We would like to invite you to the international conference
Between State Plan and Research Freedom: Ethnology in Central Europe between 1945 and 1989,
which will take place on 17–18 March 2016 in the hall of the Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences (Puškinovo náměstí 9, Prague 6).
The conference is hosted by the Institute of Ethnology of the CAS, the Masaryk Institute and Archives of the CAS, and the Institute of Contemporary History of the CAS.
Main conference themes include the institutional, personal, theoretical, methodological, and epistemological development of ethnology (comprising ethnography, social and cultural anthropology, folklore studies, etc.) in Central Europe from the 1950s to the 1990s. Ethnology as an independent discipline is in the focus. Papers may concentrate on describing and analysing this subject, which developed into a specific research field with strong internal dynamics, despite being circumscribed within the rather specific social, cultural, and political conditions of a society governed by a totalitarian regime.
Ethnology as a research field developed along multiple lines; official paradigms, with aspects both positive and deeply controversial, coexisted alongside individually carved “research niches” characterized by considerable creativity and research freedom. Czechoslovak ethnology was thus defined by the dynamic interrelations between the official and the individual and was further influenced by the input of international disciplinary and epistemological frameworks.
The conference’s intention is to make a decisive contribution to the study of ethnology, including its history and formation, in Central Europe. It is a sparsely studied subject, and by opening it up to examination we hope to initiate a more inclusive debate concerning the history of ethnology and related disciplines as well as a more nuanced study of the situation of science and research under totalitarian regimes. Consequently, we would like to invite not only specialists in the field of ethnology and related disciplines in the region but also researchers from related fields and, more generally, experts on the history of science and scholarship.
Conference themes focus on, but are not limited to, the following:
1) The paradigm shifts in ethnology in and after the 1950s. The development and limits of scholarship. Decisive moments in research and the limits of ideology.
2) Education and training, curricula, students and specialisations, research topics of choice, ethnology and folklore studies, methods and themes.
3) Research planning: projects and results. Five-year governmental plans and their results compared to individualized research projects. Themes: touted, tolerated, taboo.
4) International research coordination and networking projects (Narody mira, MKKK(B), the European Ethnology Atlas, Ethnology of Western Slavs), targets, and results; international contacts-options and limits. Czech participation in international organisations and committees. Emigrating researchers and scholarship in exile.
5) Institutionalising ethnology: academy and university departments, museums, societies, and periodicals.
6) Fieldwork: the most natural application of ethnology. Methods, impacts, deliverables. Rescue research, research abroad.
7) Czecho-Slovak ethnology: changing dynamics of an asymmetric relationship.
8) Applied research: supporting folk festivals, local crafts, open-air museums, etc.
9) Leaders of Central European research in ethnology.
Papers may be either review contributions (15 minutes) or research papers (30 minutes). The conference languages are Czech and English. Abstracts in either language (200 to 250 words) should be submitted before 30 October 2015; participants will be informed on the results of the selection process by 30 November 2015.
A selection of papers, to be submitted before 31 May 2016, will be published in an edited volume. The organizing committee will select the papers to be published. Please submit your abstract and the enclosed form before 30 October 2015 to Adéla Jůnová Macková, mackovija@volny.cz.
On behalf of the Organising Committee:
PhDr. Jiří Woitsch, Ph.D.
Mgr. Doubravka Olšáková, Ph.D.
Mgr. Adéla Jůnová Macková, Ph.D.