relationship between energy production and the notions of citizenship and democracy? How do modern energies change our imagination and horizon of the future? How does ethnography assist us in capturing how people interpret and evaluate energy ethically? How does the current energy production regime threaten the planet's future? In what ways are we globally connected by energy? Can we afford the way we consume energy in the face of global warming? What are the energy differences between south and north countries? How do electricity and urban water influence our lives? How carbon energy changed the dynamism of colonialism? What do we mean by sustainable energy?
These issues will be addressed through research articles, maps, videos, and self-ethnography. We shall concentrate on electricity, petroleum, and water energy as the primary sources of modern society and modernization. In doing so, we go into various resources on these three sources to discover how they shape our lives.

4 SWS

This course weaves together theory and practice through an exploration of what it means to live now, on this damaged, altered, “disabled” planet. This means that we will be thinking collectively about what it means to be attuned to and live with our surroundings and the “alterlife” that constitutes it, as well as with how we can practically engage with it, live with it, and engage in projects of repair. This course can only be taken as 4SWS and is divided into a seminar, where we will read authors that include Anna Tsing, Michelle Murphy, and Sunaura Taylor, and five excursions in Bremen and Bremerhaven where we will engage with people and organizations that deal practically with beings and things like insects, weeds, water, soil, and trees. Language of instruction will be English and German. Course work will be in both languages as well.

Blockseminar

“Richness against money: this battle will decide the future of humanity” John Holloway writes in the description to his newest book Hope in Hopeless Times (2022). Together with his heavily influential books Change the World Without Taking Power (2002, translated into eleven languages) and Crack Capitalism (2010), the new book completes a trilogy, each of which engage in its own way with the critique of capitalism and a renewal of a theory of struggle and revolution.
Drawing on Ernst Bloch’s Principle of Hope and Theodor W. Adorno’s concepts of negativity and non-identity, his new book provides us with an understanding of “richness” that is irreducible to money and profit, but instead should be grasped as an “overflowing” creativity which can enable radical social change and is therefore a source of hope. A hope that can dismantle the “pain-rage-frustration” that “seems to flowing now, across the world: towards bitterness, hatred, racism, sexism, nationalism, fear”.

John Holloway is Professor of Sociology in the Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades of the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla in Mexico. He has written extensively on Marxist theory, the relation of state and capital, on anti-capitalist struggle and the Zapatista Movement.
We are extremely lucky that John Holloway has accepted our invitation to the University of Bremen and will be here in person to discuss his new book, the key concepts and arguments with us. So, reading the book is a condition for preparation.
In a preparatory meeting, you will determine some of the key parts of the book, issues, questions and your interests which will be basis for the block seminar. These topics can include questions on the workings of capitalism: on the concept of abstract labour, commodity fetishism, money, value, capital and crisis, just as much as how he understands richness vis-à-vis money, what he means by overflowing and where it is located, why he understands this overflowing is anti-identitarian and against classification, why focus on money, instead of capital, and where capitalism “cracks”. … It is up to you.
The seminar will take place as a “Blockseminar” held in English (but if you want you can speak German). Please, note the following dates and times:


Dates:
Wednesday, 01.11.2023 14-16:00 Initial Meeting/Intro to the Seminar
Wednesday, 10.01.2024, 10-16:00 Clarification of Topics of Interest/Questions
Tuesday, 30.01.2024 18-20:00 Talk: John Holloway
Wednesday, 31.01.2024 10-16:00 Seminar with John Holloway
Thursday, 01.02.2024 10-16:00 Seminar with John Holloway
Friday, 02.02.2024 10:00-16:00 Reflection

Reading John Holloway's book Hope in Hopeless Times is a condition for taking part in the course.

Description:
https://www.uni-bremen.de/fileadmin/user_upload/fachbereiche/fb9/zemki/docs/comments/comments_WiSe23_24/KMW7_Redeker.pdf

Seminar Language: English

Description:
https://www.uni-bremen.de/fileadmin/user_upload/fachbereiche/fb9/zemki/docs/comments/comments_WiSe23_24/KMW7_Kuznetsova.pdf

Seminar language: English