Inimkond: Laur Kiik - Taking Worlds Seriously in Burma/Myanmar's Kachin Society

Our next Inimkond seminar will be held by Laur Kiik from Tallinn University EHI, and is titled "Indigenous Ontologies or Mere Conspiracy Theories?: 'Taking Worlds Seriously' in Burma/Myanmar's Kachin Society".

The seminar will take place on Wednesday, Feb 11, from 6 to 8pm in room M-342 (Tallinn University Mare building). You are cordially invited to attend!

Abstract:

This seminar starts with an extended, specific exploration of how many people in one war-torn 'indigenous' society analyse their political-ecological predicament -- and do it in ways that perhaps eat up the distance in anthropological theory between 'indigenous ontologies' and 'conspiracy theories', or indeed, analytical error. Simply then, how is a sociocultural anthropologist to both take people's worlds 'seriously' as very real worlds and describe constructively how they got something wrong about material realities? This question arises from an ethnographic presentation on the Old Testament-inspired religious-nationalist cosmologies and the popular conspiratorial discourses about China-led natural resource grab in northern Burma/Myanmar, an epidemic of drug abuse, and Myanmar Army war crimes that circulate in the region's ethnic Kachin society.

Inimkond: Current Issues in Anthropology and Beyond
full program at http://www.tlu.ee/en/estonian-institute-of-humanities/Anthropology/inimkond

This seminar series features speakers from anthropology and related fields, and fosters discussion of their research with a transdisciplinary audience. It aims to contribute to the culture of academic scholarship and debate at Tallinn University. Speakers include both local researchers and guests from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds and with various takes on anthropological theory and methods. Presentations in the seminar series will be of interest to staff and students in anthropology, cultural theory, sociology, and history, among others.