Online Lecture „Dispersed & Connected. Plans, Imaginaries, and Realities of Railway Projects in Mongolia“, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (2021-06-30)
Lecturers: Dr. Maria-Katharina Lang, Dr. Baatarnaran Tsetsentsolmon
(Institute for Social Anthropology, Austrian Academy of Sciences)
This lecture presents research on recent railway projects in Selenge and Gobi provinces in Mongolia by addressing railway plans and narratives from a historical perspective. New imaginations and expectations have arisen in connection with planned rail infrastructures such as the “Steppe Road” and the “New Silk Road” which to date mostly exist on the papers of planners and in the minds of residents. We further argue that railroads not only connect but also separate, traverse, and disperse. Thus, the critical question remains whether the rail system connects Mongolia or whether is it rather used as a transit zone for outside interests.
Dr. Maria-Katharina Lang is a researcher and project director at the Institute for Social Anthropology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. She directed the project Nomadic Artefacts (2013–17) and currently directs Dispersed and Connected: Artistic Fragments along the Silk and Steppe Roads (2017–22). She curated exhibitions such as Steppe & Silk Roads (2021; Hamburg), Nomadic Artefacts (2016-18; Vienna, Hamburg, Heidelberg) and Artefact as Links (2017, Bogd Khan Palace, Ulaanbaatar). Her main research focuses on Mongolian studies, artistic research, and anthropology of art.
Dr. Baatarnaran Tsetsentsolmon is a senior lecturer at the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology at the National University of Mongolia and has been affiliated as a researcher at the Institute for Social Anthropology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. She obtained her PhD from the University of Cambridge. Her research interests include visual anthropology, musicology, the construction of national culture, and socialist and post-socialist cultural transformations.
Mittwoch, 30. Juni 2021, 17:00 Uhr
Zoom Meeting-ID: 625 4489 3981
Password: 443266