Anthropolitical
by Fachverein Ethnologie Zürich
Studierende der Ethnologie behandeln politische und studienrelevante Themen:
ethno-fachverein@isek.uzh.ch
Podcast episodes
Season 4
Intro - Between Worlds: Stories From an Ethnographic Fieldwork
Welcome back to Anthropolitical! We are excited to present the new podcast series Between Worlds—Stories From an Ethnographic Fieldwork. This intro should guide you through the series and provide insight into who will be able to come to word and in what manner.
Season 3
Talk At The Library
(About Talk at the Library) The two podcast episodes ‘Talk at the Library’ are a result of us, a working group of the student association, consensually recording the event of the same name at the Department for Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies of the University of Zurich at the end of the spring semester 2023.(About the episode) In this first ‘Talk at the Library’ episode, Lindsay Vogt talks to Kathrin Eitel about her 2022 published monograph "Recycling Infrastructures in Cambodia. Circularity, Waste and Urban Life in Phnom Penh" (Routledge 2022). In her PhD, Kathrin Eitel analyzed waste recycling practices in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh and identified postcolonial structures of "doing waste politics" that perpetuate prevailing notions of waste as detached from sociocultural contexts. After a quick introduction and a brief summary of a few main points by Lindsay, Kathrin reads a few paragraphs of her book. The two move on to discuss questions around gender, recycling and waste infrastructure as well as the life and work of Cambodian waste pickers – the edjai. As the recording happened in a library with an audience, you will be hearing some background noise. We are always looking forward to any input, ideas and general feedback regarding our small fachverein ethnologie Zurich podcast production. We thank both the department as well as the two speakers for the interesting talk and the opportunity for another inspiring anthropolitical episode!(About Kathrin Eitel) Kathrin Eitel is a Postdoctoral Researcher and Lecturer at the chair of Prof. Dr. Annuska Derks at the Department of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies (ISEK). As a cultural anthropologist and feminist STS scholar, she previously worked as a research associate at the Institute for Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology at Goethe University in Frankfurt and in the study program Metropolitan Culture at HCU in Hamburg. Her current research project focuses on the disjuncture between urban planning resilience strategies, mega-technology projects, and local resilience practices by examining flood control strategies in HCMC (Vietnam), and freshwater scarcity in Istanbul (Turkey). Kathrin Eitel is particularly interested in the heteronormative worldviews inscribed in these resilience technologies, their tangible implications for urban life, and the opportunities for more participatory and co-laborative envisioning of an urban future. (Source: ISEK Ethnologie)(Mentioned Literature) The authors mentioned in the episode are Donna J. Haraway, Geoffrey C. Bowker, Susan Leigh Star and Gregory Bateson.
Season 2
Was forscht eigentlich...?
In this episode we asked Paridhi Gupta, what her current research project at the ISEK UZH is about. She first told us about her interdisciplinary background: Paridhi holds a BA in Human Development and Childhood Education, a MA in Sociology, and a MPhil in Women’s Studies as well as a PhD in Gender Studies. For her PhD she used the methodology of Social Mapping, predominantly known in the field of Human Geography, as a new approach to analyze feminist-activist spaces in India. The research project that she’s embarked on now in Zurich builds on this new methodological approach: Looking at the feminist movement in Zurich, she’s interested to see how the activists feel towards the unique Streikhaus as a physical space with and for them, but also how the house is perceived by antagonists. Paridhi shares her activist experiences and her goal to contribute to an easier entry into feminist - or in general social activist - spaces. People interested in joining social movements should find support to ease them into the world of protests of any kind. We also talked about long term aims and needs for social anthropology and academia in general: making knowledge more accessible to everyone by turning away from heavy jargon use and distributing it using other forms of publishing than the traditional monograph. This episode is surely interesting for anyone who wants to know more about activist / feminist anthropology, but Paridhi also shares her PhD experience: discussing care work, what it means for social science researchers that many disciplines are chronically underfunded and reflecting on the privilege to be able to go through with an academic career. We end the podcast with two recommendations: the movie “Banshees of Inisherin” and the book “Never Let Me Go” from Kazuo Ishiguro. Thank you Paridhi for the interesting talk! The Podcast Series "Was forscht eigentlich...?" puts the spotlight on the diverse careers and researches of the people working at ISEK at the University of Zurich.
Was forscht eigentlich...?
In diesem Podcast berichtet Kathrin Eitel von ihren Forschungen in Kambodscha zur Recycling-Ökonomie und in Vietnam zu Resilienz-Technologien. Sie erzählt von der Zusammenarbeit mit NGOs, vom machtdurchzogenem Feld der internationalen Entwicklungszusammenarbeit und davon wie schwierig es ist als Kulturanthropologin darin einen Unterschied machen zu wollen. Wir erfahren von der tendenziell männerdominierten Welt der Technologie und wie sie es schafft, sich darin als Frau und Ethnologin zu behaupten. Außerdem schildert sie, wie sie den Weg zurück in die Akademie eingeschlagen hat und was es heisst, Forschung in den Sozialwissenschaften zu betreiben. Die vielfältigen Werdegänge der Forscher*innen in der Ethnologie am ISEK der Universität Zürich und ihre Forschungsschwerpunkte und Interessen sollen mit der Podcast-Serie „Was forscht eigentlich...?“ ins Rampenlicht
