24 lutego 2022

Professor Buchowski withdraws from the Scientific Committee of the IUAES Congress in St. Petersburg

24 lutego 2022 | Karolina Dziubata
Dear Professors and Chairs of the IUAES Congress, Dear Colleagues, First of all, please be aware that I am writing this letter with great sadness and regret. When I was asked by you to become a member of the Scientific Committee of the IUAES Congress being organized by you in Sankt Petersburg, I felt honored and truly grateful. I was happy that anthropologists from all over the world would be meeting in Russia. Anthropology’s cause has always been my priority and – as President of the Polish Ethnological Society (2005-19), President of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (2009-11), Chair of the World Council of Anthropological Associations (2012-14) and Chair of the Organizing Committee of the IUAES Congress in Poznan (2019) – I spent a great deal of time and energy in promoting, developing, and, in the face of threats, defending our discipline, both at home and internationally. Obviously, I am still committed to the discipline’s good. As an anthropologist I have also adamantly fought in my actions and writings for the respect of human rights and against discrimination, xenophobia, racism and violence; above all, I have paid tribute to the protection of human life. I am writing these words on a day when the Russian state’s leadership has chosen to invade Ukraine with its military might. I cannot imagine how an anthropological congress can be held in the land of an aggressor that has waged war against another, neighboring country, causing bloodshed, killing innocent people and threatening peace on earth. I realize that this whole terrible situation is not your responsibility and how concerned and badly you may feel. However, in the current context my conscience tells me unequivocally that the congress in Sankt Petersburg can not be just “business as usual”, and therefore I cannot legitimize it. I would therefore request that you please withdraw my name from the list of members of the Scientific Committee. Michal Buchowski Senior Professor at European University Viadrina Frankfurt Oder Member of the Polish Academy of Sciences