Ethnographic Imagination Basel

• On Sensing - with David Howes

  How does attending to and engaging our senses reveal our world otherwise?Our guest on this episode, On Sensing is David Howes, professor of anthropology and co-director of the Centre for Sensory Studies at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. He also serves as an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Law at McGill University. Howes is recognized as one of the leading figures in the anthropology of the senses and a theorist within the interdisciplinary field of sensory studies. His research and teaching cover fields such as the anthropology of the senses, sensory ethnography consumption, material culture, art and aesthetics, law and legal anthropology.This conversation focuses on two of his monographs, Sensual Relations Engaging the Senses in Culture and Social Theory (2003) and Sensorial Investigations. A History of the Senses in Anthropology, Psychology and Law  (2023), which explore the engagement of perception across different temporal and spatial contexts. He is the author of numerous books including monographs such as Ways of Sensing Understanding the Senses in Society (2014), co-authored with Constance Classen and The Sensory Studies Manifesto: Tracking the Sensorial Revolution in the Arts and Human Sciences (2022) Sensorium: Contextualizing the Senses and Cognition in History and Across Cultures(2024). Howes is also editor of numerous essay collections on the senses, including The Empire of the Senses.The Sensual Culture Reader (2005) and The Sixth Sense Reader (2009).  Host: George Paul Meiu, Professor of Anthropology and Chair of the Institute of Social Anthropology at the University of Basel.Production: Zainabu Jallo (Institute of Social Anthropology) in collaboration with the New Media Center at the University of Basel

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• On the Devil - with Birgit Meyer

  What do depictions of the devil reveal about modernity, late capitalism and the world at large? In this episode with Birgit Meyer, professor of religious studies at Utrecht University, we talk about the devil in images and imaginaries of evil from religious cultures to the culture of consumption. Meyer is a cultural anthropologist whose scholarly work centres on the forces of darkness in relation to new religious movements, film media, and the senses. Her research encompasses the increasing prominence of global Pentecostalism and the complex relationship between religion and popular culture, heritage, media, and the public sphere. She is widely recognized in anthropology and African Studies for her contributions to understanding Pentecostalism and late capitalism in post-colonial West Africa, with a particular focus on Ghana. Meyer has led numerous collaborative projects and has published edited and co-edited essay collections, including Magic and Modernity Interfaces of Revelation and Concealment (2003), Religion Media and the Public Sphere (2005), and Aesthetic Formations. Media, Religion, and the Senses (2009), Sense and Essence. Heritage and Cultural Production of the Real (2018).This episode focuses on two monographs: Translating the Devil: Religion and Modernity among the Ewe in Ghana  (1999), and Sensational Movies: Video Vision and Christianity in Ghana (2015). Host: George Paul Meiu, Professor of Anthropology and Chair of the Institute of Social Anthropology at the University of Basel.Production: Zainabu Jallo (Institute of Social Anthropology) incollaboration with the New Media Center at the University of Basel

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• On Erotics - with Anima Adjepong

  Anima Adjepong, Associate Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Cincinnati, joins us as a guest in this episode, On Erotics. The discussion begins with the concept of the erotic as a form of sensual and aesthetic relationality that challenges traditional notions of objectivity and rationality.  Adjepong's scholarly work has explored the intersections of erotics with gender, sexuality, race, class, and knowledge production while also addressing themes of belonging, freedom, and the complexities of class, race, and transnationalism in both Ghana and the United States. The dialogue explores how the erotic can provide ways to reimagine our engagement with an understanding of the world.      Adjepong is author of the book Afropolitan Projects: Redefining Blackness, Sexualities, and Culture from Houston to Accra (2021), which presents an ethnographic examination of how Ghanaians living abroad utilize African imaginaries to shape their identities. This work highlights a unique form of cosmopolitanism that intricately weaves racial identities within the broader context of gender, sexuality, and religion. Additional contributions include articles and chapters with titles such as "Invading Ethnography: A Queer of Colour Reflexive Practice"(2019), “Whiteness Engendered Violence on the Rugby Pitch" (2021), and "Women's Football and Gendered Nationalism in Ghana" (2022). This episode emphasizes in particular their 2019 essay, “Erotic Ethnography, Sex Spirituality, and Embodiment in Qualitative Research.”     Host: George Paul Meiu, Professor of Anthropology and Chair of the Institute of Social Anthropology at the University of Basel. Production: Zainabu Jallo (Institute of Social Anthropology) in collaboration with the New Media Center at the University of Basel.

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• On Humanitarianism - with Inderpal Grewal

  This episode, “On Humanitarianism”, reviews how the incitement to rescue and save others has become vital to how we are what we are in the contemporary world.  It also examines how a particular perspective on humanitarianism may help us better understand the current global order. Our guest is Inderpal Grewal, professor emerita of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Yale University. Grewal is one of the pioneers of the field known today as Transnational Feminist Studies and has conducted extensive research on questions focused on post-colonialism, mobility and modernity, non-governmental organizations and human rights, law and citizenship, among many other subjects.   Some of her notable publications include Home and Harem: Nation, Gender, Empire and the Cultures of Travel (1996), Transnational America: Feminisms, Diasporas, Neoliberalisms (2005), and Saving the Security State: Exceptional Citizens in Twenty-First Century America (2017). Host: George Paul Meiu, Professor of Anthropology and Chair of the Institute of Social Anthropology at the University of Basel. Production: Zainabu Jallo (Institute of Social Anthropology) in collaboration with the New Media Center at the University of Basel.  

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• On Trance - with Michaela Schäuble

  Our guest on episode #13, On Trance, is Michaela Schäuble. Her scholarly work explores innovative ways to engage with the experiences of trance through writing, film, and photography. This episode examines the transformative potential of ecstatic experiences of trance, the state of ecstasy and exuberance associated with mediumship. Our discussion centers on trance, forms of possession, and mediumship, which have long fascinated anthropologists and challenged their understanding and representational possibilities.   Michaela Schäuble, a professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Bern in Switzerland, is also an acclaimed documentary filmmaker. She is one of the co-founders and Co-directors of Ethnographic Media Space Bern, a creative collective of anthropologists engaged in audio-visual methods as part of knowledge production. Prior to her current position, she taught at the University of Manchester in England and the Martin Luther University in Halle Wittenberg, Germany.  Schäuble's diverse research interests span media and audio-visual anthropology, religion, social memory, gender space, and nationalism, offering rich and engaging perspectives.   She is author of Narrating Victimhood. Gender Religion and the Making of Place in Post-war Croatia (2014). She is also the author of numerous articles and chapters on topics as diverse as Mediterranean anthropology, anthropology of post-socialism, ritual and commemoration, masculinity and placemaking, as well as ethnographic methods beyond the written word. One of her current projects focuses on the phenomenon of tarantism in southern Italy, an ensemble of bodily afflictions and healing practices that involve trance-like experiences.   Host: George Paul Meiu, Professor of Anthropology and Chair of the Institute of Social Anthropology at the University of Basel. Production: Zainabu Jallo (Institute of Social Anthropology) in collaboration with the New Media Center at the University of Basel.

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