Chronik der Volkskunde
SIEF Young Scholars Working Group Conference and
SIEF General Conference Panel, Göttingen, 26th and 28th March 2017
This paper offers a report of two different academic events, both of whichtook place in Göttingen, Germany, in March 2017: 1) The First Interna-tional Conference of the SIEF Young Scholars Working Group, entitledComing of Age: Young Scholars in the Field of Folkloristics, Ethnology, andAnthropology( 26th March), and 2) the panel Re- enchantment, ritualisation,heritage- making: processes of tradition reconfiguration in Europe- historicaland ethnographic examples, which took place on the 28th of March dur-ing the general SIEF( Société International d'Ethnologie et de Folklore)Congress( 26th- 30th of March).
Founded in 2008 and revitalised in 2013, SIEF's Young ScholarsWorking Group( YSWG) aims to bring together students and early- ca-reer scholars working in the fields of Ethnology, Anthropology, FolkloreStudies, and similar disciplines. In order to facilitate their integration intoSIEF, the YSWG enables the exchange of information, promotes net-working and cooperation, and provides a platform for discussion.
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As part of the group's mission to connect young scholars and pro-mote discussion, the board members of the YSWG Nada Kujundžić( Turku, Zagreb), Mathilde Lamothe- Castagnous( Pau), Arnika Peselmann( Dresden), Jón Þór Pétursson( Reykjavik, Lund), and Alessandro Testa( Vienna) organized the first international YSWG conference, Comingof Age: Young Scholars in the Field of Folkloristics, Ethnology, and Anthropo-logy. The Conference was held prior to the official opening of the 13thSIEF Congress.
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Organized with the generous support of the Institute of CulturalAnthropology/ European Ethnology and the Faculty of Philosophyof the University of Göttingen, and the Göttingen Graduate School ofHumanities, the Conference brought together more than 50 participantsfrom around the world. They presented their research, professional expe-riences, and home institutions in two panels, three workshop sessions,and a roundtable discussion. Participants were also given the opportunityto present their research in the form of posters. The number of abstractsreceived by the organizers exceeded all expectations, both in terms ofquantity and range of topics presented.
The academic event began with a welcome speech by SIEF Presi-dent Valdimar Tr. Hafstein( Reykjavik). In his speech, he supported the
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