Showing papers in "Ethnos in 2016"
TL;DR: The Anthropocene is emerging as an inescapable word for the current moment as mentioned in this paper, and it has been widely used as a metaphor for the future of the human race and its relationships with nature.
Abstract: Love it or hate it, the Anthropocene is emerging as an inescapable word for (and of) the current moment. Popularized by Eugene Stoermer and Paul Crutzen, Anthropocene names an age in which human in...
256 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on the life experiences of one Somali refugee woman living in Melbourne and her engagement with place, and argue that rather than developing theoretical concepts that bypass people's experiences, the zooming in on individuals' lifeworlds allows for a close look at the particularity and everydayness of being-in-place.
Abstract: Over the last two decades, there has been a radical shift in anthropology from stable, rooted and mappable identities to fluid, transitory and migratory forms of belonging. Displacement has become the new trope through which anthropologists have come to look at the world. As a result, place has received an ambiguous position. Focusing on the life experiences of one Somali refugee woman living in Melbourne and her engagement with place, this article questions the current emphasis on space and boundlessness in anthropological discourses on displacement. It argues that rather than developing theoretical concepts that bypass people's experiences, the zooming in on individuals' lifeworlds allows for a close look at the particularity and everydayness of being-in-place. It shows the need for a more complex and nuanced view of displacement – one that values people's lived experiences and one that takes the placement in displacement more seriously.
75 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that a stronger ethnographic focus on material practices, including knowledge practices, can contribute to a more nuanced understanding of climate change effects, responses and forms of water management.
Abstract: Climate change translates into insecure water provision and produces new uncertainties for farmers and politicians in Colca Valley, Southern Peru. Anthropological studies of climate change have mainly focused on adaptation, resilience and so-called indigenous traditional knowledge. This article argues that a stronger ethnographic focus on material practices – including knowledge practices – can contribute to a more nuanced understanding of climate change effects, responses and forms of water management. The author aims to see responses to climate change as more than cultural representations, and therefore focuses on water practices and the realities that these practices make, as well as the relational webs of humans, environment, infrastructure and other-than-human beings. The article explores different practices that enact multiple versions of water, and multiple – yet related and entangled – water worlds. The author suggests that this has implications for how we understand politics of climate an...
49 citations
TL;DR: This paper analyzed the large-scale popular urban uprisings that shook Mozambican cities on 1 and 2 September 2010, following the government's announcement of successive rises in the price of public transport fares and basic commodities.
Abstract: This article analyses the large-scale popular urban uprisings that shook Mozambican cities on 1 and 2 September 2010, following the government's announcement of successive rises in the price of public transport fares and basic commodities. Using ethnographic material from the city of Chimoio and the capital Maputo, the following work highlights the organisational character of the ‘strikes’ (greves), as the popular uprisings were called, and explores them as a new form of organising political discontent. Comparing them to other historical and contemporary popular uprisings, this article argues that the strikes violently and rhizomically generated ephemeral and egalitarian forms of political authority and order that simultaneously confronted, replicated and undercut the aspects of Mozambican statehood. Deploying Durkheim's notion of effervescence, the work further argues that the creative fervour, multisemic aspects and festive character of the popular uprisings need to be recognised; thus, this ana...
43 citations
TL;DR: The authors examine the moral basis of a "middle class" in Maputo, Mozambique, the narratives, forms of dependence and types of hegemony that the social hierarchy rests upon, arguing that the political and economic processes that have given rise to new middle classes in the global south also create conditions of precariousness.
Abstract: In this essay, I examine the moral basis of a ‘middle class’ in Maputo, Mozambique, the narratives, forms of dependence and types of hegemony that the social hierarchy rests upon. I argue that the political and economic processes that have given rise to ‘new’ middle classes in the global south also create conditions of precariousness. In recent years, it has been argued that these ‘emerging middle classes’ are central for economic growth and the safeguarding of a stable, liberal order. The case of Mozambique complicates this assertion and demonstrates an occurrence now taking place across the globe. When the relationships of dependence and obligation and the narratives that justify them erode, the structures of power that may have once been mutually constitutive between an emerging middle class and the state can become damaging as the system they once upheld loses its legitimacy.
