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Papers by Anselma Gallinat
Narratives in the Making, 2016
Matters of the East German past continue to play an important role in public discourse and for in... more Matters of the East German past continue to play an important role in public discourse and for individual lives in Germany. The government-sponsored discourse of Aufarbeitung (re-working) assumes that the GDR was a dictatorship which affected all aspects of collective and private life. Counter-memories that painted life in socialism nostalgically, or at least not as so black and white, are often considered problematic in this discourse which is intertwined with legitimisations of present-day democracy and fears and hopes for the future. Anthropologists in contrast have however often argued that nostalgic recollections of the socialist past need not be seen as merely rose-tinted and historically incorrect, but as more complex. And moreover, that for Germany they need to be explored against the backdrop of experiences of dislocation and cultural devaluation during unification. This talk takes a different look at this problem of memory by exploring anthropologically how a group of dire...
In this paper I want to reflect on the contributions of –seemingly- relevant and irrelevant life-... more In this paper I want to reflect on the contributions of –seemingly- relevant and irrelevant life-stories in a research project on questions of how the socialist past is constructed in eastern Germany today. The government-sponsored discourse of Aufarbeitung, re-working the past, is based in the notion that the GDR was a dictatorship, which is seen as the only morally and historically correct view. Yet, this is not uncontentious and has led to significant debates in public discourse about the character of the past state and society. Working within this realm of institutions engaged in re-working, some of them government-offices, others memorial-museums, it was soon apparent however that directors had clear pre-conceptions of their significance in relation to the research project. At the same time other, clerical staff or informants in other realms, such as journalists, often considered themselves irrelevant to the project, because they lacked those ‘significant’ experiences of GDR-ti...
http://intergraph-journal.net/enhanced/vol3issue1/6.html
Contesting Recognition, 2011
Remembering and Rethinking the GDR, 2012
… SELF AS RESOURCE, THE: WRITING MEMORY …, 2010
Chapter 2 PLAYING THE NATIVE CARD: THE ANTHROPOLOGIST AS INFORMANT IN EASTERN GERMANY Anselma Gal... more Chapter 2 PLAYING THE NATIVE CARD: THE ANTHROPOLOGIST AS INFORMANT IN EASTERN GERMANY Anselma Gallinat In this chapter I shall discuss the possibilities and implications of including personal memories as ethnographic data in 'ethnographies at home'. ...
ETHNOGRAPHIC SELF AS RESOURCE, …, 2010
Page 10. Chapter 1 THE ETHNOGRAPHIC SELF AS RESOURCE: AN INTRODUCTION Peter Collins and Anselma G... more Page 10. Chapter 1 THE ETHNOGRAPHIC SELF AS RESOURCE: AN INTRODUCTION Peter Collins and Anselma Gallinat The purpose of this chapter is to provide, briefly, the disciplinary context in which the idea of the self as resource in doing ethnography has emerged. ...
The telling of jokes, and moreover political jokes, was common practice in socialist societies an... more The telling of jokes, and moreover political jokes, was common practice in socialist societies and no less so in my family. 1 My two older brothers enjoyed sharing witty quips, whether concerning a special brand of household cleaner or the head of state's fate when slipping off a springboard with their primary-school-aged sister. The joke goes that the springboard was magic and would fill the basin below with whatever substance the head of state requested before jumping in. But whilst Gorbatchev had successfully asked for caviar and Reagan for champagne, Honecker slips awkwardly and cries out 'shiiiit' in surprise. The reader can imagine the result. On one such occasion of joke-sharing I remember my brothers warning me not to tell such jokes too liberally. There were men, they said, who would secretly listen and I might get into trouble if they heard me. To the seven-year-old sister the idea of middle-aged men in business suits lurking behind trees to listen to children's conversations, as I imagined, however seemed rather silly.
