16 May 2024: Online Lecture by J. Otto Habeck (18:15 h)

14. Mai 2024, von Franziska Neubauer

16 May 2024: Online Lecture by J. Otto Habeck (18:15 h)

Register here

Eight Answers to the Question if Ethnographic Research in Asian Russia Has Fared Well or Got 

Shipwrecked with Colonial/Decolonial Ambitions (1724-2024)

part of the Lecture-Series "Decolonizing Anthropology"

Previous speakers in this lecture series have addressed multiple aspects of the legacies and
ongoing dynamics of colonialism and anthropology, and ways towards decolonising the
discipline. Understandably, this debate has mainly drawn on “overseas” entanglements and
interactions between Global South and Global North. However, colonial and decolonial
perspectives from what some have called “the North beyond the Global North” can offer some
unexpected views and bring lesser-known voices into this debate. Sketching out eight short
episodes from the early 18th century to the present, this presentation will show how the past
and present of ethnographic research and anthropological theory cannot be separated from
colonial, imperial, and geopolitical ambitions; nor can it be separated from large-scale social
engineering. Simultaneously, this lecture will exemplify how anthropology in and about Siberia
has been a platform for counter-discourses, political emancipation, and critique against state
policies. These ambivalences have induced some colleagues to ask about similarities and
distinctions between postsocialist and postcolonial scholarship. Moreover, in the light of
historical “openings” and “closures” of transnational Indigenous ties and academic partnership,
it is relevant to ask what the future of anthropology and activism may look like in Siberia in
times of heightened geopolitical tension.

Find the PDF-Document here.