I received my PhD in Sociocultural Anthropology from the University of California, Irvine. I am a public anthropologist researching and writing on the social impact of war. Supervisors: Tom Boellstorff, Mei Zhan, and Jennifer Terry
Curatorial note from Digital Pedagogy in the Humanities: Leah Zani and Marzieh Kaivanara's mo... more Curatorial note from Digital Pedagogy in the Humanities: Leah Zani and Marzieh Kaivanara's modular assignment sequence asks students to think critically about the technologized body. Their goal for this sequence is to encourage students to understand their own bodies in relation to technology and power. They begin the assignment with theoretical discussions of race, gender, and other facets of identity. Students participate in activities intended to connect them with their own bodies and supplement their understanding of embodiment. Then, Zani and Kaivanara introduce students to scholarship on technological embodiment. Finally, the class collectively analyzes images of technologized bodies sourced by students. Zani and Kaivanara then ask their students to consider their own use of bodily technologies, from glasses to cavities to wearable activity monitors. Instructors can directly implement or adapt Zani and Kaivanara's assignment to create space for critical reflection on t...
How we practice and write ethnography matters. Poetry is one way to understand what it feels like... more How we practice and write ethnography matters. Poetry is one way to understand what it feels like to be human at a particular time and place.
Author(s): Zani, Leah | Advisor(s): Boellstorff, Tom | Abstract: This dissertation examines how l... more Author(s): Zani, Leah | Advisor(s): Boellstorff, Tom | Abstract: This dissertation examines how legacies of war and ongoing violence are incorporated into peacetime development in contemporary Laos. I introduce the conceptual parallel of remains and revivals. By “remains,” I refer to massive military wastes left over from the Secret War in Laos in the 1960s and 1970s. During the Vietnam War, Laos was secretly bombed by the United States for nearly a decade. As a result of this covert conflict, contemporary Laos is the most massively cluster-bombed country in the world. Dangerous explosives continue to maim and kill; the risk of explosion frustrates plans to lure investors and build basic infrastructure. Remains also refers to the ongoing sociocultural impact of violence, including experiences of malicious ghosts and personal misfortune. By “revival,” I refer to the present period of rapid socioeconomic transformation as Laos opens to foreign intervention. I use revival as a touchsto...
Anthropology and Humanism Anthropology and Humanism, Vol. 44, Issue 2, pp 182–188, ISSN 1559-9167, online ISSN 1548-1409., 2019
Introducing the New Editorial Collective "A good ethnographic poem needs to be attuned to poetry'... more Introducing the New Editorial Collective "A good ethnographic poem needs to be attuned to poetry's extraordinary toolkit: using the line and its tension with the sentence and the stanza, their control and release, to offer a glimpse into what it is like to be alive in a body in the world."-Nomi Stone We are pleased to introduce our readers to the new editorial collective for the Poetry section at Anthropology and Humanism. We are honored to inherit the
Introducing the New Editorial Collective "A good ethnographic poem needs to be attuned to poetry'... more Introducing the New Editorial Collective "A good ethnographic poem needs to be attuned to poetry's extraordinary toolkit: using the line and its tension with the sentence and the stanza, their control and release, to offer a glimpse into what it is like to be alive in a body in the world."-Nomi Stone We are pleased to introduce our readers to the new editorial collective for the Poetry section at Anthropology and Humanism. We are honored to inherit the
How we practice and write ethnography matters. Poetry is one way to understand what it feels like... more How we practice and write ethnography matters. Poetry is one way to understand what it feels like to be human at a particular time and place.
During breaks in clearing explosive ordnance from the former battlefields of Laos, bomb technicia... more During breaks in clearing explosive ordnance from the former battlefields of Laos, bomb technicians commonly forage for wild foods. A half-century after the Vietnam-American War, these battlefields are rarely “wastelands,” but more frequently rice fields and orchards, markets, and schoolyards. These contaminated grounds are fertile; numerous wild and cultivated foods grow here, including bitter herbs, ginger, limes, and chilies. The older craters, especially, shelter young plants and saplings. As this account of foraging suggests, contaminated sites are not experienced by those that inhabit them as wastelands apart from everyday life. Military waste may be better understood as a kind of surreal substrate to everyday life. Beneath this rice field, the war.