The East German past has been the focus of much debate and scholarly work in Germany since unific... more The East German past has been the focus of much debate and scholarly work in Germany since unification in 1990. The government-sponsored discourse on this past, Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung, the ‘re-working of the past’, presents the GDR as the ‘SED-dictatorship’. In constructing the East German past as part of Germany’s dictatorial past the discourse of Aufarbeitung legitimizes German unification and the transition to democracy. This paper explores how local governmental institutions attempt to realise the national and authoritative discourse of Aufarbeitung. Drawing on ethnographic research it will discuss two projects realised by the ‘Working Group Aufarbeitung’ on the topic of everyday life in socialism which provides both a challenge –to the categorical certainties of the discourse’s narratives- and an opportunity –to attract a wider audience- for this political field of memory-work. The paper will highlight how in this sphere memory-work has become tied to the governmental aim of the further development of democracy that however ties past, present and future together in uncomfortable binary relationships.
Ethnos, 2006
Whilst former political prisoners of the socialist state are considered to be important witnesses... more Whilst former political prisoners of the socialist state are considered to be important witnesses of the past socialist rule by governmental authorities, able to testify about the ‘regime’, the eastern German public seems rather uninviting to their telling their life-stories. At the interstices of a demand for talking and a refusal of being listened to, the creation of narratives which would serve to portray one's experiencesis difficult. Following scholarship, narratives are furthermoreintertwined with individual identity. The article explores how in this situation of tension a group of former prisoners work together at constructing metaphors and narrative structures for the telling of individual stories, which will both communicate experiences well to a public, and be flexible enough for habitable individual identities.
History and Anthropology, 2009
... Anselma Gallinat * pages 183-199. ... Cooke, P. 2005. Representing East Germany Since Unifica... more ... Anselma Gallinat * pages 183-199. ... Cooke, P. 2005. Representing East Germany Since Unification ,Oxford: Berg. View all references; cf. Kutter 200224. Kutter, A. 2002. “Geschichtspolitische Ausgrenzungen in der Vereinigungspolitik: Das Beispiel der Enquete‐Komission”. ...
Identities-global Studies in Culture and Power, 2008
... 10.1080/10702890802470694 Anselma Gallinat a * pages 665-686. ... Other authors have explored... more ... 10.1080/10702890802470694 Anselma Gallinat a * pages 665-686. ... Other authors have explored the more performative aspects of the phenomenon (Edensor 200227. Edensor, Tim. 2002. National Identity, Popular Culture and Everyday Life , Oxford: Berg. View all references). ...
Social Anthropology, 2005
Narratives in the Making, 2016
Matters of the East German past continue to play an important role in public discourse and for in... more Matters of the East German past continue to play an important role in public discourse and for individual lives in Germany. The government-sponsored discourse of Aufarbeitung (re-working) assumes that the GDR was a dictatorship which affected all aspects of collective and private life. Counter-memories that painted life in socialism nostalgically, or at least not as so black and white, are often considered problematic in this discourse which is intertwined with legitimisations of present-day democracy and fears and hopes for the future. Anthropologists in contrast have however often argued that nostalgic recollections of the socialist past need not be seen as merely rose-tinted and historically incorrect, but as more complex. And moreover, that for Germany they need to be explored against the backdrop of experiences of dislocation and cultural devaluation during unification. This talk takes a different look at this problem of memory by exploring anthropologically how a group of dire...
In this paper I want to reflect on the contributions of –seemingly- relevant and irrelevant life-... more In this paper I want to reflect on the contributions of –seemingly- relevant and irrelevant life-stories in a research project on questions of how the socialist past is constructed in eastern Germany today. The government-sponsored discourse of Aufarbeitung, re-working the past, is based in the notion that the GDR was a dictatorship, which is seen as the only morally and historically correct view. Yet, this is not uncontentious and has led to significant debates in public discourse about the character of the past state and society. Working within this realm of institutions engaged in re-working, some of them government-offices, others memorial-museums, it was soon apparent however that directors had clear pre-conceptions of their significance in relation to the research project. At the same time other, clerical staff or informants in other realms, such as journalists, often considered themselves irrelevant to the project, because they lacked those ‘significant’ experiences of GDR-ti...
http://intergraph-journal.net/enhanced/vol3issue1/6.html
Contesting Recognition, 2011
Remembering and Rethinking the GDR, 2012
… SELF AS RESOURCE, THE: WRITING MEMORY …, 2010
Chapter 2 PLAYING THE NATIVE CARD: THE ANTHROPOLOGIST AS INFORMANT IN EASTERN GERMANY Anselma Gal... more Chapter 2 PLAYING THE NATIVE CARD: THE ANTHROPOLOGIST AS INFORMANT IN EASTERN GERMANY Anselma Gallinat In this chapter I shall discuss the possibilities and implications of including personal memories as ethnographic data in 'ethnographies at home'. ...
