Showing papers in "Social Anthropology in 2008"

Improvisational economies: Coltan production in the eastern Congo

Abstract: This paper examines the political economy of violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a landscape marked by genocidal campaigns where residents are raped and robbed of cattle and crops, and the extent to which that terror has been abetted by the global market for columbite-tantalite, or coltan. Coltan is a dense silicate ideal for digital technologies, and an estimated 80% of the world's reserves lie in the eastern region of the Congo, where the profitability of its mining to local warlords and the frenetic pace of digital speculation have made both agricultural production and pastoralism untenable. As a result, Congolese have had constantly to improvise production systems in order to survive. This improvisation, easy to gloss over as a survival strategy or adaptation, is in fact performed by creative agents who forge elaborately devised artisanal production systems, at times dangerously against the regimes of local warlords, to meet the insatiable global demand for digital products. Coltan is thus a conductor in a dual sense: of digital capacitors for cell phones or PlayStations, but also of the broader social and political economic processes that underlie the global production of knowledge. Indeed, in both a material and symbolic sense, this ore is a veritable source of information production in the digital age. As such, coltan holds importance for understanding the conflicting and diffuse global role of the digital age, as a source hope and creativity on the one hand; and as an instrument of terror, regimentation, and routinisation on the other.

The past as it lives now: an anthropology of colonial legacies1

Abstract: The colonial past is present in our world in many ways, some conspicuous, some unnoticed. In Europe, as in formerly colonised countries around the globe, it is embodied in material culture, in monuments, architecture, libraries, archives and museum collections, in alimentary diet, dress and music, but also in continuing flows of commodities, images and people. In perhaps less tangible but no less crucial ways, it shapes politics, economics, artistic and intellectual life, linguistic practices, forms of belonging or international relations. It informs the rhetoric and the categories mobilised when Europeans deal with migrants from other continents, define standards of good governance or conceive development projects, or when people outside Europe deal with European tourists, businessmen, NGO workers or anthropologists. The presence of the past is also a field of contest. Far from there having today a shared vision of the colonial past, conflicting memories and narratives divide scholars, but also those who somehow define themselves in relationship to the colonial moment.2 Exploring this double mode of presence of the past offers anthropologists a wide field of inquiry. The articles brought together in this issue may be seen as contributions to an anthropology of colonial legacies, which I will try to outline here.

Journeys and landscapes of forced migration: Memorializing fear among refugees and internally displaced Colombians

Abstract: In Colombia, a country with a long-standing multipolar armed conflict, the performance of violence in the form of massacres, selective assassinations, threats, disappearances, rape and forced displacement has turned fear into a powerful language by which the various armed actors communicate with society, reconfigure the landscape and regulate everyday life. Understanding forced migration as a form of displacement under coercion and fear, this article examines forms and notions of memorialized fear that are inscribed in the narratives of displacement and exile of a group of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Colombia and Colombian refugees in Canada. The article explores the relationships between memory, fear, and forced migration as a means to advance an anthropological analysis of the ways people reconstruct their lives in the midst of displacement and change. I suggest that a continuum of fear marks the journeys of displacement and exile of Colombian forced migrants. Fear is expressed as embodied memory and narrative thread to remember the past, the journey of forced migration, the interactions with the forced migration regime and the arrival and experiences in another host society. In the context of change and the liminal situations of IDPs and refugees, I consider the weight of emotions such as fear in shaping experience and remembrance so as to offer a critical starting point in reconsidering approaches towards, and conceptualizations of, identity, re-establishment of rights and incorporation into new social landscapes.

What has anthropology learned from the anthropology of colonialism

Abstract: The emergence of the anthropology of colonialism in the 1990s has stimulated and enhanced critical reflection on the cultural and historical embedding of the discipline of anthropology, offering what is in effect a historiography of the discipline's present How has this historical consciousness changed the contours of the discipline? Has it allowed anthropologists to critically distance their discipline from its intimate involvement with the world of modernity, development and the welfare state, as it first emerged under colonial rule? Have anthropologists learned that, instead of targeting and thus essentialising otherness, we should now study the processes by which human differences are constructed, hierarchised and negotiated? This presentation focuses on recent developments in European and North American anthropology in order to discuss the potential effects of the anthropology of colonialism's historical consciousness on anthropological ontologies (epitomised by current discussions on ‘indigenous peoples’), epistemologies (in reconceptualising ‘field’ and ‘method’) and ethics It thus tries to outline the ways in which the critical promise of the anthropology of colonialism faces the obstacles that the present-day heritage of colonialism puts in the way of realising its future potential

What human kinship is primarily about: toward a critique of the new kinship studies

Abstract: The claims of the so-called ‘constructionist’ position in kinship studies are examined with reference to a recent article by Susan McKinnon. McKinnon's analysis is shown to be deeply flawed, primarily because she pays no attention to the phenomenon of focality, now widely established in cognitive science. Instead, she is trapped in unsupportable collectivist models of human kinship. It is argued that these models are part of a misguided critique of the Western European Enlightenment.

