*21**st** of June 2019, Department of Anthropology, UCL*
Keynote speaker: Dr Sian Lazar (University of Cambridge)
*Organisers: Miranda Sheild Johansson (UCL), Gwen Burnyeat (UCL)*
We invite papers that contemplate the social contract through themes such
as political change, the public good, bureaucracy, good governance, public
policy, crime, social movements, state-society negotiations and fiscal
relations, among others. We are open to exploratory papers in early stages
of linking existing ethnographic data and analysis to a discussion of the
social contract. This is an excellent opportunity for PhD and early career
researchers to meet each other and receive feedback from our discussants
and keynote speaker, and we anticipate that the workshop will result in a
special issue proposal to a political anthropology journal.
The workshop will take place on * Friday 21st of June* and consist of three
panels. *Dr Sian Lazar* will give a keynote at the end of the day. To
participate please submit a title, abstract (max 250 words) and short bio
or CV to Miranda m.johansson@ucl.ac.uk and Gwen gwen.burnyeat.16@ucl.ac.uk
by *Mon the 20th of May*. We will inform all applicants of the outcome of
their submissions by Friday the 24th of May. Lunch, tea/coffee will be
provided and there is some funding for travel.
*Feel free to contact either of us with any questions ˗ Miranda *
*m.johansson@ucl.ac.uk* <m.johansson@ucl.ac.uk>* and Gwen *
*gwen.burnyeat.16@ucl.ac.uk* <gwen.burnyeat.16@ucl.ac.uk>
While 20th century contractarians, e.g. John Rawls, agree that
state-society relations are not the result of actual contracts, but rather
conquest, usurpation or gradual shifts in institutions that do not require
a conscious opt-in, the social contract as a metaphor, or a set of mutual
and varied expectations remains a powerful way for people, governments and
social scientists to conceptualise state-society relations and assess
political legitimacy. From notions of reciprocity (a citizen perceiving
paying tax as a productive exchange with the state, Bjӧrklund Larsen 2018),
and rejections of ‘the public’ under neoliberalism (citizens that prefer
autonomy to state protection, Abelin 2012), to culture clashes brought on
by competing logics of bureaucracy and everyday life (Mathur 2014), and
contradictory affects and expectations towards states in conflict regions
(Ramírez 2011), social contract theory is ever present in anthropological
analysis. Today, in the context of global political transformations toward
post-neoliberal and populist models, the concept has gained further
traction. The purpose of this workshop is to bring together recent
ethnographic research on state-society engagements to analyse the utility
and meaning of the social contract today, both as an everyday emic category
employed by research participants, and as a political philosophy category
within anthropology.
REFERENCES: Abelin, M. (2012). ““Entrenched in the Bmw”: Argentine Elites
and the Terror of Fiscal Obligation.” *Public Culture* 24(2): 329-356.
Björklund
Larsen, L. (2018). *A Fair Share of Tax: A Fiscal Anthropology of
Contemporary Sweden*, Palgrave Macmillan. Mathur, N. (2014). “The Reign of
Terror of the Big Cat: Bureaucracy and the Mediation of Social Times in the
Indian Himalaya.” *Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute* *20*(1):
148. Ramírez, M. C. (2011). *Between the Guerrillas and the State: The
Cocalero Movement, Citizenship, and Identity in the Colombian Amazon*.
Durham, NC, Duke University Press.