40 citations
TL;DR: In many of these contexts, the numbers of events calling themselves festivals are growing as mentioned in this paper, and the number of festivals and carnivals is growing rapidly, as well as their popularity.
Abstract: Festivals and carnivals are significant contemporary phenomena in societies across the world. In many of these contexts, the numbers of events calling themselves festivals are growing.1 They range ...
36 citations
TL;DR: The authors explored the collaboration of humans and elephants in South Indian wildlife conservation, highlighting the largely invisible work relationship between indigenous forest labourers and captive elephants, and their essential contribution to wildlife management.
Abstract: This paper explores the collaboration of humans and elephants in South Indian wildlife conservation. Drawing on ethnography within the Indian forest department and among elephant handlers in Wayanad, Kerala, it highlights the largely invisible work relationship between indigenous forest labourers and captive elephants, and their essential contribution to wildlife management. Extending ethnographic attention beyond an exclusively human realm, I show that human and elephant relations have been co-constituted while working together for the forest department. Their working partnership, situated in the historical nature-cultures of logging, teak extraction, and conservation, has created ambivalent intimacies between humans and elephants, containing both mutual violence and affect. By highlighting the importance of work relationships, history, and questions of power for multi-species studies, this article argues that human–animal relations are not only shaped by individual intimacies, but also by danger...
32 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore the ability of different elements and forms of the "festive" to act as mediator for social change and propose a socially produced conceptual structure by means of which people organize their perception of and participation in the world.
Abstract: Building on Erwin Goffman's (1974) notion of frame, the article approaches the ‘festive’ as a socially produced conceptual structure by means of which people organize their perception of and participation in the world. Picking up on the epistemic threats initially developed in early French sociology, it explores the ability of different elements and forms of the ‘festive’ to act as mediator for social change.
30 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, an ethnographic focus on humanitarne akcije in Bosnia and Herzegovina is presented, which explores humanitarianism and its understandings of life, and suggests that the notion of "bare life" in international humanitarian projects in emergencies may be the product of the separation of infrastructures, which enable and manage lives of the saving and saved.
Abstract: Through an ethnographic focus on humanitarne akcije in Bosnia and Herzegovina – a local form of raising monetary donations to people who need medical treatments abroad – this paper explores humanitarianism and its understandings of life. Ethnographically tracking the course of a humanitarna akcija organised in one Bosnian town, this paper makes two related points. First, it ethnographically demonstrates that lives of the ‘helpers’ and ‘helped’ in humanitarne akcije were understood as immersed in the intense talk and gossip of the town and as exposed to the sociopolitical environment troubled in the same way. Comparing this understanding of life with the international humanitarianism, this paper suggests that the notion of ‘bare life’ in international humanitarian projects in emergencies may be the product of the separation of infrastructures, which enable and manage lives of the ‘savers’ and ‘saved’. Second, those who needed help through humanitarne akcije strongly criticised the lack of organised...
25 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue for a performative view of festivals as instances of group making, remaking and unmaking, and show how festivals can be viewed as contentious sites for the production of new transnational and ethnic socialities and identities.
Abstract: Festivals have provided an important arena for debates in anthropology and the social sciences. A focus of these debates has been the characterisation of the links between festivals, social groups and collective identities. While revisiting these debates, this paper argues for a performative view of festivals as instances of group making, remaking and unmaking. Based on Holy Ghost festas in the Azores and among Azorean migrants in North America it shows how festivals can be viewed as contentious sites for the production of new transnational and ethnic socialities and identities. The paper highlights the importance of this view of festivals for a critical assessment of current efforts aimed at the ‘heritagisation’ of festive cultures.
24 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines both this practice in the Vineyard, an American Neocharismatic church, and texts written by Vineyard pastors for the purposes of instructing believers in how to engage in prayer.
