The SASA Institute of Ethnography Forum invites you to attend the lecture “Humanitarianism/ Humanity: Zones of Empathy and Markets of Interest” by Miroslava Lukić Krstanović, PhD, a retired principal research fellow of the SASA Institute of Ethnography. The lecture will be held on Monday, December 16, 2024, starting at 1:00 pm in the SASA Building (Knez Mihailova 36,1st floor, room 102). 

We live in a world of constant conflict – of worries, destruction, and indifference. It is about universal existence, communication, about the unpredictability of looking over one's shoulder at poverty, death, and illness, contrasted with the sincerity of sentiment; about values and interests; about powerlessness and power- or, simply, about each person`s own world of awareness, conscience and reason.  For science (here, referring to anthropology and ethnology), it is important to create research sites that reveal the many faces of humanitarianism/humanity through different cases and actions. How is humanitarianism/humanity manifested, at times, everywhere, here, now? Do various humanitarian actions stimulate individualism and togetherness, or not, and in what ways? How are structures of power and hierarchy formed within the institutional panopticon? Do sets of interactions emerge from public representations of humanitarian actions, or are they created through intersubjective connections and narratives? Such questioning and inquiries open up problems, dilemmas, and critical review (in the world, through the Yugoslav past, and within today`s everyday life).

Miroslava Lukić Krstanović, retired principal research fellow, worked at the SASA Institute of Ethnography. As part of the Institute`s projects, she researched the problems related to emigration processes (Canada), national minorities (Hungary), and public events-political gatherings, cultural scenes-spectacles and further research impulses. She published monographs, and numerous articles in both domestic and international scientific journals. She participated in important European and world congresses, organized panels, and gave lectures. She is an editor of scientific journals and she founded the journal Africa. She led international collaborations, coordinated international projects (UNESCO), and is a member of UNESCO bodies for intangible cultural heritage. She received several awards, notably the Dušan Bandić Award for the best book: Spectacles of the 20th Century, Music and Power.