A Lems
Biographic Data
| ID | 51506 |
|---|---|
| NAME | A Lems |
| GIVEN NAMES | A |
| FAMILY NAME | Lems |
| SIGNATURE | LEMS A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1545-3921 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 126 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Losing one’s place in the world
Ways of Belonging
Journal Article Ways of Belonging: Undocumented Youth in the Shadow of Illegality Francesca Meloni Get access Ways of Belonging: Undocumented Youth in the Shadow of Illegality Francesca MeloniNew Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2023. 192pp. £27.99/US$32.95. ISBN 978 1978 835498. Annika Lems Annika Lems School of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National University, 44 Linnaeus Way, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, 2601, Austra…
The stories behind stories
In the summer of 2015, when I started to conduct research with unaccompanied refugee youth in Switzerland, I was struck by the scarce guidance the refugee and migration literature offered in terms of the ethical and practical challenges of working with this highly vulnerable group of young people (Rousseau, 1993; Vervliet et al., 2015). Despite the increased public and academic attention that refugee children had received in the years and months …
Anti-mobile placemaking in a mobile world
In this article I revisit debates about the socio-cultural importance of place and permanence in a hypermobile world order. I zoom in on everyday practices in a small municipality located in the Austrian Nock mountains region which is at once characterized by a history of cross-border mobilities and pronounced support for nativist ideas and parties. I shed light on the experiences and perspectives of village inhabitants who detest liberal ideals …
Being-Here
Exploring the lifeworlds of Halima, Omar and Mohamed, three middle-aged Somalis living in Melbourne, Australia, the author discusses the interrelated meanings of emplacement and displacement as experienced in people’s everyday lives. Through their experiences of displacement and placemaking, Being-Here examines the figure of the refugee as a metaphor for societal alienation and estrangement, and moves anthropological theory towards a new understa…
Deciphering everyday meaning-making with Gramsci
In this article, I take the principle underwriting Gramsci's philosophy of praxis that 'all men are philosophers', as a point of departure to interrogate the anti-cosmopolitan everyday conceptions of the world I encountered during my fieldwork in an Austrian Alpine village in the midst of the Corona pandemic. In an attempt to understand the social and political force of such vernacular reasonings, I map the contours of a critical phenomenology of…
Cultures of unwelcome
This article sheds light on the socio‐cultural dynamics Merkel's open‐door policy set in motion in Austria. Based on the Anti‐Merkel discourses that came to infiltrate Austrian mainstream politics, it will show how the summer of displacements 2015 led to a pronounced move to the right. While many commentators have tended to link the post‐2015 triumph of reactionary parties to the sense of crisis caused by the few months the European Union opened …
Preface
In this special section we rethink the role of movement and stasis in an age of globalization from an existential perspective. We suggest that this theoretical avenue is particularly well suited to move beyond the dualistic binaries that have haunted much writing on mobilities. Rather than fixating movement and stasis into two opposite poles, this perspective allows us to productively work with the overlaps and paradoxes as they appear in the eve…
Phenomenology of Exclusion
In this article I critically interrogate the ways researchers produce knowledge about the making and unmaking of borders. I do so by focusing on social processes of boundary-drawing that have dramatically intensified since the 2015 summer of displacements in Europe. I think through some of the methodological possibilities and conundrums that arise if we try to make visible the unarticulated social conventions underlying the everyday thresholds of…
Methodological innovations, reflections and dilemmas
This paper offers some behind-the-scenes insights drawn from the collective fieldwork experiences of the contributors to this Special Issue. These include reflections on: how decisions about modes of accessing research participants fundamentally shape the research process and outcomes; the pitfalls of only focusing on young people's migratory experiences while ignoring the multiple other dimensions to their lives; how we can best capture and repr…
Existential Kinetics of Movement and Stasis
This article attempts to theorise people's balancing acts between conditions of movement and stasis. Drawing on a radical empirical reading of one critical moment that occurred while conducting ethnographic research among Eritrean unaccompanied minors living in a Swiss educational institution, it thinks through what happens when this equilibrium is thrown out of whack and life's flow is suddenly experienced as a standstill. By focusing on the exp…
Placeless People
On politics and precarity in academia
