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UPDATED: African village in the Zoo: Protest against racist exhibition

Published on May 27, 2005 by lorenz Posted in Africa, anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, ethics, Europe, Us and Them

Ethno::log

The zoo of Augsburg/Germany is planning to open a “African village” with people from Africa “situated in an unique African steppe landscape”, critically reports Norbert Finzsch in an email, professor of History at the University of Cologne. It’s remarkable, that scientists at our university are researching the historical dimension of the Völkerschauen in the 19th century while the zoo of Augsburg in about 80km distance is carrying on this tradition in the 21th century. >> continue

Kurt Jonassohn, On A Neglected Aspect Of Western Racism: From the beginning of the 1870s to the end of the 1930s – the exposition of so-called exotic peoples in zoological gardens attracted a huge public

Anthropological Days at the Olympic Games: ‘Great Fun for Savages’

UPDATE 20.6.05:
Radio interview on African Village/ “Germans & Japanese less sensitive about race”

UPDATE 14.6.05: In Detroit and London: More African Villages in the Zoo

UPDATE 10.6.05: Now the BBC starts to report on the African village

UPDATED UPDATE 2 By 2nd of June several German newspapers have written about the protest against this exhibition: Frankfurter Rundschau, Tagesspiegel, Jungle World, Neues Deutschland, while the conservative DIE WELT defended the arrangement and cites some Africans who consider the combination of zoo and african culture as perferct (for their business). >> continue to my post in German with more links in German

UPDATE 1:
The news spread extremly fast. Savage Minds provides a link to the original email by Norbert Finzsch. He writes:

“The way Africans and African Americans in Germany are perceived and discussed, the way they are present on billboards and in TV ads prove that the colonialist and racist gaze is still very much alive in Germany. This is the direct result of forty years of German colonialism and twelve years of National Socialism. People of color are still seen as exotic objects (of desire), as basically dehumanized entities within the realm of animals. This also explains why a zoo has been selected as site for the exhibit.”

“The African German community and concerned individuals like myself call to your attention the need to protest against the opening of the exhibit in the Augsburg Zoo. Please direct your personalized letters of protest to Frau Dr. Barbara Jantschke (Director Zoo Augsburg) at barbara.jantschke@zoo-augsburg.de .”

>> continue

Ethno::log

The zoo of Augsburg/Germany is planning to open a "African village" with people from Africa "situated in an unique African steppe landscape", critically reports Norbert Finzsch in an email, professor of History at the University of Cologne. It's remarkable, that…

Dance Anthropology: “Even when borders blur, dance movements retain ethnic roots”

Published on May 27, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, art, culture traditions, language, music, Us and Them

SanDiego.com Union Tribune

The way we move tells us who we are. The rhythm of our walk, the sports we play and our dances define us as individuals and cultures. Movement also can cross borders. That makes modern dance a stunning example of global communication, since, according to dance anthropologist Judith Lynne Hanna, there may be as many dance languages as humanity’s 6,000-plus verbal languages. >> continue

Book review: Heartbeat of the People: Music and Dance of the Northern Pow-Wow. Tara Browner (American Ethnologist)

Book review: Shaping Society through Dance: Mestizo Ritual Performance in the Peruvian Andes. Zoila S. Mendoza. (American Ethnologist)

SanDiego.com Union Tribune

The Internet Gift Culture

Published on May 20, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, gift economy gift giving, internet, persons and theories, Us and Them, websites

Cultures of Exchange and Gift economies are traditional anthropological topics. Famous are the Kula exchange in Melanesia, the Potlatch in Northwestern America, the Moka and often cited books are among others Marcel Mauss: The Gift and Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time.

Contrary to what many (esp. postmodernists) believe, modernisation and globalisation do not automatically lead to more individualism and “fluidity”. Internet and social software lead to the creation of new networks and to a revitalisation of cultures of exchange and gift economies.

As Judd Antin comments, Alireza Doostdar describes in his recent article “The Vulgar Spirit of Blogging” some of the ways that bloggers exchange links, trackbacks, and comments as a way of developing social networks and expanding blog readership.

Many of us know collaborative projects like the encyclopedia Wikipedia, photosharing at flickr and copyright based on sharing like Creative Commons. People help each other in online-forums and what should we all do without all the great freeware software, partly developed by the Open Source community?

One of the best places to stay informed on social software and networks is Dina Mehta’s Blog “Conversations with Dina”

There are many articles on internet gift economy.

