The University of Otago’s Social Anthropology programme are delighted to be hosting the annual ASAA/NZ Conference, on 22nd-24th November, 2023. We are excited to announce this year’s conference theme as ENGAGING ANTHROPOLOGY, and to provide the following provocations (with a formal call for papers to follow in May).

Social Anthropology is a field of diverse application, interest, and scope. In this conference we invite participants to think about ‘engaging’ anthropology, in two senses. First, who are anthropologists engaged with – what communities, stakeholders, and power structures, are we are connected to, and what possibilities do these relationships generate? Second, what does it mean for our work to be engaging to others – who are we communicating to, and how do we make anthropological knowledges meaningful and accessible to them?

In line with this theme, the conference will bring together papers, workshops, and other creative forms of presentation, that engage with questions about the practice and purpose of social anthropology. These may connect with the following areas, or some other aspect of engaging anthropology:

What different genres of writing and communication work for communicating anthropological knowledges?
How and where is anthropology being applied outside of academia, and with what challenges and opportunities?
How do we continue to develop our pedagogies towards meaningful engagements for students, both inside and outside of the classroom?
In what ways do our relationships with participants, and other stakeholders, shape the progress and outcome of our research? What ethical and practical questions facets of these engagements must be considered?
How might we engage our research with the body, the senses, the material, and/or the more-than-human world?
How do digital tools and technologies shape new (or old) forms of social and political engagement in the contemporary world?
How should we engage (or dis-engage) with the past - including with fraught social histories in our field sites, and in our own discipline?
How does anthropology engage with multiple knowledge systems, and research frameworks: including mātauranga Māori, and kaupapa Māori, and other indigenous frameworks?

We look forward to hosting you in beautiful Dunedin!

Questions are welcome at any stage. All communication about the conference can be directed to engaginganthropology2023@otago.ac.nz