MIASU Event

‘Caring like a state:’ the politics of Russia’s population problems Identified as the most acute problem facing the country, the ‘demographic crisis’ has been a popular and continuous topic of both mundane conversations and televised political debates in contemporary Russia. Based on a long-term ethnographic study that...

Charles Ramble EPHE – PSL University, CRCAO, Paris Deferring Environmental Responsibility? The Evolution of Tibetan Serpent-Spirits in a Buddhist Climate Tibetan-speaking communities in the Himalaya are acutely aware of the fragility of their natural environment. In a terrain that is susceptible to drought and flash floods...

Martin Saxer, Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich Places in Knots: Remoteness and Connectivity in the Himalayas and Beyond In this talk I trace the experiences of mobile Himalayan communities and their ambitions and ventures across the globe. Based on long-term research in northern Nepal, I challenge assumptions of...

The Feminine in the Secret History of the Mongols Professor Christopher Atwood (University of Pennsylvania Warlike masculinity has been central to outsiders’ conception of the Central Eurasian nomads, to the genre of epic with which the Secret History is often associated, and to the idea of Mongol nationalism for which the...

Traders, informal trade and markets between the Caucasus and China Susanne Fehlings conducted ethnographic fieldwork on local bazaars in the Caucasus and in China. In her talk she will present her findings and talk about bazaar traders and businesspeople, who trade between Tbilisi in Georgia and Beijing in the PRC. She...

The Afterlife of the ‘Coloured Steel Hut’: Infrastructure Projects and Eco-Precarity in a Pastoral Region of China Tom White, Mongolia & Inner Asia Studies Unit, University of Cambridge; University of Fribourg Maintaining Relations: Life with and without Roads in Northwest China Agnieskza Joniak–Lüthi (Department of...

Human Sacrifices in Mongolia and Their Rationales Caroline Humphrey (Mongolia & Inner Asia Studies Unit, University of Cambridge) In-person seminar taking place at the Mond seminar room (limited number of attendees) and live streamed via zoom – please contact miasu-admin@socanth.cam.ac.uk should you wish to attend and...

A proportional share: the political aesthetics of resource wealth amongst the wildlife procurers of remote post-socialist Mongolia Hedwig Waters (Leiden University) In Ferguson’s latest work, he surmises that the recent global increase in ‘rightful share’ politics – in other words, political demands for economic...

Re-appraising Mongolian Medicine: communism, continuity, and a bigger picture Stephan Kloos (Institute for Social Anthropology, Austrian Academy of Sciences) Critical historical and ethnographic scholarship on Mongolian medicine remains scarce, and the little that exists tends to be dated, partial, and biased. In this...

Caught between Spectacles: Migration, Friendship and State Performances on the China-Russia Border Until the Covid-19 pandemic led to the near-total closure of the Sino-Russian border in 2020, many Russian migrants and visitors to China have in recent years participated in vivid celebrations of the purported Friendship...