Dear Colleagues,
We are happy to share with you our proposed panels for the 2025 Conference of the Commission on Anthropology of the Middle East entitled Anthropology Transforming. The Middle East in the Eye of the Storm to be held on 10–12th September at IFEA, Istanbul, Turkey.
At this time, the following panels have been proposed (please see below). Should you wish to propose a panel, we kindly request that you send it to us immediately, and to send your final Call for Panels (CFP) by 20 March. Furthermore, all abstracts of proposed papers, accompanied by brief biographies of the participants, must be submitted by 15 July.
Please forward the paper proposals to the panel organizers and soheilairan@gmail.com and mrodziewicz@uw.edu.pl
Panel Proposals
- Games and Sports
Christian Bromberger (brombergerchristian8@gmail.com)
Games are free, uncertain, fictitious activities, with rules that suspend ordinary laws; the unreality of games is underlined by the name given to them… Games can value competition, other chance, still others simulacrum (playing with dolls) or vertigo (speed in a car). Some combine these different characteristics. These games can be physical, verbal, use illusion (dressing up for example) and are either intended for children or adults (betting, for example). Sports are competitive games, based on bodily prowess, against an opponent, a distance, a time, an obstacle, an animal, or even oneself. Considered in their dual dimension of practice and spectacle, sports are privileged observatories of the classification of genders (according to the sexual distribution of practices), of local, regional, national antagonisms (through the militant fervor of supporters aroused by the spectacle of competitions), of the threshold of authorized violence (variable according to societies), of the canons of bodily beauty, forms of sociability between athletes and between spectators, of the evolution of measuring instruments, consubstantial with sport, and finally of the ritual dimensions of major sporting events.
- Human-Animal Relations
Jean-Pierre Digard (jpdigard@gmail.com)
The dominant image of human-animal relations today is that of Western pets. But it would be simplistic to limit ourselves to this particular case. On the contrary, it is important to explore other situations, by asking the following questions in particular:
– What domestic animals are raised in Islamic countries, from small ruminants (sheep, goats) to cats and dogs, not forgetting camelids?
– How are they reared: outdoors or in special buildings, extensively or intensively, in herds or individually?
– How are they used: for slaughter or for work, for economic purposes or for pleasure?
– Particular attention will be paid to the cat and the dog, which are the closest to man, but for different purposes: the cat was first admitted to human homes as a predator of rodents, before being admitted for its companionship; the dog, considered impure to varying degrees, was initially devoted to defending property and herds against animal and human predators, before becoming man’s first animal companion. But these two species have had very different statuses and followed very different, even opposing, paths depending on the religion, such as Shiite Islam and Zoroastrianism in Iran.
- Medical Anthropology
Soraya Tremayne (soraya.tremayne@anthro.ox.ac.uk)
- Rituals in Movement: Pilgrimage, Globalization, and Diaspora
Paulo Pinto and Gisele Fonseca Chagas (philu99@gmail.com; giselechagas@id.uff.br)
Rituals are a central part of the religious life of Middle Eastern communities around the globe, connecting them through shared patterns of devotion and worship, as is the case with shared rituals such as salat. Besides their recurrence in different places, rituals also connect communities through their participation in the circulation of people, symbols and experiences across the Middle East and its diaspora. Rituals can shape the movement of people, as in pilgrimage, as they can be shaped and changed through the dislocation of those who perform it, as in the case of immigrant, refugee, and diasporic communities. Rituals can also move through vast spaces, as in the case of globalized cults and devotions. This panel welcomes papers based on ethnographic research on rituals and movements in different Middle Eastern and diasporic contexts.
- Oral History and Memory in the Middle East Diaspora
Mary Elaine Hegland (mhegland@scu.edu)
- Anthropology and History.
Publications from Constitutional Period
Janet Afary (janetafary@gmail.com)
- New Realities: The Role of Technology in Shaping Everyday Life in the Middle East
Seyed Abdolreza Hosseini (abdr.hosseini@gmail.com)
- Crafting Culture: Ethnographies of Food, Art, and Ethical Worlds
Susan B. Rottmann (susan.rottmann@ozyegin.edu.tr)
- Women in Central Asia
Rano Turaeva (r.turaeva@gmail.com)
- Research in Progress
Soheila Shahshahani (soheilairan@gmail.com)
- Toward Visual Anthropology: A screening of documentary films from the Middle East followed by a discussion
Shilan Sa’adi (shilan.saadi80@gmail.com)
Note to Panel Organisers:
Please make sure that
– The proposed papers are relevant to the topic of the panel.
– If you are not familiar with the scholar, we recommend exercising caution. Kindly request that they send their abstract promptly and consider asking them to submit a short paper (5–8 pages) to demonstrate their capability to produce work of an acceptable standard.
– Papers at international conferences are not student term papers.
– Please ensure participants feel welcomed and encouraged, while also motivating esteemed scholars to present high-quality research papers.
– Please make sure the speaker does not fall into general propaganda regarding her/his topic.
– Unless a historical text is proposed, recent research must be presented.
– Each paper must have undergone the following: conceptualisation of the problem/data collection/analysis/summary and attempt at theorisation
– The speaker should be introduced by the Convenor before they commence speaking.
– The time should be managed and adhered to.
– Those requiring a certificate of attendance and a paper presentation and payment should inform the colleague at registration.
Registration Fee for presenting a paper at the Conference is $50 or 50 Euros, or equivalent in Turkish Lira. It is the responsibility of the panel moderator to ensure that the conference fee for online participants is paid in full.
All panel organisers must attend the conference. If they can’t come, a co-chair appointed by them can chair the panel. No more than half of a panel can present online.
