June 26-30, 2023 Faculty of the Institute for African Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences at the XV Congress of Anthropologists and Ethnologists of Russia

On June 26-30, 2023, the XV Congress of Anthropologists and Ethnologists of Russia was held in St. Petersburg, dedicated to the 300th anniversary of the Russian Academy of Sciences and St. Petersburg State University. More than 800 scientists took part in the work of the Congress, including employees of the Center for History and Cultural Anthropology of the Institute for African Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The round table “Research of Russian Anthropologists in Sub-Saharan Africa and African Diasporas in the 21st Century” was devoted to the problems of African Studies. Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology. N. N. Miklukho-Maklay RAS, Doctor of History, prof. Marina Butovskaya and Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Deputy Director of the Institute for African Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of History, prof. Dmitry Bondarenko. At the event, employees of the Center for History and Cultural Anthropology of the Institute for African Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences Senior Researcher, Ph.D. in History Anastasia Banshchikova (“Human rights, unprofitable business, Nyerere and Karume: the end of the Arab-Swahili slave trade of the 19th century in the views of Christians and Muslims of modern Tanzania”), Junior Research Fellow Valentina Bryndina (“Copies of the Arabs”, Echo of the Revolution and the Problem of the Union: Specificity of the Cultural Memory of the 19th Century Arab-Swahili Slave Trade in Zanzibar) and Senior Research Fellow, Ph.D. in History, Nadezhda Khokholkova (“Historical memory of colonialism in Tanzania: the results of two seasons of field research”).

In addition, the faculty of the Center took an active part in the work of other thematic sections of the Congress. Dmitry Bondarenko presented the study “The Memory of the Civil War and the Metamorphoses of the American Nation in the Context of the Antiracist Movement in the Second Half of the 2010s – Early 2020s.” within the section Historical memory in anthropology and oral history. Junior Research Fellow Oxana Ivanchenko made a presentation on the topic “Wikoba and the evolution of self-help groups in modern Tanzania: formal practices of informal economies” at the section “Self-Help Institute: History and Modernity”. Senior Research Fellow, Doctor of Philosophy Irina Tatarovskaya presented the report "The practice of upbringing and primary education among the peoples of West Africa" at the meeting of the section "Anthropology of childbirth, physicality and parental care of the newborn among the peoples of the world."

Nadezhda Khokholkova acted as a co-leader and speaker at the section “Identity Transformations in the Virtual Space: Cyberethnicity and Web Religiosity” (the topic of the report was “Cultural Identity in the Conditions of Digital Modernity”).