Objective Recent tragic events in France and Denmark, and the debates and reactions which have followed them, have once again brought centre stage enduring questions surrounding ‘free speech’ in contemporary Europe: when and how can speech be ‘free’? With what consequences? Why and how does this come to matter differently to people in particular social and historical contexts? And what, if anything, is distinctive about Europe in this regard? Free speech has long been a topic that has attracted extensive and sustained theoretical attention, definition and critical discussion in the fields of legal studies, philosophy and political science. Yet our understanding of how people relate to free speech in their everyday lives in concrete historical and geographic contexts remains paradoxically scant. To this crucial set of questions, anthropology, with its fine-grained ethnographic method and comparative heritage, is poised to make a substantive contribution for the first time. This five-year project builds on Michel Foucault’s discussion of parrhesia – the virtue and techniques of free-spokenness regardless of the cost – to enquire into the way free speech is lived on the ground by activists, teachers, politicians, intellectuals and artists in times of crisis and political transformation across Europe. The project has two core aims:1. To lay the conceptual bases for an anthropology of free speech as a lived value, by developing the first systematic elaboration of Parrhesia as a comparative analytical framework that combines concerns about epistemology, the government of the self and others, and the exercise of freedom.2. To experiment with an innovative comparative research design – combining in-depth European Case studies with global comparative soundings – to enquire into the distinctiveness (if any) of Europe as a space in which free speech is lived. Fields of science humanitiesphilosophy, ethics and religionphilosophyepistemologysocial scienceseducational sciencesdidacticssocial sciencespolitical sciencespolitical policiescivil societynongovernmental organizationshumanitieshistory and archaeologyhistory Keywords Political subjectivity Activism Knowledge practices Comparative method Programme(s) H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme Topic(s) ERC-CoG-2015 - ERC Consolidator Grant Call for proposal ERC-2015-CoG See other projects for this call Funding Scheme ERC-COG - Consolidator Grant Host institution THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE Net EU contribution € 1 954 606,00 Address TRINITY LANE THE OLD SCHOOLS CB2 1TN Cambridge United Kingdom See on map Region East of England East Anglia Cambridgeshire CC Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Total cost € 1 954 606,00 Beneficiaries (1) Sort alphabetically Sort by Net EU contribution Expand all Collapse all THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE United Kingdom Net EU contribution € 1 954 606,00 Address TRINITY LANE THE OLD SCHOOLS CB2 1TN Cambridge See on map Region East of England East Anglia Cambridgeshire CC Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Total cost € 1 954 606,00