Culturalist discourses on inclusion and exclusion: the Swiss citizenship debate

Abstract: ‘No pizza without migrants.’ This kind of slogan was used in a campaign in Switzerland in which people of migrant background fought for facilitated access to Swiss citizenship. By emphasising their contributions and their ‘cultural’ belonging to Switzerland, the political activists essentialised ‘the second generation’ as well integrated young professionals. Their campaign was countered by right-wing parties with posters showing Swiss identity cards with photos of Osama bin Laden to demonstrate what kind of people might become Swiss citizens if the laws changed. This article discusses the kind of culturalist discourse used by both, those who struggle against political exclusion and those who promote this exclusion. It takes a historical perspective and shows that culturalist discourses against migrants have been there for a long time, but the content and the arena of contestation change over time.

The embodied past. From paranoid style to politics of memory in South Africa

Abstract: The post-apartheid period has been marked by a dual relation to memory. On the one hand, the process of reconciliation, nation-building and abolition of the colour line has engaged a definitive rupture with the past. On the other hand, a form of resentment expresses a more ambivalent and painful acknowledgement that the past is still deeply present through racism, inequalities and prejudices. The AIDS crisis both as an objective – the rapid spread of the infection – and subjective phenomenon – the apprehension of the epidemic through controversies – has revealed this duality. Using Thabo Mbeki's statements on the infection, but also on race relations and national commemorations, I try to analyse beyond the obvious paranoid style a politics of memory which unveils hidden truths. The embodiment of the past thus recovered involves both the historical condition, that is the inscription of social structures in bodies and lives, and the experience of history, understood as the elaboration of representations, discourses and narratives accounting for the course of events. Considered in this light, conspiracy theories become not so much fantasies as factual realities, including genocidal projects under apartheid. The recognition of this unfinished business of time is a necessary step in the construction of a common future.

Migrants and the politics of governance. The case of Barcelona

Abstract: La gouvernance, resultat d'une collaboration entre gouvernement et societe civile, est generalement decrite comme la forme de gouvernement representative d'une modernite de fin de siecle. La gouvernance, nous dit-on, est preferable aux modes anterieurs de gouvernement, non seulement parce qu'elle plus rentable mais aussi parce qu'elle est liberatrice et encourage une participation plus large. Cet article prend ces affirmations au pied de la lettre et les examine par le biais de l'ethnographie, interrogeant leur mise en oeuvre dans le contexte de la migration, dans la ville 'progressive' de Barcelone. L'article suggere que la participation des migrants dans la gouvernance se reduit de facto a une participation a des institutions consultatives symboliques et a l'execution politique par procuration (par le biais d'ONGs locales de defense des droits des migrants, et remunerees pour leur fournir des services publics). L'article suggere aussi que les organisations gouvernementales et 'l'industrie' a but non lucratif de l'immigration beneficient davantage de la participation a la gouvernance que les migrants eux-memes.

The Norwegian country cabin and functionalism: a tale of two modernities

Abstract: The mountain or shore-side cabin (hytte) represents a common leisure form for a significant proportion of the Norwegian population. Its roots can be traced to the decline of farming society, growing urbanisation and an emphasis on the outdoor life as part of 20th-century state modernising projects. Throughout this modern history, and through periods of accelerated social change, the cabin has represented an ‘other’ form of domesticity. This paper makes the argument that far from representing an escape from post-industrial consumer society, the hytte prompts evaluation, comparison or negation of normative domesticity for its occupants. Many priorities such as getting back-to-nature and living the simple life are achieved best, paradoxically, through their material manifestation. Routine and rupture, and discourse surrounding farming culture artefacts are central in evoking contrast.

