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On Savage Minds: Debate on the Construction of Indigenous Culture by Anthropologists

Published on September 19, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, ethics, history, indigenous people / minorities, Native American, Northern America, Us and Them, Visual Anthropology

Early visual anthropologists produced a form of salvage anthropology that uncoupled “traditional” society from any form of change, Patrick Harries (University of Cape Town), writes in an article on the the history of visual anthropology in South Africa. Although almost 100,000 workers from southern Mozambique were employed, not one photograph of a migrant worker appeared in anthropological monographs.

Kerim Friedman tells a similar story on Savage Minds. It’s about Edward S. Curtis’ huge collections of photographs, now digitalised by the Library of Congress.

Friedman quotes Pedro Ponce’s text on Curtis:

“In order to portray traditional customs and dress, Curtis — using techniques accepted by many anthropologists of his day — removed modern clothes and other signs of contemporary life from his pictures. A portrait of a Piegan lodge, for example, originally showed an alarm clock between two seated men. Curtis cut the clock out of the negative and included the retouched image in The North American Indian.”

In a comment, Nancy Leclerc writes about consequences for Indians today:

“Several anthropologists pointed out that the negative judgements of white settlers toward Aboriginals largely stemmed from their perception that members of the latter group were not living up to the ideals of the past, a past that was largely romanticised.”

>> read more on Savage Minds

Early visual anthropologists produced a form of salvage anthropology that uncoupled "traditional" society from any form of change, Patrick Harries (University of Cape Town), writes in an article on the the history of visual anthropology in South Africa. Although almost…

American Ethnologist – New book reviews on Indian Resurgence in Brazil, Anthropology of Britain, Race and Transnationalism

Published on September 11, 2005 by lorenz Posted in Africa, anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, books, Europe, indigenous people / minorities, Latin- and Central America, migration, music, Native American, Northern America, Us and Them

The August reviews of the journal American Ethnologist are now online.

Among them we’ll find:

Mapping Yoruba Networks: Power and Agency in the Making of Transnational Communities. By: Kamari Maxine Clarke
Kamari Clarke is an Afro-Canadian who joins several African American anthropologists in examining how Africa and African heritage are understood by contemporary African American communities. Clarke exemplifies the best of 21st-century anthropology as she offers an insider’s sympathy without romanticism, step-back objectivity without arrogance. Clarke presents multisited research among “Yoruba” and Yoruba in South Carolina and Nigeria. >> continue

British Subjects: An Anthropology of Britain. Edited by Nigel Rapport
The articles address a wide range of topics, including the royal family (Anne Rowbottom), the London ballet (Helena Wulff), the postindustrial landscape of a former mining village (Andrew Dawson), British Quakers (Peter Collins), and Rapport’s own literarily inflected work on the worldview from a British village. The collection reflects a view of Britain as largely white, tranquil, and middle class >> continue

Racial Revolutions: Antiracism and Indian Resurgence in Brazil. By Jonathan W. Warren
Jonathan Warren examines the shift in which people who might once have claimed mixed-race status instead reconstruct themselves as “post-traditional” Indians. Simply because Warren explores qualitatively Brazil’s contemporary indigenous resurgence, Racial Revolutions is a must read. >> continue

Latino Crossings: Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and the Politics of Race and Citizenship. By Nicholas De Genova and Anna Y. Ramos-Zayas
This book represents a unique collaboration between two anthropologists who did fieldwork separately in Chicago during the 1990s. >> continue

Right to Rock: The Black Rock Coalition and the Cultural Politics of Race. By Maureen Mahon
Right to Rock focuses on the Black Rock Coalition (BRC), founded in 1985 as a network of African American musicians “sick and tired of being sick and tired” from the frustration of racial segregation within the music industry. >> continue

>> all August 2005 book reviews

The August reviews of the journal American Ethnologist are now online.

Among them we'll find:

Mapping Yoruba Networks: Power and Agency in the Making of Transnational Communities. By: Kamari Maxine Clarke
Kamari Clarke is an Afro-Canadian who joins several African American anthropologists in…

Secret rituals: Folklorist studied the military as an occupational folk group

Published on September 11, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, books, gender, Northern America, websites

The website of The Association of Feminist Anthropology is another place to look for anthropology books and ethnographies.

One of the books reviewed is written by folklorist Carol Burke “Camp All-American, Hanoi Jane, and the High-And-Tight: Gender, Folklore, and Changing Military Culture”:

Drawing from her background as a folklorist and an “insider” who served as a civilian faculty member of the Naval Academy, Carol Burke examines the military as an occupational folk group and unpacks the various aspects of military culture that continue to separate and exclude on the basis of gender. In addition to highlighting the more obvious customs and ceremonies, Burke also attends to the secret rituals and informal aspects that, even when officially “banned,” are still practiced in boot camps, military academies, and aboard submarines and aircraft carriers.

>> read the review (updated link)

>> another review at H-Net

>> more book reviews by the Association for Feminist Anthropology

The website of The Association of Feminist Anthropology is another place to look for anthropology books and ethnographies.

