March2008 | Page 6 of 10 | antropologi.info

While we wait for the summer…

Published on March 17, 2008 by jonhenrik Posted in Jon Henrik in Ifugao, test

Well into the first week of March, we’re all waiting for summertime to arrive. Even for a Norwegian, even a Norwegian from the southernmost part of Norway, the weather is devastatingly cold. At nighttime, the temperature creeps down towards 10 degrees Celsius, and even during the day, it barely surpasses 15. This is certainly not the climate one associates with the tropical Southeast Asia. How could they survive here in the olden days when men wore only a loincloth and a blanket and the women left their upper body uncovered?

Apparently this time of the year should be warmer and dryer. But the rain just can’t stop pouring down. However, as anywhere else in the world climate change is frequently mentioned. Even one of my Pentecostal informants commented upon it the other day when we talked about how cold it was: “Everything is changing these days. Only the love of God stays the same!” In a world where things really seem to be changing quite fast, perhaps the massive turn to God is a turn towards stability?

Having regained a little motivation again by making a home visit to Norway during Christmas, I headed to Baguio to attend the 1st International Conference on Cordillera Studies at the University of the Philippines, Baguio. Except for having written and prepared a paper for presentation at a conference session on religion and indigenous people, I was quite unprepared for what waited me in terms of conference audience behavior. What could be more different from a usually quiet and/or drowsy (usually both) audience at Norwegian anthropological conferences than this mostly Filipino crowd that, in good Filipino style, found it absolutely necessary to arrive through the squeaking doors five minutes into the speak, read out loudly the keywords on the Powerpoint presentation and found it so very much more convenient to chat loudly with others as the speaker gave his presentation than wait till he’d finished. And without surprise, the session “Music and literature” which was heavily based on playing music examples from a CD was held in an auditorium where the microphone had a constant feedback, where the loudspeakers could hardly produce a clear sound and, well, the CD-player didn’t work… But aside for such minute problems, I found the conference very interesting. A lot of interesting people to talk to, a lot of interesting papers presented, and a very nice introduction to the Filipino anthropological expertise working in the different university departments around the country. I think that it’s often easy to forget that the countries in which we conduct our fieldworks in many cases possess a significant anthropological expertise that can be an important resource in our work. All credit to the Cordillera Studies Centre at the University of the Philippines, Baguio, for arranging the conference.

During my various research periods in Ifugao I have never experienced any situation where ethnic identity has been a disputed subject. But here at the conference in Baguio, where many of the participants were representatives from the various “indigenous” people of the Cordillera mountain region, ethnic identity, or perhaps better, disputes about ethnic identity came to the fore. A relatively uncontroversial paper on two folk songs sung by people in the Ilokos-Apayao border area spurred a heated debate among the audience about the use of such terms as “Apayao”, “Lepanto”, “Ifugao”, and “Cordillerans”. The debate finally calmed down, and an Australian anthropologist commented that this was indeed “a remarkable session”. I have never seen a clearer example of Barth’s boundary centered ethnicity in practice.

Finally, some good news: since an incident where a young man was shot and killed during a quarrel outside one of the videoke (the Filipino version of karaoke) bars, the mayor has now released an ordinance prohibiting the operation of videoke bars in a certain part of the town as these allegedly “destroys and ruins the future life of the youth, create noise/disturbance within the community and quarrel among customers resulting to injury and death”. Unfortunately for us, in the part of town where we live, videoke bars are still permitted. We still have to bear with the never ending out-of-tune singing of such charming songs as “Hotel California”, “Living on love”, “Wind of change” and the more up-to-date “Suicidal”. If there are any ethnomusicologists or music interested anthropologists out there who want to study something bizarre, I suggest you take a closer look at videoke singing in the Cordilleras!

