Next October 2nd, at 10.30am, Elisabeth Ewart (University of Oxford), will be presenting the seminar titled Comparison: imagining the impossible method, at ICS-ULisboa (Maria de Sousa room).

In this lecture I explore possibilities and limitations of what is sometimes considered a foundational approach in anthropology. I ask what sorts of comparisons are possible and what might they help reveal? Do comparative approaches lend support to social sciences that would point towards what humans have in common with one another or might they more fruitfully lend themselves to explorations of human social diversity? What other social science vistas emerge via comparison?

Elizabeth Ewart is Associate Professor in the Anthropology of Lowland South America. She has done fieldwork in central Brazil with Panará people for many years. She has focused on understanding connections between spatial and social relations, material culture, especially histories and practices surrounding glass beadwork and more recently she has developed interests in gardens and processes of growing. She has also pursued this interest in growers and their plants in field research with small-scale farmers in the highlands of Ethiopia. 

Please register here if you want to attend (no fee is required).