Thursday, the 30th of November from 5 to 7 pm CET via Zoom.
“Care and Belonging in Ambiguity: Homemaking Practices of Syrian Families in Turkey“
by Begüm Ergün, Boston University
In this paper, I aim to delve into the nuanced meanings of “home” and homemaking practices among Syrian migrants as they navigate through complex layers of displacement, disaster, and the intricate dynamics of ambiguous hospitality in Turkey. I will explore how Syrian families experience home, as a combination of affects, material sites and care relationships pertaining to the interplay between macro-level disaster aid politics and micro-level family care dynamics. This exploration is inspired by ethnographic moments that bring the temporality and materiality of home and homemaking into sharper focus, particularly in the aftermath of the earthquake. I argue that to gain a comprehensive understanding of the meanings attached to home and homemaking practices among Syrian families, we must incorporate a series of crises that profoundly impact migrants’ daily lives. What theoretical insights potentially emerge concerning home, care, power, and belonging by exploring the homemaking practices and disaster rebuilding efforts of Syrian families?
The ENPA Works-in-Progress Seminar is a venue for researchers, faculty and postgraduate students to present ongoing work, receive feedback and share ideas about their research in psychological anthropology and allied fields.
The seminar meets monthly via Zoom.
To join ENPA WiPS and receive the link for the seminar, please register here.
Thursday, the 26th of October from 5 to 7 pm CET via Zoom.
“Hearing Humanity: Counselling and Psychotherapy as an Intimate Educational Anthropology”
by Dr. John Loewenthal from Keele University
Human acts of talking about their lives, and the therapeutic practice of listening, provide an intimate window into what makes us human. This presentation shares a research proposal that seeks to speak with therapists across the United Kingdom to explore their encounters with Anyone (Rapport, 2012), human beings, whoever they are, simultaneously unique and representatives of humanity. The research has three aims: 1) to test the hypothesis that counselling/psychotherapy forms a quintessential anthropo-logy – a study of human beings – and whether this intimate scale of enquiry forms of new frontier for anthropology; 2) to explore the extent to which therapy shows the significance of cultural and identity-based differences and/or a cosmopolitan transcendence of such differences by showing our common humanity; 3) to explore the educational undercurrent of being human that is facilitated in therapy in helping people learn to live and to address myriad aspects of the human condition.
The ENPA Works-in-Progress Seminar is a venue for researchers, faculty and postgraduate students to present ongoing work, receive feedback and share ideas about their research in psychological anthropology and allied fields.
The seminar meets monthly via Zoom.
To join ENPA WiPS and receive the link for the seminar, please register here.
At the 2023 ENPA Conference in Oslo we had the opportunity to collectively brainstorm future initiatives and activities for the network. One of the key areas of discussion was the question of public psychological anthropology and how we as a network can highlight and foster different forms of public-facing scholarship within our broader community. There were various suggestions for what this could mean in practice, including creating a podcast, conducting workshops on public scholarly engagement, or creating educational resources for non-specialists.
In order to more actively build on these ideas, we would like to initiate an ENPA Task Force on Public Psychological Anthropology. As a starting point, we envision the Task Force to have as its aim at least the following three objectives:
to propose how we, as the ENPA network, may define public psychological anthropology in an inclusive and meaningful way;
to recommend how to best engage public psychological anthropology through our network activities;
to help initiate such activities.
The suggested time frame is from late 2023 to June/July 2024. If you would be interested in joining the Task Force and contributing to this initiative, please get in touch with us by emailing at info@enpanthro.net by 31 October 2023.
We hope very much that some of you might be interested. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to any of theBoard Members directly.
Best wishes, ENPA Board Members (Anni, Suzana, John, Lavinia, Thomas, Mayssa, Mona, Maija, Ildze, Naomi, Nadia)
In this post, we report some of the conference highlights and share reflections on the experience from several participants and organisers.
The second biennial ENPA conference ‘Psychology and Anthropology in a Changing World‘ was hosted in hybrid form by the University of Oslo from 7-9 June 2023. In total, 217 people registered from across the world and 89 of these attended in person. 113 papers were presented across 28 highly varied sessions, which included 26 wonderful panels as well as a round-table discussion and a selection of innovative ethnographic films. Q&A sessions accompanied the parallel sessions and were particularly lively following the fascinating keynote speeches from two eminent scholars in psychological anthropology, Assitant Professor Susanne Bregnbæk and Professor Tanya Marie Luhrmann. The discussions continued over delicious buffet lunches and long into each evening as we made the most of Oslo’s midnight sun.
