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Past Events 2013

Workshop

11.12.2013

 

"Wege zum Vergleich"

Zum Auftakt der zweiten Phase des SFB 806 „Unser Weg nach Europa“ luden das Kompetenzfeld IV „Kulturen und Gesellschaften im Wandel“ und das Internationale Kolleg Morphomata zu einem eintägigen Workshop „Wege zum Vergleich“ ein. Ziel des Workshops war es, verschiedene Vergleichsverfahren kennenzulernen, zu diskutieren, wie sie in unterschiedlichen Disziplinen praktiziert werden, sowie Möglichkeiten zu erkunden, welche neuen Wege des Vergleichs in interdisziplinären Arbeitsbereichen möglich sind.

Programm

Veranstaltung "Wege zum Vergleich"

Public Lecture

22.11.2013

 

Hajara Amoni Njidda (Nigeria): "Performing Authenticities and Nation Building: Case Study of the National Festival of Arts and Cultures in Nigeria"

This lecture was about the National festival of arts and culture in Nigeria which was initiated by one of the military leaders of the country in 1970 with the main aim of using traditional music and dance for the return of unity and mutual trust among the citizens of the country after the civil war. The festival has continued to be sustained, refurbished and promoted by subsequent leaders, thereby transcending its initial unity function, especially by the introduction of the thematic approach to the performance of the festival. It has now turned out to be an avenue for talent hunt and display of indigenous skills and harnessing them for contemporary usage and tourism, thereby contributing to nation building. The questions among others are: Who the organizers of the festival are, who are the participants, what are the events, what has sustained this festival thus far and how? Who decides what should be considered authentic at the festival and why? Are they events invented just for the festival? What efforts at nation building are evident in the performance of the festival? 

The thrust of this paper was to examine the festival from the perspectives of performing authenticity, invention of tradition and nation building. The festival itself is continually shaped and reshaped by prevailing political, social and economic conditions in the country; the study will look at the adaptation of these three concepts in the face of the changes brought about by these conditions. The concept of authenticity used in this project deals with what participants consider genuinely or truly indigenous to them, which they are always delighted to exhibit or perform at the festival, but in the process of adapting to the festival standards, traditional performances tend to lose some aspects while sometimes picking up others, thus leading to the process of ‘invention’ and reinventions of ‘traditions’ (Hobsbawm and Terence, 1983, Clifford, 1988). Nation building on the other hand has become central to the performance of the festival as there are hardly any of the annual themes that do not portray issues of nationalism and nation building. Job creation, economic empowerment, self employment, unity and dialogue among others, have thus become regular words and phrases in the themes of the festival.

This project has been pursued using qualitative data from various sources among which are unstructured interview, focus group discussions, participant observation and related literature.

Hajara Amoni Njidda has worked on various research projects which include among others, documentation of rock painting sites in Nigeria, documentation of various traditional festivals in North Eastern Nigeria, socio-cultural survey of enclave dwellers of the Gashaka-Gumti National park in Nigeria, traditional burials in Marghi land, the practice of ‘Animal double’ among the Marghi and a lot more. She also has worked as a museum curator and researcher at the Borno State council for arts and culture before moving to the National Council for Arts and Culture where she is now a deputy director in the research and documentation department

Workshop

3.-4.Okt. 2013

 

"Practices and Procedures of Authentication"

Venue: Bad Godesberg

Der Workshop „Practices and Procedures of Authentication“ (3.-4. Oktober 2013) diente der Exploration von Kooperationsmöglichkeiten zwischen Ethnologie und Sozialphilosophie bei der Erforschung von Autorisierungs- und Legitimierungsprozessen in post-kolonialen Gesellschaften. Der Terminus „authentication“ sollte ein weites Spektrum formeller und informeller sozialer Prozesse abdecken als deren Ergebnis Regeln, Handlungen, Personen und Entscheidungen normative Autorität erlangen. Es waren Kolleginnen und Kollegen und aus der Ethnologie, Religionswissenschaft, Soziologie und Philosophie beteiligt. Ziel der Zusammenkunft war zum einen die Diskussion eines von Dorothea Schulz und Wilfried Hinsch entworfenen begrifflichen Rahmens zur Beschreibung und Analyse von Autorisierungsprozessen und zum anderen die Gewinnung neuer empirischer Forschungsperspektiven. Die Diskussionen während des Workshops waren für die weitere Projektentwicklung fruchtbar. Einige Ergebnisse der gemeinsamen Arbeit wurden von Schulz und Hinsch inzwischen in Leipzig und Berlin („Authentication. Conceptual and ethnographic perspectives“), in Erfurt („Confronting secular justice with religious pluralism“) und in Utrecht (Religious Pluralism. Changing patterns of authentication in Mali“) vorgetragen. Ende Oktober 2014 wird ein weiterer Workshop zu demselben Themenkreis mit dem Titel „Authorizing Religious Leadership in Divided Public Spheres“ stattfinden.

Teilnehmer des Workshops „Practices and Procedures of Authentication“:

Wilfried Hinsch (Köln), Dorothea E. Schulz (Köln), Eva Barlösius (Hannover), Martin Fuchs (Erfurt), Ute Luig (Berlin), Markus Stepanians (Bern), Thomas Widlok (Köln), Patrick Desplat (Köln), Souleymane Diallo (Köln), Nicole Wagner (Köln), Johannes Wirtz (Köln)

Programm

Flyer "Practices and Procedures of Authentication"