About the Methodological Extensions Panel Series 2017-2018

For the 2017/2018 academic year, the Ethnography Lab is excited to present Methodological Extensions, a series of panel presentations exploring non-traditional methods or sites of ethnographic research. The series consists of four separate panel discussions, each presenting the work of faculty members, graduate and undergraduate students, who are working either collaboratively or independently, with specific tools and in specific research sites. Each panel presentation will investigate the key challenges and the key opportunity of a specific research method in relation to a set of contingencies at a specific site or with a specific theme. Building on the work of previous years, this series of panel presentations contributes to the Ethnography Lab’s goal of promoting ethnographic research methods within and beyond the academy by making transparent and explicit the processes of ethnographic data collection.

Bios for the January 24^th event in the Ethnography Lab

Ivan Kalmar is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Toronto. Kalmar’s work has focused on the image of “the Jew” in western Christian cultural history, and how it is related to the image of “the Muslim.” In addition to numerous articles on this subject, Kalmar co-edited with Derek Penslar Orientalism and the Jews (New England U Press, 2005), and is the author of Early Orientalism: Imagined Islam and the Notion of Sublime Power (Routledge, 2014).

His latest research program addresses Islamophobia and populism in Europe, with a focus on relationships, differences and similarities between the East and West of the European Union (including between the East and West in Germany). This research will examine the genesis and transmission of Islamophobic content both online and offline. Currently the focus is on online media.

Anastasia Udarchik (first year PhD in Sociocultural Anthropology) is a research assistant for Dr. Ivan Kalmar’s project “Populism and Islamophobia in the European Union: East and West”.  She is primarily interested in the recent rise of right-wing populist groups in Germany such as the Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany) and Patriotische Europäer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West).  In her own work, she researches the role of music in subcultural and countercultural contexts.  Her doctoral research deals with the uses and functions of music in the current wave of right-wing populist political movements in Germany.  She is interested in music’s role in propaganda, protest, and activism, and investigates the appropriation of traditional German folk music (Volksmusik) by right-wing populist groups.

Leigh Manley (second year PhD in Sociocultural Anthropology) is a research assistant for Dr. Ivan Kalmar’s project “Populism and Islamophobia in the European Union: East and West”. She is primarily interested in populist far-right groups Génération Identitaire and the Front National in France. In her own work, she researches the role of heritage-making strategies in populist far-right contexts. Her doctoral research examines the ways in which “heritage” is constituted and mediated within the Front National in France. She is interested in how such heritage-making strategies produce, negotiate, and contest boundaries of identity, and how these strategies of heritage play into hegemonic identifications with the past and imaginings of the future.

Adriana Sgambetterra is an M.A. student in social-cultural anthropology with a background in both religious studies and anthropology. Her current research focuses on Islamophobia and populism in Italy, concentrating on discourses from both politicians and the Catholic Church. More generally, she is interested in anthropology of religion, journalism and communications, and theory and method in the study of religion.

Nich Worby is the Web Archives Program Coordinator and Government Information and Statistics Librarian at the University of Toronto. He oversees collection development, staff training and researcher outreach for web archive collections.