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Global identity politics and The Emergence of a Mongol Race in Nepal

Published on February 19, 2006 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, Asia, indigenous people / minorities, journal articles / papers, Us and Them

Although race has typically been mobilized to justify and uphold social inequality, recently in Nepal race was used in a political movement to oppose those in power, Susan Hangen writes in her article The Emergence of a Mongol Race in Nepal in Anthropology News February.

During the 1990s, some ethnic groups in Nepal—including Gurungs, Magars, Rais, Limbus and Sherpas, began asserting that they all belong to a Mongol race. Previously, each of these groups was primarily identified as belonging to a jati, a term that means both a caste and ethnic group. Their adoption of this racial identity was inspired by the platform of a small political party called the Mongol National Organization (MNO), which sought to unite and mobilize these social and ethnically diverse people, in part to make major political changes that would increase their social, economic and political power.

(…)

The MNO also believed that adopting a racial identity would help them to bring international attention to their political cause. Race appealed to the MNO as a global language of identity.

(…)

Like the concept of indigenous peoples, race may increasingly serve as a framework through which minorities make political claims, to the extent that it is acknowledged and validated through international institutions like the UN. Thus international efforts to expunge racism may reinforce the salience of race as an identity.

>> read the whole story

“Racialization is part of the current moment of globalization” – as anthropologist Nina Glick Schiller commented.

Anthropologist Pnina Werbner on Muhammad-cartoons: ‘Satanic Verses Taught us a Lesson’

Published on February 8, 2006 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, Europe, media, Middle East, politics, religion cosmology, Us and Them

No newspaper in Britain has published the Muhammad-cartoons. “There are some lessons (the British) learned from “The Satanic Verses” that I’m afraid others in Europe still need to learn”, anthropologist Pnina Werbner says in an interview with Der Spiegel:

During the Rushdie affair, there was also a major discussion about the limits of freedom of speech. The debate made it clear that despite our invocations of freedom of speech, even in the West freedom of speech is not absolute. After all, limits are set on pornography, for example.

Freedom of speech today is to a large extent exercised through self-censorship — not only through legislation, but by commercial interests, such as newspapers and publishing houses. They constantly make decisions about what should or shouldn’t get publicized — partly in response to audiences, partly in response to commercial interests, partially in response to the sensibilities of their viewers or readers.

You can say what you like in the privacy of your own home, but if you try to get it published, to get your voice heard in public, you will find that your opinions may be unacceptable for purely commercial or pragmatic reasons.

(…)

Their passionate belief is puzzling and alien to us. But we have to understand that, precisely because ordinary Muslims are also deeply offended, for that reason such apparently light-hearted satire will play into the hands of the extremists, the very people whom these cartoons were meant to criticize.

They are the ones who are benefiting most from the cartoons. For them, this is a huge PR coup, which enables them to recruit young people to the radical cause of Islam. In this sense the publication of the cartoons has backfired and that, I think, is the real indictment of the cartoonists. They’ve mobilized people all over the Muslim world against the West.

>> read the whole interview in DER SPIEGEL (International edition)

MORE ANTHROPOLOGISTS ON THIS ISSUE

Daniel Martin Varisco: Much Ado about Something Rotten in Denmark (My own view, even as a satirist who idolizes Montesquieu and Swift, is that the best public course is one of “freedom of discretion” at a time when there is such misunderstanding on all sides) og Loony Tunes: The War Draws On (It is bad enough that we have a war of bombs and bullets exasperated by a war of words. Do we really need to have cartoonists drawn into the fray?)

Erkan Saka: Danish Media’s Representations of Islam by anthropologist Peter Hervik and A call for respect and calm (both posts have many useful links among others Danish paper rejected Jesus cartoons and Trampling others’ beliefs in defence of yours.)

Kambiz Kamrani: Cultural relativism meets freedom of speech with the Danish cartoons and Muslim protests (He reviews several blog comments and concludes: “With the publication of these cartoons, this distance of understanding and communication is further gapped because we’re ultimately fueling an already burning fire.”)

www.sorrydenmarknorway.com – Arab and Muslim youth initiative (The problem with media representation of such issues tends to be that the media only picks up the loudest voices, ignoring the rational ones that do not generate as much noise.)

Arab Bloggers Take on Danish Cartoons

No newspaper in Britain has published the Muhammad-cartoons. "There are some lessons (the British) learned from "The Satanic Verses" that I'm afraid others in Europe still need to learn", anthropologist Pnina Werbner says in an interview with Der Spiegel:

During…

Primitive Racism: Reuters about “the world’s most primitive tribes”

Published on February 7, 2006 by lorenz Posted in Andaman & Nicobar societies, anthropology in the news, indigenous people / minorities, Us and Them

(via ethno::log) Looking for another example of everyday racism? Read reuters story about “the worlds most primitive people”:

Members of one of the world’s most primitive and isolated tribes have killed two fishermen who strayed on to their island in India’s Andaman and Nicobar archipelago, a senior government official said on Monday.

