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CORRECTED: Muslims in Calcutta: Towards a middle-class & moderation

Published on February 28, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, Asia, religion cosmology, Us and Them

The Statesman, Calcutta

Slowly, a little warily maybe, Muslims of the city are making efforts to break out of the stereotypes and move out of ghettos. For a community mired in financial quicksand and plagued by poverty and lack of education, among other things, this is a tough task. And, systematic propaganda painting Indian Muslims as the Other in the psyche of the majority community makes the task even more difficult, felt Dr Mohammed Khalil Abbas Siddiqui, noted scholar and anthropologist.

“A push is required. Muslims are exploited as vote banks and then left high and dry. Also, the majority community has not made a serious effort to find out about Muslims or what their religion is all about,” said Mr Shafi, management and training consultant. Anybody listening? If not, start now. For, every seventh man in the city is a Muslim. >> continue

SEE ALSO:
Slowly But Surely, Calcutta’s Muslims Shine (IslamOnline, 2.3.05)

The Statesman, Calcutta

UPDATED – The future lies behind: How languages reflect our conception of time

Published on February 27, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, indigenous people / minorities, language, Latin- and Central America, media, Native American

Laura Spinney, The Guardian

For the Aymara people living in the Andes, the past lies ahead and the future lies behind. The Aymara word for past is transcribed as nayra , which literally means eye, sight or front. The word for future is q”ipa , which translates as behind or the back. Over the years, rumours have surfaced of similar strangeness in other languages.

The researcher is Rafael Núñez, a cognitive scientist at the University of California, San Diego. With his collaborator, linguist Eve Sweetser, he will publish his findings later this year.

“This Aymara finding is big news,” says Vyvyan Evans, a theoretical cognitive linguist at the University of Sussex. “It is the first really well-documented example of the future and past being structured in a totally different way from lots of other languages, including English.” >> continue

UPDATE (28.2.05):
Anthropologist Kerim Friedman writes “I can’t understand the fuss being made over the Aymara people living in the Andes who supposedly have a unique spacial conception of time. My guess is that this is simply another example of reporters mangling academic research in order to make the story more exciting.” >> continue

Laura Spinney, The Guardian

Future Fields – New Issue of Anthropology Matters is out!

Published on February 25, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, fieldwork / methods, journal articles / papers

Anthropology Matters in one of the few anthropological online journals – and an excellent one! Finally, their issue 2 / 2004 (!) is put online. In this issue, they bring together eleven papers that were first presented and discussed at the Future Fields conference held in Oxford in December 2003.

From the Introduction by Tom Rice and Mette Louise Berg:
“As research interests of anthropologists have changed, so have the types of fieldworks that we undertake. Yet the ideal of long-term fieldwork in a rural location among non-Western peoples still exerts a powerful influence on the discipline. While traditional methods such as long-term site work and participant observation are still valid, they now must be complemented by innovative methods that respond to contemporary epistemological challenges. The very notion of ‘the field’ itself may need critical questioning.”

Among the articles we find:

The making of the fieldworker: debating agency in elites research.
Mattia Fumanti (University of Manchester)

Cyberethnography as home-work.
Adi Kuntsman (Lancaster University).

Finding a middle ground between extremes: notes on researching transnational crime and violence.
Hannah E. Gill (Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford).

Devising a new approach to capitalism at home.
Kaori O’Connor (University College London).

Fieldnotes on some cockroaches at SOAS and in Stavanger, Norway.
Ingie Hovland (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London).

Under the shadow of guns. Negotiating the flaming fields of caste/class war in Bihar, India.
George Kunnath (School of Oriental and African Studies).

Studying-up those who fell down: elite transformation in Nepal.
Stefanie Lotter (University of Heidelberg).

>> continue

Anthropology Matters in one of the few anthropological online journals - and an excellent one! Finally, their issue 2 / 2004 (!) is put online. In this issue, they bring together eleven papers that were first presented and discussed at…

Beyond Ethnic Boundaries? Anthropological study on British Asian Cosmopolitans

Published on February 25, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, cosmopolitanism, Europe, fieldwork / methods, Us and Them, youth

Anthropologist Cicilie Fagerlid (University of Oslo) has recently published her thesis about young British Asians on the web. In her introduction, she writes:

“Society cannot remain a society if people feel excluded on basis of what characterises them as a category. The imagined category Britishness must not exclude the imagined category Asianness. How is the interface between recognition for difference, societal belonging and individual freedom played out?

This thesis is based on 11 months fieldwork among, roughly, 30 British Asians, aged 20 to 30, in London in 1999. With the anthropological focus on the micro level, on the experiences of socially and culturally embedded individuals, I hope to show how Britain, step by step, is moving in the direction of a cosmopolitan society.

By focusing on the individual negotiation, the diversity that appears indicates that their British Asianness can be contained by neither an old idea of Britishness nor essential traits of Asianness.”

>> download the thesis (459 kb, pdf) (updated with copy)

Anthropologist Cicilie Fagerlid (University of Oslo) has recently published her thesis about young British Asians on the web. In her introduction, she writes:

"Society cannot remain a society if people feel excluded on basis of what characterises them as a category.…

Dissertation in Anthropology put online before it will be published as a book

Published on February 22, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, Asia, language, Open Access Anthropology and Knowledge Sharing

Anthropologist P. Kerim Friedman (Temple University) published his dissertation on the web before it will be published as a book! “No need to wait for the book”, he writes. In an earlier post, Friedman encouraged anthropologists to use the Internet to share their knowledge and support the “Open Access” – philosophy.

About his dissertation he writes:

“This dissertation examines contemporary linguistic markets and language policy in Taiwan in terms of the historical processes of state formation, class alliances, and identity politics, drawing upon Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of linguistic markets and Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony as well as the literature on nationalism and linguistic ideology.

Emphasis is placed on the historical processes underlying the construction of Taiwan’s linguistic markets as Taiwan’s linguistic nationalism emerged throughout history, focusing on the continuities and changes across Qing, Japanese, KMT and DPP rule.

>> continue

Anthropologist P. Kerim Friedman (Temple University) published his dissertation on the web before it will be published as a book! "No need to wait for the book", he writes. In an earlier post, Friedman encouraged anthropologists to use the Internet…