Wed. 30.04.1025 | Martin Fotta - Mobilizing for the Marginalized: The Emergence of Romani Humanitarianism in Assisting Ukrainian Romani Refugees

This presentation explores the role of Czech Romani individuals in the unprecedented humanitarian mobilization to assist Ukrainian refugees. It examines their motivations, evolving involvement, and the social context surrounding their efforts. The personal journeys of these individuals—from their initial awareness of the war to their active engagement—provide insights into the broader dynamics of ethnic solidarity, discrimination, and grassroots humanitarian action. As Czech civil society responded swiftly to the needs of people fleeing the war, Romani individuals—many of whom had no prior experience in activism—drew upon their personal networks, experiences with racism, and intra-ethnic empathy to address the unique challenges faced by Ukrainian Romani refugees, who often encountered exclusion and unequal treatment. The presentation highlights the complexities of Romani involvement, the racialization of aid, and the intersections of ethnicity and citizenship. This contributes to a deeper understanding of the unique role played by Romani communities in spontaneous humanitarian efforts.

Biographical Note:

Martin Fotta is the head of the Department of Mobility and Migration at the Institute of Ethnology, Czech Academy of Sciences. His primary research interests include informal economic strategies, comparative racialisation, kinship, anthropology of violence and Romanies in Latin America. He is the author, among other things, of From Itinerant Trade to Moneylending in the Era of Financial Inclusion: Households, Debts and Masculinity among Calon Gypsies of Northeast Brazil (Palgrave MacMillan, 2018) and a co-editor, with Paloma Gay y Blasco, of Ethnographic Methods in Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Research: Lessons from a Time of Crisis (Bristol University Press, 2024). He is a PI on two major projects: “Romani Atlantic: Transcontinental Logic of Ethno-Racial Identities” (https://www.romaniatlantic.cz) and “Unequal Citizenship and Transnational Mobilisation of Polish, Czech and Ukrainian Roma in the Face of the War in Ukraine” (https://rocit.pl). In 2025 he will start an ERC-funded project exploring how wartime conflicts reshape Romani kinship ties, family structures and community relations.

Wed 07.05. 2025 | Mario Krämer & Olaf Zenker - Awkward Alignments: Towards Empathetic Scepticism and Agonistic Confrontation in Anthropological Knowledge-Making

Anthropological knowledge-making is increasingly contested, both from within and outside the discipline: on the one hand, more and more people in postcolonial contexts who have been the “objects” of study in classical anthropology as well as anthropologists themselves aiming at decolonizing the discipline have come to mistrust past and present anthropological knowledge-making due to its own colonial entanglements. On the other hand, against the backdrop of recent developments in the sociology of knowledge (especially Science and Technology Studies) within, and growing populist, (neo-)traditionalist and (neo-)nationalist movements outside and against academia, “academic” and “expert” knowledge in general as well as commitments to privileged perspectives and notions of “truth” have also turned into objects of mistrust. Against this backdrop, the talk addresses two interrelated questions:

• first, what could be ways out of the dilemma of anthropological knowledge-making and
• second, what could be anthropology’s political role(s) in the “post-truth” era?

We contend that anthropology’s own role in dealing with the current postliberal challenge (Zenker 2021) through producing mis/trust is actually part of the problem: whereas anthropologists typically seek to establish trust and sympathise with “likeable” subalterns in collaborative approaches (Lassiter 2005) and within the “ontological turn” (Viveiros de Castro 2012), mistrust and antipathy tend to dominate in research with “normative others” with whom we profoundly disagree in important matters – people variously referred to as “repugnant” (Harding 1991), “disagreeable” (Shoshan 2015), “unlikeable” (Pasieka 2019), “uncomfortable” (Faust/Pfeifer 2021), and “traditionalist others” (Krämer 2024) – although there are controversial exceptions (Teitelbaum 2019). That is, whereas anthropologists often explicitly position themselves mistrustfully in the latter case of “normative others”, they usually trustfully take sides in the former case of “normative friends” – and typically do so without making explicit and justifying their own normative positioning underlying this disjuncture. This problematic inconsistency might actually intensify prevailing mistrust in anthropological knowledge-making within and beyond the academy.

