Us and Them | antropologi.info

Northern Norway’s first ever witch conference

Published on September 1, 2004 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, Arctic / Northern Regions, culture traditions, indigenous people / minorities, religion cosmology, Saami, Us and Them

AP / Yahoo News

Nearly 400 years after the worst of the Norwegian witch trials ripped through the area, approximately 100 people have made their way to the small town of Vardoe, just over 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles) from the North Pole, for northern Norway’s first ever witch conference.

“When we take the low population of Finnmark (Norway’s northernmost county and home to Vardoe) into consideration, the persecution of accused witches is almost the worst in all of Europe,” Rune Blix Hagen Hagen, historian at the University of Tromsoe, says. Approximately 20 percent of the 138 people convicted of witchcraft in Finnmark county between 1598 and 1692 were Sami.

While the belief in witchcraft and magic may appear firmly lodged in the past, the willingness to participate in witch hunts has not ebbed with the passing centuries, according to social anthropologist Jan Broegger. >> continue

AP / Yahoo News

Diaspora and Changing Identities: Korean Immigrants Are Not Always from Korea

Published on August 25, 2004 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, culture traditions, migration, Northern America, Us and Them

Pacific News Service

LOS ANGELES — Korean voices speaking Spanish, Russian or Portuguese in Los Angeles are those of the invisible immigrants who live among the largest Korean population in the United States. Hailing from places like Argentina, Brazil and Uzbekistan, they are a dispersed people within a community that they don’t always identify with. This Diaspora has challenged notions of what it is to be Korean since its members all have widely varied experiences. >> continue

Pacific News Service

LOS ANGELES -- Korean voices speaking Spanish, Russian or Portuguese in Los Angeles are those of the invisible immigrants who live among the largest Korean population in the United States. Hailing from places like Argentina, Brazil and Uzbekistan,…

Resident Foreigners and Antalya

Published on August 18, 2004 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, Europe, globalisation, migration, Us and Them

Zaman Daily, Turkey

Being the meeting point for many peoples and cultures in global tourism activity, Antalya and its environs are turning into a permanent homeland. People from different cultures, nations and with different mentalities, continuously buy land in Antalya, choosing it as their second homeland. Like a junction, Turkey is hosting a new sociological structure that came along with globalization >>continue

Zaman Daily, Turkey

The distance between us

Published on August 16, 2004 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, culture traditions, persons and theories, Us and Them

The Dallas Morning News

If they lean back in the chair, away from him, he’s got more work to do. But if they lean forward, he knows in a few minutes they’ll be huddled with him over a contract. “There’s so much you can glean from observing the distances between people when they interact,” says Dr. William Pulte, anthropologist, linguist and associate professor in Southern Methodist University’s Education Department.

Proxemics, the study of how people perceive and use the space around them, was founded in the 1950s by anthropologist Edward T. Hall, and popularized in several of his books – “The Silent Language” (1959) and “The Hidden Dimension” (1966). Hall observed that humans like to keep their distances from one another, and that those distances vary according to social interactions. >>continue

The Dallas Morning News

If they lean back in the chair, away from him, he's got more work to do. But if they lean forward, he knows in a few minutes they'll be huddled with him over a contract. "There's so…

Olympic Games: ‘Great Fun for Savages’

Published on August 15, 2004 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, history, indigenous people / minorities, Us and Them

The Globe and Mail

One hundred years ago, three Ainu couples, a lone male and two young girls travelled to the United States to take part in a living exhibit arranged for the crowds at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. They lived in a large thatched hut on the fairgrounds, part of a global village in which peoples from around the world — called the primitives — were on display.

In a run-up to the third Olympiad being held in conjunction with the world fair, U.S. officials organized something called Anthropology Days. “Hairy Ainus” were pitted against “savage Zulus” and other aboriginals in sporting contests to determine strength and speed. Anthropology Days was organized by the heads of the anthropology and physical education departments of the world exposition. The idea was to test the popular notion that “the average savage was fleet of foot, strong of limb, accurate with the bow and arrow and expert in throwing the stone.” The two-day contest was held in mid-August when many scientists were attending the fair.

The crown jewel was a 47-acre site organized by the U.S. government to display the conquered peoples of the Philippines, the newest American possession acquired during the recently concluded Spanish-American War. An homage to imperialism, the exhibit was designed to show how America would bring progress to savage peoples. >>continue

The Globe and Mail