Free access to anthropological knowledge online! On the 1st of May, we’ll celebrate the first Open Access Anthropology Day!

Sara at Sara Anthro Blog has taken the initiative to this event.

She writes:

Anthropologists, in this day, show their support to Open Access Anthropology. Open Access Anthropology is interested in creating open access alternatives to anthropological publications by promoting Open Access Anthropology Journals

I think this is a great idea and I have already started preparing a blog post for this occasion. Maybe all of us should try to blog about Open Access that day or find other ways to promote free access to scholarship?

The difficulties to access Anthropology News articles that are discussed over at Savage Minds are a good illustration for this cause. See also Why should anthropologists care about open access? and A short summary of recent open access news.

Shortly after Sara’s post, the Open Access Anthropology Blog announced the Open Access Week 19-23 October 2009

UPDATE: Sara made a list of things you can do to promote Open Access Anthropology

300 000 people have been killed and 2.5 million been made refugees in the war in Darfur. In his new book, anthropologist Mahmood Mamdani describes the Save Darfur campaign as representing a refracted version of the moral logic of the “War on Terror” with the Arabs in both cases branded as evil, Alex de Waal writes in The Monthly Review.

Mamdani writes:

The Save Darfur lobby demands, above all else, justice, the right of the international community — really the big powers in the Security Council — to punish “failed” or “rogue” states, even if it be at the cost of more bloodshed and a diminished possibility of reconciliation. More than anything else, “the responsibility to protect” is a right to punish without being held accountable — a clarion call for the recolonization of “failed” states in Africa. In its present form, the call for justice is really a slogan that masks a big power agenda to recolonize Africa.

Mamdani criticizes Save Darfur as mobilizing “child soldiers,” by which he means naive American students, in a campaign that diminishes Africans as part of an argument to “save” them, G. Pascal Zachary notes in his review.

Zachary is one of several scholars who discuss Mamdanis book Saviors and Survivors. Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror on their group blog Making Sense of Darfur.

Zachary is a huge fan of Mamdani but feels that “like almost everyone else who speaks on Darfur, Mamdani too has another agenda":

Like all those he complains about who use Darfur to score points on matters of greater importance to them – repressive Islamic regimes, Christian tolerance, the value of military intervention, etc – Mamdani too subordinates Darfur to a broader set of stories he wants to tell about dysfunctional American power in the world, about misunderstood Muslims, about an Africa violated by Westerners from every point of the political spectrum. Mamdani may be right about all of these larger stories, but just he is wrong to exploit Darfur – as wrong as those he finds guilty of doing the same.

>> read the whole text “Mamdani and the Uses of Darfur”

>> Saviors and Survivors (Monthly Review 13.4.09)

>> What Does Darfur Have To Do With The “War On Terror”? Kevin Funk, Making Sense of Darfur, 19.4.09)

>> The Darfur the West Isn’t Recognizing as It Moralizes About the Region (New York Times, 30.3.09)

>> Mahmood Mamdani: You (and I) got Darfur Wrong (Radio Open Source 3.4.09)

In an interview with the Boston Globe, the anthropologist explains his interest for the Darfur case:

In a context where African tragedies seem never to be noticed, I wondered why Darfur was an obsession with the global media. The reason, I realized, was that Darfur had become a domestic issue here, thanks to the Save Darfur movement. So I thought it important to examine the movement’s history, organization, and message.

(…)

I’m struck by the contrast between the mobilization around Darfur and the lack of mobilization around Iraq. The explanation, I believe, lies in the fact that Save Darfur presented the conflict as a tragedy, stripped of politics and context. There were simply “African” victims and “Arab” perpetrators motivated by race-intoxicated hatred. Unlike Iraq, about which Americans felt guilty or impotent, Darfur presented an opportunity to feel good.

(…)

The language of human rights was once used primarily by the victims of repression. Now it has become the language of power and of interventionists who turn victims not into agents but into proxies. It has been subverted from a language that empowers victims to a language that serves the designs of an interventionist power on an international scale.

>> read the whole interview

I wrote about Mamdani and Darfur earlier, see Mahmood Mamdani: “Peace cannot be built on humanitarian intervention” and about earlier books Book review: Mahmood Mamdani: “Good Muslim, Bad Muslim”

Their first set of conference podcasts in 2007 was a huge success. Now, Jen Cardew and her team published a large number of new recordings from the 2009 conference of the Society of Applied Anthropology.

It seems to have a been an interesting conference. There are podcasts about the following topics:

The Engaged University: What Does it Mean for Applied Anthropology?