In order to address these conundrums, the talk outlines,

1. first, the cornerstones of a conceptual triangle that we see as pre-structuring both contemporary practices and growing debates around the politics of (post-)truth within anthropology – namely trust vs. mistrust, sympathy vs. empathy, and agonism vs. antagonism.
2. Second, we discuss selected approaches that were put forward in recent years to alleviate anthropology’s ethico-onto-epistemological (Barad 2007) as well as political dilemmas.
3. Third, the talk expounds our alternative take on how anthropology should handle these conundrums through a research orientation we describe as aiming for “awkward alignments”.

In awkward alignments, anthropologists engage their interlocutors, on the one hand, with an ethico-onto-epistemological attitude of “empathetic scepticism”, attempting to understand how people think and act on the basis of one’s own experiences with similar situations while at the same time systematically questioning all knowledge claims. While suggesting that anthropologists should actually practice empathetic scepticism across the full spectrum of their research encounters, they should, on the other hand, also not shy away, politically, from an agonistic confrontation when engaging normative others during and beyond their research.

Wed 14.05.2025 | Mary Mbewe - Museum-Community Relations in Transforming the Museum: The Moto Moto Museum Chisungu Female Initiation Collection

Abstract

In this presentation, I examine activities at the Moto Moto Museum in Zambia as an empirical example of how museums established under colonialism can confront and move beyond their problematic foundations. Contemporary debates on museum practice emphasise the necessity for structural and institutional transformation, advocating for museums to become spaces of multi-vocality, activism, and knowledge transactions among diverse actors. Such transformations require museums to challenge hegemonic models of knowledge production and instead foster new epistemic representations and inclusive practices. The presentation examines processes of collaboration and partnerships in museum programmes between the Moto Moto Museum and members of the community. The focus is on processes involving the museum’s Chisungu female initiation collection, which had been collected by the founder of the museum, catholic Priest Jean Jacques Corbeil, beginning in the 1940s. Corbeil’s collection practices exemplify the epistemic violence central to contemporary critiques of ethnographic museums rooted in colonial contexts. The interventions and work of the community members not only enable new narratives and practices surrounding this collection but also allow the use of the collection to address contemporary problems within the community. Through these interventions, museum collections can transcend their problematic legacy of being pariahs of a colonial past to become meaningful spaces for contemporary community engagement. Through this analysis, the presentation reflects on both the limits and possibilities of community-based approaches to decolonising museum practice and reimagining collections shaped by colonial histories.

Biographical Note:

Mary Mbewe ist visiting professor at DoSCA in summer semester 2025 and substitutes Martin Zillinger. Read more >>

Wed 04.06.2025 | Sabine Schielmann - Aktionsethnologische Bildungsarbeit in Deutschland? Praxisbeispiele aus der Arbeit des INFOE

 Abstract

Das Institut für Ökologie und Aktions-Ethnologie (INFOE e.V.), gegründet 1987, ist ein gemeinnütziger Verein, der sich für die Rechte indigener Völker im Bereich Umwelt-, Klima- und Naturschutz einsetzt. Es informiert, sensibilisiert und arbeitet an politischen und gesellschaftlichen Veränderungen in Deutschland. Zu den Hauptaufgaben gehören entwicklungspolitische Bildungsarbeit, Advocacy und Recherchen zu den Lebensgrundlagen indigener Gemeinschaften. Das Institut betont die enge Verbindung zwischen Mensch, Natur und Kultur, warnt vor den Gefahren durch Industrialisierung und Rohstoffausbeutung und sieht indigene Völker als Vorbilder für nachhaltigen Umgang mit der Natur. Es handelt vor allem dann aktiv, wenn deutsche Politik, Wirtschaft oder Bürger*innen Auswirkungen auf die Lebensgrundlagen, Rechte und Kulturen indigener Gemeinschaften haben oder Anfragen zur Unterstützung erhalten.

