MU Social Science Institute together with Departments of Sociology and Anthropology invite you to a seminar with Fulbright research Professor Thomas M. Wilson, Professor of Anthropology, Binghamton University, SUNY on "Ethnographic border studies in a world of Realpolitik"
Recent events in Ukraine have raised again the issues of how and when the national interests of a state are pursued without recourse to ethical, moral, and humanitarian matters. But this Realpolitik calls into question just what are the ‘real’ ‘interests’ of the nation. This talk examines today’s ‘retreat from empiricism’ that seems to be at work in the Realpolitik of international relations. It also considers whether this retreat from fact-finding in the pursuit of theory-identification has influenced ethnographic studies of border peoples, who often have an alternative definition of their own interests, an alternative ‘borderland Realpolitik’
Thomas M. Wilson is a Fulbright Research Professor here in MUSSI. Thomas joins us for the spring term of 2022 while conducting ethnographic research on transformations in political culture in the Midlands.
He is Professor of Anthropology at Binghamton University, State University of New York, and has a continuing appointment as Visiting Professor in the School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics in Queens University, Belfast, Northern Ireland, where he was a co-founder of the Centre for International Borders Research.
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Bio
In 2018-2019 he was a Visiting Professor in the Department of Social Sciences of the University of Eastern Finland in Joensuu, Finland, and in the Division of European Ethnology of the University of Lund in Lund, Sweden. His research interests include national identity and nationalism, international borders and frontiers, the anthropology of Europeanization and European integration, and drinking cultures and identities, A former President of the Society for the Anthropology of Europe, he has conducted ethnographic field research in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Hungary and Canada, and is the author and editor of twenty scholarly books and monographs, including Borders: Frontiers of Identity, Nation and State (co-author, 1999); Drinking Cultures: Alcohol and Identity (editor, 2005), The Anthropology of Ireland (co-author, 2006); and A Companion to Border Studies (co-editor, 2012).Thomas M. Wilson who is joining us as a Fulbright Research Professor here in MUSSI. Thomas joins us today for the spring term of 2022 while conducting ethnographic research on transformations in political culture in the Midlands.
He is Professor of Anthropology at Binghamton University, State University of New York, and has a continuing appointment as Visiting Professor in the School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics in Queens University, Belfast, Northern Ireland, where he was a co-founder of the Centre for International Borders Research.
In 2018-2019 he was a Visiting Professor in the Department of Social Sciences of the University of Eastern Finland in Joensuu, Finland, and in the Division of European Ethnology of the University of Lund in Lund, Sweden. His research interests include national identity and nationalism, international borders and frontiers, the anthropology of Europeanization and European integration, and drinking cultures and identities, A former President of the Society for the Anthropology of Europe, he has conducted ethnographic field research in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Hungary and Canada, and is the author and editor of twenty scholarly books and monographs, including Borders: Frontiers of Identity, Nation and State (co-author, 1999); Drinking Cultures: Alcohol and Identity (editor, 2005), The Anthropology of Ireland (co-author, 2006); and A Companion to Border Studies (co-editor, 2012).