Public Discussion Series
World-making in Transnational Spaces:
Experiences of Indonesians in the Middle East
With Judith Schlehe
(University of Freinburg, Germany)
Jum'at, 13 November 2015 | 16.30-18.00 WIB | Ruang Seminar ICAIOS
Abstract
This session discusses transregional linkages, taking 'academic pilgrimage' to the Middle East as an example. Academic mobility is facilitating flows of knowledge and cultural (re)orientations. This talk's focus is on Indonesian graduates from Al-Azhar University in Cairo. Thier everyday practices, imaginaries, intentionalities and anxieties are interconnected with a reframing of the Arab world. The main question is how making sense of the world and at once self-making are connected to the politics of identity and difference. In our globalizing world the ways of world-making and the strategies of dealing with alterity continue to be imbued with cultural and historical values, power relations as well as everyday experiences. Yet, there is also considerable transformative dynamics and contingency of identity and difference, especially when it comes to transnational encounters.
About the speaker
Judith Schlehe
- Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Freiburg, Germany
- Member of the interdisciplinary research group on "Grounding Area Studeis in Social Practice"