INFOE ist seit 20 Jahren in der Bildungsarbeit aktiv und fokussiert sich auf nachhaltige Entwicklung in den Bereichen Wald-, Biodiversitäts- und Klimaschutz sowie die nachhaltigen Entwicklungsziele (SDG). Das Institut entwickelt Materialien und organisiert Veranstaltungen wie Workshops und internationale Tagungen, die sich an Schüler*innen, Lehrkräfte, zivilgesellschaftliche Akteure und Wissenschaftler*innen richten. Ein zentrales Anliegen ist die Sichtbarmachung des Wissens und der Erfahrungen indigener Gemeinschaften zur Erreichung der SDG. INFOE möchte die Zielgruppen informieren, motivieren und ihre Perspektiven erweitern, um die kulturelle Dimension nachhaltiger Entwicklung  und deren Verknüpfung mit den Menschenrechten zu erkennen. Unsere Bildungsarbeit ist partizipativ und lässt so viel wie möglich indigene Vertreter*innen, Sprecher*innen und Autor*innen selbst zu Wort kommen.

Seit 2019 liegt einer der Schwerpunkte unserer Bildungsarbeit auf den 17 nachhaltigen Entwicklungszielen (SDGs), die 2015 in der „Agenda 2030 für nachhaltige Entwicklung“ von der Weltgemeinschaft verabschiedet wurden. Diese Ziele vereinen soziale, ökologische und wirtschaftliche Dimensionen der nachhaltigen Entwicklung und fordern alle Länder zur Umsetzung auf. Indigene Völker spielen dabei eine zentrale Rolle, da sie mit ihrem Wissen und ihren traditionellen Praktiken wertvolle Beiträge zur nachhaltigen Nutzung von Ressourcen und zum Schutz der biologischen Vielfalt leisten. Um ihre Rechte auf Land und selbstbestimmte Entwicklung zu gewährleisten, ist ein menschenrechtsbasierter Ansatz notwendig, der auch für unsere Arbeit handlungsleitend ist.

In unserer Bildungsarbeit konzentrieren wir uns auf SDG 4.7, das die kulturelle Vielfalt als wichtige Dimension nachhaltiger Entwicklung betont. Wir arbeiten eng mit indigenen Gemeinschaften zusammen, um deren Perspektiven und Erfahrungen in unsere Materialien einzubringen. Zudem haben wir Partnerschaften mit indigenen Organisationen aus Chile, Ecuador, Thailand und Uganda aufgebaut, um den Austausch von Wissen und Erfahrungen zu fördern.

Seit 2023 finden regelmäßige virtuelle Austauschbegegnungen in Seminaren und Veranstaltungen des Ethnologischen Instituts mit Vertreter*innen der Karamojong aus Uganda statt. Diese formlose Partnerschaft würden wir gerne weiter ausbauen und die Zusammenarbeit intensivieren. Eine Schulpartnerschaft zwischen der Goetheschule in Essen und einer Karen-Schule in der Provinz Chiang Mai, Thailand, wurde Ende 2024 formalisiert. In beiden Partnerschaften steht die Sensibilisierung für die traditionellen Lebensweisen der Indigenen und die Respektierung von damit verbundenem Wissen und Rechten im Vordergrund.

Zur Person

Sabine Schielmann M.A. ist Vorstandssprecherin von INFOE und studierte Ethnologie, Geographie und Psychologie. Sie ist seit 1995 bei INFOE aktiv. In der Vergangenheit lag ihr ehrenamtliches Engagement auf den Schwerpunkten UN-Prozesse, Kampagne zur Ratifizierung der ILO Konvention 169 sowie Bildungsthemen im Zusammenhang mit indigenen Völkern. Von 2004 bis 2007 arbeitete sie als Fachkraft des EED mit einer Mapuche Organisation in Chile zu Fragen des traditionellen Wissens.

