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The Cognition and Culture Blog

Published on November 29, 2008 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, culture traditions, interdisciplinary, religion cosmology, websites

While browsing the web for Claude Levi Strauss posts, I stumbled upon a great site: Cognition and Culture.

It is run by International Cognition & Culture Institute, an initiative of the Department of Anthropology of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

From their self-description:

* Scholars in the emerging cross-disciplinary field of cognition and culture studies are scattered around the world and few (if any) institutions has a sufficient number and variety of them for optimal research and teaching.

* It is in the very nature of this field to call for international and interdisciplinary collaborations.

The site features both a news and a blog section. There are news stories like “Religion, anthropology, and cognitive science” at the 107th AAA meeting or Maurice Bloch on BBC Radio 3.

Lots of bloggers are involved in the project and there are blog posts like Is culture what makes us cooperate? (by Jean-Baptiste André), Neuroanthropology or ethnographical neurosciences? (by Nicolas Baumard), Your brain needs a British headmistress – the unexpected impact of pop-cognitive science on British schoolgirls (by Michael Stewart), Maori Memories (by Olivier Morin), “You work in WHAT field?” (by Nicola Knight) and the most recent Claude Lévi-Strauss: the first 100 years (by Dan Sperber) and many more!

The site was made possible by an initial grant from the LSE and support from the Institut Jean Nicod (ENS, EHESS, CNRS) in Paris.

>> visit cognitionandculture.net

See also earlier comments on this site over at Neuroanthropology and Somatosphere

While browsing the web for Claude Levi Strauss posts, I stumbled upon a great site: Cognition and Culture.

It is run by International Cognition & Culture Institute, an initiative of the Department of Anthropology of the London School of Economics…

Accused of being CIA-spy: Anthropologist on fieldwork among Cambodian muslims

Published on October 26, 2008 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, Asia, fieldwork / methods, religion cosmology

Are muslim communities getting more sceptical towards anthropologists? In an interview with Phnom Pen Post, anthropologist Bjørn Blengsli tells about his research among muslims in Cambodia – “one of the fastest-changing Muslim societies in the world”.

After September 11, he got arrested and expelled from the village and the district. He was accused of being one of “60 identified CIA spies”. (After a letter from the Ministry of Religion and meetings with undersecretaries of state, he could continue his research.)

Furthermore, Blengsli is concerned about reports of certain researchers who have pretended to convert to Islam in order to gain the confidence of Muslim informants. Muslims consider such people hypocrites, or munafiq – one who is more dangerous to Muslims than the enemies of Islam, he says. “I am afraid that this kind of devious behavior will negatively impact legitimate researchers in the future.”

Blengsli is especially interested in religious change and the impact of foreign donors on religious schooling. He found out that the schools’ religious content is closely linked to the type of religion practiced in the donor countries – often conservative Arab countries. Islamic schooling has led to a “growing sympathy for fundamentalist understandings of the faith and terrorism”.

In his opinion, secular education should be implemented in all Muslim schools:

The secular education among Muslims is still low when compared to that of the Khmer, with Muslim girls most disadvantaged in their pursuit of secular education. Increased knowledge not only about the Khmer society, but also the different sects within Islam is also imperative. As many as 99 percent of Muslim religious students believe there is only one correct interpretation of their religion and this is extremely dangerous.

>> read the whole interview

Earlier, he told Arab News:

In Cambodia … religious activists from the Arab world are arriving with a new view on religion and they preach an austere version of Islam. These organizations want to purify Cham Islamic practice by getting rid of the many influences from Buddhism.

He was also interviewed by the New York Times. He said:

‘This country is ripe for Muslim missionaries. They had to start all over again. They had no religious leaders, nothing. They lost almost everything — their script, their rituals, almost all their written material. They were left with a couple of myths. That’s why today a purification movement is so easy. They are very vulnerable, and a lot of people are coming into Cambodia and telling them how to change.

But he added that ”being fundamentalist does not mean being a terrorist.” And ”If you have radical, militant Muslims living in Cambodia, I have not seen any proof.”

“Arabs and Muslims should be wary of anthropologists”

Anthropology and CIA: “We need more awareness of the political nature and uses of our work”

Religious divide grows amid Thai unrest

Doctoral Thesis: Is Islam Compatible with Secularism?

Islam in Morocco: TV and Internet more important than mosques

Are muslim communities getting more sceptical towards anthropologists? In an interview with Phnom Pen Post, anthropologist Bjørn Blengsli tells about his research among muslims in Cambodia - "one of the fastest-changing Muslim societies in the world".

After September 11, he got…

The death of Buddhism in Japan?

Published on July 15, 2008 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, Asia, religion cosmology

Will Buddism die out in Japan? Across Japan, Buddhism faces a confluence of problems, the New York Times reports.

Interest in Buddhism is declining in urban areas. The religion’s rural strongholds are being depopulated. Successors to chief priests are lacking. Many temples in the countryside are expected to close.

Buddhism is also losing its grip on the funeral industry as more and more Japanese are turning to funeral homes or choosing not to hold funerals at all. Although the Japanese have long taken an “buffetlike approach to religion”, the New York Times writes, the Japanese have traditionally been inflexibly Buddhist when it comes to funerals (they ring out the old year at Buddhist temples and welcoming the new year, several hours later, at Shinto shrines. Weddings hew to Shinto rituals or, just as easily, to Christian ones.)

