Download the Booklet of abstacts and the Programme. 

As anthropologists interested in the state, we seek to make sense of the dynamics of power, governance, and identity in the face of contemporary crises.

The current climate of conflict in Africa, the Levant, Southeast Asia, and Europe, the attempts to restrict asylum claims amid economic austerity, and the re-legitimisation of imperial aspirations, necessitates critical reflection on shifting state formations. This conference invites participants to explore the (re)formation of states, including dynamics of authoritarianism and the implications of state absence or failure.

The EASA network on Anthropologies of the State aims to foster robust discussions that are not confined only to classical academic anthropological approaches, encouraging participants to be creative and innovative in their contributions. We hope to illuminate the intricate relationships between shifting state formations and forms of governance, societal expectations, and the lived realities of individuals in times of uncertainty.

The keynote talk

Disavowed enemies: The criminalization of the Kurdish Freedom Movement and Germany’s contradictory war on terror 

Alice von Bieberstein (Humboldt-University of Berlin)

The talk examines the systematic criminalization of the Kurdish freedom movement in Germany from 1989 to the present, revealing how seemingly domestic security measures operate as extensions of transnational counterinsurgency warfare. Beginning with the first trial against Kurds in 1989 and institutionalized through the PKK ban in 1993, Germany’s approach to Kurdish political organizing demonstrates a form of exceptional governance that is familiar from critical accounts of the global war on terror, but nonetheless troubles conventional narratives of German postwar pacifism and democratic inclusion.

Link for the livestream 

Organisation

The event will be hosted at the University of Amsterdam by colleagues from the two anthropology departments in the city: Anouk de Koning from the University of Amsterdam and Flávio Eiró from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and organised together with the EASA AnthroState convenors Elizabeth Challinor and Klavs Sedlenieks. 

Sponsors

The conference is sponsored by EASA, the University of Amsterdam, the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and the Prototyping Welfare project. Participation in the conference is free of charge including coffee, tea, lunch and drinks.