Conversation #1
Out of the Armchair Filed Under: Labels: Christiane Schwab, ethnology, Europäische Ethnologie, historical anthropology, intercultural communication, LMU, PhD, sevilla, Seville, Spain, Spanish culture, Spanish society, urban anthropology |
| Christiane Schwab |
Out of the Armchair presents “Conversations”, a sort of getting-to-know-you segment with anthropologists from around the world to get an insight into the world of anthropology and explore the diversity of anthropological research.
Today I’m happy to present to you Christiane Schwab, PhD candidate at Ludwig-Maximilians Universität in Munich, Germany, who was kind enough to be the first interviewee for Out of the Armchair. I met with Christiane in California, where she is currently a Visiting Scholar at the Institute of European Studies at UC Berkeley, to talk about her research and her views on the value of anthropology today.
Christiane’s PhD research has its base in urban anthropology. “I’m researching the particularities, the character, the atmosphere of cities, and how it can be grasped methodologically and theoretically.” The project deals specifically with the city of Seville as a symbolic system. Her fieldwork involves a lot of participant observation, interviews, collecting urban legends, material from books, newspapers, and across disciplines such as architecture and history. Focusing on Spain was an easy choice for Christiane as she minored in Spanish language and literature, as well as intercultural communication, before beginning her PhD. She also spent a year living and studying in Seville while she was an undergraduate. Urban anthropology hasn’t always been her field though; for her MA dissertation she focused on historical anthropology, which remains a strong interest for her.
So what got Christiane interested in anthropology to begin with? After six months living in South America while still in high school, Christiane became interested in the cultural differences in societies. Her experience in South America inspired her to go on to study something that would let her explore these cultural idiosyncrasies. “I searched online for an education in this area because all I knew of was what we had been taught in school – sociology” but the emphasis on quantitative research methodologies common in sociology put her off. “I also think that there is too much emphasis on methodology in sociology rather than the subject of the study itself. I feel that it should be more balanced. Both sociology and anthropology are equal though, there are things in both subjects that can enrich and offer insights to the other” she comments.
I asked Christiane to comment on why she thinks anthropology should be valued and studied in the world today. “Anthropology should, and probably will, gain importance in our ‘globalized’ world as it’s really the only discipline that deals with cultural differences, and it has a long history of dealing with issues linked to that,” she answered. “I think that many notions from anthropology should be taught and form a basis for research in other disciplines too such as psychology. I often read reports on findings in psychology that seem to assume that cultural differences just don’t matter, or that they can even affect the data collecting process.” Other disciplines should be more self-reflexive like modern anthropology then? “Yes, definitely.”
Christiane also advocates teaching anthropology at a high school level, arguing that it can have practical advantages for everyone and promote intercultural understanding. “It’s really important for schools and teachers, especially in increasingly multicultural societies. Even concepts of ‘teacher’ and ‘family’ can be different for different people for example.”
To end the interview I asked Christiane what, for her, were the best and worst parts about doing a PhD. ”The best part about in doing a PhD is being able to follow your interests, being self-determined. You organize yourself and configure your own time. You also get to travel, learn, do something useful without being submitted to economical reasoning. I also like the diversity of it; I get to teach, read, write, organize events, etc.” And the worst or difficult parts? ”The hardest part is the financial situation... it’s also tough to get acknowledgement from people around you, you feel a bit out of place because you’re not a student anymore but you’re also not a ’real working person’.”
Christiane will be presenting her research at the UC Berkeley on November 29th, 4 pm. Click here for more information.
For more information about Christiane’s research and contact information, check out her profile on LMU’s website here.