Abstract: Framing prayer as an ethical exercise that operates on a recalcitrant will, this essay examines both this practice in the Vineyard, an American Neocharismatic church, and texts written by Vineyard pastors for the purposes of instructing believers in how to engage in prayer. It argues that the same abstract play of forces can be identified in both these areas. But that does not mean the two areas are identical. While prayer as a practice is marked by a certain indetermination about how and in what ways prayer is effective, instructional material about prayer are shown to be much more exacting. However, different choices among pastors in how they situate prayer is shown to have specific political effects; it also suggests some of the benefits for an anthropology of ethics in being careful to disarticulate ethical practice from texts describing means to properly engage in ethical practice.
TL;DR: In this paper, Eduardo Kohn sets the agenda for an ambitious plan; to develop, an anthropology that could attend not only to the ways in which non-humans act or react, but also to the way...
Abstract: In ‘How Forests Think’, Eduardo Kohn sets the agenda for an ambitious plan; to develop, an anthropology that could attend not only to the ways in which non-humans act or react, but also to the ways...
TL;DR: In this article, an ethnographic study of organic farmers affected by radioactive contamination in Japan illuminates responses to situated uncertainty as an everyday mode of subjectivity and practice and the farmers' strategies vary along a continuum from accommodation with dominant institutions to precautions of possible uncertainty to innovations and oppositions of potential uncertainty.
Abstract: This ethnographic study of organic farmers affected by radioactive contamination in Japan illuminates responses to situated uncertainty as an everyday mode of subjectivity and practice. The farmers' strategies vary along a continuum from accommodation with dominant institutions to precautions of possible uncertainty to innovations and oppositions of potential uncertainty. Significantly these strategies are contradictory and they show variations in power and morality. The data indicate a subjective- and practice-oriented response that I call localized, relational uncertainty. It is contextualized in farms and villages with responsibility for family, consumers, and organic agriculture itself and it enables farmers to embrace multiple strategies. Thus, uncertainty brings loss and limitations, but also produces opportunities through, for example, expanded trust in relationships, deepened commitment to place, reinterpretation of organic agriculture, and sharpened critique of Japan's trajectory of econo...
TL;DR: In this paper, the concept of ikigai, often equated with purpose in life but closely associated with the elderly in public discourse, is used to illustrate how ageing implicates a number of apparently unconnected issues.
Abstract: In the context of unprecedented life expectancy, the social position of the Japanese elderly is changing. Anxieties related to ageing are widely experienced by people of all ages and on a number of levels, including nationwide concerns over the ‘ageing population’ and its economic consequences; the ageing of local communities; on an interpersonal level, as older relatives may require care and support; and, finally, in relation to one's own ageing. These anxieties are examined based on ethnographic research in the city of Osaka. The concept of ikigai, often equated with purpose in life but closely associated with the elderly in public discourse, is used to illustrate how ageing implicates a number of apparently unconnected issues. It is argued that anxieties about ageing may ultimately achieve such prominence because they give focus to a range of fundamental human concerns with meaning, death, freedom, and isolation.
TL;DR: This paper explored some of Britain's cultural narratives of hitch-hiking through descriptions which are largely auto-ethnographic in character, and considered a number of poetic and political themes related to the alternative modalities of experience involved in thumbing a ride.
Abstract: Alienation, dependence, fear, sociability, protest, time and mobility – these are all hitch-hiking themes. This paper questions how breaks of convention, such as those which exist in hitching a lift, impact upon the sensing of place and the encounter with road-scapes. As a method of travel, hitching ruptures normative journeys, whereby destinations are no longer extensions of the present. Hitchers act on a compelling need to move in an intensely free yet highly constrained manner; to seek heights of physical and mental experience and to do so as if travel, perhaps even life itself, were fleeting opportunities. Roads, vehicles and bequested transport are part of that opportunity. Impressionistically inspired, this paper explores some of Britain's cultural narratives of hitch-hiking. Through descriptions which are largely auto-ethnographic in character, it considers a number of poetic and political themes related to the alternative modalities of experience involved in thumbing a ride.
TL;DR: The authors argued that crisis is a fruitful way to analyse the interrelationship of local and global, neoliberalism and the nation-state, which scholars have explored for the past few years, and emphasises how crisis itself can be seen as constituting a field within which to exercise power, as well as a prism to investigate and understand national identities in a globalised world.
