Programme and working formats

Programme

The programme includes keynote lectures and advanced seminars by Noel Salazar (University of Leuven), Michaela Benson (Goldsmiths University) and Huub van Baar (University of Amsterdam/Giessen University). It also comprises presentations by doctoral students, workshops on mobile methods and representational strategies, informal discussions on practical issues of mobile/multi-sited fieldwork, career and professional development sessions, a film screening, and recreational activities. The working language is English.

The programme can be found hereas pdf.

Working Formats

The summer school integrates traditional academic working formats with less formal structured days that aim to increase the creative and interactive engagement of the participants.

1. Public keynote lectures

Katharina Manderscheid will inaugurate the summer school with her insights on unequal mobilities reminding us of how power relations intersect our conceptual and methodological intakes on human movements. In line with our objective for a more differentiated and comparative understanding of mobile phenomena, we have invited two other senior scholars to also give keynotes and to engage in a dialogue on the specific epistemic foundations and conceptual challenges of their respective research area. Both are leading experts within two very different empirical research areas focused on mobile work-life arrangements – Huub van Baar with respect to traveler minorities and Michaela Benson concerning lifestyle migration. Noel Salazar, former president of EASA and founder of the ANTHROMOB Network, has also agreed to give a public keynote lecture on the future of mobility studies and its new trajectories. 

2. Film screening:

Mobile Home Road Movie
HD video, approx. 60 min, english

There will be a public screening of a rough cut of the experimental film Mobile Home Road Movie and a talk with independent filmmaker Justin Time.The idea for Mobile Home Road Movie was based on the contradictory image of a house that is unsettled, moving, and driving down the road. The film explores a mindset that seems essentially linked to the American Dream and the ideology of moving on. Through the lense of housing, the film speaks about class conflicts, ideals of freedom, landscape and "frontier" mentality.
The protagonists are mobile home owners, dealers, truck drivers and "snowbirds". Some chose this lifestyle on purpose, as an extended vacation, another one lives in a trailer "because how would you like to live in a tent?"

3. Advanced Seminars

Michaela Benson and Huub van Baar will each teach three advanced seminar sessions on a) lifestyle migration and b) traveler minorities and securitization. Reading materials for both thematic issues will be provided in advance to the participants through the online portal ILIAS.

Advanced Seminar Van Baar:

The Securitization of Migration and Borders and the Management of Mobilities in Contemporary Europe

Huub van Baar’s seminars will primarily focus on the position of Romani minorities and migrants in contemporary Europe. Their situation will not be discussed in isolation, but in the wider historical, political and societal contexts of the ways in which the relationship between Europe and its Romani minorities has changed, most particularly through the increased post-1989 Europeanization of their representation, identity and status. The situation of the Roma, and particularly their socioeconomic and migratory mobilities, will be discussed from the angle of how changing security, migration, development and citizenship regimes in Europe have impacted on their everyday lives, on the ways in which others have framed their (im)mobilities, and on the opportunities to challenge mechanisms and practices of exclusion.

Keywords mobility – migration – securitization – irregularization of political subjects – evictability – Europeanization – European Union – Roma

Advanced Seminar Benson:

The recent refugee crisis in Europe has brought in its wake questions over definition: who is a migrant and who is a refugee? This seminar calls for a It introduces research on lifestyle migration—a conceptualisation intended to capture the migration of the relatively affluent in search of a better way of life (Benson and O’Reilly 2009)— and other forms of privileged migration and encourages participants to question whether and in what ways it is valuable to recognise the movement of the relatively affluent as migration. In particular, the seminar explores the role of lifestyle in migration and post-migration lives; how privilege shapes the migrant experience; and entanglements of production and consumption in privileged migration.

4. Presentation and discussion of dissertation projects

The summer school’s central focus will be presenting, discussing and offering constructive critique on individual dissertation projects and specific research issues. Presenters will be pre-circulate papers that provide an overview on their overall project, the specific research issue to be discussed in their presentation and, if applicable, some examples of primary data such as interview excerpts, visual documentation or field notes. The panels include two presenters, each of whom are allotted an overall timeslot of 45 minutes, encompassing a 15-minute presentation, a 7-minute comment by a discussant, and a longer open discussion. In addition to the three co-convenors and invited senior scholars, academic practitioners with expertise in the respective research areas who are based Freiburg and neighboring universities in Basel, Konstanz, and Zürich will serve as discussants (for names and affiliations, see section on discussants in the attached list of participants).

5. Workshops on mobile methodology and representation

Workshops will take place throughout the ten days of the late-summer school. They will introduce the participants to innovative presentation modes tied to mobile phenomena.

Blogging Mobilities

The workshop, facilitated by the editors of the anthropology blog Transformations, will focus on the future development of the summer school blog into a scientific blog on mobile work-life arrangements.

Writing Mobilities

Directed by dance scholar Isa Wortelkamp, author of Bewegung lesen, Bewegung schreiben (2012), the workshop participants will initially experiment with their respective dissertation materials through creative writing and layout strategies particularly attuned to the expression of movement.

Writing Movement – Procedures of Transmission

Where does a movement begin and end? How can we read something, which excludes literal meaning of writing? How to write and therefore pin down something that continuously is in motion creating its own path on the way? Like no other phenomenon movement withdraws itself from the stroke of the writer. Neither in viewing nor recording movement’s sensual and physical presence can it be held still, it just keeps moving. And yet, all writing and every reading in itself is moving and is movement; recordings and lectures come from and relate to movement as well as triggering movements themselves.
The workshop is devoted to the dynamic relationship between movement and writing within work processes in artistic and academic research. After an introduction in different notation systems and concepts of performative writing the participants will be able to experiment with their respective dissertation materials through creative writing and layout strategies particularly attuned to the expression of movement.

Mapping Mobilities

The workshop will introduce ICT-based tools and strategies which can be effectively harnessed to map mobility.

6. Professional development workshops

Half a day will be devoted to two parallel workshops on

a) “Publication strategies and time management” (N. Salazar),

The workshop is directed at first time academic authors. From his perspective as both a prolific author and an editor, Noel Salazar will provide insights into core issues of academic publishing, e.g. deciding what, when and where to publish, navigating the review process, or efficient time management during the writing and editiong process. Particular attention will be given to negotiating disciplinary and interdisciplinary demands in developing your publication profile.

Participants are asked to prepare answers for the following questions:

- Why do I want to publish?
- Who is my intended audience?
- What is my message?
- How is academic publishing different from other types of publishing?
- How do I deal with rejection?

and b) “Preparing for your first postdoc and professional skill development” (R. Norum).

7. Walk & Talk

To foster the exchange between participants, for half a day, each of the three senior scholars will set out with a group of doctoral students on a hike in the Black Forest – both to experience movement with all the senses as well as to get to know each other and each other’s work better and in a more informal setting. The organizers will be able to make use of this time to discuss workshop publication plans as well as other workshop-related issues.

8. Fireside Chats

On one evening, a fireside chat will bring together senior and junior scholars to informally discuss pragmatic and logistical issues relating to mobile/multi-sited fieldwork (including topics such as structuring and planning, data storage, finding and managing funding, travelling with/without partners). A second fireside chat will be devoted to the challenges of successfully navigating increasingly international and interdisciplinary academic labor markets.

9. Day-trip to Basel (optional)

During the day-off, an optional day-trip (self-paid) will be offered to Basel. There will be a guided tour throught the city.