“Buddhism doesn’t meet people’s spiritual needs”, according to chief priest Ryoko Mori. “If Japanese Buddhism doesn’t act now, it will die out,” he says.

According to anthropologist Noriyuki Ueda, Japanese Buddhism had been sapped of its spiritual side in great part because it had compromised itself during World War II through its close ties with Japan’s military.

>> read the whole story in the New York Times

But Buddhist monks are trying to reach out to the public, see the story Buddhist monks now going clubbing

Book review: Ritual praxis in modern Japan

Maurice Bloch: Religion is a Figment of Human Imagination

“Visual Anthropology of Japan” and more new blogs

Will Buddism die out in Japan? Across Japan, Buddhism faces a confluence of problems, the New York Times reports.

Interest in Buddhism is declining in urban areas. The religion’s rural strongholds are being depopulated. Successors to chief priests are…

Anthropologist: Al-Qaeda uses dreams to justify violence

Published on June 7, 2008 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, politics, religion cosmology

Militant jihadists are inspired by their night dreams according to a study by a social anthropologist Iain Edgar, according to Malaysia Sun.

The researcher interviewed individuals in the UK, Pakistan, Northern Cyprus and Turkey to identify the key features of the inspirational night dream. He also reviewed transcripts including that of Osama Bin Laden, who has spoken of the night dream in the context of his concern that “the secret [of the 9/11 attacks] would be revealed if everyone starts seeing it in their dreams.”

According to Iain Edgar, dreams were interpreted to justify violence and legitimise actions. At the Cheltenham Science Festival on the cultural significance of sleeping and dreaming, Edgar said:

Islam is probably the largest night dream culture in the world today. The night dream is thought to offer a way to metaphysical and divinatory knowledge, to be a practical alternative and accessible source of inspiration and guidance, to offer clarity concerning action in this world.

Even if reported jihadist dream narratives are fabricated, the fact that Muslims often believe them and are mobilized to jihad partly on their account is of significance”.

Overall, how Moslems, and people in general, understand their night dreams is a powerful tool in assessing their worldview and implicit key motivations.

>> read the whole story

Iain Edgar has studied the relationship between night dreams and culture, between dream imagery and human behaviour for twenty-five years. He writes more about his dream research in the text “Encountering the ‘true dream’ in Islam: a Journey to Turkey and Pakistan” (pdf)

He has also written a text about Anthropology and the dream

Robert Fisk has commented on his research in the Independent, see his article Visions that come to men as they sleep

Protests against British research council: “Recruits anthropologists for spying on muslims”

Selected quotes from “On Suicide Bombing” by Talal Asad

Conflict Resolution and Anthropology: Why more scholarship on violence than on peace?

Militant jihadists are inspired by their night dreams according to a study by a social anthropologist Iain Edgar, according to Malaysia Sun.

The researcher interviewed individuals in the UK, Pakistan, Northern Cyprus and Turkey to identify the key features of the…

“Racist” Buddhist monks hope for “ethnically clean” Tibet?

Published on April 30, 2008 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, Asia, politics, religion cosmology, Us and Them

In his post Not only freedom: the dark ethnic side of the Tibetan Buddhist revolt, anthropologist Gabriele Marranci challenges mainstream images of Tibetans as peaceful and writes about Tibetan racism, ethno-nationalistic dreams, and attacks against muslims in Tibet.

Both the mass media, academics, and even anthropologists specialised in Tibetan Buddhism, have hidden what Marranci calls the ‘dark ethnic side’ of the revolt.

The Muslims in Tibet have been the target of Buddhist Tibetan violence for some time now, especially since 9/11. During the recent protests in Tibet there were anti-muslim attacks:

The mosque in Lhasa was burnt and destroyed, shops and the possessions of Muslim Tibetans smashed, a family burned alive in their own shop, terror and terrorism have affected this community because of a pernicious form of ethnic (Buddhist) nationalism

Marranci points to the paper Close Encounters of an Inner Asian Kind: Tibetan-Muslim co-existence and conflict in Tibet past and present by Andrew Fischer. According to Fischer, the tensions are primarily the cause of ‘economic’ differences and opportunities:

During the 1990s Ethnic Tibetan Buddhist started to fear that the economic success of Muslim Tibetans (particularly their restaurants and shops), would have undermined the economic, and so social, status of the Buddhist Tibetans. The Buddhist monks began a campaign against the economic activities of Tibetan Muslims, which epitomised in the 2003 boycott of Muslims’ businesses and saw also violent actions against innocent Muslim Hui families

Marranci writes:

Since the beginning of the revolt in March, demonstrations against China are held in all those countries through which the Olympic torch is passing. From the politicians, to the public, from Hollywood to Bollywood, from the scholars (with few exceptions) to the students, from the Trade Unions to the Industrial associations: all show indignation against the ‘oppression of the Chinese government’. Yet they ignore the dark side of this ‘revolt’ which is not so different from that in 2003.
(…)
Meanwhile monks and lamas are just stoking the fire in the hope of not just a free Tibet but also an ethnically clean one!

>> read the whole post on Marranci’s blog

Both the mass…