Lars Risan: Open source movement is like things anthropologists have studied for a long time (Jill Walker)

Eduardo Navas: The Blogger as Producer. He reviews “The Hi-Tech Gift Economy” by Richard Barbrook who also has written “Giving is Receiving”

Steve McGookin: Politics, E-Mail And The Gift Economy (Forbes)

Eric Raymond: The Hacker Milieu as Gift Culture

Jem Matzan: The gift economy and free software (NewsForge) (updated link)

Howard Rheingold: The Internet and the Future of Money (see also Interview with Bernard Lietaer on complementary currencies and the Internet and info on LETS – local exchange trading systems)

David Zeitlyn: Gift economies and open source software: Anthropological reflections (pdf)

Eric Lease Morgan: Gift cultures, librarianship, and open source software development

Markus Giesler and Mali Pohlmann: The anthropology of file sharing: Consuming Napster as a Gift

First Monday – Internet Economics

Culture’s Open Sources (pdf, Anthropology Quarterly)

There are many more articles on the internet gift economy: http://opensource.mit.edu/online_papers.php

(post inspired by comments on More and more blogging anthropologists – but the digital divide persists)

UPDATE:

This post caused some funny comments in the Livejournal-community:

museumfreak writes:

*academictechgasm*
so . . . many . . . social . . . software . . . and . . . gift . . . economy . . . links . . .

Further down in in the comment-section apropos writes:
“all these new anthro blogs are freaking me out!” :)

Anthropology and Counterinsurgency: The Strange Story of Their Curious Relations

Published on May 19, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, ethics, fieldwork / methods, politics, Us and Them

Call you call it prostitution if anthropologists work for the military? Opinions are divided on this issue. As a pacifist, my answer is obvious. Others will stress that they’ve done their job as an anthropologist if they have succeeded in teaching soldiers cultural awareness and respect to other customs (as stated on a conference in Norway last year).

In a long article in Red Nova, cultural anthropologist Montgomery McFate discusses anthropologists’ possible role in the U.S. military. She criticizes anthropologists’ “retreat to the Ivory Tower” after the Vietnam War. Does she want anthropologists to take up their questionable role they played role during the colonial era? It seems so. She writes:

“From the foregoing discussion, it might be tempting to conclude that anthropology is absent from the policy arena because it really is “exotic and useless.” However, this was not always the case. Anthropology actually evolved as an intellectual tool to consolidate imperial power at the margins of empire.”

On CENSA’s website we read that McFate “has spent the past few years trying to convince the Department of Defense that cultural knowledge should be a national security priority”.

>> read the whole article on Red Nova

UPDATE (20.5.05): I’ve only quickly scanned the article. Shortly after, Savage Minds’ author Dustin M. Wax has written a detailed review (!) of the McFate’s article:

“Her long article is a backhanded compliment to stubborn anthropologists whose knowledge and expertise is “urgently needed in time of war” but who, “bound by their own ethical code and sunk in a mire of postmodernism”, “entirely neglect U.S. forces”. I’ll cut straight to the chase: a functioning anthropology can never be on the side of “U.S. forces”. This is a practical as well as an ethical argument—it simply is not possible, even were there enough anthropologists who shared McFate’s priorities.

>> continue

Call you call it prostitution if anthropologists work for the military? Opinions are divided on this issue. As a pacifist, my answer is obvious. Others will stress that they've done their job as an anthropologist if they have succeeded in…

Today’s National Day – or “Something rotten in the state of Norway”

Published on May 17, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, culture traditions, Europe, Us and Them

As today the people here in Norway celebrate the National day you might want to take a look at the essay collection SOMETHING ROTTEN IN THE STATE OF NORWAY, written by anthropologists and other social scientists four years ago.

From their introduction:

“In spite of the fact that the country possesses enormous financial resources, Norway is unable to administer this capital in an appropriate manner on behalf of the population. It is not invested in education, either at school or university, the health service is deteriorating, cultural institutions are not regarded as important and become balance sheet items.

We have brought about a country that stigmatises and excludes those inhabitants who do not conform to an increasingly uniform and standardised citizenship ideal. In the Norway of today market liberalism is the dominant attitude among the people and leaders.”

>> continue to Something Rotten in the State of Norway

See also:

Sámi flag will not fly in Oslo
Oslo Municipality will not hoist the Sámi flag on Constitution Day, 17 May, the Oslo Municipal Board decided. “We are not one people with two flags, but rather one people with one flag,” stated Labour Party member Runar Gerhardsen. >> continue

Of course you can read an official description of the National Day with typical Norwegian statements like “there’s no celebration quite like it anywhere else in the world.” or take a look at some 17.may-pictures with lots of people in their national costumes. There are also some photos on flickr. Or check Aftenposten (newspaper) for today’s photos.

From their…