Global Encounters

Global Encounters focuses on the everyday interactions between human lives and global processes. It is almost impossible for anthropologists today to conceive of lived experiences, whether in the present or in the past, without asking how these are globally (in)formed. At the same time it is human experiences which shape and define what 'the global' means, how it is contested, and how the answers to these questions vary across spatial, temporal and ideological contexts.

This serie of seminars offers an opportunity for speakers and audiences from a broad variety of fields and disciplinary backgrounds (including  anthropology, history, sociology, law, politics, cultural studies, media, and religion) to reflect on the very dynamics of this dialectial relationship. Speakers will include both established scholars and PhD students.

The Conversations of Everyday Life: From Trails to Networks

Prof. Kathleen M. Carley (Institute for Software Research, Carnegie Mellon University, USA)
Discussant: Prof. dr. Peter Groenewegen (Organization Sciences, VU)
Chair: Dr. Sandra J.T.M. Evers (Social and Cultural Anthropology, VU) 
 
Everyday life leaves trails that can be gathered and analyzed as dynamic geo-spatially embedded meta-networks. Technology and theoretical implications of this perspective will be discussed, and illustrative examples relating to social change, information diffusion and belief formation will be examined.

Kathleen M. Carley is a Professor of Computation, Organizations and Society and the director of the center for Computational Analysis of Social and Organizational Systems at Carnegie Mellon University. She combines cognitive science, social networks analysis and computer science to address complex social and organizational problems, including group response in disaster situations. 
      
Date: Thursday 24 May 2012, 4-5.30 pm
Venue: VU University, Metropolitan Building, Room Z-009

Google China Standoff

Documentary screening followed by a discussion with Marije Meerman (director), Prof. Ying Zhu (co-producer), and Prof. dr. Jeroen de Kloet (Amsterdam Centre for Globalisation Studies)

In a fight to regulate information flow, the Chinese government blocks Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, and censors information that it deems detrimental in the name of “national interest.” In 2010, Google refused to comply with Chinese censorship laws and moved its Chinese search engine servers to Hong Kong. Google China Standoff calls attention to the restricted nature of cyberspace and the visibility of the state in regulating, virtually, national borders. As political interests are enmeshed with economic interests, the long-fought global trade war is now on information. Meanwhile, unfiltered information is becoming a precious good for netizens.

The screening will be followed by a discussion with director Marije Meerman, co-producer Ying Zhu, and Professor Jeroen de Kloet (Amsterdam Centre for Globalisation Studies). Ying Zhu, a professor of media culture at the City University of New York, is the author or editor of seven books, including Television in Post-Reform China: Serial Dramas, Confucian Leadership, and the Global Television Market and Chinese Cinema During the Era of Reform: the Ingenuity of the System. Her new book, Two Billion Eyes: The Story of China Central Television, is forthcoming. Marije Meerman and Ying Zhu's new film, China: From Cartier to Confucius, about a Chinese student book club devoted to the recitation of Confucian texts, will be broadcast in the autumn in the Backlicht/Tegenlicht series..

Date: Wednesday 30 May, 3-5 pm
Venue: VU University, BelleVue Building, Room 0H-54.

Spirits on the Move: Notes on Socio-Spiritual Geographies in Africa and Far Beyond

Prof. dr. Thomas G. Kirsch (Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Constance)
Discussant: Prof. dr. Birgit Meyer (Religious Studies, Utrecht University) 
 
Studies on the global diffusion of Pentecostalism have mostly concentrated on the institutional side of this process. Taking the example of Pentecostal churches in rural Zambia, this paper develops a new approach by exploring how socio-cultural conceptions of spirit mobility inform the constitution of socio-spiritual communities and the spatial diffusion of Pentecostalism in Africa (and beyond).
 
Thomas G. Kirsch is Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Constance. He has published two monographs on Christianity in Zambia. Since 2003, he has also conducted extensive fieldwork on violence, security and crime prevention in South Africa.
 
Date: Thursday 7 June 2012, 4-5.30 pm
Venue: VU University, Metropolitan Building, Room Z-009

Upcoming seminars: