Showing papers in "Ethnos in 2019"
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors address some of the problems related to the concept of integration, which has been used (and abused) in Denmark since the 1990s to discuss socio-economic, cultural and religious chall...
Abstract: The article addresses some of the problems related to the concept of integration, which has been used (and abused) in Denmark since the 1990s to discuss socio-economic, cultural and religious chall...
116 citations
TL;DR: Greece has been at the epicentre of two overlapping ‘humanitarian crises:’ the economic crisis and the crisis of refugees, since 2011, as austerity policies have hamstrung the Greek state's capacit...
Abstract: Greece has been at the epicentre of two overlapping ‘humanitarian crises:’ the economic crisis and the crisis of refugees. Since 2011, as austerity policies have hamstrung the Greek state’s capacit...
59 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a theoretical argument around the interrelations of space and time in sites of confinement by exploring the relationships between ghettos, camps, and places of confinement is presented.
Abstract: This Introduction to the special issue develops a theoretical argument around the interrelations of space and time in sites of confinement by exploring the relationships between ghettos, camps, pla...
42 citations
TL;DR: This article investigates how the global cloud is localised within a specific historical and social context by triggering the re-scaling of territories and shaping new geographies in relation to expanding cloud infrastructures in the Swedish city of Luleå.
Abstract: Popular representations imagine the internet as being immaterial and fluid; hidden from the public eye are the industry and complex infrastructure securing the functionality of the World Wide Web, ...
35 citations
TL;DR: This paper argued that if all academic research comes to be outlined in English, we are to lose a lot of ground to plagiarism, and they argued that academic research should be written in English so that it may reach an international academic audience.
Abstract: This text is written in English so that it may reach an international academic audience. However, if all academic research comes to be outlined in English we are to lose a lot. Here, we argue this ...
32 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines how irregular migrants from Central and Western Africa stranded in Morocco forged tenuous but essential relationships in the face of hostile and violent border politics constraining them from entering the country.
Abstract: This article examines how irregular migrants from Central and Western Africa stranded in Morocco forged tenuous but essential relationships in the face of hostile and violent border politics constr...
21 citations
TL;DR: This paper examined different conceptions of "nourishment" to understand people's relationship with land and water, and the company's environmental management plans, including a proposal to replace the lagoons with artificial reservoirs.
Abstract: This article extends debates on ontological multiplicity and considers the potential and limitations of this analytical lens for understanding the dynamics of mining activity in Cajamarca, Peru. Peasant farmers from El Tambo organised themselves to protect the lagoons in the Conga project area. We examine different conceptions of ‘nourishment’ to understand people’s relationship with land and water, and the company’s environmental management plans, including a proposal to replace the lagoons with artificial reservoirs. Competing ‘designs on the land’ reveal complex relations among humans and elements of the environment, which are re-created and transformed in situations of conflict. Ethnographic attention to designs on the land elucidates the processes through which ontologies or ‘worlds’ are made. We emphasise the connection between past practices and recent events, recognising people’s long-standing relationships and commitments to the land without ignoring the political creativity that made the...
19 citations
TL;DR: On 12 January 2010, a major earthquake struck Haiti's capital city of Port-au-Prince as mentioned in this paper, which was the worst disaster in modern history, partly because of the death and destruction it caused.
Abstract: On 12 January 2010, a major earthquake struck Haiti’s capital city of Port-au-Prince. Experts would soon call it the worst disaster in modern history, partly because of the death and destruction it...
19 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the main principles that design a worldwide landscape of precarious spaces are discussed and the increasing and more constraining policies of exclusion provoke the repea- ture of these principles.
Abstract: This article aims to understand the main principles that design a worldwide landscape of precarious spaces. I argue that the increasing and more constraining policies of exclusion provoke the repea...
19 citations
TL;DR: This paper explored the ambivalent relations of indigenous Marind to domesticated animals in Merauke District, West Papua, and found that Marind pity village animals because they lose their "wildness" and behave badly.
Abstract: This article explores the ambivalent relations of indigenous Marind to domesticated animals in Merauke District, West Papua. Marind pity village animals because they lose their ‘wildness’ and behav...
18 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors offer a few opening premises in consideration of these essays on "possession" and suggest that comparison is basic to thought, constant and inevitable, and that comparison arranges likeness and differ.
Abstract: Let me offer a few opening premises in consideration of these essays on ‘possession’. First, comparison is basic to thought, constant and inevitable. Second, comparison arranges likeness and differ...
TL;DR: For example, conversion to evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity produces what Joel Robbins calls "duplex cultural formations" whereby surviving aspects of local cosmology and worldvie... as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Throughout the world, conversion to evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity produces what Joel Robbins calls ‘duplex cultural formations’, whereby surviving aspects of local cosmology and worldvie...
TL;DR: In 2010 and 2011, female students at my field site in southern Trinidad experienced "mass possessions" that closed down the secondary school as mentioned in this paper, while Pentecostal-charismatic Christians figured Africa.
Abstract: In 2010 and 2011, female students at my field site in southern Trinidad experienced ‘mass possessions’ that closed down the secondary school. While Pentecostal-charismatic Christians figured Africa...
TL;DR: Among Tibetan Buddhist tantric practitioners, including in the U.S., visualisation and incorporation of mandala deities imparts a parallel world against which conventional reality is consid....
Abstract: Among Tibetan Buddhist tantric practitioners, including in the U.S., visualisation and incorporation of mandala deities imparts a parallel world against which conventional reality is consid...
TL;DR: In this paper, a special issue brings together two seemingly opposed concepts, spirit possession and sovereignty, to ask how possessing lands, spirits, and selves can alter the theorisation of political prac...
Abstract: This special issue brings together two seemingly opposed concepts – spirit possession and sovereignty – to ask how possessing lands, spirits, and selves can alter the theorisation of political prac...
TL;DR: Following the Second Lebanon War (2006), Israeli preparedness exercises were designed in reference to that crisis event as mentioned in this paper, and they have been held annually for more than a decade, for over a decade.
Abstract: Following the Second Lebanon War (2006), Israeli preparedness exercises were designed in reference to that crisis event. Hold annually for more than a decade, ‘Turning Point’ exercises are ...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the work of direct selling in rural India, reflecting on the forms of prejudice, difference and exclusion that are produced as multinational companies create markets for consumer goods in places of chronic global poverty.
Abstract: How do you sell a solar powered lamp to India's un-electrified, rural poor? This contribution to Anthropology for Sale explores the work of direct selling in rural India, reflecting on the forms of prejudice, difference and exclusion that are produced as multinational companies create markets for consumer goods in places of chronic global poverty. In the highlands of Orissa, India, a US company sells solar powered lights through a network of young male sales agents. The company and its products express empathy and proximity, attachment and connection to India's indigenous and low caste communities. Yet the company’s salesmen are often more concerned with maintaining forms of structural advantage and their sales practices articulate social differences based on caste, class and gender. Rather than see prejudice as a peripheral effect of expansion and growth in emerging markets this paper proposes that we see it as a constitutive feature of markets at the ‘bottom of the pyramid’.
TL;DR: In this paper, the disparity between a tradition that has defined anthropology as a comparative discipline and the practices which increasingly embrace cultural relativism and the uniqueness of each fieldsite is confronted, through creating a vertical structure that complements the horizontal task of comparison across fieldsites.
Abstract: This paper confronts the disparity between a tradition that has defined anthropology as a comparative discipline and the practices which increasingly embrace cultural relativism and the uniqueness of each fieldsite. It suggests that it is possible to resolve this dilemma, through creating a vertical structure that complements the horizontal task of comparison across fieldsites. This vertical structure is composed of different methods of dissemination which make explicit a series of steps from a baseline of popular dissemination which stresses the uniqueness of individuals, through books and journal articles with increasing degrees of generalisation and comparison. Following this structure leads us up through analysis to the creation and employment of theory. This allows us to make comparisons and generalisations without sacrificing our assertion of specificity and uniqueness. We illustrate this argument though a recent nine-field site comparison of the use and consequences of social media in a project called ‘Why We Post.’