Abstract: The paper claims that crisis is a fruitful way to analyse the interrelationship of local and global, neoliberalism and the nation-state, which scholars have explored for the past few years. During the Icelandic financial crash of 2008, the failed Internet bank Icesave became a source of intense disputes between the British and Icelandic governments. My paper uses Icelandic discussions of the bankrupt bank to explore how individuals negotiate their imagination of the global and the national and how national identity can be reaffirmed in the context of crisis. The discussion shows that the Icesave debate is based on reification of national communities as well as critical reflection on increased power of transnational institutions and global elites. The paper, furthermore, emphasises how crisis itself can be seen as constituting a field within which to exercise power, as well as a prism to investigate and understand national identities in a globalised world.
TL;DR: In this article, a wide-ranging analysis of the various regional and supranational spheres that Belgians inhabit is presented, outlining how ethnographic studies of Belgium can shed light on pan-European topics that are of interest to anthropologists.
Abstract: Like the European Union itself, the anthropology of Europe has been slowly developing for decades. Yet compared to their colleagues working at more conventional non-Western field sites, ethnographers studying present-day Europe are focusing on a region that still exists at the margins of the discipline. Thus far, anthropologists have largely neglected Belgium as an opportunity to understand the sociopolitical culture of the European continent as a whole. Through a detailed examination of historical processes that have shaped modern Belgian society, the present article highlights how this tiny nation stands as a microcosm of Europe's past, present, and potential futures. Proffering a wide-ranging analysis of the various regional and supranational spheres that Belgians inhabit, this paper outlines how ethnographic studies of belgitude (or ‘Belgianness’) can shed light on pan-European topics that are of interest to anthropologists.
TL;DR: In this paper, Csordas examines the concurrence of emotions, feelings, somatosensory experience and doctrinal discourses in developing mediumistic skills, which simultaneously engenders the attributes of extendability and multi-dimensionality that ground the notion of the self, informing the conceptualisation of trance.
Abstract: Drawing on ethnographic data from the Brazilian mediumistic religion known as Vale do Amanhecer (Valley of the Dawn), this article addresses the learning process at the core of mediumistic development. The process of learning is here approached as a multi-layered experience, which is embodied, intuitive, performative, conceptual and inter-subjective. I will illustrate how the relationship between mediums and spirits is established in trance states through what Thomas Csordas calls a ‘multi-sensory imagery’. The discussion examines the concurrence of emotions, feelings, somatosensory experience and doctrinal discourses in developing mediumistic skills, which simultaneously engenders the attributes of extendability and multi-dimensionality that ground the notion of the self, informing the conceptualisation of trance.
TL;DR: In the last decade, the cult of La Santa Muerte (St Death) has attracted a remarkable number of followers in Mexico and the USA as mentioned in this paper, and it has attracted ample attention from scholars and journalists, but the principal puzzles is still how a skeleton image of death has come to be seen as a saint by large numbers of Catholics.
Abstract: Over the last decade, the cult of La Santa Muerte (St Death) has attracted a remarkable number of followers in Mexico and the USA. Whereas the social context of her devotees, who tend to live on the fringes of society, has attracted ample attention from scholars and journalists, one of the principal puzzles is still how a skeleton image of death has come to be seen as a saint by large numbers of Catholics. How is it possible for this figure to embrace such antagonistic qualities as death and sainthood in a Christian context? In this semiotic-material exploration of the image's genealogy, I suggest that La Santa Muerte should be seen as a coalescing of two radically distinct images of death: the popular-secular Catrina and the occult-biblical Santisima Muerte. The St Death venerated today encompasses the ambiguities of the two and creates an exceptionally vibrant and popular Catholic image.
TL;DR: The boundary-crossing implicit in both turns on self-fashioning is a process which connects humans to spirits and/or ordinary individuals to the prestigiously modern as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Long active as spirit mediums, trans women have become increasingly important players in the beauty business in Mandalay, Burma, as elsewhere in Southeast Asia. I ask what affinities we might discern in these two roles of spirit medium and beautician such that trans women should be thought especially suited to take them on. The boundary-crossing implicit in both turns on self-fashioning, a process which connects humans to spirits and/or ordinary individuals to the prestigiously modern.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate the role of aesthetic practices in economic competition in cultural markets and argue that aesthetic competition should be theorised at the level of genres, which allow insight into how individual aesthetic innovations may transform the fields in which art is produced and circulated.
