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New anthropology blog: Fieldwork on cosmopolitism and migrants in Paris

Published on December 19, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, cosmopolitanism, Europe, fieldwork / methods, migration, Us and Them

Cicilie Fagerlid, anthropologist at the University on Oslo, has started blogging from her fieldwork in Paris. After the youth protests, she writes, her research question is “more justified than ever”: What influences senses of belonging and community making in a cosmopolitan city like Paris?

She comments on the recent protests in the suburbs of Paris, shares her impressions from demonstrations against French immigration policy and her observations among “banlieue bloggers” and internet forums.

She’s just moved to Paris and therefore still wondering how to carry out her fieldwork:

So far, I’ve considered, and rejected, three possible approaches: 1) Hanging around in a (multi ethnic) music or artist collective, preferably with political objectives. 2) A neighbourhood study in the cosmopolitan area Belleville. 3) Participating in two (multi ethnic) political groups working towards recognition of the colonial era in France. Yesterday, when I asked to local (Maghrebi) baker if he would help me with my research, I messed it up a bit and confused my three approaches. It was easier when I just asked the greengrocer what he thought about the present situation… Anyway, now it seems to me that I just have to live with the information overload some more time, to see what will happen.

>> visit Cicilie Fagerlids blog “Cicilie among the Parisians”

PS (23.1.06): Due to spam attacks, comments are closed for this post.

Cicilie Fagerlid, anthropologist at the University on Oslo, has started blogging from her fieldwork in Paris. After the youth protests, she writes, her research question is "more justified than ever": What influences senses of belonging and community making in a…

Dissertation: When the power plant, the backbone of the community, closes down

Published on December 19, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, books, Europe, technology

What happens to a society when the base of its social, economic and political life changes profoundly? Social anthropologist Kristina Sliavaite of Lund university (Sweden) recently published her dissertation ”From Pioneers to Target Group: Social Change, Ethnicity and Memory in a Lithuanian Nuclear Power Plant Community”, the homepage of the anthropology institute at Lund informs.

The nuclear power plant Ignalina has been the backbone of the town Visaginas in Lithuania. The Russian employees, sent to construct the town and the plant often considered themselves a social elite. But the power plant, the backbone of the community, will close down in 2010.

Sliavaite reminds of us of the social factors of our economy. A job is not only a job:

– Many of the Ignalina employees are facing an uncertain future with the closing of the power plant. Not only their incomes but their identity and social status are under threat. Structural change have also brought their share of social problems, notably, poverty, drug- and alcohol abuse.

>> read the whole story (link updated)

Kristina Sliavaite has previoulsly published two papers on Anthrobase:

‘Us’ and ‘Them’. Ethnic boundaries and social processes in multi-ethnic Ignalina nuclear power plant community in Lithuania

When Global Becomes Local. Rave Culture in Lithuania

Flags and identity: Strong feelings, mystical rituals and equivocal messages

Published on December 15, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, Europe, journal articles / papers, Northern America, Us and Them

(Links updated 24.9.2020) By studying flags it is possible to study how a society includes and excludes people. A few weeks ago, the research program “Cultural Complexity in the New Norway” arranged a two days’ conference on Flags and Identity with some leading flag experts from the UK, the USA and the Nordic countries. We even heard about flag burning. My summary has now been translated into English. It starts like this:

One of the fundamental insights of social science is “Nothing is just” (Dustin Wax): Football is not just a game; family isn’t just the people one is related to; and a flag is not just a square of cloth on a metal pole. Flags mark group identity; flag are symbols, loaded with emotion. The police in Northern Ireland, for example, refrain from taking prohibited flags down from lamp posts: They know that this would lead to rioting, explained anthropologist, Neil Jarman. Flags symbolize the happy union of family and nation, said folklorist Anne Eriksen. Those who question this idyll, as Thomas Hylland Eriksen once did, will be forced to rethink: As a teenager, together with some friends, he waved a Swedish flag during Norway’s 17th of May Independence Day parade. They were removed from the procession and sent home.

>> read the whole article

All papers can be downloaded as pdf-files.

(Links updated 24.9.2020) By studying flags it is possible to study how a society includes and excludes people. A few weeks ago, the research program "Cultural Complexity in the New Norway" arranged a two days' conference on Flags and Identity…

Tomorrow in Sweden: “Lucia” , the bearer of the light , is no longer blue-eyed

Published on December 12, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, culture traditions, Europe

All over Sweden, schools, workplaces, towns and homes are planning their Lucia celebrations. Lucia, the bearer of light in the dark Swedish winter, has been celebrated in Sweden for centuries. Lucia used to be blonde and blue-eyed. Isolde Palombo, 21, a molecular biology student, is far from blonde. But that didn’t stop Stockholmers voting her Lucia this year, according to sweden.se.

Agneta Lilja, lecturer in ethnology at Södertörn University College Stockholm, says festivities are far more civilized than they used to be:

“In agrarian society people used to dress up as monsters and wander through the neighborhoods, singing and drinking. It has become a cultural phenomenon because we have honored the tradition for so long, especially in schools.”

>> read the whole story

New issue of Durham Anthropology Journal online

Published on November 20, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, Europe, fieldwork / methods, journal articles / papers

Recently, the summer issue of Durham Anthropology Journal was published online. Here some articles:

Edward Croft (Aberdeen University):
Dutton Higher Status Behaviour and Status Ambiguity: A Discussion of Exaggerated Higher Status Identity at Oxford University

Croft did fieldwork at Oxford University focussing on the university’s largest evangelical group: the Christian Union:

Using Eidheim’s research into the Lapps of Northern Norway as a further example, the article will further argue that when a group is ambiguous about its status it will react by projecting an exaggerated version of the apparently higher status. The article will note, in this regard, that the experience of Oxford University is highly ‘liminal’ and ambiguous with regard to whether a student is a child or adult. Following this, it will be demonstrated that an exaggerated adult identity is found to a great extent amongst students at Oxford University.

>> read the whole article

Sue Cooper (University of Durham):
A Rite of Involvement?: Men’s transition to fatherhood

Men are striving to be involved with the process of pregnancy and childbirth and society – an ethnography amomg young fathers in times of social change:

The aim was to identify core values and beliefs regarding fatherhood that are being transmitted through some of the rituals that men participate in before and during pregnancy, labour and birth. Qualitative data was obtained from interviews with fathers-to-be throughout their partners’ pregnancy and after the birth of their child.

>> read the whole paper

Oranutt Narapruet (University of Durham):
Freedom from the Cage: A Second Chance for Mental Health Care in the Czech Republic?

On field research in the changing mental health care system in the Czech Republic:

Whenever I think of the Czech Republic, I always imagine how beautiful it is, but I guess we don’t see what really goes on behind that whole façade’. The question of `why?’ is a good one. Why had the government banned the use of `cage beds’ in its mental institutions? Why were `cage beds’ even allowed to exist in the first place? What were the real reasons behind the use of `cage beds’? What do mental health professionals and the wider public truly think, and hope for, now that the ban has been established? And, more importantly, what does the future hold for the Czech psychiatric system, its staff, the community, and the patients themselves?

>> read the whole paper

>> Overview over Durham Anthropology Journal
Volume 13(2)

Recently, the summer issue of Durham Anthropology Journal was published online. Here some articles:

Edward Croft (Aberdeen University):
Dutton Higher Status Behaviour and Status Ambiguity: A Discussion of Exaggerated Higher Status Identity at Oxford University

Croft did fieldwork at Oxford University focussing…