TL;DR: This paper explored the workings of an Islamic economic theology of halal exchange that mediates divine abundance through an ethics of care and generosity in rural areas of post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Abstract: This paper questions claims about the all-pervasive neoliberalization of everyday life that dominate many debates in anthropology and beyond. Situated in deprived rural areas of post-war Bosnia–Herzegovina where socio-economic restructuring has led to a reduction in social redistribution and access to many once-guaranteed state provisions, I explore the workings of an Islamic economic theology of halal exchange that mediates divine abundance through an ethics of care and generosity. In a situation of increasing socio-economic inequalities, the economic theology of halal exchange offers villagers a parallel logic of relating to the divine and to each other, as it is concerned with generosity and sharing rather than with the calculative logic of profit and accumulation. Ultimately, this paper addresses the way that specific reconfigurations of cultural values provide a significant basis for moral imagination, innovative practice and virtuous action at a time of radical change and uncertainty.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a detailed and detailed account of the evolution of a village when a village goes mobile, and what changes and what stays the same in the process.
Abstract: What happens when a village goes mobile? What changes, and what stays the same? These questions animate Sirpa Tenhunen’s A Village Goes Mobile. The book offers a nuanced and detailed account of the...
TL;DR: With Pentecostalism frequently analysed as gaining traction in contexts of globalised individualisation and neoliberally-induced insecurity, scholars have paid less attention to the social...
Abstract: With Pentecostalism frequently analysed as gaining traction in contexts of globalised individualisation and neoliberally-induced insecurity, scholars have paid less attention to the social ...
TL;DR: The authors used a reflection on the quality of the time of enskilment as a way of addressing the relationship between sociality and enkilment, and looked at key moments from my field research and le...
Abstract: This article uses a reflection on the quality of the time of enskilment as a way of addressing the relationship between sociality and enskilment. I look at key moments from my field research and le...
TL;DR: In this paper, the notions of personhood and property underlying relationships between humans and places in the Rio Negro watershed of the central Peruvian Andes are examined through offerings, dreams, etc.
Abstract: This article examines the notions of personhood and property underlying relationships between humans and places in the Rio Negro watershed of the central Peruvian Andes. Through offerings, dreams, ...
TL;DR: The UNESCO World Heritage Committee has continuously faced charges of Eurocentrism in distributing the coveted World Heritage title, broadening conceptions of heritage in response as discussed by the authors. Yet European countries kept being more successful and frustrated Southern nations rebelled in the 2010 Committee session to see their aspirations realised.
Abstract: The UNESCO World Heritage Committee has continuously faced charges of Eurocentrism in distributing the coveted World Heritage title, broadening conceptions of heritage in response. Yet European countries kept being more successful and frustrated Southern nations rebelled in the 2010 Committee session to see their aspirations realised. National wishes set the course for the decisions now but Northern countries continue to win more titles and Northern bias in World Heritage expertise persists. This is because leading Southern countries prioritise their national interests over pressing for fundamental reform, just as in other global organisations’ attempts to become more inclusive. Southern collusion in the reproduction of Northern hegemony must be given due attention, particularly when time lags between North and South – in terms of rewards, influence on fundamental conceptions, and historical production of the potential resource – compound as much as here.
TL;DR: The authors argue that many English evangelicals are wary of the U.K.’s recent embrace of rights-based law, and that this wariness does not preclude their use of human rights instruments in the courts.
Abstract: Although human rights are often framed as the result of centuries of Western Christian thought, many English evangelicals are wary of the U.K.’s recent embrace of rights-based law. Yet this wariness does not preclude their use of human rights instruments in the courts. Drawing upon fieldwork with Christian lobbyists and lawyers in London, I argue that evangelical activists instrumentalise rights-based law so as to undermine the universalist claims on which they rest. By constructing themselves as a marginalised counterpublic whose rights are frequently ‘trumped’ by the competing claims of others, they hope to convince their fellow Britons that a society built upon the logic of equal rights cannot hope to deliver the human flourishing it promises. Given the salience of contemporary political conservatism, I call for further ethnographic research into counterpublic movements, and offer my interlocutors’ instrumentalisation of human rights as a critique of the inconsistencies of secular law.
