Miguel Vale Almeida

In 1990, when the first EASA conference convened in Portugal (Coimbra), under the banner ‘Anthropology and Europe’, young anthropologists from Western and Eastern Europe, coming together for the first time, celebrated the end of the Cold War. There was hope that Europe would be, at last, democratic, dynamic, outward-looking, and a bastion of civil rights. Thirty years on, the mood is different. Civil rights are under threat. Public services and education are being cut back. Nationalism and xenophobia are on the rise. Ethnic frontiers, class barriers, religious boundaries are being strengthened. Many people feel excluded, anxious, angry. On the more positive side, new rights have been secured in many, social mobility has become easier, sensitivity towards difference has increased. Through it all, anthropologists have been there, focusing on how people across the world have been experiencing, creating and reacting to these changes. Coming together once again in Portugal, the conference will consider such social, political, material and cultural currents in and beyond Europe, in order to consider the ethical, political and intellectual challenges to anthropology that they pose. EASA has always been committed to a global, cosmopolitan anthropology, informed by what L’vi-Strauss called ‘the view from afar.’ In 2020, we should continue that habit of looking beyond our own parochial concerns to those broader horizons.