Abstract: On the basis of ethnographic research with woodcarvers in Oaxaca, Mexico, this paper investigates the role that aesthetic practices play in economic competition in cultural markets. I explain how one family has become the most successful artisans in their village by aesthetically referencing the indigenous art that is highly sought after by the North American ethnic art market. By reformulating Bourdieu's analysis of artistic fields, I argue that aesthetic competition should be theorised at the level of genres, which allow insight into how individual aesthetic innovations may transform the fields in which art is produced and circulated. I show that by referencing indigeneity, this successful family not only accesses a new market but also renders their work more authoritative than the carvings of their neighbours, which aesthetically reference Mexican ‘artesanias’ (craftwork). In so doing, they not only earn more money but also change the ways that Oaxacan woodcarvings are valued in general.
TL;DR: This paper explored the putative post-mortem changes and critically assessed the claims and counterclaims concerning funerary arrangements in New Zealand, highlighting the varying notions of authenticity that pervade the funeral discourse.
Abstract: Current thanatology discourse details a new ethos of openness transforming death-related practices, accentuating a shift to personalised rituals, authenticity and expressive grief. Drawing on ethnographic interviews with mourners and funeral professionals, this article explores these putative post-mortem changes and critically assesses the claims and counterclaims concerning funerary arrangements in New Zealand. While underscoring the complexity of mortuary practices, this study explicates the varying notions of authenticity that pervade the funeral discourse. Although funeral professionals emphasised the significance of grief and bereavement processes characterised by a need for honesty and transparency, bereaved participants proffered an alternative interpretation of authenticity that privileged biographical coherence and the need to confer transcendence to the dead. These findings not only emphasise the inadequacies of the aforementioned representations of post-mortem change, but elucidate the ...
TL;DR: In this paper, the Sasyk estuary in southern Ukraine was considered as a fish reservoir and its main canal as irrigable and drinking water, thereby stymieing activists' restoration campaign and revealing a politics of multiplication that enabled officials to sustain the resource potential of Danube-Dnister Irrigation System waters.
Abstract: Between 1976 and 1980, a Soviet agro-industrial project turned the Sasyk estuary in southern Ukraine into a freshwater irrigation reservoir. While the project failed to produce irrigable water, it had many negative environmental consequences. Despite two decades of activism, this water body persists in its freshwater state. To understand how this situation persists, resources need to be conceived as materialities emergent in and distributed across assemblages of human and nonhuman elements rather than pre-existing substances. This move helps reveal a politics of multiplication that has enabled officials to sustain the resource potential of Danube–Dnister Irrigation System waters. As recognition of Sasyk as polluted and valueless increased, officials mobilized linkages that consolidated Sasyk as a fish reservoir, and its main canal as irrigable and drinking water, thereby stymieing activists' restoration campaign.
TL;DR: In this article, the British Academy Small Grants Scheme (BSGS) was used to support the work of the authors in this paper. And this work was supported by the BSSG.
Abstract: This work was supported by the British Academy Small Grants Scheme [grant number SG 50254].
TL;DR: In this paper, the reception of road safety regulations has been refracted through class, ethnic and geographical divisions within Peruvian society, and argues for both the applied and theoretical utility of anthropological study in road safety governance.
Abstract: Significant developments in road safety regulation have taken place in Peru during recent years, reflecting international efforts to reduce worldwide fatalities and injuries. A series of measures has sought to bring about transformations in governmentality among passengers on public transport. Seen ethnographically, these have had uneven success on the ground. In rural provinces of Cusco, situated histories and sociologies of mobility have sometimes led to ambivalence, unobtrusive resistance or reinforcement of discriminatory attitudes. This article explores how reception of the regulations has been refracted through class, ethnic and geographical divisions within Peruvian society, and argues for both the applied and theoretical utility of anthropological study of road safety governance.