Nekrolog: Thomas Hylland Eriksen om Marianne Gullestad

Published on March 14, 2008 by lorenz Posted in antropologi allment, portretter og intervjuer, sosialantropologi i Norge, Sverige og Danmark

Som nevnt tidligere, så døde antropolog Marianne Gullestad på forrige mandag. Thomas Hylland Eriksen har skrevet en fin nekrolog i dagens Klassekampen som jeg fikk lov til å republisere her:

Marianne Gullestad (1946–2008)

Av Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Klassekampen 14.3.08

Sosialantropologen Marianne Gullestad døde 10. mars av kreft. Hun rakk ikke å fylle 62 år, men hun etterlot seg et livsverk som er både mangesidig og konsistent – det går en rød tråd fra hennes første bok, Livet i en gammel bydel (1979), til den siste, Misjonsbilder (2007). Hun skrev bedre og tenkte klarere enn de fleste av oss, og hennes bidrag til norsk selvforståelse og sosialantropologien i videre forstand, vil lenge fortsette å inspirere nye generasjoner av forskere.

Da Marianne tok magistergraden ved Universitetet i Bergen i 1975, var det fremdeles sjelden at norske antropologer gjorde feltarbeid i eget samfunn. Enda sjeldnere – ja, praktisk talt helt ukjent – var det at de forsket på helt alminnelige menneskers hverdagsliv. I hele det 20. århundret hadde antropologien hatt en dragning mot det spektakulære og uvanlige, det eksotiske og pirrende. Marianne skrev derimot sin avhandling og bok, og senere den internasjonalt anerkjente Kitchen-Table Society, om «vanlige, skikkelige folk» (deres eget begrep), deres levemåte og kulturelle kategorier.

Utover på 1980- og 90-tallet fortsatte hun å publisere både på norsk og engelsk om norsk kultur, om alt fra den «egalitære individualismen» som regulerer sosiale relasjoner her til endringer i barns sosialisering symbolisert ved «passepikens» vekst og fall, og hun hadde en imponerende evne til å gjøre det tilsynelatende selvfølgelige og trivielle, som kategorien «fred og ro», til sentrale begreper i kulturanalysen.

Etter å ha fullført sin analyse av livshistorier mot slutten av 1990-tallet, rettet Marianne blikket mot «det nye Norge», det flerkulturelle samfunnet. Som majoritetsforsker var det naturlig at hun konsentrerte seg om «vårt» blikk på «dem» i den innflytelsesrike og kontroversielle Det norske sett med nye øyne (2002), med konklusjoner om norsk hverdagsrasisme som falt mange tungt for brystet. I sitt siste prosjekt, om norske misjonærers blikk på «de innfødte» i Kamerun, dokumentert gjennom deres fotografier, videreutvikler hun analysen av grensesetting og hierarkisk rasetenkning på en original og overbevisende måte. Med Misjonsbilder, utgitt på engelsk under tittelen Picturing Pity (2007), skulle Mariannes intellektuelle reise i det norske landskapet vise seg å være avsluttet. Andre må ta opp stafettpinnen, men hun satte en standard som det vil være vanskelig å leve opp til.

Marianne hadde mye energi. Hun tok ingen hvileskjær mellom sine forskningsprosjekter, og hun leverte alltid varene. I tillegg til å være en uvanlig produktiv forsker, var hun også en engasjert intellektuell i norsk offentlighet.

Marianne var en fri fugl, både intellektuelt og institusjonelt. Hun foretrakk å leve av midlertidige forskningsmidler fremfor å ha fast jobb som universitetsansatt. Jeg spurte henne en gang om hun ikke kunne tenke seg å søke et ledig professorat, og da svarte hun – vel vitende om hvilke plikter en professor har i våre dager – at mens noen drømte om å bli teatersjef, foretrakk hun å være skuespiller.