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A group of about 20 Sentinelese tribes people were surrounding them, Negi said. “They (the tribals) were naked and carrying bows and arrows,” he told Reuters by telephone.

The Indian government has banned anyone from going near Sentinel Island where about 250 tribe members live a hunter-gathering lifestyle little changed since the Stone Age.

UPDATE: Story no longer online. >> Read the same story in The Times where the India correspondent even dares to write “Described by anthropologists as a lost tribe of Stone Age aborigines, the Sentinelese…”

Our obsession with the notion of the primitive society

“Stone Age Tribes”, tsunami and racist evolutionism

Ten Little Niggers: Tsunami, tribal circus and racism

(via ethno::log) Looking for another example of everyday racism? Read reuters story about "the worlds most primitive people":

Members of one of the world's most primitive and isolated tribes have killed two fishermen who strayed on to their island in India's…

Book review: Claiming the Stones, Naming the Bones: Cultural Property and the Negotiation of Identity

Published on February 7, 2006 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, books, culture traditions, indigenous people / minorities, Us and Them

It’s “a strong volume and potentially an excellent teaching text for those interested in exploring case studies in cultural heritage and representation”, anthropologist Jamie Brandon concludes in his review of the book Claiming the Stones, Naming the Bones: Cultural Property and the Negotiation of National and Ethic Identity by Barkan, Elazar and Ronald Bush .

He writes that the book attempts to cross-cut multiple disciplines (including archaeology, physical anthropology, literature, cultural studies, ethnomusicology and museum studies) and offer perspectives regarding disputes over the definition and ownership of cultural properties.

This part of the review caught my eye

In the United States, Ross tells us, “to belong to a particular race is to possess copyright in that race; the right to turn a profit—or not—on the reputation credited to that race; the right to image the race in particular ways; the right to hold property, invest in, and profit from one’s racial “stock” (p. 260). Ross charts the struggle over these rights through efforts of African-Americans to challenge and control popular images of blackness.

>> read the whole review on the blog “Farther Along”

Indigenousness and the Politics of Spirituality: “Cultural ownership may lead directly to essentialization and racism”

It's "a strong volume and potentially an excellent teaching text for those interested in exploring case studies in cultural heritage and representation", anthropologist Jamie Brandon concludes in his review of the book Claiming the Stones, Naming the Bones: Cultural Property…

Who Are the Rioters in France? Anthropology News January (I)

Published on January 15, 2006 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, Europe, politics, Us and Them, youth

In Anthropology News January 2006, Susan J Terrio criticizes main stream medias coverage of the youth protests in the suburbs in Paris. The protests can’t be explained by religion, culture or by pointing to that the rioters are immigrants:

Yet, the “immigrants” are second and, in some cases, third generation French children of non-European immigrants of Antillean, North and Sub-Saharan African and Turkish ancestry who are French citizens. They are not, for the most part, observant Muslims. The riots are not a response to perceived attacks on Islam or a reflection of their cultural distance from mainstream French society.

To assert that the rioters are culturally alienated and difficult to integrate is to isolate cultural difference as a cause for social unrest and to downplay the more significant factors of economic marginalization, spatial segregation and anti-immigrant racism.

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Rioters feel alienated from French police, judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys and social workers in part because minorities are still underrepresented in all these fields.

>> continue

Anthropologist Cicilie Fagerlid has posted several related entries in her blog: Among others she comments that “I haven’t seen any empirical basis for blaming the riots on neither religion nor ethnicity”. In the same post she mentions a seminar, arranged by the French Association of Anthropologists on the actuality of anthropology and the crisis in the banlieues. She also lists some links.

Thomas Hylland Eriksen sums up:

Some commentators have tried to link the riots to religious revitalisation and militant Islamism in the Arab-speaking world. Yet, others – including the anthropologist André Iteanu, who has done research in these areas for years – point out that the riots have social causes, not cultural ones: The people living in these parts of Paris have no metro, few buses, hardly any libraries – and the majority have no work. Deprived and poor people have rioted in Paris several times before. It has nothing to do with their being Muslim and everything to do with their being socially excluded. Conclusion: Leave culture out of this matter.

(part of an interesting debate on the culture concept!)

Check also Erkan Saka’s coverage on this and the extensive round-up by Perlentaucher: Voices on the French riots

In Anthropology News January 2006, Susan J Terrio criticizes main stream medias coverage of the youth protests in the suburbs in Paris. The protests can't be explained by religion, culture or by pointing to that the rioters are immigrants:

Yet, the…