Lova Annual Report 2018

For printing

Board
At the start of 2018 the board consisted of Marina de Regt (chair), Ina Keuper (treasurer and journal), Filipa Oitaven (secretary), Irene Arends (PR and ISS), Luisa Machacón (PR), and Roséanne Aukes (representing non-academic anthropologists). Luisa left the board in January, Roséanne in June and Irene in September. We thank them very much for their contributions. We were happy to welcome new board members: Jasmijn Rana in January as representative of the LOVA Journal (to discharge Ina for that task) and Roxane Kroon in September for representing students. The board met four times: on March 12, June 1, September 13 and December 13. The General Members’ Meeting was held at the annual LOVA Day on June 15 in Nijmegen. 

LOVA Journal
LOVA Journal #39 was published in December. This issue was prepared under the chief editorship of Jasmijn Rana while Silvia Herrero Simancas acted as coordinator. A call for submissions was sent around in the Spring. Kitti Baracsi, Ina Keuper, Charlotte Knoors, and Nikki Mulder were involved as editors. The layout was done by Silvia Herrero Simancas and Ina Keuper. The journal was sent to all members just before the Christmas holidays. 

LOVA Study Day
On Friday June 15 the annual LOVA Study Day was held. Catrien Notermans and Anke Tonnaer of Radboud University Nijmegen organized an international workshop about Gender and Nature. Prof. Veronica Strang of Durham University in the UK was the keynote speaker. Around 30-40 people attended the workshop, which consisted of paper presentations by academics and students. There were lively discussions and the workshop was a great success.

LOVA International Summer School
The sixth edition of the LOVA International Summer School took place from 2 till 5 July, for the first time organized by Irene Arends and Emmy de Wit. A call for applications was sent around in the Spring. The theme of the Summer School was Unschooling the Anthropologist. Ten participants from five different nationalities took part in the Summer School. There were lectures and workshops about rethinking education, gender and sexuality, the development sector, health, stress and emotions, and history. The meetings took place at three different locations in Amsterdam: the Nelson Mandela House, CEDLA and Café OKO.  The event was evaluated very positively by the participants and the organizers enjoyed it very much as well. 

LOVA Photo Competition
After the first edition of the biennial LOVA Photo Competition in 2016 the new competition was launched in April via LOVA Mail Service, on the website and via Facebook with the theme ‘Gender out of the box’. Unfortunately only few people submitted pictures and board member Roséanne could not organize the follow up because of external duties (she was elected as city council member in Haarlem). In June the board decided to cancel the 2018’s edition of the competition. 

LOVA Mail Service
In 2018 around 35 LOVA Mail Service messages have been distributed among LOVA members. The sending of messages was done quite regularly and the list of addressees has been kept updated. 

Website and Facebook
Board member Irene has posted many announcements and news items related to gender and anthropology of LOVA itself and of other organizations at the LOVA Facebook page and website. As Irene left the board in September the updating slowed down in the second half of 2018. Our search for a new PR board member ended successfully in January 2019 when Bernardo Soares took up the PR job.  The number of Facebook page likes went from 1054 in January 2018 to 1177 in December 2018. 

Finances
After catching up the lag in the collection of membership fees in the previous year we received in 2018 payments of 96 members (84 paying members in 2017). As we could finally close down our account at ING Bank LOVA is now contributing indeed to a more social responsible financial system. The expenditure for lay-outing, printing, and distributing of the LOVA Journal could be decreased even more than in 2017. The annual study day and the international summer school ended up each with a small negative net balance. PR expenditure was spent on technical support of website and mailboxes next to regular fees of the webhost. Organization costs were spent on the bank accounts, presents for outgoing board members and some others, and the network drinks at the start of International Summer School. LOVA received a 10,000 euro of the Marjan Rens Foundation for the continuation of the biennial LOVA Marjan Rens Master’s Thesis Award in the near future. Every two years a sum of 500 euro will be donated to the winner of this award, and 100 euro for the second and third prize.