Faglig stod Marianne amerikansk kulturantropologi nærmere enn den britiske sosialantropologien som har dannet hovedstrømningen her i Norge. Hun skrev mer om symbolske kategoriseringer og symbolsk (u)orden enn om sosial organisasjon, mer om definisjonsmakt enn om politiske prosesser. Også her vil hennes arbeid lenge fungere som et korrektiv og en inspirasjonskilde for mange forskere og studenter.

Marianne Gullestad forlot oss altfor tidlig. For dem av oss som var så heldige å ha henne som venn, husker vi hennes varme vesen og strålende smil like godt som hennes skarpe intellekt og originale innfallsvinkler. Hun var en stor samfunnsforsker og et godt menneske.

For mer informasjon og linker, se tidligere innlegget Marianne Gullestad er død

Som nevnt tidligere, så døde antropolog Marianne Gullestad på forrige mandag. Thomas Hylland Eriksen har skrevet en fin nekrolog i dagens Klassekampen som jeg fikk lov til å republisere her:

Marianne Gullestad (1946–2008)

Av Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Klassekampen 14.3.08

Sosialantropologen Marianne Gullestad døde…

Authoring a PhD continued

Published on March 12, 2008 by cicilie Posted in Cicilie among the Parisians, Writing

In Authoring a PhD: How to plan, draft, write and finish a doctoral thesis or dissertation by Patrick Dunleavy, I’ve found numerous advice on how to structure my work more efficiently. I’ll try to sum some of them up here and give a brief account of how I’m making use of them.
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In the previous post, I quoted Dunleavy’s (citation) of what constitutes an intellectual question: You have a starting situation and certain means to change it [or say something substantial about it]. The thesis should focus on your own “value added” which

means keeping a critical eye on the extent to which you have transformed or enhanced or differentiated the starting materials of your analysis (Dunleavy 2003: 31).

My starting material was the environment of East Paris, the slam poetry scene and public debates on what constitutes France and French history, (in addition to a huge amount of literature more or less present in my mind). My starting material is in fact a lot more, but I’ve narrowed it down as I think it’s in these areas I find most of my “value added”.

In Dunleavy’s opinion, a thesis should constitute 75% original material (that means material that is more than just review of literature, I suppose), ant that it’s better to concentrate this “value add” in the core 5/8ths of the thesis. The lead-in and lead-out shouldn’t be more than two chapters each (p. 50-51).

Your thesis title, abstract chapter headings, contents page, preface, introductory chapters and organisers need to highlight, set up and frame the core material… As of your lead-in chapter(s): ‘What do readers need to know in order to appreciate the value-added elements to come in the core chapters?’ (Dunleavy 2003: 52).

The thesis title (p. 200-202)
Dunleavy suggests to write down all the key terms you can think of in various combinations, before and after a colon (p. 202).

Your title should introduce the central analytic concepts used or the major argument themes developed. Normally thesis titles have a colon in the middle… to separate out thematic, analytic or theoretical ambitions on the one hand, and empirical references or limiting features on the other (Dunlavy 2003: 200).

The title of my master thesis was Beyond ethnic boundaries? British Asian cosmopolitans. “British Asians” are of course the empirical as well as limiting feature, while “beyond ethnic boundaries” was meant to situate me in discussion with the classical Ethnic groups and boundaries by Fredrik Barth from 1969. Cosmopolitans signals partly a theoretical ambition (which I’m not quite sure I managed to follow up), but it’s also designating and limiting the empirical field: my thesis are not about all “second generation British Asians”, but a certain cosmopolitan stratum.

In the title Society in the making: The Parisian slam poetry scene and Postcolonial Paris, the first part is again meant to situate my work in relation to a theoretical perspective by Fredrik Barth, this time from his book Cosmologies in the making from 1989. The second part emphasises the empirical field as well as pointing to a certain theoretical take on – to see Paris as postcolonial – as well as what empirical aspect of Paris I’m focusing on.