The terror of the neoliberal markets and the terror of politics both threaten academic freedom - sometimes subtly, sometimes more openly. In this Forum, we ask our contributors to reflect on the entanglements between economy and politics and how they contribute to the ongoing precaritisation in academia, how they shape individual researchers' biographies and how they influence academic research. But more importantly, beyond analysis, this Forum a…
Being-Here
Exploring the lifeworlds of Halima, Omar and Mohamed, three middle-aged Somalis living in Melbourne, Australia, the author discusses the interrelated meanings of emplacement and displacement as experienced in people’s everyday lives. Through their experiences of displacement and placemaking, Being-Here examines the figure of the refugee as a metaphor for societal alienation and estrangement, and moves anthropological theory towards a new understa…
On Being Stuck in the Wrong Life
Jackson, Michael and AlbertPiette, editors. What Is Existential Anthropology? New York
Ambiguous longings
This article explores nostalgia's multi-facetted character by linking its discursive and experiential dimensions. In a first move, I highlight its importance as an analytical category that grew out of a very particular history of knowledge. Focusing on a specific case that played a crucial role in the development of two distinct phases of nostalgia as a concept, I show how it has become inextricably linked to ideas of displacement and loss. In a …
Placing Displacement
Over the last two decades, there has been a radical shift in anthropology from stable, rooted and mappable identities to fluid, transitory and migratory forms of belonging. Displacement has become the new trope through which anthropologists have come to look at the world. As a result, place has received an ambiguous position. Focusing on the life experiences of one Somali refugee woman living in Melbourne and her engagement with place, this artic…
New myths of OZ
In this article, we consider the Australian beach as a material, imaginary and social arena in which different versions of national belonging are performed and contested. Focusing on two short films produced by young people from refugee backgrounds, we explore the negotiation of national belonging on the beach by people who occupy identity categories that are typically excluded from idealizing Australian beach mythologies. We argue that both the …
Refugee Settlement in Australia
Since 1947, Australia has formally resettled more than 750,000 refugees. During that time, researchers have successfully completed more than 150 Masters and doctoral theses and published more than 900 articles, books and reports about issues of refugee settlement in Australia, with about half of them being published in the past 10 years. In this paper, we discuss the development of the production of knowledge about refugee resettlement. We identi…
I did it to save my life. Love and survival in Sierra Leone by Bolten, Catherine
Placing Displacement
Over the last two decades, there has been a radical shift in anthropology from stable, rooted and mappable identities to fluid, transitory and migratory forms of belonging. Displacement has become the new trope through which anthropologists have come to look at the world. As a result, place has received an ambiguous position. Focusing on the life experiences of one Somali refugee woman living in Melbourne and her engagement with place, this artic…
Methodological innovations, reflections and dilemmas
This paper offers some behind-the-scenes insights drawn from the collective fieldwork experiences of the contributors to this Special Issue. These include reflections on: how decisions about modes of accessing research participants fundamentally shape the research process and outcomes; the pitfalls of only focusing on young people's migratory experiences while ignoring the multiple other dimensions to their lives; how we can best capture and repr…
On politics and precarity in academia
The terror of the neoliberal markets and the terror of politics both threaten academic freedom - sometimes subtly, sometimes more openly. In this Forum, we ask our contributors to reflect on the entanglements between economy and politics and how they contribute to the ongoing precaritisation in academia, how they shape individual researchers' biographies and how they influence academic research. But more importantly, beyond analysis, this Forum a…
Phenomenology of Exclusion
In this article I critically interrogate the ways researchers produce knowledge about the making and unmaking of borders. I do so by focusing on social processes of boundary-drawing that have dramatically intensified since the 2015 summer of displacements in Europe. I think through some of the methodological possibilities and conundrums that arise if we try to make visible the unarticulated social conventions underlying the everyday thresholds of…
Ambiguous longings
This article explores nostalgia's multi-facetted character by linking its discursive and experiential dimensions. In a first move, I highlight its importance as an analytical category that grew out of a very particular history of knowledge. Focusing on a specific case that played a crucial role in the development of two distinct phases of nostalgia as a concept, I show how it has become inextricably linked to ideas of displacement and loss. In a …
