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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

Nomads help anthropologists get their PhD’s but dont’ get any feedback

Published on December 18, 2005 by lorenz Posted in Africa, anthropology in the news, ethics, fieldwork / methods, Us and Them

New York Times writes about the Ariaal society in northern Kenya and some bad behaving anthropologists. The Ariaal answer all their strange questions. But anthropologists don’t give something back. A local chief, Stephen Lesseren, said he wished their work would lead to more benefits for his people:

“We don’t mind helping people get their Ph.D.’s. But once they get their Ph.D.’s, many of them go away. They don’t send us their reports. What have we achieved from the plucking of our hair? We want feedback. We want development.”

“I thought I was being bewitched,” Koitaton Garawale, a weathered cattleman, said of the time a researcher plucked a few hairs from atop his head. “I was afraid. I’d never seen such a thing before.”

>> read the whole story

New York Times writes about the Ariaal society in northern Kenya and some bad behaving anthropologists. The Ariaal answer all their strange questions. But anthropologists don't give something back. A local chief, Stephen Lesseren, said he wished their work would…

Fieldblogging from Namibia

Published on December 18, 2005 by lorenz Posted in Africa, anthropology in the news, fieldwork / methods, websites

Josué Tomasini Castro has started blogging impressions from his fieldwork among the Herero in Namibia. He is mainly interested in their culture and cosmology. Right now, he is establishing contacts and trying to learn the local language Otjiherero.

>> continue to Josué Tomasini Castro’s blog AnthroBoundaries

>>…

Interview with Benedict Anderson: "I like nationalism’s utopian elements"

Published on December 15, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, globalisation, persons and theories, Us and Them

I recently interviewed Benedict Anderson. He wrote one of the most read books on nationalism, “Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism”. I was surprised over Andersons positive views on nationalism. He thinks that nationalism can be an attractive ideology because it makes you feel that you’re member of a society:

“You follow the laws because they are your laws – not always, because you perhaps cheat on your tax forms, but normally you do. Nationalism encourages good behaviour. (…) I am probably the only one writing about nationalism who doesn’t think it ugly. I actually think that nationalism can be an attractive ideology. I like its Utopian elements.”

Anderson is quite critical towards recent theories of globalisation and modernity. Despite all the talk of transnationalism and fluid identities, he stressed, nationalism is in the best of health. Newer examples of nationalism are the long-distance nationalisms of migrants: Jews in the USA fighting for a state in the Middle East, or Tamils in Norway working for their own state in Sri Lanka. Some of the most ardent Sikh nationalist are situated in Australia and Canada – thanks to the Internet and cheap airline tickets.

One thing that fascinates Benedict Anderson is how nationalism evolves along with other developments in society. Right now nationalism “clashes” with the Internet and mobile technologies. Previously it “clashed” with the women’s movement.

>> read the whole interview (Link updated with copy. I also published a copy at https://www.lorenzk.com/english/2005/benedict-anderson-interview/)

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…