One of the books reviewed is written by folklorist Carol Burke "Camp All-American, Hanoi Jane, and the High-And-Tight: Gender, Folklore,…

The Anthropology of Disaster – Anthropologists on Katrina

Published on September 5, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, applied anthropology, development empowerment, Northern America

(post in progress)

A quick round-up of some news and blog-entries on the Katrina-disaster:

Anthropologist Anthony Oliver-Smith has researched how communities re-emerge from destruction. He’s surprisingly pessimistic according to a press release (University of Florida):

“When neighborhoods that are tightly woven together get impacted like this, and houses get torn up and people are displaced, that breaks up some of those cooperative networks; they lose access to services they can afford such as child care,” he said. He hope authorities will consider those needs when they help people rebuild.”

His pessimism might be explained by some findings in his book Catastrophe and Culture: the Anthropology of Disaster that he edited together with Susanna M. Hoffman: People won’t learn from past disaster experience and adjust their behavior accordingly.

In an review of this book in The American Ethnologist Paul L. Doughty writes:

With the relentless attention given to all kinds of disasters by the popular media, from sinking ferries in South Asia, exploding volcanoes, El Niño perturbations, oil spills, and airplane crashes, it is high time anthropologists turned serious attention to the examination of their impacts on society and culture in both the short and long term.

Among the case studies in the book, we’ll find a optimistic review of how indigenous people managed to deal with the effects of natural perturbations that have regularly caused major problems throughout Andean history.

Paul L. Doughty:

Surely this is a hopeful finding, suggesting that people today might also learn from past disaster experience and adjust their behavior accordingly. But will they? Reading other case materials in this book, however, one becomes a bit depressed because it seems humans are reticent to learn from past experience and show an unwillingness to accept the conclusions to be drawn from it.

>> read the whole review

>> Anthony Oliver-Smith: Environment and Disaster in Honduras: The Social Construction of Hurricane Mitch

Race, Poverty and Katrina: Craig E. Colten, professor of geography and anthropology at Louisiana State University, says race played a role in the New Orleans’ level of preparedness for Hurricane Katrina. >> listen to the interview at NPR

Nomadic Thoughts: More on Katrina and Anthropology

Will Klinger writes:

The dynamics of the entire situation beg for anthropological insight. Overnight the Superdome was transformed into a new society with new rules and new survival tactics. How did they deal with unrest? These are anthropological questions whose answers can serve a purpose. That purpose make become more obvious in the coming weeks and months but it is safe to conclude at this point that by studying how the people affected by the hurricane reacted and acted will be integral to planning for similar future situations.

>> continue

Katrina Help Wiki / see more Katrina help resources (Dina Mehta) – as always Dina’s blog is the best place regarding social tools, see her entry Skype virtual call centre opens web to Katrina refugees

WikiNews: Effect_of_Hurricane_Katrina_on_New_Orleans

Kerim Friedman: Government irresponsibility, race and damage control

American Anthropological Association Responds to Katrina

Blogs on Katrina (Technorati)

Tsunami and Internet: Social Tools – Ripples to Waves of the Future

MORE DISASTER ANTHROPOLOGY

Abdul Safique: Impact of the super cyclone: myths & realities

“Disasters do not just happen” – The Anthropology of Disaster (2)

New website: Understanding Katrina: Perspectives from the Social Sciences

“Disasters are also a social event”: Panel says Katrina disaster has roots in 1700s

Anthropology News October: How Anthropologists Can Respond to Disasters

(post in progress)

A quick round-up of some news and blog-entries on the Katrina-disaster:

Anthropologist Anthony Oliver-Smith has researched how communities re-emerge from destruction. He's surprisingly pessimistic according to a press release (University of Florida):

“When neighborhoods that are tightly woven together…

Book review: Who owns native culture – A book with an excellent website

Published on September 2, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, books, culture traditions, indigenous people / minorities, journal articles / papers, Native American, Northern America

Very interesting review by David Trigger in the August-edition of The Australian Journal of Anthropology. Michael F. Brown’s book “Who Owns Native Culture?” discusses Indigenous assertions of ownership of cultural information. These can be in tension with the claims of non-Indigenous people who may wish to access particular sites and land areas, discuss certain areas of Indigenous knowledge without being censored etc. According to David Trigger, Michael Brown seeks a balance between ‘the interests of indigenous groups and the requirements of liberal democracy’.

Michael Brown shows how this conflict is more complex than it might seem at first glance. Early in the book, he asks why the incorporation of native cultural forms should be defined as theft, when native peoples themselves (as with all societies) have selectively appropriated Christian and other symbols and religious practices. How does the ownership claim over usage of Indigenous cultural ideas and designs sit with the creative mixing of cultures often termed ‘hybridity’ or ‘creolisation’ by scholars? Are New Age adherents, for example, really guilty of ‘blasphemy and cultural aggression’, when embracing their own versions of such rituals as sweat-lodges (derived from certain North American Indian cultures)?

>> continue (Link updated with copy)

The book has its own website with lots of news, articles, reviews and links related to the book! Excellent!!!!!!!!!

READ ALSO Indigenousness and the Politics of Spirituality where anthropologist Sabina Magliocco argues against cultural ownership: “Taken to its logical extreme, it leads directly to essentialization and racism”

Very interesting review by David Trigger in the August-edition of The Australian Journal of Anthropology. Michael F. Brown's book "Who Owns Native Culture?" discusses Indigenous assertions of ownership of cultural information. These can be in tension with the claims…