Activities

Rethinking Resilience: Climate Justice and Decolonial Perpectives

Seminar with Darmanto on 29 November 2024

Darmanto was invited to present his paper entitled Climatic Politics From Below: The Mentawai’s Resiliency in the Shadow of Climate Change and Decarbonization Projects. The seminarhttps://orient.cas.cz/cs/pro-verejnost/Rethinking-Resilience-Climate-Justice-and-Decolonial-Perspectives/) asks: How can a profound engagement with critical climate justice and climate coloniality help reformulate our conceptualisation of resilience? It has an exciting lineup of speakers from Czechia and abroad who will delve into this question, drawing on their long-term research from various parts of the world. The seminar is organized by Dr. Meenakshi Abunjam and will take place at the Academy Conference Centre Praha.

CROCODILES ARE WATCHING

Seminar with Darmanto on Tuesday, September 17

The Department of Ecological Anthropology invites you to the fifth seminar of the new seminar series. Our next talk, by Darmanto, is entitled ‘Crocodiles are watching’ (see the abstract below). The event will take place in Prague on Tuesday, September 17, 2024, commencing at 14:00 (CET) in the conference room on the fifth floor at the Institute of Ethnology, Czech Academy of Sciences. You are invited to attend in person at the IE CAS, or online via Microsoft Teams. To register for the seminar, please click here.

Abstract: Frequent accidental drownings have provoked the indigenous Mentawai on Siberut Island (West Sumatra, Indonesia) to connect the recent reappearance of the ever-elusive salt-water crocodiles (Crocodylus porosus) with ongoing ecological and social crises. The animal is a special creature, traditionally seen as the embodiment and the companion of the autochthonous spirit of the water (sikoinan) and the custodian of the underworld, a divine arbiter guarding moral order and manifesting social unity. These drowning incidents have led to a resurgence in the old belief that sikoinan is warning and punishing society due to a lack of sharing and the emergence of social inequality inseparable from ongoing development projects. The Mentawai understand that the rampant development activities have altered their cosmological world, caused the depletion of natural resources, and generated new social insecurity. Yet, they are actively engaged and voluntarily aspire to participate in these activities. I argue that the contemporary anxiety over crocodiles and drowning accidents signals an ongoing (re)consideration of what it means to be a Mentawai person and society in the context of rapid social disruption and environmental transformation.

Darmanto is an environmental anthropologist at the Oriental Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences. For more information about Darmanto, have a look here.

We hope to see you in Prague or online!

Events: Environmental Humanities Masterclass with Dr. Shopie Chao

The Environmental Humanities is an interdisciplinary field that engages with contemporary environmental issues and examines life’s cultural and political dimensions in a more-than-human world. In an epoch of ecological crisis, this field is of timely and critical importance, challenging human exceptionalism and nature-culture divides, examining our embroilment with and ethical obligations to more-than-human beings, and attuning us to emerging lively connections and alternate socio-ecological futures.

This Masterclass hopes to deepen engagement with the concerns of the Environmental Humanities in the Czech Republic and the broader region. We invite interested students to a one-day program to foster a community of like-minded researchers and offer an interactive session with Dr. Sophie Chao, an accomplished and prominent scholar from the University of Sydney. Dr. Chao will guide the participants and provide feedback on doing empirical and theoretical work.

We invite early career researchers (masters, doctoral and postdoctoral) interested in the

environmental humanities to attend a one-day masterclass with Sophie Chao on May 22nd in Prague. To register your interest, an abstract of 250 words and a short bio must be submitted by 15.04.2024 (for more details, see below). The masterclass will be held in English.

There is a maximum of 12 slots available for the masterclass. To register your interest, we ask potential participants to submit an abstract of no more than 250 words for a 5 to 8-minute

presentation. The abstract can be about something the participants find challenging, puzzling or interesting, but it can also be a question they would like to share and develop. It could develop around an ethnographic observation, an incident, an interview, a material object, or anything else you think would be a relevant point of departure for your current work. Accompanying the abstract should be a short 100–150-word bio and institutional affiliation. Please submit your abstracts and other details by 15.04.2024 to Darmanto ([email protected]) or Paul Keil ([email protected])

The Oriental Institute and the Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Science and School of Social Science Charles University organise this event. The Strategy AV21, The Czech Science Foundation (GACR, Grant no. 24-13058S) and the European Research Council (ERC) funded the masterclass under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program (Grant agreement no. 866350).

For further information, please send your questions to [email protected] or [email protected]