CONFERENCE

AAS2022

The annual conference of the Australian Anthropological Society will be held online from 23 November to 26 November 2022 at Deakin University.

The Australian Anthropology Society's 2022 conference invites panels and papers that respond to the notion of 'Life Support'. This theme draws our attention to the principles, processes, activities, and ideologies of humans and non-humans who variously foster, care for, legitimise, frustrate, and explicitly reject particular forms of life. 

Through this theme we invite panels, papers, events, provocations and performances that explore the strengths, gaps and frailties of anthropology as a practice, a discipline, a legacy, a strategy, a tool, a trope, and as a life.

All session lengths will be 105 minutes (that’s 1 hour and 45 minutes!).

AAS2022 Website 

Announcement

The conference will be held in person on the lands of the Wadawurrung people of the Kulin nations, at the Waurn Ponds (Geelong) campus of Deakin University, from the 23rd to the 26th November. The focus of the conference will be the Waurn Ponds Estate, a corporate centre featuring 60 on-site accommodation rooms and a swimming pool, set into the green relaxing grounds of the university campus. Other on-campus accommodation will also be available. Delegates may arrive at the Melbourne Tullarmarine airport or at Avalon airport, with transport to Geelong venues readily available. Nearby attractions include the Great Ocean Road and surf beaches (including Bells Beach), Anglesea's Great Ocean Road Chocolaterie and Ice Creamery. The World Heritage Listed Budj Bim Cultural Landscape and eel traps are an easy day trip from Geelong.

The final day of events migrate the AAS conference and the AAS Distinguished Lecture to Melbourne city to coincide with the opening of the Council of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHASS) Congress (27th Nov–2nd Dec). The integration with the CHASS congress is deliberate and potent. The CHASS congress brings together anthropologists, sociologists, linguists, philosophers and others in order (at least in part), to emphasise the integral value of social science and humanities to Australia's national interest. Such a reminder contradicts political and financial messaging from the state and from a more pervasive corporate neoliberal agenda. The recent manifestation of a politically devalued HASS sector has terminated research projects—and entire anthropology departments—deemed 'unworthy' of life.