I offer poetic parallelism as evidence for an ethnography of authoritarian power in Laos and as a... more I offer poetic parallelism as evidence for an ethnography of authoritarian power in Laos and as a conceptual frame for understanding hazards in ethnography and anthropological knowledge production. Parallel poems take the form of juxtaposed statements, often characterized by multiplicity and contradiction. In an authoritarian context marked by state violence, the very form of the parallels is data on Lao society. I examine poetic parallels as a provocation to write field poems rather than field notes.
We are excited to introduce a new feature of the Cultural Anthropology website, which we are call... more We are excited to introduce a new feature of the Cultural Anthropology website, which we are calling the Collaboration Studio. This feature, which is centered on advancing collaboration between emerging and established scholars who contribute to the Cultural Anthropology website, will showcase content from across the different sections of the Fieldsights blog that coheres around a common theme or project.
In our inaugural session of the Collaboration Studio, which is entitled “Cultural Anthropology Responds to Trump,” we have collected politically relevant content about the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States and the unfolding of his administration, all of which has been published since the fall of 2016. This comprises a remarkably fruitful set of pieces, ranging from a community-created reading list to a podcast and published by a diverse group of scholars including tenure-stream faculty, postdocs, and graduate students.
How do we teach race to our students and wider publics? This Correspondences session collects ans... more How do we teach race to our students and wider publics? This Correspondences session collects answers to this question from several domains of the discipline. As the Section Editor for the Teaching Tools section of the Cultural Anthropology website, I am very glad to facilitate and participate in a collaboration with the Correspondences series. This collaboration is an affirmation of the ongoing pedagogical significance of anthropological critiques of race.
As the new section editor for the Teaching Tools section of the Cultural Anthropology website, I ... more As the new section editor for the Teaching Tools section of the Cultural Anthropology website, I want to take this opportunity to present my vision for the section so that our readers know what to expect in the months ahead. The Teaching Tools section, as well as many of our Fieldsights series, are being transformed as contributing editors seek out opportunities to produce unique and meaningful content. This is an excellent time to be a reader of Cultural Anthropology.
Curatorial note from Digital Pedagogy in the Humanities: Leah Zani and Marzieh Kaivanara's mo... more Curatorial note from Digital Pedagogy in the Humanities: Leah Zani and Marzieh Kaivanara's modular assignment sequence asks students to think critically about the technologized body. Their goal for this sequence is to encourage students to understand their own bodies in relation to technology and power. They begin the assignment with theoretical discussions of race, gender, and other facets of identity. Students participate in activities intended to connect them with their own bodies and supplement their understanding of embodiment. Then, Zani and Kaivanara introduce students to scholarship on technological embodiment. Finally, the class collectively analyzes images of technologized bodies sourced by students. Zani and Kaivanara then ask their students to consider their own use of bodily technologies, from glasses to cavities to wearable activity monitors. Instructors can directly implement or adapt Zani and Kaivanara's assignment to create space for critical reflection on t...
How we practice and write ethnography matters. Poetry is one way to understand what it feels like... more How we practice and write ethnography matters. Poetry is one way to understand what it feels like to be human at a particular time and place.
