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“No Pizza without Migrants”: Between the Politics of Identity and Transnationalism

Published on October 2, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, cosmopolitanism, Europe, globalisation, journal articles / papers, migration, Us and Them

Why are there such different patterns of identity and community formation among second-generation migrants? A transnational perspective with focus on the migrants’ relationship to their (or their parents’) homeland is neccessary, argues anthropologist Susanne Wessendorf in her paper “No Pizza without Migrants: Between the Politics of Identity and Transnationalism: Second-Generation Italians in Switzerland”:

“Politics of identity, transnationalism and integration should not be regarded as mutually exclusive, but as complementary strategies or reactions of migrants to the challenges of and tensions between mobility and settlement”

Wessendorf has among others studied Italian migrants in Switzerland and their political Secondo movement that fights against the negative image ascribed to them (They designed and sold T-Shirts as a way to communicate their pride in being members of the second generation, and to show that even if you do not look like a foreigner, you might well be of immigrant origin).

Wessendorf critizes concepts which describe fragmented second-generation integration as simply ‘bicultural’, moving ‘between two cultures’:

“But these new spaces can neither simply be called ‘transnational social spaces’, she writes: They are clearly embedded in the political, economic and socio-cultural realities of the nation-state in which they emerge. Rather, they are counter-hegemonic attempts to deal with both a national legal system and, sometimes, the nostalgia for the homeland.”

>> read the whole paper

PS: This one of the Working Papers of the Center of Migration, Policy and Society at the University of Oxford

Why are there such different patterns of identity and community formation among second-generation migrants? A transnational perspective with focus on the migrants' relationship to their (or their parents') homeland is neccessary, argues anthropologist Susanne Wessendorf in her paper "No…

Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine – New Open Acces Journal with RSS feed

Published on October 2, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, journal articles / papers, medical anthropology / ethnobothany, Open Access Anthropology and Knowledge Sharing

With so many debates going on about the future of anthropological publishing, it is good to know that things are happening. At least in neighboring fields. A few month ago, a new journal was launched: Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine with papers on the relationships between human cultures and nature, Traditional Environmental/Ecological Knowledge (TEK), folk and traditional medical knowledge. Topics include also medical and visual anthropology. All articles are freely accesible, articles are distributed under the Creative Commons License.

The journal’s website has many useful features: RSS-feed for the most recent articles, Email article to a fried, you may even post comments

>> read the Editorial by Andrea Pieroni, Lisa Leimar Price and Ina Vandebroek

>> visit the Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine

With so many debates going on about the future of anthropological publishing, it is good to know that things are happening. At least in neighboring fields. A few month ago, a new journal was launched: Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine…

Ethnic hybridity within identity politics: Thesis on Being A Nobel Savage in Brazil

Published on September 29, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, fieldwork / methods, indigenous people / minorities, journal articles / papers, Latin- and Central America, Native American, poverty

Interesting thesis in social anthropology by Knut Olav Krohn Lakså. The thesis has recently been published in the Digital Library at the University of Oslo

Knut Olav Krohn Lakså conducted fieldwork among the Pataxó Indians in Brazil. He wanted to see how indigenous groups use their ethnic identity as a political resource. He found many paradoxes: In order to be acknowledged as an Indian with certain rights, it is necessary to adapt to an enchanted romanticism of themselves as The Other in which they are portrayed as The Noble Savage, he writes:

For instance, at every meeting with IBAMA or FUNAI officials, the Pataxó were always careful to wear feathers, painting or other traditional outfits such as loincloth.

This performance hasn’t much with the Indians’ needs in common, he shows:

The Pataxó’s main problems are that they are poor, unemployed and stigmatized. (…) The Pataxó themselves are mainly concerned with everyday challenges. They want to feed their families. They want their children to grow up. They want a school and they want money. In short, they want to change their social position to achieve material goods — something quite the opposite of what the Western World wants from the Noble Savage.

>> download the whole thesis “Ethnic Hybridity Within Identity Politics. Being Indian and the Struggle for Land and Acknowledgement among the Pataxó in Bahia, Brazil (pdf, 3,4MB )

PS: A good illustration for “acting Nobel Savage” might be this website by Aboriginal Planet

Interesting thesis in social anthropology by Knut Olav Krohn Lakså. The thesis has recently been published in the Digital Library at the University of Oslo

Knut Olav Krohn Lakså conducted fieldwork among the Pataxó Indians in Brazil. He wanted to see…

New issue of Pro Ethnologica: The Russian Speaking Minorities in Estonia and Latvia

Published on September 14, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, Europe, indigenous people / minorities, journal articles / papers, Us and Them

Pro Ethnologica is – as far as I know – the only anthropology journal that is published both on paper and is freely available on the web for all of us.

Their new volume is now online. The papers in their new volume were presented at a workshop in August 2005 on the Russian speaking minority in Estland and Latvia and deal among others about “How the Russians Turned into the Image of the “National Enemy” of the Estonians” on “Strategies of Identity Re-construction in Post-Soviet Estonia”, “Experience of Estonian-speaking Students from Fieldwork in Narva” and “Work as the Focus of Socialist Everyday Life”

>> to Pro Ethnologica 19: The Russian Speaking Minorities in Estonia and Latvia

Pro Ethnologica is - as far as I know - the only anthropology journal that is published both on paper and is freely available on the web for all of us.

Their new volume is now online. The papers in their…

Book review: Who owns native culture – A book with an excellent website

Published on September 2, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, books, culture traditions, indigenous people / minorities, journal articles / papers, Native American, Northern America

Very interesting review by David Trigger in the August-edition of The Australian Journal of Anthropology. Michael F. Brown’s book “Who Owns Native Culture?” discusses Indigenous assertions of ownership of cultural information. These can be in tension with the claims of non-Indigenous people who may wish to access particular sites and land areas, discuss certain areas of Indigenous knowledge without being censored etc. According to David Trigger, Michael Brown seeks a balance between ‘the interests of indigenous groups and the requirements of liberal democracy’.

Michael Brown shows how this conflict is more complex than it might seem at first glance. Early in the book, he asks why the incorporation of native cultural forms should be defined as theft, when native peoples themselves (as with all societies) have selectively appropriated Christian and other symbols and religious practices. How does the ownership claim over usage of Indigenous cultural ideas and designs sit with the creative mixing of cultures often termed ‘hybridity’ or ‘creolisation’ by scholars? Are New Age adherents, for example, really guilty of ‘blasphemy and cultural aggression’, when embracing their own versions of such rituals as sweat-lodges (derived from certain North American Indian cultures)?

>> continue (Link updated with copy)

The book has its own website with lots of news, articles, reviews and links related to the book! Excellent!!!!!!!!!

READ ALSO Indigenousness and the Politics of Spirituality where anthropologist Sabina Magliocco argues against cultural ownership: “Taken to its logical extreme, it leads directly to essentialization and racism”

Very interesting review by David Trigger in the August-edition of The Australian Journal of Anthropology. Michael F. Brown's book "Who Owns Native Culture?" discusses Indigenous assertions of ownership of cultural information. These can be in tension with the claims…