Gellner Seminar

Rik Adriaans (Central European University, Budapest) will give a lecture within the Gellner seminar organized by the Czech Association for Social Anthropology (CASA– Česká Asociace pro Sociální Antropologii), the Czech Society of Sociology, in cooperation with the Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences and CEFRES.

When: 15th November, at 5 pm
Where: CEFRES Library (Na Florenci 3, Prague 1)
Language: English

Abstract

Transnational Media and the Politics of Fundraising in the Armenian Diaspora
Fundraising spectacles such as gala dinners and concerts have long been central to the culture and institutions of the Armenian diaspora. Since the early 1990s, the conversion of money into ethnicity takes on increasingly mediatized and transnational forms. My talk examines the Armenia Fund Telethon, an annual pan-Armenian spectacle broadcast from Los Angeles that collects donations for infrastructure in the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic on the de jure territory of Azerbaijan. Through the establishment of a transnational sphere of media rituals that links up Armenians across continents, the occupation of formerly Azerbaijani-occupied lands is turned into a diasporic celebration of humanitarian ethics and cultural heritage. At the same time, diaspora activists in Los Angeles are increasingly calling for a boycott of the annual telethon by organizing competing events that criticize it for serving the interests of post-Soviet oligarchs. The appeal of these activist initiatives is analyzed in relation to unpredictable eruptions of violence in the homeland.

Rik Adriaans

Rik Adriaans recently obtained his PhD in Sociology and Social Anthropology at the Central European University in Budapest. His doctoral thesis examines the interfaces between image production, technological mediation and diasporic recognition struggles in the transnational circuits that connect post-Soviet Armenia to the Armenian diaspora in Los Angeles. He also maintains an ongoing research interest in the politics of Armenian popular music. His articles have appeared in the journals Social Analysis, Nationalities Papers, Caucasus Survey and Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power.

Informal meeting with Didier Fassin about his work and researchers of members and colleagues of CEFRES. Hosted by Jérôme Heurtaux, Luděk Brož, Virginie Vaté and Barbora Spálová.

Open to public.

Venue: CEFRES Library (Na Florenci 3, Prague 1)
Date: 31st October, 3-4.15 pm
Organizers: CEFRES
Language: English

Didier Fassin, James D. Wolfensohn Professor of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, Director of Studies in Political and Moral Anthropology at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, is an anthropologist and a sociologist who has conducted fieldwork in Senegal, Ecuador, South Africa, and France. Trained as a physician in internal medicine and public health, he dedicated his early research to medical anthropology, focusing on the AIDS epidemic and global health. He later developed the field of critical moral anthropology, which explores the historical, social, and political signification of moral forms involved in everyday judgment and action as well as in the making of national policies and international relations. He recently conducted an ethnography of the state, through a study of urban policing and the prison system. His current work is on the theory of punishment, the politics of life, and the public presence of the social sciences, which he presented for the Tanner Lectures, the Adorno Lectures, and at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, respectively. He regularly contributes to newspapers and magazines. His recent books include Humanitarian Reason: A Moral History of the Present (2011), Enforcing Order: An Ethnography of Urban Policing (2013), At the Heart of the State: The Moral World of Institutions (2015), Prison Worlds: An Ethnography of the Carceral Condition (2016), The Will to Punish (2018), and Life: A Critical User’s Manual (2018).