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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…

“Knowledge of the bigger context is crucial for successful fieldwork”

Published on September 29, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, Europe, fieldwork / methods

Wolfgang “Anthronaut” Wohlwend has returned from his two month fieldwork in a warehouse in Istanbul. He summarizes some of his experience with short-time fieldwork and gives us the advice: “Start at the general and go into the specific!”:

Two months are a very short period of time. The first half of this period I spent on becoming acclimatized to either climate, language and culture which numbed my senses to a big extent. When my senses awoke again in the remaining two weeks in the warehouse and another two weeks travelling in Turkey were simply not enough to build up anything sensible.

(…)

What I was doing – participatory observation in a small scale enterprise – over two months can in my opinion only be succesful, when one knows the “bigger context”, i.e. the cultural frameworks, from general to specific, where the people working there move in.

(…)

On my small trip around Turkey, I had the impression, that I gathered much more insights and observations than in all the six weeks before. So I conclude, that one should do it exactly the other way round – Get to know the culture, then study the enterprise. Start at the general and go into the specific.

>> read the whole post

PS: Strangely enough I haven’t mentioned this blog earlier here (it has been part of the anthro-newspaper for a while, though), I really enjoyed following his fieldwork, many well written posts!

Wolfgang "Anthronaut" Wohlwend has returned from his two month fieldwork in a warehouse in Istanbul. He summarizes some of his experience with short-time fieldwork and gives us the advice: "Start at the general and go into the specific!":

Two months are…

From housewife to mousewive – Anthropological study on women and Internet

Published on September 29, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, gender, internet, technology

We’ve already heard of the TIF-woman (a new tech-savvy woman), now we read about “mousewives”. A recent anthropological study (combined with nationwide polling) by Demos shows the traditional housewife has been transformed into a ‘mousewife’ as women drive forward the increasing use of computers in the home. John Craig, the report’s author, said the advent of high-speed broadband was a crucial breakthrough

Some findings:

– half of all women who go online have moved the home PC into the living room so it can play a central role in family life

– Punishment has also changed: Removing internet privileges for children is becoming commonplace

– The PC is becoming the social hub for gossip with family and friends as well as a means of bargain hunting, without leaving the living room.

>> read the whole study in The Scotsman (link updated)

PS: I don’t know how “anthropologically” this study actually has been conducted. Anyhow, I couldn’t find any anthropologists among Demos’ staff

We've already heard of the TIF-woman (a new tech-savvy woman), now we read about "mousewives". A recent anthropological study (combined with nationwide polling) by Demos shows the traditional housewife has been transformed into a 'mousewife' as women drive…