TL;DR: Gibson-Graham as discussed by the authors looked at three examples of the way in which Mongolians manage claims to resources and respond to new regimes of ownership, and suggested that recourse to models of ownership based on masters and custodians are marshalled and extended to suit new contexts.
Abstract: What happens to the relations involved in ownership when faced with new claims and challenges? This article looks at three examples of the way in which Mongolians are managing claims to resources and responding to new regimes of ownership. In each case, recourse to models of ownership based on masters and custodians are marshalled and extended to suit new contexts. I suggest that these should not be viewed as modern responses to the inequalities of current economic and social life [cf. Comaroff and Comaroff. 1999, May. Occult Economies and the Violence of Abstraction: Notes from the South African Postcolony. American Ethnologist, 26(2): 279–303], nor should they be viewed as a historical remnant from some previous social life. Rather, and here I follow Tsing [2004. Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection. Princeton: Princeton University Press; 2015a. The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins. Princeton: Princeton University Press; 2015b. Salvage Accumulation, or the Structural Effects of Capitalist Generativity. In Theorizing the Contemporary, Cultural Anthropology Website, March 30, 2015. https://culanth.org/fieldsights/656-salvage-accumulation-or-the-structural-effects-of-capitalist-generativity], they may be viewed as an outcome of an innovative ‘friction’, or ‘salvage economy’, between global and local realities that gives rise to what Gibson-Graham [2006. A Postcapitalist Politics. Minnesota: Minnesota University Press] argues is a heterogeneous capitalist landscape, here manifested in Mongolia’s dramatically rising and falling mineral economy.
TL;DR: In this article, the interlinked concepts of tiredness and foreboding are used to understand the existential character of confinement by directing attention to the interlink of the two concepts.
Abstract: This article contributes to an understanding of the existential character of confinement by directing attention to the interlinked concepts of tiredness and foreboding. Through juxtaposition and analysis of material gathered among people whose lives are lived under compromised circumstances in Sierra Leone and Palestine we illuminate the way time – not only space – confines. Our analytical concern is with the way in which futures are anticipated by people confined in space and time, where conditions of possibility are materially and sometimes corporeally suffocating. To anticipate fragile futures, or to mourn futures terminated early is exhausting. Tiredness, from this perspective, is a ubiquitous and overwhelming sentiment suffusing what it means to live in confining sites. It is an expression of foreboding understood as a ‘being towards death’ (Stevenson 2014).
TL;DR: In Iran, war photographs have remained essential to the propaganda machinery of the Iranian state since the inception of the war with Iraq as discussed by the authors, and these photographs contribute to the visual culture of mart...
Abstract: War photographs have remained essential to the propaganda machinery of the Iranian state since the inception of the war with Iraq. These photographs contribute to the visual culture of mart...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore ethnographically the broader set of cosmologies and repertoires of credit and speculation that informed the decisions and strategies of participation in pyramid firms in Albania.
Abstract: International media accounts of the spectacular collapse of the pyramid firms in Albania in 1997 centre on the story of Maksude Kadena, the head of the notorious firm, Sude. These accounts depict Kadena as a ‘gypsy fortune teller who claimed to look into a crystal ball’. In this article, I return to these various accounts of Sude/Kadena as a way to explore ethnographically the broader set of cosmologies and repertoires of credit and speculation that informed the decisions and strategies of participation in these firms. I suggest that the activities of the firms were, on the one hand, an extension of practices and ideas about the free market during the communist regime and, on the other hand, a manifestation of postsocialist cosmologies or risk and speculation and repertoires of credit and investment that extended well beyond the firms.
TL;DR: The authors explores why Hindu Surinamese continue to propitiate autochthonous Amerindian spirit owners of the land despite the threat that these rituals pose to ideologies of Hindu exceptionalism.
Abstract: This paper explores why Hindu Surinamese continue to propitiate autochthonous Amerindian spirit owners of the land despite the threat that these rituals pose to ideologies of Hindu exceptionalism a...