Author(s): Zani, Leah | Advisor(s): Boellstorff, Tom | Abstract: This dissertation examines how l... more Author(s): Zani, Leah | Advisor(s): Boellstorff, Tom | Abstract: This dissertation examines how legacies of war and ongoing violence are incorporated into peacetime development in contemporary Laos. I introduce the conceptual parallel of remains and revivals. By “remains,” I refer to massive military wastes left over from the Secret War in Laos in the 1960s and 1970s. During the Vietnam War, Laos was secretly bombed by the United States for nearly a decade. As a result of this covert conflict, contemporary Laos is the most massively cluster-bombed country in the world. Dangerous explosives continue to maim and kill; the risk of explosion frustrates plans to lure investors and build basic infrastructure. Remains also refers to the ongoing sociocultural impact of violence, including experiences of malicious ghosts and personal misfortune. By “revival,” I refer to the present period of rapid socioeconomic transformation as Laos opens to foreign intervention. I use revival as a touchsto...
Anthropology and Humanism Anthropology and Humanism, Vol. 44, Issue 2, pp 182–188, ISSN 1559-9167, online ISSN 1548-1409., 2019
Introducing the New Editorial Collective "A good ethnographic poem needs to be attuned to poetry'... more Introducing the New Editorial Collective "A good ethnographic poem needs to be attuned to poetry's extraordinary toolkit: using the line and its tension with the sentence and the stanza, their control and release, to offer a glimpse into what it is like to be alive in a body in the world."-Nomi Stone We are pleased to introduce our readers to the new editorial collective for the Poetry section at Anthropology and Humanism. We are honored to inherit the
Introducing the New Editorial Collective "A good ethnographic poem needs to be attuned to poetry'... more Introducing the New Editorial Collective "A good ethnographic poem needs to be attuned to poetry's extraordinary toolkit: using the line and its tension with the sentence and the stanza, their control and release, to offer a glimpse into what it is like to be alive in a body in the world."-Nomi Stone We are pleased to introduce our readers to the new editorial collective for the Poetry section at Anthropology and Humanism. We are honored to inherit the
How we practice and write ethnography matters. Poetry is one way to understand what it feels like... more How we practice and write ethnography matters. Poetry is one way to understand what it feels like to be human at a particular time and place.
During breaks in clearing explosive ordnance from the former battlefields of Laos, bomb technicia... more During breaks in clearing explosive ordnance from the former battlefields of Laos, bomb technicians commonly forage for wild foods. A half-century after the Vietnam-American War, these battlefields are rarely “wastelands,” but more frequently rice fields and orchards, markets, and schoolyards. These contaminated grounds are fertile; numerous wild and cultivated foods grow here, including bitter herbs, ginger, limes, and chilies. The older craters, especially, shelter young plants and saplings. As this account of foraging suggests, contaminated sites are not experienced by those that inhabit them as wastelands apart from everyday life. Military waste may be better understood as a kind of surreal substrate to everyday life. Beneath this rice field, the war.
I offer poetic parallelism as evidence for an ethnography of authoritarian power in Laos and as a... more I offer poetic parallelism as evidence for an ethnography of authoritarian power in Laos and as a conceptual frame for understanding hazards in ethnography and anthropological knowledge production. Parallel poems take the form of juxtaposed statements, often characterized by multiplicity and contradiction. In an authoritarian context marked by state violence, the very form of the parallels is data on Lao society. I examine poetic parallels as a provocation to write field poems rather than field notes.
We are excited to introduce a new feature of the Cultural Anthropology website, which we are call... more We are excited to introduce a new feature of the Cultural Anthropology website, which we are calling the Collaboration Studio. This feature, which is centered on advancing collaboration between emerging and established scholars who contribute to the Cultural Anthropology website, will showcase content from across the different sections of the Fieldsights blog that coheres around a common theme or project.
In our inaugural session of the Collaboration Studio, which is entitled “Cultural Anthropology Responds to Trump,” we have collected politically relevant content about the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States and the unfolding of his administration, all of which has been published since the fall of 2016. This comprises a remarkably fruitful set of pieces, ranging from a community-created reading list to a podcast and published by a diverse group of scholars including tenure-stream faculty, postdocs, and graduate students.
