PhD Courses in Denmark

Department of Anthropology

Date and time: 8 August from 9:00 to 16:00

This course aims to provoke a discussion on the potentially productive relationship that might be traced between anthropology and the notion of failure. By understanding failure not (only) as a misfortunate result of a particular endeavor but as a counterhegemonic predisposition (Halberstam 2011), this relationship will be explored considering two broad dimensions. First, it will try to outline failure as a phenomenon that not only characterizes specific events in social life but constitutes social life itself, triggering creativity, various forms of discomfort, or even the permanent contestation of moral values (e.g., Course 2024). In short, this would imply taking social life much more as adding small quotidian failures and a permanent adequation to them than sporadic and ephemeral moments of success.  Secondly, following Halberstam’s insinuation of failure as an epistemology (2011), this course would like to imagine ethnography as driven by failure, both in the permanent adequation it implies and the humility of its propositions that, in essence, are assumed as particular and ungeneralizable. In other words, it envisions ethnography as a failed activity, which means an invitation to create knowledge with humility from a political margin that tackles various calls for certitude and objectivity.

The course will combine lectures on the emphasis given to failure by this outline, and presentations by the students, who will have the chance of re-analyzing their materials from the perspectives discussed. Students are expected to come prepared by reading the materials provided for the course, and reflecting on their fieldwork experience to discuss how the prism of failure might aid them in reconsidering their materials and how they are writing about them.

Academic aim: 
1. To reflect on the nature of ethnographic research and analysis.
Students will be invited to reflect on the capacities of ethnographic research, and to understanding as a challenge to objectivity assumed methodologies.
2. To understand failure as a gate of cultural apprehension.
Students will be invited to explore moments of failure as ubiquitous in social life, and to understand the potentials of focusing on it to understand them and broader phenomena related to them.

Target group: PhD students who are currently conducting fieldwork and/or have recently completed their fieldwork, who are interested in ethnographic methods and/or the topic of failure, whether as a methodological issue or as a research phenomenon.

Course teachers:
 - Marcelo González Gálvez, School of Anthropology, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
 - Henrik Vigh, Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen

Course organiser: 
 - Fernanda Gallegos Gutiérrez, Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen

Programme: 

Session 1
09.30 – 10.30 Lecture: The anthropology as failure Marcelo González Gálvez
10.30 - 10.45 Coffee Break
10.45 - 12.00 Discussion focused on failure in ethnography from student’s practical experiences Feedback and supervision by Marcelo González Gálvez and Henrik Vigh
12.00 - 13.00 Lunch Sandwiches provided

Session 2
13.00 - 14.00 Lecture 2: The anthropology of failure Marcelo González Gálvez
14.00 – 14.15 Break, refreshments
14.15– 15.30 Discussion focused on failure as phenomena of anthropological interest, from student’s practical experiences Feedback and supervision by Marcelo González Gálvez and Henrik Vigh
15.30-16.00 Wrap up discussion Marcelo González Gálvez and Henrik Vigh

Language: English

ECTS: 1

Max. numbers of participants: 12

Course fee: The PhD School at the Faculty of Social Sciences participates in Denmark’s national network for PhD courses. This course is free of charge for PhD students enrolled at a one of the participating PhD schools (PhD students enrolled at a Danish University, except from Copenhagen Business School). Other PhD students will be charged a course fee of DKK 1,200 per ECTS for participation in the course (PhD students enrolled at Copenhagen Business School or at a University outside Denmark).

Application: Please register via the link in the box and submit a half-page reflection on why you have felt interested in the seminar l to the course organiser by email (fan@anthro.ku.dk) no later than 27 June 2025.

Further information: For more information about the PhD course, please contact the PhD Administration (phd@hrsc.ku.dk) or the course organiser.

Literature: 

Course, M. 2024. “Clown”. In: Three ways to fail, pp. 45-90. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Halberstam, J. 2011. “Low theory”. In: The queer art of failure, pp. 1-25. Durham: Duke University Press.