From 01 through 04 October 2007 in Halle (Saale), Germany, the next biannual conference of the ↑German Anthropological Association (GAA) [aka ↑Deutsche Gesellschaft für Völkerkunde (DGV)] will take place. The conference is called “↑Questions of dispute—On the relationship of empirical research and anthropological theory in the beginning 21st century“ [“↑Streitfragen—Zum Verhältnis von empirischer Forschung und ethnologischer Theoriebildung am Anfang des 21. Jahrhunderts“]. ↑The conference agenda is online already.
 

As of now, on Thursday, 04 October 2007, from 14:00h through 18:00h, the ↑Workshop 30: Cyberculture will take place. Yours truly is honoured to organize and lead this very workshop.
 

 

Call for papers

Workshop: Cyberculture
Thursday, 04 October 2007, at ↑GAA 2007
Organisation: ↑Alexander Knorr
Deadline: 30 June 2007
Send abstracts to:

Modern technologies, information- and communication technologies (ICTs) in particular, meanwhile seem to be omnipresent all around the globe. Computers and the Internet infrastructure, for instance, since long have ceased to be domains of specialists or esoterical circles. Rather they have become integral parts of the most different designs of living, have become integral parts of everyday-life in astoundingly diverse regions; far away, next door, and even at your side of the door.
 

The overwhelming interest participants and listeners alike have taken in the ↵workshop “Cyberanthropology” at ↑GAA 2005, clearly has shown that anthropologists are willing to engage with recent and most recent phenomena—e.g. online communities or the changes in anthropology’s “classical fields”, which have taken place in the wake of said technologies. The culturally informed interrelationships between technologies on the one hand, and human beings, society, and the socioecologically formed environment on the other hand (the complex human beings and ICTs in particular), have become legitimate topics within the German speaking anthropological community. They are no more simply left to be belaboured by other academic disciplines.
 

After the “work exhibition” two years ago, it is now high time to undertake the next step. Meanwhile anthropology’s unique array of methods, the anthropological perspective itself, has been consciously adjusted and calibrated, in order to gain access to the new phenomena. Timely concepts like e.g. sociocultural appropriation, plus certain areas of anthropology, newborn or redesigned during the last decade, like material culture, the anthropology of work, and technology, have been embraced by “cyberanthropology”.
 

The workshop “Cyberculture” will be a forum for presenting methodology, concepts, models, and theories grounded in fieldwork—no matter if on- or offline, or both—which comprised the issue of modern technologies as a central topic. Especially visions of a contemporary concept of “culture” shall be presented and discussed. Maybe this visions can empower sociocultural anthropology to drop stances of self-doubt and -deconstruction, and instead to throw its particular strengths and perspectives upon topics, which are widely deemed to be as relevant in the societal, political, and economical sense.
 

Proposals have to comprise a maximum of 1500 characters, blanks included, and have to be sent before 30 June 2007 to me via e-mail: Alexander[dot]Knorr[at]lmu[dot]de. The proposals can be submitted in German or English. Likewise the presentations at the workshop can be held in German or English, but must not be longer than 20 minutes.
 

Please send on this Call for Papers to everybody interested—the ↑official German version is at the GAA 2007 homepage and ↑mirrored at ethno::log.