BELARUSIAN SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY IN TIMES OF CATASTROPHES AND DRASTIC CHANGES: A ROUNDTABLE

Abstract

The last two years in Belarus were marked by a string of catastrophic events and profound changes: protests of 2020, unprecedented political repressions and involuntary emigration on a mass level, the refugee crisis of 2021 at the Belarus — EU border, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in which Belarus partakes. Those events fundamentally reshape the lives and professional practices of social anthropologists and ethnologists. The aim of the rountable in Kaunas at the 10th Congress of Belarusian studies was to voice the experiences of anthropologists as practicing researches and private persons. The general directions of reflection included the problematic nature of ethnographic method in terms of access to the field in Belarus; validity of professional expertise and engagement; researcher’s positionality within the unfolding calamity; the matters of disciplinary reproduction along the lines of geopolitical fissures.