Transcending “European Heritages”: Liberating the Ethnological Imagination

I recently had the 2008 International Society for Ethnology and Folklore (SIEF) meetings drawn to my attention. The meeting will be held June 16-20, 2008 on the Magee Campus of the University of Ulster in Derry, Northern Ireland. These meetings operate acording to a scheme in which panels are solicited and established and then papers fitting the scope of the accepted panels are then solicited. The 2008 panels are now set and papers are currently being solicited (through February 16, 2007). There are several panels that could be of interest to those working in museum anthropology and material culture studies, including ones on: science and technology exhibits (P-26), ruins of Europe abroad (P-29), culture and property (P-33), collection-centered ethnology (P-37), food habits (P-42), costume (W-40), and art and ethnology (W-44). Details on the conference can be found here. Information on the Society can be found here.

The call for papers offers the following overview.

Internationally, the field of ethnology and folklore is undergoing considerable transformations in terms of theory, methodology, subject matter, and practical outlook. At the same time, it remains a small field even in countries where it is a relatively well-established academic subject, experiencing the same resource pressures as other small subjects.

The 9th SIEF-congress will aim to encourage in particular boundary-crossing explorations of new epistemologies and the proactive shaping of the field’s research agendas through a broad range of sub-themes, panel discussions, posters, workshops, and keynotes by leading international scholars.

The Congress programme will present academic and professional interests in an integrated format, and encourage debate between different traditions. There will also be a forum for MA- and PhD-students, and workshops looking at practice-based research in ethnology and folklore. Congress delegates will have an opportunity, both as part of the programme and on their own, to visit innovative local organisations of special interest for ethnologists and folklorists.