TL;DR: The Padstow May Day celebration, the Obby Oss, epitomises this sense of timelessness and spontaneous celebration, and is seen by the Cornish tourist industry as the stellar event of the festival year.
Abstract: It is well established that while folk festivals appear to illustrate an ancient, bucolic past, they are contemporary markers of history and belonging. Cornish folk festivals can provide a valuable illustration of this. The Padstow May Day celebration, the Obby Oss, epitomises this sense of timelessness and spontaneous celebration. It attracts numerous tourists keen to join the spectacle of dancing and singing, and is seen by the Cornish tourist industry as the stellar event of the festival year. In contrast, Padstow's mid-winter Mummers celebration is downplayed by county officials. This event sees participants dance, drum and sing around the town, wearing black face-paint, with a repertoire that includes Minstrel ditties, while critical questions have been asked at regional and national levels. Both raise questions about the ways in which belonging is negotiated as a critical element in the Cornish festival landscape.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose to qualify these fairs as "institutional" compared with the "spontaneous" ones that come along with religious celebrations, arguing that rather than "safeguarding ancestral customs" as claimed by the organizers, these specific festivals publically state the conditions for the ethnic group at play to be integrated within the nation state.
Abstract: In the Argentinean Andes, fairs constitute the main setting where lowland and highland Kolla peasants barter their agricultural production. In order to preserve these encounters – seen as traditional – in a context of peasants’ growing participation in capitalist economy, public organizations invest money for boosting old fairs and instituting new ones. The author proposes to qualify these fairs as ‘institutional’, compared with the ‘spontaneous’ ones that come along with religious celebrations. Alluding to Bourdieu's concept of institutional rituals, this expression enlightens how such meetings assert social categories, whose boundaries are otherwise blurred. Drawing on an analysis of institutional fairs’ social and symbolic performativity, the paper argues that rather than ‘safeguarding ancestral customs’, as claimed by the organizers, these specific festivals publically state the conditions for the ethnic group at play to be integrated within the nation state.
TL;DR: In a departure from constructivist approaches to the role ancestral land in identity politics, the authors focuses on the discursive and experiential manifestations of Mapuche theories of emplacement, according to which land is actively involved in the making of selves.
Abstract: Connection with ancestral land is a central tenet of indigenous identity claims. In a departure from constructivist approaches to the role ancestral land in identity politics, this article focuses on the discursive and experiential manifestations of Mapuche theories of emplacement, according to which land is actively involved in the making of selves. By drawing upon the notion of tuwun, a term roughly translatable as place of origin, I argue that ancestral land acts as a potentiality of selfhood through the articulation of sameness and otherness within Mapuche society and with canonical others (winka). The ethnographic analysis of the relation between landscape and memory will illustrate how ancestral land works to situate the present between two poles of alterity, namely past dwellers and winka. Such a focus allows us to acknowledge the significance of ancestral land without resorting to genealogical and essentialist interpretations of indigenous subjectivity.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors compare instances in which flock owners chose to sell sheep with examples of barter and explain the calculations behind each choice, arguing that sheep replaced money as both medium of exchange and store of value and the material qualities of sheep meant this shift had profound consequences for the kinds of social relations associated with the transaction.
Abstract: This article argues against scholarship that views barter and monetized transactions as fundamentally similar practices of exchange. Drawing on an ethnography of small-holder mobile pastoralism in south Kazakhstan, I compare instances in which flock owners chose to sell sheep with examples of barter and explain the calculations behind each choice. In barter exchange, sheep replaced money as both medium of exchange and store of value and the material qualities of sheep meant this shift had profound consequences for the kinds of social relations associated with the transaction. In a context of chronic money shortages, barter of sheep freed participants from future obligations, while monetized exchange locked them into the most prolonged and risky of relations.
TL;DR: In this article, Hornborg argues that the industrial revolution's substitution of organic with inorganic energy was accompanied by idleness and idleness in the culture of energy, and argues that this was the case for all cultures of energy.
Abstract: In Chapter 1 of Cultures of Energy, Alf Hornborg argues, in relatively straightforward language, that the industrial revolution's substitution of organic with inorganic energy was accompanied by id...