Different Fields, Common Challenge: Lessons For and From Military Anthropology

Study of HIV and STIs in the Western Hemisphere, Part I

Studies Of HIV and STIs In The Western Hemisphere, Part II

Professional and Academic Collaboration: Strengthening the Preparation of New Professional Anthropologists

The American Anthropological Association (AAA) has launched a new blog at http://blog.aaanet.org/ It combines their previous Anthropology News, Public Affairs and Human Rights blogs. All archived content and comments were migrated to the new location. The blog looks much better now and it is easier to stay updated.

The AAA writes:

We have created this blog as a service to our members and the general public. It is a forum to discuss topics of debate in anthropology and a space for public commentary on association policies, publications and advocacy issues. We will post select items that we think are of interest to our members and that readers have voiced an interest in. We invite all anthropologists to use this domain to stimulate intellectual discussion, and would be delighted to host guest bloggers who are active in any of anthropology’s four fields.

>> visit the AAA blog

Time for Easter Holidays! I’ll be mostly offline the following 8 days that I’ll spend in Syria. My first time there! More updates after the 14.4.09. Happy Holidays!

Academic freedom and freedom of speech is more and more under threat in the “Western world": First, the University of East London (UEL) suspended anthropology professor Chris Knight, now they cancel the Alternative summit that should take place at the University campus, the Guardian reports.

A petition was launched to keep the university open. According the Alternative Summit website, academics and students have started to occupy the university:

Despite management efforts to shut down the Alternative London Summit on Wednesday 1st April organisers and speakers are committed to making sure the event goes ahead at the University of East London as planned.
(…)
Organisers are appealing to the public to join academics, union representatives and students in the occupation of the university in order to ensure that prominent political, scientific, academic and activist speakers who have remained committed to the event will be free and able to speak as planned.

It is vital at this pivotal moment in British and world history that we, the people have a public platform to understand and act on alternative ideas and strategies for our political, environmental and economic future.

According to Bernadette Buckley, from the politics department of Goldsmiths, the shut down of the UEL is “an astonishingly grim reflection on the state of academic freedom today.”

“The university is turned into a wasteland in the very moment when the university should instead be up to the task of hosting critical debate and be a hub of creative energies. This is not just about UEL, but about reclaiming universities and education in these times of crisis", a member of the Chris Knight Reinstatement Solidarity Group on Facebook said.

“I guess the summit organizers are now openly admitting what they’re really afraid: and it isn’t molotov cocktails. It’s ideas", the first signatory wrote.

A spokesperson for the university explained “that the potential scale of the event and associated risks had become unmanageable, and we would be unable to accommodate safely an event of this nature.”

>> Alternative G20 summit cancelled - University of East London shuts down for duration of G20 talks and cancels alternative summit (Guardian, 31.3.09)

>> Opposition grows as UEL shuts down for G20 (Wharf 31.3.09)

>> Alternative London Summit Press Release

>> Petition To the Corporate Management Team (CMT) of the University of East London

>> Analysis by Maximilian Forte at Open Anthropology

SEE ALSO:

“Intolerant Universities": Anthropology professor Chris Knight suspended over G20-activism

Financial crisis: Anthropologists lead mass demonstration against G20 summit

How anthropologists should react to the financial crisis

I have to confess I have an ambivalent relation to initiatives like the Earth Hour. But anthropologist Stephen Bede Scharper casts an interesting perspective on this new way to save our planet.

He describes Earth Hour as “the first globalized ritual", a `liminal space’ and therefore “a potent opportunity for change":

Earth Hour combines a spiritual quest, a moral mandate and a communal practice into a unique and truly global event. It can thus be considered a transcultural action of moral responsibility for the planet, a statement that “another world is possible.” It is not driven by brands, consumerism or corporate logos. Earth Hour is not Coca-Cola teaching “the world to sing in perfect harmony,” nor Nike telling us to “Just Do It.” It is, rather, approximately one billion people entering the threshold of a different relationship with both the planet and the cosmos.

(…)
Earth Hour has arisen, almost organically, outside of established religious and secular institutions. The fact that churches and municipal governments are now participating is a testament not only to its popularity, but also possibly to its motivational power and persistence, something that places the event in the category of “ritual.”

>> read the whole story in The Toronto Star

UPDATE: Antarctica to Pyramids: Lights dim for Earth Hour (ap, 28.3.09)

The pictures are from Melbourne (by avlxyz), Perth (by earthhour_global) and Fiji (by earthhour_global) - found via a flickr search for Earth Hour.

SEE ALSO:

The Value of Rituals

World Cup Enthusiasm: “Need for a collective ritual, not nationalism”

For an Anthropology of Cosmopolitanism

The last days of cheap oil and what anthropologists can do about it

(UPDATE: Alternative Summit cancelled, university occupied) Shortly after The Sunday Telegraph wrote that anthropologist Chris Knight is one of the organizers of a mass demonstration against the G20 summit in London, he was suspended from his job at the University of East London, several British newspapers report.