How do we teach race to our students and wider publics? This Correspondences session collects ans... more How do we teach race to our students and wider publics? This Correspondences session collects answers to this question from several domains of the discipline. As the Section Editor for the Teaching Tools section of the Cultural Anthropology website, I am very glad to facilitate and participate in a collaboration with the Correspondences series. This collaboration is an affirmation of the ongoing pedagogical significance of anthropological critiques of race.
As the new section editor for the Teaching Tools section of the Cultural Anthropology website, I ... more As the new section editor for the Teaching Tools section of the Cultural Anthropology website, I want to take this opportunity to present my vision for the section so that our readers know what to expect in the months ahead. The Teaching Tools section, as well as many of our Fieldsights series, are being transformed as contributing editors seek out opportunities to produce unique and meaningful content. This is an excellent time to be a reader of Cultural Anthropology.
I research socioeconomic revival amidst the aftereffects of war in Laos. Engaging with ghost stor... more I research socioeconomic revival amidst the aftereffects of war in Laos. Engaging with ghost stories gathered during fieldwork in areas contaminated with unexploded ordnance from the Vietnam War, I develop a hauntology of military waste and postwar affects. I analyze the haunting of Sepon, a small industrial town that hosts Laos’ first gold mine (centerpiece of the state’s economic plan) and one of the most war-contaminated parts of the country. Workers at the mine are unearthing gold, copper, archaeological artifacts, live explosives, and ghosts which possess mine workers. The gold mine is also a ghost mine: a place where one unearths ghosts or becomes a ghost oneself. I analyze parallel accounts of the gold mine and ghost mine. How can we theorize haunting in relation to rapid development and economic growth? The gold mine/ghost mine parallel brings to the fore the ambiguity of the present revival as, simultaneously, a resurrection of things buried. In my analysis, hauntology is not merely a conceptual frame, nor are the ghosts metaphorical. The war does not haunt like a ghost. The war haunts, in the form of material remains, ongoing violence, spirit possessions, resurrected pasts, and contaminated futures. The sociocultural reality of ghosts does not lack material veracity in my ethnographic record. On this point, I steer a different tack from many theorists who take up the idea of the ghost as a “conceptual metaphor” for understanding contemporary issues. Rather, I develop a hauntology rooted in ethnographic detail and locally-specific cosmology.
Laos is the most cluster-bombed country in the world. Explosives clearance officially began in th... more Laos is the most cluster-bombed country in the world. Explosives clearance officially began in the 1990s, three decades after the Vietnam-American aerial war began. Today, clearance experts face the task of mapping and clearing cluster-bomb strikes nearly a half-century after the bombings. Evidentiary practices used by clearance experts are data-intensive, employing on-the-ground expertise, international standards for data collection, specialized equipment, advanced software, specialized certifications, and large numbers of trained staff. Contra these intricate evidentiary practices, clearance in Laos is characterized by extreme uncertainty. The air war over Indochina was the first digitized war, but these massive military archives are often contradictory. Evidence on the ground is thin; former battlegrounds have been transformed by postwar life into villages and rice fields. Experts must learn to “see” evidence of the war in the minutia of everyday life (this fishpond is actually a bomb crater, etc.) in order to identify military waste contamination. In this challenging, but data-intensive sector, the red dot has emerged as a potent, polyvalent symbol of aerial bombardment and its aftermath. Across multiple domains (clearance organizations, development organizations, government offices) the red dot is displayed and its proper use debated. It may represent a cluster-bomb strike, a target village, an evidence point, or an individual cluster-bomblet. Its meaning may change at different scales of analysis, a quality that enables it to misrepresent levels of contamination. The red dot is a crucial mode of representing war in the clearance sector, and also serves as ethnographic evidence of clearance practices.