Relaxing on Huk strand after a busy conference day
“As perhaps the only psychologist in attendance at ENPA, I learned a lot about how anthropologists work and talk about their work, and enjoyed several conversations with scholars, senior and junior, that helped inform my own research. But, above all, I was blown away by the welcoming and friendly atmosphere of the conference. Everybody seemed interested in talking to everyone else, whatever their discipline or academic rank. Perhaps anthropologists really are made of a different clay: unlike some other academics, they simply like being with other people 🙂 I will gladly come again to a future ENPA, and would definitely encourage more psychologists to do the same!” Michal Miaskiewicz, Harvard University
Eighteen lucky scholars were able to ease comfortably into conference mode by attending the one-day Writing (Co-)Lab pre-conference workshop for graduate students and early career scholars on the 6th June, which was organised by the ENPA Junior Scholars Network and Works in Progress Seminars teams. Participants praised the way that the pre-conference workshop gave them the chance to meet colleagues and share experiences (and works-in-progress) with other early-career scholars in a supportive and confidence-boosting space.
All smiles at the pre-conference workshop
“My highlight was the pre-conference workshop. It felt inspiring and supportive to be in a room with psychological anthropologists from across the world and we certainly learnt so much from sharing our writings and fieldwork experiences. A special thank you to Nadia, Mona and Mayssa for expertly organising and facilitating this space. I was blown away by the warmth of the junior scholars community and look forward to encountering these academically exceptional and friendly faces again :)” Kiara Wickremasinghe, SOAS
Spaces for promoting and discussing researcher connections and well-being were also included in the main conference in the form of a Junior Scholars mixer and a mental health workshop – aimed at early career researchers but open to all.
“I found the ENPA conference to be the most joyful, stimulating, and intense (in a good way) conference I have been to! And yes, I know I may be biased as an ENPA board member, but I was so humbled by the openness of colleagues to discussions, collaborative reflections, constructive feedback, and connections. Starting from the pre-conference workshop, to the panel sessions, plenaries, and all informal times in the campus garden, nearby cafe, or by the astonishing beach in Bygdoy, the vibe was the one I always wished for in academic gathering, one of true interest, curiosity, solidarity, and care. Looking forward to the upcoming ENPA gatherings!” Mayssa Rekhis, Gothenburg University
In-person attendees on the final day of the conference
The network continues to grow and diversify, and the ENPA Board Meeting hosted at the conference gave participants and board members the opportunity to brainstorm ideas and initiatives for the future together. Ideas ranged from co-hosting workshops or conferences with psychologists to organising special issues, creating a new journal and podcast series, hosting a bulletin board on the website, and sharing educational materials for psychological anthropology – we’re excited to see what the future holds for ENPA! We’ll end with some words from the wonderful Oslo-based organisation committee:
“Thank you all for being part of this remarkable conference. During the days of the conference, we all witnessed engaging discussions and meaningful connections. For the Department of Social Anthropology, it was a true privilege to host such a knowledgeable group of scholars and to see how vibrant psychological anthropology is.We would like to express our deepest gratitude to the speakers and guests; the organizing committee’s members who displayed unwavering commitment as they actively engaged in the meticulous online preparation (Lavinia Ţânculescu-Popa, Anni Kajanus, Sean Dowdy); the people who curated the timetable and demonstrated an extraordinary level of expertise in proficiently managing the scheduling process (Mayssa Rekhis and Mona Elisa Behnke); the exceptionally creative visual team (Ildze Jakunova and Maija Sequeira); and importantly our senior adviser Hilde Spjelkavik Kveseth and our students, Olivia Schneider, Ingrid Lovise Ruud, Giulio Panettiere, Nikita Karbasov, and Andreas Lekkos who were true superheroes in the organization of the conference, going above and beyond to ensure its success and leaving an indelible mark.” Arsenii Khitrov, Keir Martin and Tuva Beyer Broch, The University of Oslo
Members of the organising committee and ENPA board
ENPA 2023 was organised in partnership with the University of Oslo, the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA), and the Research Council of Norway, and we are grateful for their support.
About the author
Maija Sequeira is a Ph.D. student at the University of Helsinki who takes a trans-disciplinary and cross-cultural approach to understanding children’s development of social norms and values related to hierarchies. She is also a member of the ENPA blog team and board.
You can find more about her work here or connect with her on Twitter @maija_eliina