Dunleavy provides a list of questions by the help of which one can scrutinise the perspective of the thesis:

Does the current title really capture what you have done in your draft chapters?
Does it define exactly the central research question which you have answered? Does it avoid drawing attention to any gaps or deficiencies in your research?
Does your title’s vocabulary include the main theoretical concepts or innovations or themes that run through your research, which are used in the chapter texts and do an important job of work there? Does it signal your line of argument in a reasonably substantive way? Are the words used ones, that you will want to talk about and explain at length, in your oral exam?
Does the title make clear the empirical referents of your research, and the necessary limitations you have set for its scope and approach? (Dunleavy 2003: 201-2).

The first chapter (p. 205-6)
“should set out a small number of intellectual themes stemming from the central question of the thesis” (p. 205). Dunleavy suggests 2- 4 themes, with subthemes. The themes should

run all the way through the thesis, synthetisizing your arguments, setting up and framing your research conclusions, and putting the thesis value-added into sharp focus (Dunleavy 2003: 200).

My main themes, I envision for the moment to be aspects of landscape, architecture and environment, various aspects of identity, colonial connections and cosmopolitanism, and the theoretical issue of the process of creating a society (on whatever level).

The conclusion section of the middle chapters (p. 206-7)
Each of the substantive chapters … should be flexibly linked via their conclusions ot the themes from the opening chapters. … The theme that each conclusion links to should be wholly relevant to the specific materials in the chapter and also adapted to the role which the chapter plays in the thesis as a whole. The job of the conclusions section is to pull the focus away from the research detail, to bring out the chapter’s key findings in a stand-back mode. … Each of your chapters should do a discrete and distinctive job, well signalled from its start, and effectively building the thesis. … Check carefully that the ‘need to know§ criterion is being met in terms of the order of the chapters so that contextual information arrives in the right sequence for readers to follow the analysis at all points! (Dunleavy 2003: 2006-7).

The final chapter (p. 207)

First part:
reprise each of the same themes or theory ideas used to structure the first chapter

the discussion of each theme should be grounded securely in the experience of the middle chapters

focus… on establishing clearly what has been shown by your research, and how it is relevant to your central thesis question and the themes set out at the start

What has been achieved by your research? How much has your thesis moved professional discussion along?

not go … into detailed accounts from the middle chapters. Instead is should compare across those chapters, pulling together their themes and connecting up their key messages

Second part:
group its themes together under broader labels or higher-order issues. …. Open out into a discussion of relevant wider professional debates … considering some viable directions in which future research might go from where your work leaves off (Dunleavy 2003: 207).

My outline-in-progress looks like this per now:
In “Introduction: A night in Paris and the suburbs or how I discovered French slam poetry”, I give a chronological account of a trip from Paris to a suburb and back again, in order to introduce a number of central issues.

In “Chapter 1: Socio-political geography of East Paris” the aim will be to describe the areas of East Paris which have a dual importance in terms of its numerous waves of immigration and the slam poetry scene. Here, I will also introduce the theoretical perspective of inhabitation from Tim Ingold.

In Chapter 2-4 I will look at the slam scene from various perspectives: at one generic soirée, the participants with their texts and finally with an analytical angle on the space created during the session.

The rest of the chapters will provide various forms of contest: In Chapter 5, I will try to discuss what is French about the French slam poetry and what can we learn about French society from studying this milieu. This chapter can perhaps be a bridge between the findings in chapter 4 and the methods discussion in chapter 6.

In “Chapter 7: Postcolonial re-appropriation of French history seen in the light of Eric Wolf’s Europe and the People without history” I look at the recent struggle over French history. In Ch. 1, I looked at an appropriation of space (in East Paris by immigrants, street artists…), while here the issue at hand is a parallel appropriation of time.