Poetry is a creative practice, and is also an act of political and social significance. In this p... more Poetry is a creative practice, and is also an act of political and social significance. In this presentation, I examine Lao poetic parallelism as evidence for an ethnography of authoritarian power in Laos and as an incitement to sensitive research methods. Parallelism is a poetic form in which statements are juxtaposed, often through the repetition of similar sounds, grammars, structures, or themes. In Lao parallels, there is literally a gap, or pause, between (sometimes contradictory) statements. By subtly evoking multiple meanings simultaneously, parallels are commonly used to evoke sensitive information without actually speaking dangerously. It is this linkage between poetry, paranoia, and sensitive data that I examine in this presentation. Conducting this research required me to learn to ‘hear’ things that were not being spoken out loud, or to literally read between the parallel lines of poems. I examine this cultivation of nuance, first as a poetic form used by my interlocutors; and second, as a fieldwork method which I used as a kind of subject protection. Nuance both reveals and conceals; my data is characterized by things that remained unspoken and yet were also present in the resonance of poetry. In an authoritarian context marked by state surveillance and the threat of violence, the very form of the parallels enacts relations and is itself data on Lao society.
In the post-Soviet era, religion is increasingly incorporated into Lao statecraft (one of the few... more In the post-Soviet era, religion is increasingly incorporated into Lao statecraft (one of the few remaining socialist states in the world). The ongoing Renovation of the Lao state involves massive shifts from socialist to liberal sources of aid and models of assistance. Premised on notions of faith and civil society, liberal models of faith-based development contribute to the recent incorporation of Buddhism into Lao national development. At the same time, widespread war contamination (unexploded, live landmines, cluster munitions, and other ordnance) are persistent obstacles to the developing state. In this paper, I follow the cumbersome implementation of the nation’s first official Buddhist-based war victim assistance program. This program is premised on Buddhist doctrines of impermanence and suffering (everybody dies) that, I argue, are a novel articulation of Buddhist body politics in Laos. The implementation of this pioneering program, in turn, involves applying liberal doctrines of accountability, transparency, and good governance to the Buddhist monastic community. Via a case study of Buddhist war victim assistance, I analyze how monk mass organizers are being transformed into development workers, and how postwar socialist construction is being transformed into liberalization via the provisions and expectations of Western aid organizations.
Recent years have seen have seen widespread recognition of the importance of linking faith and na... more Recent years have seen have seen widespread recognition of the importance of linking faith and national development in Lao PDR (Laos). And yet, faith-based development in Laos is occurring alongside official secular policies and socialist reforms. This paper addresses the current moment of increasing state-supported, faith-based (especially Buddhist) development programs, coupled with the uncertain status of faith and civil society in Laos. Under the control of the Lao socialist front, legally recognized religious practices are being broadened and re-oriented towards development and economic reform. This is not so much an increase in religious freedoms as a change in bureaucratic jurisdiction. Monks and other faith actors are now often asked to demonstrate "faith's added value" to development programs--value, here, carrying several meanings as both moral value, monetary value, and measurable value. Following the lead of interlocutors, the article focuses on the ambiguities, risks, and uncertainties of faith-based development in Laos. Faith actors negotiate multiple roles as both 'mass educators' in the socialist front and 'social workers' in a nascent civil society. The later role comes with its own risks, which some faith actors address by starting development projects in the business sector--serving to more closely tie together religious revival and economic reform.
Rapid development in Lao PDR is occurring alongside religious revival as socialist and secular re... more Rapid development in Lao PDR is occurring alongside religious revival as socialist and secular reforms loosen. In my research, I examine the current moment of increasing faith-based programs coupled with the uncertain status of faith and civil society in Laos. Researching faith-based development compels carefully negotiating a shifting political terrain. Conducting this research well requires adapting conventional subject protections and re-assessing what counts as data. Anthropology has inherent ethical implications, which poses particular challenges in fieldwork. For example: Anthropological research in Southeast Asia is, unfortunately, linked with histories of spying during the Vietnam-American War period. This legacy impacts my ability to carry out research effectively—in some instances, I have had to prove that I was not a spy. Addressing the challenges present in my field site, I re-assess conventional anonymity and other subject/researcher protection practices in anthropology more generally. What makes certain kinds of data unsafe? How can we best anonymize the paths that link subjects (and researchers) to dangerous knowledges? How should we address informants’ pervasive beliefs that they lack privacy? I analyze the inter-relations between methods, data, and ethics through an examination of the particular challenges of studying faith in my field site.
