February 6th and 7th, students and faculty from UMass Amherst and the University of Barcelona’s Departments of Anthropology met in the UB Raval campus for the fourth in a series of annual seminars, organized and supported through the NSF-sponsored Culture and Heritage in European Societies and Spaces (CHESS) Project. The two-day workshop was a flurry of ideas and discussions and who knows how many cafè amb llets.
Day 1 UB Post-Docs Jaime Palomera and Theodora Vetta introduced their work and the new Grassroots Economics Project (ERC), UB Prof Roger Canals shared some of his stunning visual anthropology work and a call for all anthropologists to consider the visual within their own research, and Profs. Krista Harper and Jackie Urla held a roundtable discussion on the past of visual anthropology and its promise for engaging issues of critical, public concern.
Day 2 students from both universities, including the current 2014 CHESS cohort and some alumni, shared their research in a workshop-style format with brilliant questions and contributions all around. Despite the ever-dangerous late afternoon lunch (and consequent threat of “involuntary siesta”) we made it through 11 presentations and had engaging conversations throughout, a testament to how compelling all the projects were!
*** For a play-by-play of the day’s schedule, check out the live-tweet of the session by Dr. Krista Harper here!
Many thanks to Jaime Palomera and the anthro folks at University of Barcelona for hosting us again! Looking forward to future collaborations and conversations!