ACT!V!SM in memory and digital ethnography

(English version below)

Angesichts multipler Krisen und zunehmender gesellschaftlicher Unsicherheit sind antidemokratische Bewegungen auf dem Vormarsch. Gleichzeitig erheben zivilgesellschaftliche Akteur:innen, auf lokaler wie globaler Ebene, immer lauter ihre Stimmen. Aktivismus und Protest sind auf die Zukunft gerichtet, zugleich beweisen kollektive Bilder der Vergangenheit eine fortdauernde Wirkmacht. Sie wirken handlungsleitend als Imaginationen (verlorener) Ressourcen von Verortung und Zugehörigkeit, oder aber liefern ideologisch-argumentative Blaupausen für populistische Ressentiments, Identitätspolitik und Krieg.

Diese ambivalente (ent-)demokratisierende Gemengelage formt, multipliziert und beschleunigt sich in Social-Media-Blasen und virtuellen Realitäten, in emanzipatorischem Aktivismus oder aber in ansteckenden Angstnarrationen und Hass. Sie stellt die Expertise von Empirischer Kulturwissenschaft, Kulturanthropologie und Europäischer Ethnologie vor neue Herausforderungen.

In einem interdisziplinären Symposium am 1. und 2. September 2023 soll nicht nur nach dem „Was“, sondern auch dem „Wie“ von Forschung und gesellschaftlicher Einwirkung gefragt werden. Wie kann ethnografische Methodologie diesen sich rasch verändernden Wahrnehmungs- und Artikulationsweisen gerecht werden? Wie können wir in aktuellen Diskursen den Spuren sozialer Erfahrung und kultureller Gedächtnisse nachspüren und zu Dialog und neuem gesellschaftlichen Verstehen finden?

Wir bitten um eine Anmeldung per Mail an: projekt.kulturanthropologie(at)uni-graz.at.
Die Teilnahmegebühr beträgt € 30,00/Person.

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In light of multiple crises and increasing societal insecurity and uncertainty, anti-democratic and populist movements are on the rise. At the same time, civil society protesters raise their voices ever louder, on a local as much as global scale. Whilst activism and protest are directed towards the future, collective images of the past still play important roles; as imaginations of (lost) resources of place and belonging they guide actions or provide ideological-argumentative blueprints for populist ressentiments, identity politics and war.

These ambivalent melanges of (un)democratisation and conflict are shaped, multiplied and expedited in social media bubbles and virtual realities, in emancipatory activism or infectious fear narratives and hate. In so doing, they challenge the expertise of Empirical Cultural Research, Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology in new ways.

This interdisciplinary symposium, held on September 1^st and 2^nd, 2023 not only enquires the “What” but also the “How” of research and societal impact. How can ethnographic methodology embrace these rapidly changing modes of perception and articulation? And how can we trace the tracks of social experience and cultural memory in conflicting discourses and find our way to dialogue and a new form of societal understanding?

We kindly ask you to register by mail to: projekt.kulturanthropologie(at)uni-graz.at.
The registration fee is € 30.00/person.

WORKSHOPS

1) Memoryscapes - The street as projection and in-between space
Petra Kohlenprath und Janine Schemmer
Stories and memories materialise and overlap in urban space. Taking a sensory walk, we will explore Lagergasse, where the Volkshaus Graz is located, and its surrounding neighbourhood. The decelerated, embodied and sensual approach allows for a dialogue with public space. Which signs and objects stimulate memory processes (Assmann 1999) and function as links without us being conscious of them right away? How is collective memory formed in the synopsis of individual memories? How do we deal with lines of rupture and connection? What becomes manifest on/along them? How can we recontextualise and redefine them in order to imagine the future? As such, the workshop aims to sound out the “in-between spaces of the encounters of art, academia and our own or the others’ everyday life” (Greverus 2005: 6).

2) The Technosocial is like Banana Milk. Entanglements of Digitality and Materiality in Everyday Life
Ruth Dorothea Eggel, Barbara Reichsöllner-Frischling und Victoria Huszka
To separate the digital and the material is like not being able to have banana milk, but only either bananas or milk, Marion once pointed out in a lecture. The term technosocial tries to overcome this dichotomy - like banana milk. It focuses on technologies as derivatives of the social and the co-constitution of actors and technology in social interactions (Raffl et al., 2008). Between actor agency and technical agency (Beck 1997), the term remains conceptually (still) open. The workshop invites to explore the technosocial in excursions and combines digital and analog methods to reflect on the ambivalences and entanglements of digitalities in practice.

3) Activism and protest in ethnographic and artistic research.
Between tradition and innovation
Alenka Pirman und Marion Hamm
In order to convey the message and attract the media the activists need to rely on a repertoire of already established tactical practices. According to Charles Tilly, this repertoire is limited but modified by improvisation and innovation. Its direct broadcast and distribution, however, have become standardised by a variety of mainstream online tools. In today’s illiberal times, backed-up by the ever-changing algorithms of social media, the research of activism is facing a challenge – how to discern a protest from a “protest”, what research methods to use and how to distribute and mediatise its own findings?

PROGRAM

Friday, September 1, 2023

14:00 Arrival and Welcome

14:30
Workshop:
Memoryscapes - The street as projection and in-between space
(Petra Kohlenprath, Janine Schemmer)

17:00 Break

18:00
Lecture:
Eine Avantgardistin und ihre Vorläufer:innen. Transnationale Strömungen in der deutschen und österreichischen Volkskunde
(Bernd Jürgen Warneken)
Laudatio and performances
(Almut Sülzle, Katharina Eisch-Angus, Markus Baumgart)

20:00 Reception

Saturday, September 2, 2023

09:00 Arrival

09:30
Workshop:
The Technosocial is like Banana Milk. Entanglements of Digitality and Materiality in Everyday Life
(Ruth Eggel, Barbara Reichsöllner-Frischling, Victoria Huszka)

12:00 Lunch Break

13:30
Workshop:
Activism and protest in ethnographic and artistic research - between tradition and innovation
(Alenka Pirman, Marion Hamm)

16:00
Guided tour to Graz industrial suburbs:
"De-centering heritage and memory"