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Past Conferences


A major activity of the Society is the annual conference, which is usually held in early December of each year. All are welcome to register for AAS conferences (you don't have to be an AAS member to attend or present). Conference programs include social events, keynotes by invited speakers, workshops organized and run by the Australian Network of Student Anthropologists and and the Centre for Native Title Anthropology, as well as panels, labs, roundtables, and meetings.

On this page access content from past conferences, including audio and video recordings, programs, and conference websites.

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AAS2023

Vulnerabilities

Macquarie University, 28 November-1 December 2023

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Keynote Address by Professor Robert Borofsky (Hawaii Pacific University)
Keynote Address by Professor Carolyn Rouse (Princeton University)
Live Free and Die: How Ontologies of Freedom are Killing Americans
29 November 2023
 
Abstract
Despite the United States’ national wealth and international power, Americans are sicker and die much earlier than people in most wealthy nations and many poorer nations. This talk focuses on why from the perspective of Lake County, California which has one of the lowest life expectancy rates in the state. It also happens to be one of the whitest counties, with about 87 percent identifying as white, about 5 percent as indigenous, and 2 percent as black. Lake County is also one of the poorest counties, but because of structural racism many low income white residents own property. They also associate their private property ownership with their freedom which is why many are also anti-government. Given this, the county has chosen to improve health by changing people’s relationship to their property through code enforcement. This talk describes this radical experiment in what I am calling an economy of care at the ends of capitalism.

 

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Keynote Address by Professor Amita Baviskar (Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi)
Keynote Address by Professor Susanna Trnka (University of Auckland)
Emotional Entanglements, Vulnerability, and the Search for Recognition: A New Kind of Health?
1 December 2023

 
Abstract
When 22-year-old James wants to tell his boyfriend something important, he avoids face-to-face communication and messages him instead; “it’s easier to talk about your feelings online,” he explains, “because you can quickly change the topic.” James is one of many New Zealand youth who strategically employ distance to enable an intimacy that feels otherwise potentially uncontrollable. Young people, including James, are also, however, deeply attune to how online emotional engagements entail their own pitfalls. This includes the humiliation of being caught out by those unnecessarily vying for attention and the exhaustion of undertaking “emotional labour” on behalf of others. Drawing from Paul Ricouer’s theory of recognition alongside Emmanuel Levinas’ work on the “infinity” of the Other, this presentation examines young New Zealanders’ self-described communicative practices, in particular their careful navigation of online emotional entanglements to maximize meaningful connection while protecting themselves from inter-personal disappointments and threats. I argue that young people are often highly self-reflexive about their attempts to open up safe avenues for emotional disclosure. In doing so, I ask what kinds of emotional ideologies are at play in contemporary enactments of intimacy, vulnerability, distancing, and care. I also ask, what does any of this have to do with new understandings of health? 

AAS2022

Online, 23–26 November 2022


AAS2021

Online, 24 November-1 December 2021


AAS2019

Values in Anthropology, Values of Anthropology

The Australian National University, 2-5 December 2019

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Keynote Address by Professor Robert Borofsky (Hawaii Pacific University)
Keynote Address by Professor Robert Borofsky (Hawaii Pacific University)
Ensuring Anthropology Matters – To Others
3 Dec 2019




Abstract
Would you concur that, perhaps, all is not well today with cultural/social anthropology? On the one hand, there is considerable pressure for accountability from those beyond the field who fund its research. They want to know how their money is being spent. Given most anthropology publications are hard for laymen to understand and administrators are unsure how to measure public benefit, administrators lean, perhaps by default, toward metrics for framing accountability – the more publications the better. On the other hand, the field has certain problematic dynamics. With its focus on individual, independent fieldwork and specialization, it is unclear whether the field’s constant research and publications are producing more knowledge – defined in terms of trustworthy information one can rely on above and beyond individual knowledge claims of veracity. Moreover, few talk across their specialized niches to address broader problems – within the field or within the broader society.

By repeatedly publishing material of limited value to those beyond the field, anthropologists may be perpetuating their own marginalization. In protecting their intellectual purity from others (in Mary Douglas’ terms), anthropologists are making themselves more vulnerable to the demands of those outside the field. Anthropology is losing its ability to chart its own fate.

