Pētnieki piedalījās Starptautiskās etnoloģijas un folkloras biedrības kongresā Čehijā

2023. gada 7.–10. jūnijā projekta (Re)moving Ties pētnieki Ieva Puzo un Klāvs Sedlenieks piedalījās 16. Starptautiskās etnoloģijas un folkloras biedrības kongresā Living Uncertainty, kas norisinājās Brno (Čehijā).

Kongresā asoc. prof. Klāvs Sedlenieks uzstājās ar prezentāciju par antropoloģisko lauka darbu, mobilitāti, radniecību un tuvniecību – ko pētniekiem nozīmē doties pētījumā uz pāris mēnešiem, gadiem un kā tas (ne)ietekmē viņu attiecības ar ģimeni, radiniekiem, un citiem nozīmīgiem cilvēkiem viņu dzīvēs.

Tikmēr vecākā pētniece Ieva Puzo prezentēja savu pētījumu par starptautisko pētnieku pieredzi Latvijā. Savā darbā viņa norāda, ka no pētniekiem tiek sagaidīts profesionālais entuziasms, pārvācoties no vienas valsts un pētniecības institūcijas uz citu valsti un institūciju. Tajā pat laikā pētnieki saskaras ne vien ar profesionāliem, bet arī personīgiem izaicinājumiem, cenšoties sabalansēt dažādas personiskās vajadzības un sev nozīmīgās attiecības.

Tēzes

Hidden exile: human lifes in the shadow of anthropological fieldwork and academic mobility

Klāvs Sedlenieks

All exiles start short: they are supposed to last only while the war/unrest/political problems would end and then the refugee would certainly rejoin the original country. That is what differs exile from emigration. Exile grows into emigration when the refugees relocate their networks and roots more permanently to the new locality. In this presentation I explore situations where one needs to "start anew" again and again simply due to "normal" expectations of policy or academic tradition - an exile that is not seen as exile. Regular micro-to-medium-length mobilities that researchers in general are subject to due to neoliberal approaches to academia, are part of this kind of hidden exile. I am interested in the problems that arise not from the short business trips of a week or so, but what happens when one engages in academic mobility for half a year or longer? In contrast to other fields, academics often are supposed to relocate alone, universities and grants rarely care for families of the researchers as a serious aspect of human life. This tends to invoke very existential decisions about one's personal life. The medium-term mobility also means that one is unable to create a meaningful human network locally. Anthropological career where the "long-term fieldwork" is still often treated as an ideal rite of passage or even regular engagement, often render the personal life of a researcher disembedded and broken. This is a work-in-progess report on results from ongoing interviews with academics (including anthropologists).    

What’s next? Examining the experiences of international scholars in Latvia

Ieva Puzo

In this paper, I highlight and examine the uncertainties embedded in the work and personal lives of transnationally mobile research workers. All over the world, the dominant regimes of knowledge production increasingly prioritize short-term employment contracts, with the expectation that the “ideal” researcher would be ready for and even enthusiastic about movements across borders from one position to another. At the same time, the lived reality for many scholars is quite different, as they attempt to balance various aspects of their lives in the face of the multitude of uncertainties engendered by the contemporary regimes of knowledge production.
Based on semi-structured interviews with international scholars in Latvia as well as other ethnographic data, I examine how this kind of uncertainty is experienced by transnationally mobile scholars in research contexts that tend to be considered marginal. As one such locale, the Latvian research landscape is characterized by the unpredictability of research careers as well as the lack of funding and fierce competition for the available resources. How, then, do international scholars in the country make sense of their work and personal lives there—and how do they envision their future? I suggest that, while international scholars may arrive in Latvia with the hope of gaining a measure of certainty in their lives, the country’s research system compounds the already prevalent sense of uncertainty and pushes the researchers out in search of certainty elsewhere.

Plašāk par konferenci