Shades of otherness: representations of Africa in 19th‐century Iceland

Abstract: Scholars have emphasised the importance of Africa as a counter-identification in shaping European identity, and stressed the multiplicity of categories of ‘us’ and ‘other’. My discussion focuses on images of Africa in Iceland during the 19th century, when Iceland was seeking independence from Denmark. I suggest that by repeating cliches of European representations of Africa, Icelanders situated themselves within the space civilisation, culture and progress in contrast with earlier representations of Icelanders as lazy, childlike and ignorant. The paper shows shifting categorisations of ‘us’ while also emphasising the changes that followed growing nationalism and racialisation of diversity in the 19th century.

Life-history writing and the anthropological silhouette

Abstract: In this paper I explore ways in which anthropologists can and have approached life-histories. I consider some of the theoretical background to this and discuss life-writing, biography and autobiography. In conclusion, I see the life-history as grounding anthropological analysis. As a model for future work I introduce the idea of an 'anthropological silhouette': less complete than a biography, and partial, but demonstrably based on an individual, and honest about its limitations and incompleteness. © 2008 European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA).

Double erasures: rewriting the past at the Musée du quai Branly*

Abstract: The new millennium has been the point of departure for several important transformations in ethnographic museums throughout France. Focused on the Musee du quai Branly, the paper examines the main principles guiding its creation: the accent put on cultural diversity and the recognition of the equal value of different cultures. These concerns emerged in the context of a growing civic crisis as if through objects, museums attempt to palliate government policies and social exclusions. The paper also analyses the double erasure of the past within this museum: the colonial past as well as the history of the collections. Thus, Branly intends to be devoted to a new global cause, the promotion of cultural diversity in accordance with a number of declarations from UNESCO and other international bodies. By relegating ethnographic information to a secondary role, the Musee du quai Branly inaugurates a new model of museums in resonance with current political and ethical concerns and imposes new challenges on museum anthropology in particular and anthropology in general.

Which heritage for which heirs? The pre-Columbian past and the colonial legacy in the national history of Mexico*

Abstract: How was the colonial legacy managed by the regime that emerged from the Mexican revolution (1910–1917)? Through the historical and ethnographic analysis of two foundation narratives written at an interval of 200 years in the Nahuatl village of Milpa Alta (DF), this article examines the State's attempt to establish a monopoly on the legitimate past by ‘eclipsing’ the colonial past in favour of the pre-Hispanic one, which became the national heritage in Mexico.

Hurt and the city: Landscapes of urban violence

Abstract: This article considers violence and the urban landscape as implicated occurrences. Urban landscapes are approached as something other, and more, than the scenes of violence – backdrops or settings for unkindness. Instead the paper explores the ways in which the terrain and fabric of the city can partake of violence, can be caught up in its delivery. This is to posit landscape as something not so easily divisible from the encounters and experiences taking place within and across it. I develop this loosely phenomenological argument by serial illustration, ranging over time and space and touching down in the cities of Manchester, London, Paris and then Cardiff, a 21st century capital city busy ‘regenerating’ its urban core. Bringing the article to a close, and following in the steps of street-level bureaucrats working with Cardiff's city centre homeless, I consider some contrary pairings of cruelty and kindness, and insist on (pedestrian) movement as constitutive of the urban landscape.

Planning to forget: Mobility and violence in urban Jamaica

Abstract: This article examines the processes underpinning the restructuring of violence in urban Jamaica. Focusing upon the formation of Portmore, a planned community built to provide an alternative to the overcrowded and violent living conditions in west and central Kingston, I analyze planners and residents attempts to disrupt and erase the everyday experience of violence and poverty among working class Jamaicans. Tracing the shift away from politically motivated violence to what residents have termed ‘freelance violence’, I illustrate the socio-spatial dimensions of violence and poverty in urban Jamaica and the changing relationship between state support, political engagement and citizenship.

From the Tikopia to polymorphous engagements: Ethnographic writing under changing fieldwork circumstances*

Abstract: Cet article presente le changement de pratique de la presentation ethnographique tel qu'il a ete observe par un anthropologue dont les rapports de terrain ont progresse de l'observation de 'communautes entieres' a la description de participants sans lien entre eux dans des associations volontaires et groupes de soutien, en passant par l'analyse d'une societe dispersee dans un environnement urbain. L'article interroge les incertitudes professionnelles engendrees par le discours postmoderne, qui semble detourner les anthropologues de la place centrale occupee par l'enquete de terrain, autant dans leur pratique que dans la perception de leur identite professionnelle.