Dr Safet HadžiMuhamedović
I am an anthropologist of landscape and religion, but my work is more closely framed through interests in time and temporality, home, 'syncretic' cosmologies, agency and affect. Over the past seven years, I have conducted most of my long-term fieldwork in Bosnia, with stints of research in the Basque Country and Palestine/Israel. My book Waiting for Elijah: Time and Encounter in a Bosnian Landscape (2018) delves into the post-war echoes of inter-communal proximities and syncretic seasonal celebrations in the southeastern Bosnian highlands. It travels through spatio-temporal fractures and affective articulations of political resistance, to understand the multiple codes of waiting for the return of cosmological characters shared by local Christians, Gurbeti Roma and Muslims. I have also written on various other aspects of sacral landscapes, as well as the historicity and political agency of 'nonhuman' beings, the labyrinthine ICTY archives, displacement and home. See, for example, Post-Home: Dwelling on Loss, Belonging and Movement (2019, special issue of Ethnoscripts, co-edited with M. Grujić).
Before attaining a doctoral degree in social anthropology from Goldsmiths, University of London and an MPhil degree in social anthropology from the University of Cambridge, I have received BA degrees in history of art and sociology from the University of Sarajevo and Kenyon College. After some initial resistance, I have settled into social anthropology as an exciting area of social inquiry and now like to think that there is no subject, form of expression, or spatio-temporal dimension, beyond the scope of our post-disciplinary concerns (as long as we also critically carry the burden of our heritage).
I currently teach social anthropology at SOAS University of London, where I convene Issues in Anthropology of Gender (MA course), Anthropology of Gender (BA course) and co-convene the Anthropology of Travel, Tourism and Pilgrimage summer school. Before SOAS, I taught at the University of Bristol, where I convened Anthropology of Landscapes; Anthropology of Kinship, Anthropology of Islam and Social Theories, but also contributed to the Foundation Year in Arts and Humanities; Peoples, Culture and Language; Human Challenges and Dissertations. Before Bristol, I taught various courses on anthropological approaches to methods, qualitative research, religion, gender, politics, economics and social change at Goldsmiths, SOAS (both University of London) and Goethe University Frankfurt.
My principal ongoing project considers sinking rivers, cosmology and nationalism in Bosnia, but I am organising several other concomitant projects, Chronotopic Materialities (from 2018, with Dr Magda Buchczyk), Distemporalities (from 2019, with Dr Vanja Hamzić), Thinking like Tumbleweeds (from 2019, with Dr Gina Heathcote, Dr Vanja Hamzić and Dr Emily Jones). I am also contributing to Dr Gina Heathcote's project on feminist approaches to oceans. Previously, I worked on the ERC-funded project Bosnian Bones, Spanish Ghosts: ‘Transitional Justice’ and the Legal Shaping of Memory after Two Modern Conflicts, led by Dr Sari Wastell (2010-2013). Also, in 2008, I co-founded with Aida Bucalović the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research of Visual Culture in Sarajevo, which, amongst other activities, produced a very successful facsimile exhibition of manuscripts dispersed from mediaeval Bosnia.
I am an anthropologist of landscape and religion, but my work is more closely framed through interests in time and temporality, home, 'syncretic' cosmologies, agency and affect. Over the past seven years, I have conducted most of my long-term fieldwork in Bosnia, with stints of research in the Basque Country and Palestine/Israel. My book Waiting for Elijah: Time and Encounter in a Bosnian Landscape (2018) delves into the post-war echoes of inter-communal proximities and syncretic seasonal celebrations in the southeastern Bosnian highlands. It travels through spatio-temporal fractures and affective articulations of political resistance, to understand the multiple codes of waiting for the return of cosmological characters shared by local Christians, Gurbeti Roma and Muslims. I have also written on various other aspects of sacral landscapes, as well as the historicity and political agency of 'nonhuman' beings, the labyrinthine ICTY archives, displacement and home. See, for example, Post-Home: Dwelling on Loss, Belonging and Movement (2019, special issue of Ethnoscripts, co-edited with M. Grujić).
Before attaining a doctoral degree in social anthropology from Goldsmiths, University of London and an MPhil degree in social anthropology from the University of Cambridge, I have received BA degrees in history of art and sociology from the University of Sarajevo and Kenyon College. After some initial resistance, I have settled into social anthropology as an exciting area of social inquiry and now like to think that there is no subject, form of expression, or spatio-temporal dimension, beyond the scope of our post-disciplinary concerns (as long as we also critically carry the burden of our heritage).
I currently teach social anthropology at SOAS University of London, where I convene Issues in Anthropology of Gender (MA course), Anthropology of Gender (BA course) and co-convene the Anthropology of Travel, Tourism and Pilgrimage summer school. Before SOAS, I taught at the University of Bristol, where I convened Anthropology of Landscapes; Anthropology of Kinship, Anthropology of Islam and Social Theories, but also contributed to the Foundation Year in Arts and Humanities; Peoples, Culture and Language; Human Challenges and Dissertations. Before Bristol, I taught various courses on anthropological approaches to methods, qualitative research, religion, gender, politics, economics and social change at Goldsmiths, SOAS (both University of London) and Goethe University Frankfurt.
