The call for papers for the next GASCA conference ‘Un/Commoning Anthropology’ is now open. The conference will take place from 29 September – 2 October 2025 at the University of Cologne. Proposals for workshops, films, exhibition projects and interventions can be submitted until 15 January 2025 via the conference website.
The German Association of Social and Cultural Anthropology launches its fourth dissertation prize. This prize is intended to recognise outstanding academic achievements in the context of a social and cultural anthropological doctorate based on ethnographic research. Theses that focus primarily on aspects and topics of the history of the discipline can also be nominated. The dissertation prize is awarded for doctoral theses submitted to a German-speaking university. It is currently endowed with 1 x 1000€ (1st prize) and 2 x 500€ (two 2nd prizes) and will be awarded at the next biennial conference of the GASCA in Cologne. The nomination is made by a reviewer of the dissertation who is a GASCA member. An electronic copy of the dissertation, including the dissertation reviews and a brief justification of the nomination, must be sent to the GASCA board by 31 January 2025 by email to the office (geschaeftsstelle@dgska.de) in a single pdf file. All theses that have been defended between 1 October 2022 and 31 January 2025 can be nominated. The GASCA board will put together the selection committee, which will make the decision on the award in the run-up to the conference in Cologne.
According to latest news (including in Der Spiegel), a resolution on the protection of Jewish life in Germany is to be passed in the Bundestag on 9 November 2024. This resolution is an important signal in view of the rise in anti-Semitism in Germany and worldwide.
In a recent joint article for the FAZ, colleagues from various disciplines drew attention to the fact that this initiative needs to be carefully considered. We have already made it clear in the past that we as the board of the GASCA wholeheartedly support all efforts to combat anti-Semitism, which, however and wherever it manifests itself, poses a dangerous threat to democratic society as a whole.
However, the important and necessary fight against anti-Semitism must not be at the expense of fundamental rights guaranteed by the constitution. It is therefore alarming that drafts of the resolution that have become known have been accompanied by very far-reaching encroachments on fundamental rights and, in particular, on the right to public funding. The draft resolution to be discussed in the Bundestag has not yet been publicised in detail, but could have very far-reaching consequences for research. The freedom of art and science is a central pillar of our democratic society; restrictions could represent a dangerous blueprint for future attacks on these areas of social life that are so rich in fundamental rights.
As the GASCA board, we have signed an appeal to the members of the Bundestag to consider the carefully presented arguments in the FAZ article.
The article in the FAZ with suggested wording for the resolution can be found at the following link:
The appeal can be found here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScyErqrcDRrzrZ1EPuk6iX9x10g8JrwishN2rlnAhRyYZQwPg/viewform
In preparation for the next GASCA conference ‘Un/commoning Anthropology’, the GASCA, in collaboration with Global South Studies, is organising a series of ‘Commoning Dialogues’ (webinar/ hybrid), each Monday 16:00-17:30 in irregular order. Each ‘Commoning Dialogues’ involves two participants – ‘host’ and ‘guest’ – who engage in dialogue on a topic in the field of Un/Commoning. The respective webinar can be freely designed by the dialogue partners, both in terms of the topic and the exact form of the dialogue. The ‘guest’ is invited by the ‘host’ – who initiates the dialogue.
The initiative is supported by the Commoning Focus Group at the GSSC https://gssc.uni-koeln.de/en/forschung-1/thematische-schwerpunkte/commoning-visions-resources-practices.
The next event is on 2 December: https://gssc.uni-koeln.de/veranstaltungen/commoning-dialogues/cd-24-12-2-common-ing-concerns
We would like to invite all those interested in the topic to organise their own Commoning Dialogue, if desired also hybrid at the GSSC in Cologne!
If you are interested, please contact
Susanne Brandtstädter sbrandts@uni-koeln.de
(Speaker Commoning Focus GSSC & Commoning Dialogues Series)
The GASCA board has co-signed an appeal to the members of the German Bundestag regarding the planned resolution on the protection of Jewish life in Germany.
The appeal, which has been signed by numerous organisations and individuals from the academic and cultural sectors, calls for a dialogue involving those affected, civil society and cultural organisations, institutions, and researchers before a resolution on the protection of Jewish life can be finalised and adopted. Measures to protect Jewish life in Germany and against all forms of discrimination are welcomed in principle. With reference to the failed attempt of an anti-discrimination clause in Berlin and in light of the scandal surrounding the allocation of funds by the Ministry of Education and Research, which has deeply shaken trust in politics and constructive cooperation, the signatories are calling for an early onset process of understanding before a resolution is adopted.
