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The workshop and lecture are sponsored by the European Research Council Horizon 2020 programme. Please register with the link below for the keynote lecture «Rightful Shares and the Claims of Presence: Distributive Politics beyond Labor and Citizenship» (open to the public). Attendance at the workshop is by invitation only.
Program and Attendance at Keynote Lecture
The Keynote lecture «Rightful Shares and the Claims of Presence: Distributive Politics beyond Labor and Citizenship» will be delivered by Prof. James Ferguson, Stanford University on the 6th September, 2019 in Blindern campus at Georg Sverdrups Hus, (Stort møterom) from 0915-1045 am.
Everyone can register for this event. (If you are also attending the workshop, you do not need to sign up here. Please see information about workshop below)
Bio James Ferguson:
James Ferguson is the Susan S. and William H. Hindle Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences, and Professor in the Department of Anthropology. His research has focused on southern Africa (especially Lesotho, Zambia, South Africa, and Namibia), and has engaged a broad range of theoretical and ethnographic issues. Recent work has explored the surprising creation and/or expansion (both in southern Africa and across the global South) of social welfare programs targeting the poor, anchored in schemes that directly transfer small amounts of cash to large numbers of low-income people. His work aims to situate these programs within a larger “politics of distribution,” and to show how they are linked to emergent forms of distributive politics in contexts where new masses of “working age” people are supported by means other than wage labor. In this context, new political possibilities and dangers are emerging, even as new analytical and critical strategies are required. His book on this topic (Give a Man a Fish: Reflections on the New Politics of Distribution) was published in 2015.
Program and Attendance Workshop and Keynote Lecture
Our workshop is by invitation only. The keynote lecture is included in the workshop. Please contact Cynthia Khamala Wangamati for registration form to the full event.
Program
6. September |
Georg Sverdrups hus |
University of Oslo |
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0830-0900 |
Registration for workshop participants |
Place: Møterom (Workshop venue) |
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0915-1045 |
Keynote Lecture "Rightful Shares and Claims of Presence: Distributive Politics beyond Labour and Citizenship". |
By Professor James Ferguson, Stanford University. Place: Stort Møterom |
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1045-1115 |
COFFE BREAK |
Place: Møterom 1 |
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1115-1145 |
Welcome and Introductory remarks: On utopian impulses, scalar imaginaries, and socio-political experiments |
Ruth Prince, University of Oslo |
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1145-1315 |
SESSION ONE: TECHNO-UTOPIAS |
Chair: Richard Rottenburg (WITS Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of the Witwatersrand) |
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Knowledge/Seizure. Data, Debt, & the Zero Balance Economy |
Kevin P. Donovan (University of Edinburgh) and Emma Park (New School for Social Research) |
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Leapfrogging all the way to utopia: New digital technologies and the public good in Africa |
Thomas Neumark (University of Oslo) |
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Money for Nothing, Work for Love: Universal Basic Income, Post-Work Utopias, and the Ongoing Centrality of Wage Labour |
Liz Fouksman (University of Oxford) |
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DISCUSSION |
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1315-1415 |
LUNCH |
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1415-1545 |
SESSION TWO - DATA, DEVICES, DESIGNS |
Chair: |
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Shacktopia: The Meantime Future of Humanitarian Design |
Peter Redfield (University of North Caroline, Chapel Hill) |
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Policy as Experiment. Towards an analysis of the role of critique and feedback loops for iterative learning |
Ursula Rao (University of Leipzig) |
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The diagnostic gap: devices/networks/coverage’ |
Alice Street (University of Edinburgh) |
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DISCUSSION |
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1545-1615 |
COFFE BREAK |
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1615-1730 |
SESSION THREE - ECOLOGIES/BIOLOGIES |
Chair: Knut Nustad (University of Oslo) |
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The Nectar of Life: Agrarian ferments and the utopian impulse of Natural Farming (India) |
Daniel Münster (University of Cologne/University of Heidelberg) |
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Immunitary Utopias and Hepatitis B Environments |
Noémi Tousignant (University College London) |
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DISCUSSION |
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1900- |
DINNER |
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7. September |
Georg Sverdrups hus |
University of Oslo |
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0930-1200 |
SESSION FOUR – CITIZENSHIP
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Chair: Ursula Münster, University of Oslo |
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"Financialisation without welfare, Identification without citizenship: biometric programmes in contemporary Nigeria." |
Keith Breckenridge (University of Witwatersrand) |
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The Utopia of Global Citizenship: Selling passports in Cyprus |
Theodoros Rakopoulos (University of Oslo) |
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COFFE BREAK |
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Hopeful living: citizenship, resilience and the crisis of healthcare disparities in Kenya
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Victoria Jacinta Muinde (University of Oslo) |
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A politics of numbers: Registering citizens for Universal Health Coverage in Kenya |
Ruth J. Prince (University of Oslo) |
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DISCUSSION |
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1200-1330 |
LUNCH |
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1330-1500 |
SESSION FIVE - ABSENT UTOPIAS? |
Chair: Ruth Prince (University of Oslo) |
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Achieving universal health coverage in rural Zambia: utopian and dystopian visions in the development of a community health worker programme |
James Wintrup (University of Oslo) |
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‘When People Eat Shit’: Cholera and the Collapse of Zimbabwe’s Public Health Infrastructure
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Simukai Chigudu (University of Oxford) |
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Absent Utopias in Ghanaian healthcare: Independence, Alma Ata, and the Information Age, 1957-2019 |
David Bannister (University of Oslo) |
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DISCUSSION |
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COFFE BREAK |
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1500-1600 |
ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION – CURIOUS UTOPIAS |
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Discussants: Professor Richard Rottenburg, (WITS Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of the Witwatersrand) will act as discussant.
For each session we will also allocate discussants from the presenters/participants. Workshop papers will be circulated in advance among presenters/discussants.
Presenters:
1. Keith Breckenridge
2. Noemi Tousignant
3. Theodoros Rakopoulos
4. Peter Redfield
5. Kevin Donovan
6. Simuaki Chigudu
7. Alice street
8. Ursula Rao
9. James Ferguson
10. Richard Rottenburg
11. Victoria Muinde
12. David Bannister
13. Tom Neumark
14. James Wintrup
15. Ruth Jane Prince
16. Daniel Münster
17. Liz Fouksman
Chairs:
Richard Rottenburg (WITS Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of the Witwatersrand) rottenburg@lost-research-group.org
Knut Nustad (Social Anthropology, University of Oslo) k.g.nustad@sai.uio.no
Ursula Münster (Environmental Humanities, University of Oslo), ursula.munster@ikos.uio.no
Katerini Storeng (SUM – Centre for Development and the Environment, UiO),
About the Event
New forms of welfare and social protection – such as Universal Health Coverage and Universal Basic Income – have societal and global ambitions regarding coverage and scale, even while what they actually offer in terms of welfare or healthcare is extremely limited.The failure of large-scale projects, denounced as ‘utopian’, is often invoked as explanation for the recent fascination with small-scale, miniature and scaled down solutions to world problems.
This workshop will bring together anthropologists and historians to interrogate the apparent contradictions within these developments.We will attend to large and small utopias, their limitations and possibilities, hopes and failures; their engagements with policies and social movements, publics, markets and states, as well as the other political forms and social collectives that they support, subvert or ignite.
- The Curious Utopias Concept (pdf)
- Curious Utopias Programme (pdf)
- Keynote Lecture James Ferguson (pdf)
Organizer
Associate Professor Ruth Prince,
Universal Health Coverage and the Public Good in Africa
Contact: Cynthia Khamala Wangamati