My principal ongoing project considers sinking rivers, cosmology and nationalism in Bosnia, but I am organising several other concomitant projects, Chronotopic Materialities (from 2018, with Dr Magda Buchczyk), Distemporalities (from 2019, with Dr Vanja Hamzić), Thinking like Tumbleweeds (from 2019, with Dr Gina Heathcote, Dr Vanja Hamzić and Dr Emily Jones). I am also contributing to Dr Gina Heathcote's project on feminist approaches to oceans. Previously, I worked on the ERC-funded project Bosnian Bones, Spanish Ghosts: ‘Transitional Justice’ and the Legal Shaping of Memory after Two Modern Conflicts, led by Dr Sari Wastell (2010-2013). Also, in 2008, I co-founded with Aida Bucalović the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research of Visual Culture in Sarajevo, which, amongst other activities, produced a very successful facsimile exhibition of manuscripts dispersed from mediaeval Bosnia.
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RESEARCH & TEACHING INTERESTS
RECENT WORK QUALIFICATIONS AWARDS PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS |
anthropology of syncretism, proximity and mixture; time and temporality; home, non-home and post-home; anthropology of space, place and landscape; water ontologies; affect and subjectivity; loneliness; waiting; nonhumans; agency; ritual and ritual kinship; gender, nationalism and ethnicity; post-conflict environments; borders and migration; memory; phenomenological approaches to languages; visual anthropology; critical approaches to archives; research ethics; Bosnia, post-Yugoslav, post-Ottoman and post-socialist geographies; nomadic Roma trajectories in the Balkans; Palestine, Israel, the Basque Country
2019 - ongoing Senior Teaching Fellow in Social Anthropology Department of Anthropology and Sociology, SOAS University of London Convener & Lecturer: Issues in the Anthropology of Gender (MA); Anthropology of Gender (BA) Co-convener: Anthropology of Travel, Tourism and Pilgrimage (summer school) 2016 - 2019 Teaching Fellow in Social Anthropology Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Bristol Convener & Lecturer: Anthropology of Landscapes; Kinship; Anthropology of Islam; Social Theories Teaching: Peoples; Culture and Language; Human Challenges; Dissertations; Foundation Year in Arts and Humanities 2014-2015 Visiting Scholar Faculty of Social Sciences, Goethe University Frankfurt Co-convener and lecturer with Marija Grujić: Encountering Gender and Religion: Theoretical and Methodological Implications (MA) 2014-2015 Associate Lecturer in Social Anthropology Department of Anthropology, Goldsmiths, University of London Anthropology of Religion 2013-2014 Lecturer in Social Anthropology Department of Anthropology, Goldsmiths, University of London Politics, Economics and Social Change With contribution to: Anthropology and Gender Theory 2014 Teaching Fellow Faculty of Law and Social Sciences, SOAS Qualitative and Case Study Research 2013 Visiting Tutor in Social Anthropology Department of Anthropology, Goldsmiths, University of London Anthropological Methods 2010-2013 Research Assistant Department of Anthropology, Goldsmiths, University of London Bosnian Bones, Spanish Ghosts - 'Transitional Justice' and the Legal Shaping of Memory after Two Modern Conflicts, ERC-funded project led by Dr Sari Wastell 2008-2014 Founder and Coordinator of Research Programmes Centre for Interdisciplinary Research of Visual Culture, International Forum Bosnia 2015 PhD in Social Anthropology Goldsmiths, University of London, UK 2010 MPhil in Social Anthropology University of Cambridge, UK 2008 BA Hons in History of Art University of Sarajevo, Bosnia 2008 BA Hons in Sociology University of Sarajevo, Bosnia 2006 Academic Programme Certificate in Sociology and History of Art Kenyon College, USA 2018 Finalist for Outstanding Teaching Award - University of Bristol 2014-2015 Civil Society Scholar Award - Open Society Foundations - funding for the research project Corporeal Narratives: Gender, Politics and Religion in the Western Balkans 2010-2013 PhD scholarship - European Research Council - under the auspices of the Dr Sari Wastell's project Bosnian Bones, Spanish Ghosts, 'Transitional Justice' and the Legal Shaping of Memory after Two Modern Conflicts 2010-2013 PhD fee waiver - Department of Anthropology, Goldsmiths, University of London 2011-2012 Research grant - Open Society Foundation – Global Supplementary Grant Programme 2012-2013 Research grant - Open Society Foundation – Global Supplementary Grant Programme 2013-2014 Research grant - Open Society Foundation – Global Supplementary Grant Programme 2009-2010 MPhil scholarship - Cambridge Overseas Trust & Open Society Foundation & UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office 2007-2008 Annual Academic Excellence Award - Federal Ministry of Education and Science, Bosnia 2006 Recognition for Contribution to Intercultural Dialogue - Kenyon College, USA 2005-2006 BA Exchange Programme Scholarship - US Department of State - 'Partnership for Learning' Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK and Commonwealth (ASA), European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA), International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES), Association for Critical Heritage Studies (ACHS), Centre for Interdisciplinary Research of Visual Culture (CIVK), International Forum Bosnia (IFB), Cambridge Heritage Research Group (HRG), Association for the Renewal of Civil Trust in the Municipality of Stolac, Open Anthropology Cooperative (OAC), SOAS Centre for Ottoman Studies (SCOS) |