Refugee Settlement in Australia
Since 1947, Australia has formally resettled more than 750,000 refugees. During that time, researchers have successfully completed more than 150 Masters and doctoral theses and published more than 900 articles, books and reports about issues of refugee settlement in Australia, with about half of them being published in the past 10 years. In this paper, we discuss the development of the production of knowledge about refugee resettlement. We identi…
Anti-mobile placemaking in a mobile world
In this article I revisit debates about the socio-cultural importance of place and permanence in a hypermobile world order. I zoom in on everyday practices in a small municipality located in the Austrian Nock mountains region which is at once characterized by a history of cross-border mobilities and pronounced support for nativist ideas and parties. I shed light on the experiences and perspectives of village inhabitants who detest liberal ideals …
Cultures of unwelcome
This article sheds light on the socio‐cultural dynamics Merkel's open‐door policy set in motion in Austria. Based on the Anti‐Merkel discourses that came to infiltrate Austrian mainstream politics, it will show how the summer of displacements 2015 led to a pronounced move to the right. While many commentators have tended to link the post‐2015 triumph of reactionary parties to the sense of crisis caused by the few months the European Union opened …
Existential Kinetics of Movement and Stasis
This article attempts to theorise people's balancing acts between conditions of movement and stasis. Drawing on a radical empirical reading of one critical moment that occurred while conducting ethnographic research among Eritrean unaccompanied minors living in a Swiss educational institution, it thinks through what happens when this equilibrium is thrown out of whack and life's flow is suddenly experienced as a standstill. By focusing on the exp…
New myths of OZ
In this article, we consider the Australian beach as a material, imaginary and social arena in which different versions of national belonging are performed and contested. Focusing on two short films produced by young people from refugee backgrounds, we explore the negotiation of national belonging on the beach by people who occupy identity categories that are typically excluded from idealizing Australian beach mythologies. We argue that both the …
Losing one’s place in the world
Refugee Settlement in Australia
Since 1947, Australia has formally resettled more than 750,000 refugees. During that time, researchers have successfully completed more than 150 Masters and doctoral theses and published more than 900 articles, books and reports about issues of refugee settlement in Australia, with about half of them being published in the past 10 years. In this paper, we discuss the development of the production of knowledge about refugee resettlement. We identi…
I did it to save my life. Love and survival in Sierra Leone by Bolten, Catherine
New myths of OZ
In this article, we consider the Australian beach as a material, imaginary and social arena in which different versions of national belonging are performed and contested. Focusing on two short films produced by young people from refugee backgrounds, we explore the negotiation of national belonging on the beach by people who occupy identity categories that are typically excluded from idealizing Australian beach mythologies. We argue that both the …
On Being Stuck in the Wrong Life
Jackson, Michael and AlbertPiette, editors. What Is Existential Anthropology? New York
Ambiguous longings
This article explores nostalgia's multi-facetted character by linking its discursive and experiential dimensions. In a first move, I highlight its importance as an analytical category that grew out of a very particular history of knowledge. Focusing on a specific case that played a crucial role in the development of two distinct phases of nostalgia as a concept, I show how it has become inextricably linked to ideas of displacement and loss. In a …
Placing Displacement
Over the last two decades, there has been a radical shift in anthropology from stable, rooted and mappable identities to fluid, transitory and migratory forms of belonging. Displacement has become the new trope through which anthropologists have come to look at the world. As a result, place has received an ambiguous position. Focusing on the life experiences of one Somali refugee woman living in Melbourne and her engagement with place, this artic…
Being-Here
Exploring the lifeworlds of Halima, Omar and Mohamed, three middle-aged Somalis living in Melbourne, Australia, the author discusses the interrelated meanings of emplacement and displacement as experienced in people’s everyday lives. Through their experiences of displacement and placemaking, Being-Here examines the figure of the refugee as a metaphor for societal alienation and estrangement, and moves anthropological theory towards a new understa…
Placeless People
On politics and precarity in academia
The terror of the neoliberal markets and the terror of politics both threaten academic freedom - sometimes subtly, sometimes more openly. In this Forum, we ask our contributors to reflect on the entanglements between economy and politics and how they contribute to the ongoing precaritisation in academia, how they shape individual researchers' biographies and how they influence academic research. But more importantly, beyond analysis, this Forum a…