The full appeal (German version only) you find here.
GASCA members are invited to the following workshop:
May I upload this? Publications in Social Anthropology between paywall and free access
24 June 2024, 15-16:30, online
Many scholarly publications that have been published in books or journals in the traditional way can be subsequently published in open access and sustainably archived, to be findable and reusable online.
The online workshop focuses on secondary publications, also known as Green Open Access or self-archiving. Why is it worthwhile for researchers to release their publications for open re-use? Under what legal and contractual conditions may their own texts be made available online? Where can secondary publications be deposited and what support do libraries, repositories and open access organisations offer?
The online workshop is organised by the specialist societies DGEKW and GASCA for their members and is organised by the DFG-funded project EthnOA – Open Access (sub-project of the FID SKA) and the BMBF-funded project open-access.network. In addition to an introduction participants will have the opportunity to ask open questions in a Q&A session.
The workshop will take place on 24. June 2024 from 15-16:30 in Webex.
If you are interested, please register for the event event by 20 June 2024 via the DFN booking tool (https://t1p.de/2ctq9). The event is free of charge, the number of participants is limited.
If you have any questions about the event, please send an email to Dr Kathleen Heft (EthnOA project, kathleen.heft@ub.hu-berlin.de) or to Linda Martin (open-access.network project, linda.martin@open-access-berlin.de).
As the GASCA board is currently based at Cologne University, and in light of the disinvitation of Nancy Fraser from the Albertus Magnus Professorship, we refer to our statement on academic freedom dated February 12, 2024.
Dear all,
GASCA and DGEKW invite everyone interested to a digital talk with consortia of the National Research Data Infrastructure Germany (NFDI), Thursday, 25 April from 10 to 12a.m.
This is the second meeting of its kind. The first one took place in June last year. A lot has happened in the meantime and new consortia have been added. Hence, the following questions become relevant:
The NFDI aims to network existing digital infrastructures and data collections, establish sustainable research data management and further develop services for handling research data and research data archiving. To this end, so-called consortia are promoted in the competition procedure, which are organised primarily along the lines of subjects or subject groups. In this sense, the work of NFDI consortia with close professional ties – some of which were already supported by the DGEKW and GASCA in the application phase with letters of support – and the processes and standards negotiated there are relevant for our disciplines:
| NFDI4Memory | – | History |
| NFDI4Objects | – | for material remains of humankind |
| KonsortSWD | – | Data for social, educational and behavioural sciences Economic sciences like Qualidata Network |
| NFDI4Culture | – | Data of material and immaterial cultural goods |
| Text+ | – | text and language based research data Evaluation of the data collection of an underdescribed African language |
With ethnographic and qualitative, but also historical materials, our disciplines can contribute special features and a diverse spectrum of data to the work of the consortia. At the same time, we have specific needs that we should articulate in the process so that they are taken into account.
With this event, we would like to promote further exchange with the consortia and the mutual level of knowledge as well as improve networking. We asked the consortia to provide insights into their focus, objectives and concrete work and to report on their experiences. The focus is then on questions and a joint discussion on how and in what forms and formats exchange and cooperation can be organised in the future.
The board supports the position paper of academic mid- level faculty, which was drafted by the working group “Public Anthropology” and the status group “non-professoral research and teaching” of the DGEKW. The background to this is the planned reform of the German Academic Fixed-Term Contract Act
The topic has been on the Executive Board’s agenda since 2021. Several letters of protest were written and signed to the Federal Minister of Education and Research, Bettina Stark-Watzinger. See here our notification from June 2022.
JSCA 148 (2023) Issue 1+2
The Journal of Social and Cultural Anthropology is now online in Open Access format – you can find the two current issues from 2023 at:
https://zfejsca.org/ojs/index.php/jsca/index
We thank the German Research Foundation for supporting the project “EthnOA – Open Access in den ethnologischen Fächern”, the Specialised Information Service for Social and Cultural Anthropology, the University Library Tübingen and our long-standing partner, Reimer Verlag and its employees.
Best regards, also on behalf of the editorial team, Gabi Alex and Alexis von Poser