Deana Jovanovic (Utrecht University). Staging the Promises: Everyday Future-Making in a Serbian Industrial Town
| Dates: | 24 February 2025 |
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| Times: | 15:00 - 17:00 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | School of Social Sciences |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, External researchers, Current University students |
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This seminar explores the temporal, political and economic effects of theatrically performed promises of aspirational futures, staged in a Serbian industrial town. Based on a decade-long ethnographic fieldwork among the residents who navigated the remnants of Yugoslav prosperity and the struggles of post-socialist decline, the talk will delve into the encounters with theatrically performed promises of aspirational futures that were promising economic recovery, urban renewal, environmental restoration, and post-industrial prosperity. What temporal, material, and political effects did the staging made? How did the staging shape the residents' present and the scales and visions of the future? As the author will argue, the staged promises of enhanced futures paradoxically withdraw from the horizon the long-term distant futures, which invites us to critically think about the performative aspects of contemporary populist politics. Join us for a discussion on how anthropology can illuminate the performative ways through which contemporary capitalist futures are remade.
Dr Deana Jovanovic is Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Utrecht University. Deana studies how people make futures, interact with pipes and cables, and live with airborne particles in industrial environments. Her book Staging the Promises has just been published by Cornell University Press.
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Room 6.210
University Place
Manchester