Is there a way out? Perhaps. But it involves changing the way anthropologists operate – moving beyond the appearance of benefiting others to being able to offer something more substantive that will raise the field’s public value and thereby reduce the drumbeat for publications that few non-anthropologists read and value. That is what this talk is about: ensuring anthropology matters to others.


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Keynote Address by Professor Amita Baviskar (Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi)
Keynote Address by Professor Amita Baviskar (Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi)
Attitude! Doing Anthropology in a Utilitarian World
4 Dec 2019




Abstract
“But what use is it?” ask my engineer and banker cousins. “It’s all very interesting…” trails off the voice of my economist colleague. “I hope you will write a report that we can send to the press,” says my activist friend. What do others expect of anthropologists and what do we expect of ourselves? How are these expectations met, repudiated and negotiated? I shall reflect on these questions from my position as an India-based practitioner who must contend with the legacies of colonial epistemologies and postcolonial imperatives in an increasingly neoliberal academy and Hindu-supremacist nation-state. I shall argue that the value of critical humanism that is central to anthropology is more vital than ever; the challenge is to uphold it in ways that include and reach beyond the academy.


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A Conversation on Public Anthropology
A Conversation on Public Anthropology
Professor Assa Doron, (Anthropology Program, School of Culture, History & Language, CAP, ANU) in conversation with Professor Amita Baviskar (Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi, India) and Professor Robert Borofsky, (Center for a Public Anthropology, Hawaii Pacific University, USA).



AAS2018

Life in an Age of Death

James Cook University, Cairns Campus, 4-7 December 2018

AAS2017

Shifting States (Combined ASAANZ/AAS Conference)

University of Adelaide, 11-15 December 2017

AAS2016

Anthropocene Transitions

The University of Sydney, 12-15 December 2016

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Keynote Address by Professor Susan Crate (George Mason University)
Keynote Address by Professor Susan Crate (George Mason University)
Investigating the ‘complexity of change’ and ‘adaptive challenges’ of the Anthropocene: Anthropology, interdisciplinarity, and methodology
13 Dec 2016




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Keynote Address by Professor Aletta Biersack (The University of Oregon)
Keynote Address by Professor Aletta Biersack (The University of Oregon)
Beyond the Anthropocene and back to environmental justice: Anthropogenic impact in the Pacific Islands
14 Dec 2016



AAS2015

Moral Horizons

The University of Melbourne, 1-4 December 2015

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Keynote Address by Michael Lambek (University of Toronto)
Keynote Address by Michael Lambek (University of Toronto)
Moral Horizons: Marriage in Mayotte
2 Dec 2015



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Keynote Address by Nancy Scheper-Hughes (University of California, Berkeley)
Keynote Address by Nancy Scheper-Hughes (University of California, Berkeley)
Engaging Evil: Neocannibalism and Military-Terrorist Necropolitics
3 Dec 2015



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Keynote Address by Annelise Riles (Cornell Law School)
Keynote Address by Annelise Riles (Cornell Law School)
Refracted Time: From Historicity to Legal Technique in the “Comfort Women” Controversy
4 Dec 2015



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Panel - Engaging the Public
Panel - Engaging the Public
Plenary discussion convened by Gerhard Hoffstaedter (University of Queensland), with Greg Downey (Macquarie University), Tess Lea (University of Sydney) and Nancy Scheper-Hughes (University of California, Berkeley)
4 Dec 2015



AAS2014

Cosmopolitan Anthropologies (Combined ASAANZ/AAS Conference)

The University of Otago (Queenstown, New Zealand), 10-13 November 2014

AAS2013

The Human in the World, the World in the Human

The Australian National University, 6-8 November 2013

AAS2012

Culture and Contest in a Material World

The University of Queensland, 26-28 September 2012

AAS2011

Knowledge and Value in a Globalising World

The University of Western Australia, 5-8 July 2011

AAS2010

Anthropology and the Community to Come

Deakin University, 23-24 September 2010

AAS2009

The Ethics and Politics of Engagement

Macquarie University, 9-11 December 2009

AAS2008

Ownership and Appropriation

The University of Auckland, 8-12 December 2008

AAS2007

Transforming Economies, Changing States

Australian National University, 31 October-2 November 2007

AAS2006

Beyond Science and Art: Anthropology and the Unification of Knowledge

James Cook University, Cairns Campus, 27-30 September 2006