Seit 2008 hat sie verschiedene Projekte zu den Fragen der Beteiligung und der Rechte indigener Völker im Zusammenhang mit dem Erhalt der Biodiversität, dem Wald- und Klimaschutz koordiniert. Zurzeit ist sie als Projektkoordinatorin des INFOE-Projekts zum Thema ‚Indigene Völker und nachhaltige Entwicklung‘ beschäftigt.

Zur Institution INFOE:

Eine Stimme für indigene Völker >> zur Homepage des Instituts für Ökologie und Aktions-Ethnologie

Wed 25.06.2025 | Amtul Shaheen - The Embodied Pilgrim: A Pakistani-German Muslim’s Journey Through Taiwan’s "Muslim-Friendly Environment"

Abstract

Over the past decades, research on migration, religion, and identity has primarily focused on North American and Western European contexts, where migrant religions such as Islam often face secularist constraints and marginalization. In contrast, this study offers a comparative perspective by examining Taiwan, a progressive democracy in Asia that has introduced Muslim-friendly initiatives under its New Southbound Policy (NSP) to attract Southeast and South Asian migrants. Drawing on autophenomenography, a phenomenological approach centered on the researcher’s lived experience, this research explores how Muslim identity is performed and negotiated in Taiwan’s public spaces. It provides ethnographic insights into how navigating Taiwan’s Muslim-friendly environments reshapes the embodied religious experience of a female Muslim migrant raised in Germany, moving from a racialized, gendered context to one informed by pluralism. This study contributes to broader anthropological debates on migration and religious identity by highlighting East Asian societies' potential role in modeling religious pluralism within liberal-democratic frameworks.

Biographical Note:

Amtul Shaheen is a PhD candidate in Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Cologne. Her research focuses on migration, religion, and pluralism, with a regional emphasis on East and Southeast Asia. Drawing on her background as a Muslim raised in Germany, she combines ethnographic and phenomenological approaches to explore how religious identity is performed and negotiated in public spaces within minority contexts. She is particularly interested in how emerging models of religious pluralism outside the Global North reshape experiences of belonging and citizenship. Her dissertation, titled "Inclusive Practices of a Globalized Islam Amid Taiwan’s Covenantal Pluralism," examines particular rituals, discourses, and practices - and the impact of Taiwan’s unique politico-religious environment - that allows Taiwanese Islamic practice to integrate across ethnic, gendered and religious boundaries.

Wed 02.07.2025 | Zhexi Hu - Getting Married or Getting Creative: Queer Marriage in Contemporary China

Abstract

This presentation is part of a broader literature review that examines marriages of convenience and mixed-orientation marriages among queer individuals in mainland China. While existing research on mixed-orientation marriages has primarily focused on tongqi (同妻, heterosexual wives of gay men), far less attention has been paid to the experiences of lesbian and bisexual women and their heterosexual husbands, referred to as tongfu (同夫). This presentation aims to highlight these underrepresented perspectives and demonstrate the distinctions between marriages of convenience (形婚, xinghun), mixed-orientation marriages (同直婚, tongzhi hun), and marriage fraud (騙婚, pianhun). Specifically, this presentation critiques how the discourse of pianhun (Marriage Fraud) reduces complex marital negotiations to questions of deception, thereby obscuring the structural and cultural pressures that compel non-heterosexual individuals to enter heteronormative marriages. By problematizing the overemphasis on "truthfulness" about one’s sexuality, this presentation highlights how such a focus reinforces fixed and binary notions of sexuality and fails to account for the fluid, evolving ways individuals navigate sexual and relational identities under social constraint. Centring on the lived experiences of queer and bisexual women, this research contributes to queer marriage studies in Sinophone contexts by exploring how these individuals navigate, resist, and reinterpret dominant norms through alternative strategies of marriage and identity negotiation.

Keywords:

mixed-orientation marriage, marriage fraud, marriage of convenience, queer and bisexual women, mainland China