In the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Laos), the land has been leveled and leavened with bombs... more In the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Laos), the land has been leveled and leavened with bombs, landmines, and other war wastes. Sometimes called the Land of a Million Bombs, over half of the country remains heavily contaminated with unexploded ordnance from the Vietnam War. Four decades after conflict, roughly half of the world's unexploded ordnance accidents continue to occur in Laos. Unexploded ordnance accidents commonly result in limb loss, blindness, and other losses of ability. And yet, only recently have bomb clearance and victim assistance been identified as topics of national development and post-conflict reconstruction in Laos. For this presentation, I use ethnographic data collected at a number of sites including World Education Laos, the country’s premier war victim assistance provider, and Mines Advisory Group, a Nobel-prize winning bomb clearance operator, to examine the production of danger and disability in postconflict Laos. As explosions and other maiming events become more survivable, people with maimed, missing, and prosthetic body parts are now common in even very remote areas. These newly possible kinds of bodies and ways of life may be subject to novel forms of care and recognition. How might stakeholders paradoxically use danger and disability in order to acquire political influence and attract development aid? This project examines the sociopolitical and religious significance of embodiment in contemporary Laos, with particular regard for changing concepts of disability.
A writing workshop for PhD candidates hosted by the Teaching Tools section of the Society for Cul... more A writing workshop for PhD candidates hosted by the Teaching Tools section of the Society for Cultural Anthropology.
We would like to invite you to take part in a one-day informal workshop focusing on Geographies o... more We would like to invite you to take part in a one-day informal workshop focusing on Geographies of Care and Intervention: Feminist Approaches to Humanitarianism in Transnational Contexts, which will take place in the anthropology department at UC Irvine on Thursday, March 6, 2014. This workshop is being organized by Professor Jennifer Terry, Leah Zani, Padma Govindan, and Anna Zogas as an outgrowth of our ongoing working group on humanitarianism and militarization and as an effort to extend and deepen the conversation on the politics, histories, and transformations of social interventions.
This gathering is intended as an informal discussion for those of us working on humanitarianism, activism, and social interventions at UC Irvine. The workshop will give us an opportunity to receive supportive and generative feedback on our own work and discuss a range of intersecting themes from diverse disciplinary and methodological perspectives. These could include, but are not limited to: emerging and transforming practices of humanitarianism; intersections between practices of social intervention and security; militarization of care; new articulations of security, danger, and risk; moral and affective dimensions of intervention; and the wider politics of claim-making that surround emergencies, crises, and danger.
The body, space, and time are three critical problematics that have been theorized by scholars in... more The body, space, and time are three critical problematics that have been theorized by scholars in disciplines as diverse and as different as Anthropology, Dance Studies, Drama Studies, Medicine, Psychology, and Law and Society to name but a few. This has resulted in a plethora of frameworks, theories and methodologies (eg. embodiment, biopower, body techniques, movement analysis) for studying the body in space and time. Various disciplines in their own ways have been attentive to how bodies not only move through space and time but are also constituted through different material, spatial, and temporal engagements. To talk about the body is to talk about space is to talk about memory.
Ecologies have come to be broadly used to attend to the relations and boundaries between bodies a... more Ecologies have come to be broadly used to attend to the relations and boundaries between bodies and environments. While cultural ecologists of the old school counted average growth rate and calorie consumption, recent work with the concept of ecology gestures toward proliferations and constellations of vital subjects, some of which may not be alive at all. Within ecologies as such, certain agents emerge at certain scales and come to matter as indicators of ecological movement, health, safety, and value. Ecologies continually escape our efforts to plan for and around them, yet continue to serve as the rubric under which speculative plans are made.
