From popular imagery to contemporary realities: US and Canadian Native people in historical perspectives

Lecture

When: Monday 25 April 2022 at 6 p.m
Where: Moravian regional library, Brno www.mzk.cz
Language: English
Host: Emmanuel Désveaux (EHESS)

Since the end of XIXth century, the Indians of North America have occupied a special place in the imaginary of Europeans : they were alltogether fierce and cruel, autonomous and rebellious, half-nude and covered with feathers or beaded dresses, war-like and friendly, etc. All these clichés derive from the Plains Indians and their specific way of living based on bison hunting and horse riding. First, it must be acknowledged that this representation is far too restrictive of the various cultures of the Northern part of America. The role of anthropology, specially that of Franz Boas and his followers, was instrumental to document life styles, social organisations and languages that extend from the Atlantic  to the Pacific Ocean and from the Arctic See to the Gulf of Mexico. In the second part of the talk, il will be discussed how Native people in the US and the Canada have been struggling  — and are still struggling — to adjust to a continuous process of colonialization that, if it did not always killed them systematically, impoverished them dramatically and tried to deprive them of their culture and religion. The conference can be understood as a tribute to their enduring resistance.”

Home beyond species. More-than-human dwelling in the age of crises

Launch of the 2022–2024 Tandem project, supported by CEFRES, CNRS and the Czech Academy of Sciences

When: Tuesday 19 April 2022, 1–3 pm
Where: CEFRES and online (ask for the link at claire(@)cefres.cz)
Language: English
Convenors: The 2022–2024 Tandem team
Petr Gibas (CEFRES / Institute of Sociology, Czech Academy of Sciences) and
Chloé Mondémé (CEFRES / Triangle, CNRS)

With a key-note lecture delivered by :
Birgit Müller (EHESS)

Toxic Worlds and the Power of Denial

Abstract
Bureaucrats and politicians have long turned a blind eye to the accumulation of small toxic doses in soils, groundwater, oceans and in bodies. Toxic waste from industrial processes have been tolerated as a price to pay for living “progress” and “growth”. Anthropologists are interested in the capacity of humans to render invisible and deny the toxic evidence, and in the stubborn refusal to observe and understand the real material consequences of our economic and technical system. Denial makes the invisible traces and effects of the catastrophe disappear. A powerful weapon, it allows to normalize a situation in a way that reproduces rational logic while producing a deep abandonment to the evil of non-reflection. To speak of pollution is to recognize its immense power to render a hitherto familiar space uninhabitable. Continue reading Tandem Kick-off: Home beyond species →