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Embedded and Activated Ambiguities: Methodological and Ethnographic Approaches to Doubts and Ideas Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen June 14th 2012 Key words: Ideology, politics, convictions, ambiguity, doubt, uncertainty, fragility. This one day seminar proposes to explore the relationship between ideologies and ambiguities. More precisely we invite reflections on how sets of ideas defining cultural and social truths embed and produce doubts and ambiguities. We wish, as such, to look at ideological formations and the central role they play in the process of exclusion and inclusion in our globalizing world, with an eye to both the fixity, and absolute truths, conveyed by their rhetorical form, as well as to the ambiguity and uncertainty which they produce. Precisely because of the ambiguous aspects of e.g. populisms, nationalisms and fundamentalisms, it is essential not to take their power for granted but to examine how convictions and ideologies have fragile and incoherent dimensions and how they activate doubts which both make and unmake the effectiveness of these ideas (Pelkmans, 2011 in Press). Convictions such as those mentioned above, are often easily followed and registered as they are usually performed and articulated in conspicuous ways. However, the ambiguities and doubts that are part and parcel of these ideas have a tendency to slip away when trying to grasp them analytically. This creates methodological as well as ethnographic challenges for the anthropological study of changing and transforming societies and institutions. But it equally challenges the study of seemingly ‘stable’ societies and institutions and their reproduction and change over time. We invite ethnographic cases which in one way or the other reflect on ideas and ideological actions, and how they may contribute to the production, activation - or circumvention - of doubts and ambiguity. Drawing on these lines, we hope to spark an anthropological discussion about relationships between power and subversive practices, and to ethnographically explore how and to ethnographically explore how doubts, fragility, uncertainty, and disorder are not simply expressions of inconsistency or contradiction but part and parcel of the production and reproduction of ideas and social convictions. The course will have a maximum of 6 participants and consist of a lecture and feedback on papers by guest senior lecturer, Dr. Mathijs Pelkmans from London School of Economics and Political Sciences. The local resource person for the course will be Dr. Henrik Vigh contributing to the discussion of participants’ papers. A written paper on 5-10 pages will be required for all participants. Lecturers: Mathijs Pelkmans, Senior Lecturer, London School of Economics Mathijs Pelkmans has conducted field research in Georgia and Kyrgyzstan and has worked on the anthropology of borders, social and cultural boundaries, and the religious dimension of postsocialist change. He is the editor of a forthcoming volume titled “Ethnographies of Doubt: Faith and Uncertainty in Contemporary Societies” Henrik Vigh, Associate Professor, Dept. of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen Henrik Vigh has conducted field research in Europe and West-Africa and has worked on political anthropology, peace and conflict, crisis and chronicity, social becoming, mobility and mobilization. Organizers: Tamta Khalvashi, PhD Fellow, Dept. Of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen, [email protected] Katrine Gotfredsen, PhD Fellow, Dept. Of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen, [email protected] Deadline for Registration: April 16th 2012 ECTS: 2,5