In this half-day workshop, we challenge ourselves to think with ecology as both a concept and a method. Could identifying the ecological in our research projects reveal new avenues for inquiry? What might it mean to ecologize our field sites, our ideas, and ourselves as researchers? Participants will be encouraged to explore, engage with, and think through provocative snippets of ecological thought (compiled into an Ecology Workbook by the organizers and circulated in advance), with the goal of producing or reshaping individual research imaginaries and building collaborative networks. Activities will include short writing exercises, discussions, debates, and guided walks around provocative spaces on campus, and participants will be encouraged to contribute to the Ecology Workbook.
In thinking about crisis and uncertainty in anthropology, it is fruitful to look first at our fie... more In thinking about crisis and uncertainty in anthropology, it is fruitful to look first at our field practices. It is at field sites of uncertainty that breakthroughs in theory and method have traditionally arisen in our discipline; new fieldwork inspires new theory, not the other way around. Fieldwork is inherently uncertain, unpredictable, and immediate. The uncertainty of the field (fluid relationships with informants, securing access to sites, immersion in unscripted life, self-doubt) necessitates improvisation. In order to provoke awareness and debate on this topic, I will lead participants through an improvisational activity. First, I will guide participants through a brief paired listening activity in which participants’ share stories about uncertainty in their lives. This listening activity is designed to heighten our awareness of how listening--the anthropologist’s quintessential method--is a synesthetic, improvised, embodied experience. Drawing on examples from the paired listening activity, I will then facilitate a group brainstorming around the question: As anthropologists, how can we deal with uncertainty in the field? The particular brainstorming activity I will facilitate involves key aspects of improvised practice borrowed from the arts, including collaboration, the fostering of spontaneity, a non-judgemental attitude, and saying “yes.” I will close my presentation by asking participants to think about the implications of using empirical experiences as grounds for theory, and the consequences of treating certain aspects of fieldwork as performative.
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Papers by Leah Zani
In our inaugural session of the Collaboration Studio, which is entitled “Cultural Anthropology Responds to Trump,” we have collected politically relevant content about the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States and the unfolding of his administration, all of which has been published since the fall of 2016. This comprises a remarkably fruitful set of pieces, ranging from a community-created reading list to a podcast and published by a diverse group of scholars including tenure-stream faculty, postdocs, and graduate students.
In our inaugural session of the Collaboration Studio, which is entitled “Cultural Anthropology Responds to Trump,” we have collected politically relevant content about the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States and the unfolding of his administration, all of which has been published since the fall of 2016. This comprises a remarkably fruitful set of pieces, ranging from a community-created reading list to a podcast and published by a diverse group of scholars including tenure-stream faculty, postdocs, and graduate students.
This gathering is intended as an informal discussion for those of us working on humanitarianism, activism, and social interventions at UC Irvine. The workshop will give us an opportunity to receive supportive and generative feedback on our own work and discuss a range of intersecting themes from diverse disciplinary and methodological perspectives. These could include, but are not limited to: emerging and transforming practices of humanitarianism; intersections between practices of social intervention and security; militarization of care; new articulations of security, danger, and risk; moral and affective dimensions of intervention; and the wider politics of claim-making that surround emergencies, crises, and danger.
In this half-day workshop, we challenge ourselves to think with ecology as both a concept and a method. Could identifying the ecological in our research projects reveal new avenues for inquiry? What might it mean to ecologize our field sites, our ideas, and ourselves as researchers? Participants will be encouraged to explore, engage with, and think through provocative snippets of ecological thought (compiled into an Ecology Workbook by the organizers and circulated in advance), with the goal of producing or reshaping individual research imaginaries and building collaborative networks. Activities will include short writing exercises, discussions, debates, and guided walks around provocative spaces on campus, and participants will be encouraged to contribute to the Ecology Workbook.