ETHNOGRAPHIC SELF AS RESOURCE, …, 2010
Page 10. Chapter 1 THE ETHNOGRAPHIC SELF AS RESOURCE: AN INTRODUCTION Peter Collins and Anselma G... more Page 10. Chapter 1 THE ETHNOGRAPHIC SELF AS RESOURCE: AN INTRODUCTION Peter Collins and Anselma Gallinat The purpose of this chapter is to provide, briefly, the disciplinary context in which the idea of the self as resource in doing ethnography has emerged. ...
The telling of jokes, and moreover political jokes, was common practice in socialist societies an... more The telling of jokes, and moreover political jokes, was common practice in socialist societies and no less so in my family. 1 My two older brothers enjoyed sharing witty quips, whether concerning a special brand of household cleaner or the head of state's fate when slipping off a springboard with their primary-school-aged sister. The joke goes that the springboard was magic and would fill the basin below with whatever substance the head of state requested before jumping in. But whilst Gorbatchev had successfully asked for caviar and Reagan for champagne, Honecker slips awkwardly and cries out 'shiiiit' in surprise. The reader can imagine the result. On one such occasion of joke-sharing I remember my brothers warning me not to tell such jokes too liberally. There were men, they said, who would secretly listen and I might get into trouble if they heard me. To the seven-year-old sister the idea of middle-aged men in business suits lurking behind trees to listen to children's conversations, as I imagined, however seemed rather silly.
The East German past has been the focus of much debate and scholarly work in Germany since unific... more The East German past has been the focus of much debate and scholarly work in Germany since unification in 1990. The government-sponsored discourse on this past, Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung, the ‘re-working of the past’, presents the GDR as the ‘SED-dictatorship’. In constructing the East German past as part of Germany’s dictatorial past the discourse of Aufarbeitung legitimizes German unification and the transition to democracy. This paper explores how local governmental institutions attempt to realise the national and authoritative discourse of Aufarbeitung. Drawing on ethnographic research it will discuss two projects realised by the ‘Working Group Aufarbeitung’ on the topic of everyday life in socialism which provides both a challenge –to the categorical certainties of the discourse’s narratives- and an opportunity –to attract a wider audience- for this political field of memory-work. The paper will highlight how in this sphere memory-work has become tied to the governmental aim of the further development of democracy that however ties past, present and future together in uncomfortable binary relationships.
Ethnos, 2006
Whilst former political prisoners of the socialist state are considered to be important witnesses... more Whilst former political prisoners of the socialist state are considered to be important witnesses of the past socialist rule by governmental authorities, able to testify about the ‘regime’, the eastern German public seems rather uninviting to their telling their life-stories. At the interstices of a demand for talking and a refusal of being listened to, the creation of narratives which would serve to portray one's experiencesis difficult. Following scholarship, narratives are furthermoreintertwined with individual identity. The article explores how in this situation of tension a group of former prisoners work together at constructing metaphors and narrative structures for the telling of individual stories, which will both communicate experiences well to a public, and be flexible enough for habitable individual identities.
History and Anthropology, 2009
... Anselma Gallinat * pages 183-199. ... Cooke, P. 2005. Representing East Germany Since Unifica... more ... Anselma Gallinat * pages 183-199. ... Cooke, P. 2005. Representing East Germany Since Unification ,Oxford: Berg. View all references; cf. Kutter 200224. Kutter, A. 2002. “Geschichtspolitische Ausgrenzungen in der Vereinigungspolitik: Das Beispiel der Enquete‐Komission”. ...
Identities-global Studies in Culture and Power, 2008
... 10.1080/10702890802470694 Anselma Gallinat a * pages 665-686. ... Other authors have explored... more ... 10.1080/10702890802470694 Anselma Gallinat a * pages 665-686. ... Other authors have explored the more performative aspects of the phenomenon (Edensor 200227. Edensor, Tim. 2002. National Identity, Popular Culture and Everyday Life , Oxford: Berg. View all references). ...
Social Anthropology, 2005