According to the BBC and The Times he was suspended because of the comments he made in an interview for BBC radio.

Chris Knight, (or Mr. Mayhem according to the Evening Standard) said:

“We are going to be hanging a lot of people like Fred the Shred [Sir Fred Goodwin] from lampposts on April Fool’s Day and I can only say let’s hope they are just effigies.

“To be honest, if he winds us up any more I’m afraid there will be real bankers hanging from lampposts and let’s hope that that doesn’t actually have to happen.

“They [bankers] should realise the amount of fury and hatred there is for them and act quickly, because quite honestly if it isn’t humour it is going to be anger.

“I am trying to keep it humorous and let the anger come up in a creative and hopefully productive and peaceful way.

“If the other people don’t join in the fun - I’m talking about the bankers and those rather pompous ministers - and come over and surrender their power obviously it’s going to get us even more wound up and things could get nasty. Let’s hope it doesn’t.”

>> G20 protest professor suspended (BBC, 26.3.08)

>> Anarchist professor Chris Knight suspended after G20 ‘threat’ (The Times, 26.3.08)

>> Protest website G 20 Meltdown

>> The Guardian G20-overview and updates

Professor Chris Knight’s suspension for voicing anti-G20 sentiments is a sign of how intolerant universities have become, writes Rupa Huq in The Guradian.

The incident is “symptomatic of how university management culture has changed":

The introduction of fees over the past decade has meant universities adopting more business-like ways, serving paying customers rather than Young Ones-style indolent students.
(…)
To some extent, as the polytechnics became universities, the universities underwent a degree of polytechnic-isation too: new and different types of courses appeared ¬– programmes with vocational outcomes and “transferable skills” in place of critical thinking. Exams were shunned in favour of continuous assessment, reflecting the changing needs for skills-based provision to produce good workers to service the economy

At least two Facebook groups have been formed already: Reinstate Professor Chris Knight and Chris Knight Reinstatement Solidarity Group (via Max Forte on twitter)

One of the group members posted a comment by Chris Knight:

“Management at UEL are telling the press the Alternative Summit (http://www.altg20.org.uk) may not happen. Meanwhile, they are actively sabotaging the Summit by crashing the only e-mail we have been using to organize it and by countermanding all requests to the UEL print-shop to produce vital publicity material. Not to mention barring me from getting into my own room on campus which until now has been the organizing centre.

They have done nothing to convince me that they will be respecting Earth Hour from 20.30 this evening. Maybe some of us should get down there around 19.30 tonight? We could then use UEL campus to enforce Earth Hour, secure the Summit venue and uphold the rule of law. I will certainly be down there.”

Comments from group members:

wherever you work you have a point of view about what is going on in the world…how dare jobs be threatened just because of your views…..
they can never stop what we think!!!!!!!

—-

I do support the reinstatement of Professor Knight as it looks like his university have thoroughly overreacted, but I think the anger at the city, specifically, is misplaced. Bankers have behaved as they were encouraged to within the logic of capitalism - it’s not a case of if they’d been a bit less greedy we could have had some version of “good” or “compassionate” capitalism; the entire system is the problem, not a figurehead bunch of bankers.

—

“Think theyve been trying to find an excuse to suspend him, personally though the move to suspend him over what was said is a stupid move; it shows nothing but UEL being an institution where individuality and political opinion is barred.”

UPDATE: Maximilian Forte at Open Anthropology comments:

Perhaps the most “threatening” thing Dr. Knight has said is to caution the police not to use violence. He is making a perfectly legitimate point, that has been made many times over the centuries, even from the seats of monarchic power and the Vatican: closing off avenues for peaceful protest and dissent will justify, legitimate, and even mandate more violent action for necessary and urgent change.

More anthropologists in action in London at the Alternative London Summit 2009 - here an excerpt from the anthropology section (!):

- David Graeber will be analyzing the banking crisis from a 5,000-year historical perspective.

- Jerome Lewis will adopt a hunter-gatherer perspective on the crisis, explaining how life is possible without hierarchy, money or notions of inevitable scarcity.

- Neil Bennun will be drawing on South African Bushman mythology to illustrate how “Another world is possible”.

SEE ALSO:

Financial crisis: Anthropologists lead mass demonstration against G20 summit (my post 5 days ago)

Blogging and Public Anthropology: When free speech costs a career

Bush, “war of terror” and the erosion of free academic speech: Challenges for anthropology

Engaged anthropologists beaten by the Mexican police

USA: Censorship threatens fieldwork - A call for resistance

Neoliberal applied anthropology: Who owns the research — the anthropologist or the sponsor?