Norwegian Network on the Anthropology of Mobilities

Norwegian Network on the Anthropology of Mobility, is a network-cooperation between The University of Oslo by the Museum of Cultural History, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology by the Department of Social Anthropology and The University College of Oslo and Akershus, by Norwegian Social Research NOVA. The project was established and funded as a response to the evaluation of Norwegian Social Anthropology in 2011/2012. The aim of the network is to develop the mobility perspective in Norwegian anthropology, with a particular focus on extending the understanding and analysis of migration processes through the concept of mobility in a wide sense. We pursue this goal by network meetings and discussions, by seminars, workshops and conferences for Norwegian and international researchers and by stimulating interest and understanding of the mobility perspective among students and colleges. NOVA by Ada I. Engebrigtsen is the coordinator of this network with Kjersti Larsen UIO and Jan Ketil Simonsen at NUST. The network has arranged 4 seminars /workshops, 2 open for students with invited international lecturers and 2 for network members. The network members have led and participated in Norwegian and international conferences on mobility issues, lectures and taught on mobility at their universities. By curricula and mobility and by participating in workshops led by network members, students have been inspired and guided to develop and apply the concept in their research. The network has worked with the anthology: "Movement and Connectivity?Configurations of Belonging", that now is accepted for publication at PETER LANG LTD International Academic Publishers, Oxford. The network with arrange a final conference in Trondheim the 31 October to the 2 of November.

This collaborative project addresses one of the major conclusions of the evaluation of Norwegian social and cultural anthropological research, namely that Norwegian anthropology has a strong legacy in solid ethnographical work and analysis, but lacks comm itment to international developments of anthropological theory and methods. The institutions and researchers behind this application meet this challenge by linking up with an emergent trend in international anthropology and in the social sciences in gener al to put a stronger theoretical emphasis on 'mobility'. Project participants will combine existing research on mobility and their diverse and individually produced ethnographies of societies in various parts of the world where differently motivated geogr aphical movement is perceived as part of a wider social complexity. Moreover, put them into dialogue with each other for the purpose of probing more systematically into the theoretical implications of a turn to mobility; re-questioning and re-thinking rel ationship between space, time and livelihoods. This is a viable path along which we can unpack and question the legitimacy of tacit assumptions inherit in 'sedentarist metaphysics' currently underpinning among many other fields of studies, migration resea rch. As such, the collaborating institutions aim not only to contribute to reconfigure and renew anthropological migration studies nationally and internationally, but also to contribute to an alternative theoretical base from which cultural critique of po pular and political discourses on immigration and integration can be launched. Through workshops and international conferences, the collaborating institutions will expand their academic exchange in theorizing mobility within a close-knit network of intern ational and national colleagues, focusing in particular on the incorporation of younger researchers. International publication is a key activity of the project, aiming at a total of 18 articles and book chapters.