The comparison I initially intended to do between France and Great Britain is limited to Chapter 8, and here I for the most part intend to highlight the political specificities of the French context, I think…

In Authoring a PhD: How to plan, draft, write and finish a doctoral thesis or dissertation by Patrick Dunleavy, I’ve found numerous advice on how to structure my work more efficiently. I’ll try to sum some of them up here…

Nordmenn hentet slaver fra Drammen til Hawaii

Published on March 12, 2008 by lorenz Posted in arbeid(sliv), historie, innvandringshistorie, Oseania AUS / NZ, sosialantropologi i Norge, Sverige og Danmark

I oktober 1879 forlot barken Beta Drammen med kurs Hawaii. Ombord: 300 drammensere som skulle jobbe på Hawaiis sukkerplantasjer. En snakker lite om den norske kolonihistorien. Men den fins.

Antropologene Knut Rio og Espen Wæhle fortalte nylig om nordmenn som deltok i kolonialiseringen i Afrika og Stillehavet på 1800 tallet. En av disse kolonistene hentet til og med norsk arbeidskraft for å drive sukkerplantasjene på Hawaii, leser vi i På Høyden (Oppdatering: Saken er ikke lengerpå nett)

Kolonistene gjorde en avtale med drammenserne: De fikk transport til Hawaii mot to års arbeid på plantasjene. Det var stor fattigdom og nød i Norge på denne tiden, så mange ble med på dette ifølge Rio:

– Arbeidskraften ble transportert i to skip som gikk mellom Norge og Hawaii. Men nordmennene følte etter hvert at de hadde blitt lurt, og at det var snakk om rent slaveri. Mange ble solgt videre, ført og fremst til sukkerproduksjon andre steder.

De to antropologene deltar i forskningsprogrammet In The Wake Of Colonialism:

The project “In the Wake of Colonialism” aims to produce new knowledge about Norwegian economic enterprise in the colonial world between ca. 1880-1950.

Through historical analysis of a number of different enterprises, the project seeks to fill lacunas in our empirical knowledge about Norwegian trade and investment in the colonies. Here, the projects contributes both to an underresearched field within Norwegian economic history, as well as colonial history in the respective regions.

By focusing on enterprises in the non-European/North American world, the project also seeks to challenge the well-established thesis that Norway was a country lacking a financial aristocracy.

Rios prosjekt heter Exchanges at sea: Norwegian influence in the Pacific 1850-1950 og Espen Wæhle jobber med prosjektet Entrepreneurs in the Congo? Two case studies on possibilites for making money among Norwegians in the Congo Freestate

Jeg ser at Drammens Tidende har skrevet om dette for noen dager siden: Hawaii – Drammensernes tapte paradis

SE OGSÅ:

Rethinking Nordic Colonialism! Nordisk kolonialhistorie fram fra glemselen

Nytt forskningsprosjekt om dansk slaveri i Karibia

– Kolonitida lever videre i utenriksredaksjonene

“Svarte menn rammes av nykolonial rasisme”

I oktober 1879 forlot barken Beta Drammen med kurs Hawaii. Ombord: 300 drammensere som skulle jobbe på Hawaiis sukkerplantasjer. En snakker lite om den norske kolonihistorien. Men den fins.

Antropologene Knut Rio og Espen Wæhle fortalte nylig om nordmenn som deltok…

Launches new anthropology student e-journal

Published on March 11, 2008 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, journal articles / papers

The Association of Student Anthropologists (NASA) would like to have submissions from anthropology students worldwide for their new e-journal. The NASA will launch its first online publication under the banner of the 2008 American Anthropological Association conference theme: “Inclusion, Collaboration, and Engagement”, as Marc Hebert (University of South Florida) informs me in an email.

They seek scholarly submissions from undergraduate and graduate students worldwide about the application of anthropological theories and methods outside of academia or across disciplines for the purpose of exploring, problematizing, or addressing social problems.

The NASA also welcomes “innovative commentary submissions” that “express the next generation of anthropologists’ ideas, goals and beliefs of the direction our discipline should head, be it locally, nationally or globally.”

>> read the whole Call for Papers in the antropologi.info forum