Preface
In this special section we rethink the role of movement and stasis in an age of globalization from an existential perspective. We suggest that this theoretical avenue is particularly well suited to move beyond the dualistic binaries that have haunted much writing on mobilities. Rather than fixating movement and stasis into two opposite poles, this perspective allows us to productively work with the overlaps and paradoxes as they appear in the eve…
Phenomenology of Exclusion
In this article I critically interrogate the ways researchers produce knowledge about the making and unmaking of borders. I do so by focusing on social processes of boundary-drawing that have dramatically intensified since the 2015 summer of displacements in Europe. I think through some of the methodological possibilities and conundrums that arise if we try to make visible the unarticulated social conventions underlying the everyday thresholds of…
Methodological innovations, reflections and dilemmas
This paper offers some behind-the-scenes insights drawn from the collective fieldwork experiences of the contributors to this Special Issue. These include reflections on: how decisions about modes of accessing research participants fundamentally shape the research process and outcomes; the pitfalls of only focusing on young people's migratory experiences while ignoring the multiple other dimensions to their lives; how we can best capture and repr…
Existential Kinetics of Movement and Stasis
This article attempts to theorise people's balancing acts between conditions of movement and stasis. Drawing on a radical empirical reading of one critical moment that occurred while conducting ethnographic research among Eritrean unaccompanied minors living in a Swiss educational institution, it thinks through what happens when this equilibrium is thrown out of whack and life's flow is suddenly experienced as a standstill. By focusing on the exp…
Being-Here
Exploring the lifeworlds of Halima, Omar and Mohamed, three middle-aged Somalis living in Melbourne, Australia, the author discusses the interrelated meanings of emplacement and displacement as experienced in people’s everyday lives. Through their experiences of displacement and placemaking, Being-Here examines the figure of the refugee as a metaphor for societal alienation and estrangement, and moves anthropological theory towards a new understa…
Deciphering everyday meaning-making with Gramsci
In this article, I take the principle underwriting Gramsci's philosophy of praxis that 'all men are philosophers', as a point of departure to interrogate the anti-cosmopolitan everyday conceptions of the world I encountered during my fieldwork in an Austrian Alpine village in the midst of the Corona pandemic. In an attempt to understand the social and political force of such vernacular reasonings, I map the contours of a critical phenomenology of…
Cultures of unwelcome
This article sheds light on the socio‐cultural dynamics Merkel's open‐door policy set in motion in Austria. Based on the Anti‐Merkel discourses that came to infiltrate Austrian mainstream politics, it will show how the summer of displacements 2015 led to a pronounced move to the right. While many commentators have tended to link the post‐2015 triumph of reactionary parties to the sense of crisis caused by the few months the European Union opened …
The stories behind stories
In the summer of 2015, when I started to conduct research with unaccompanied refugee youth in Switzerland, I was struck by the scarce guidance the refugee and migration literature offered in terms of the ethical and practical challenges of working with this highly vulnerable group of young people (Rousseau, 1993; Vervliet et al., 2015). Despite the increased public and academic attention that refugee children had received in the years and months …
Anti-mobile placemaking in a mobile world
In this article I revisit debates about the socio-cultural importance of place and permanence in a hypermobile world order. I zoom in on everyday practices in a small municipality located in the Austrian Nock mountains region which is at once characterized by a history of cross-border mobilities and pronounced support for nativist ideas and parties. I shed light on the experiences and perspectives of village inhabitants who detest liberal ideals …
Ways of Belonging
Journal Article Ways of Belonging: Undocumented Youth in the Shadow of Illegality Francesca Meloni Get access Ways of Belonging: Undocumented Youth in the Shadow of Illegality Francesca MeloniNew Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2023. 192pp. £27.99/US$32.95. ISBN 978 1978 835498. Annika Lems Annika Lems School of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National University, 44 Linnaeus Way, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, 2601, Austra…
Losing one’s place in the world
Sociology (16 works) · Political science (14 works) · Law (12 works) · Migration, Refugees, and Integration (10 works) · Aesthetics (9 works) · Gender Studies (8 works) · Law (8 works) · Politics (8 works) · Refugee (8 works) · Social science (8 works)