After a long silence, there is finally some activity on antropologi.info! The blogging software I had been using since 2005 (!) is no longer maintained. It is called b2evolution and was wonderful to use. So now I had to find an alternative and move all the content to the new system. I chose ClassicPress, a fork of WordPress which, in my opinion, has become too commercial.
I hope everything is working ok! If not, please let me know – either as comment below or via email (oh, I should update this site as well…)
I tried hard to keep all links intact, I also transferred all users, and tried to recreate the old site as much as possible – not alone, though, it would not have been possible without Chatgpt. We had long nerdy discussions, and now we finally made it!
After so many years, I doubt it somehow, but I’d be happy if some of my readers and fellow bloggers from the good old blogging days are still around here …..
After a long silence, there is finally some activity on antropologi.info! The blogging software I had been using since 2005 (!) is no longer maintained. It is called b2evolution and was wonderful to use. So now I had to find…
In June 2004, I bought the domain antropologi.info, and this website with blogs in English, German, and Norwegian soon became part of a steadily growing anthropology online community. Browsing through old posts, I get surprised by the number of discussions we have had here! That was fun. I really get nostalgic.
It is easy to get depressed when looking at today’s state of anthropology online—and the Internet generally. Such an anthropological community no longer exists, at least not in the open internet. Personal blogs are gone. They have been replaced by shorter posts we share in “walled gardens” like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram that are controlled by advertising networks. Many anthropologists (as people generally) tend to use these social media sites as a tool for self-promotion rather than for sharing ideas. Very boring, in my view!
Most blogs from the golden age of the Internet are no longer active or have shut down, for example, ethno::log and Savage Minds, which was renamed Anthrodendum in 2017. Others that still exist, like my favorite site Allegra, no longer call themselves blogs but “online multimodal publication platforms”. Their posts have lost their informal tone and now resemble journal articles that can be cited on CVs. Many of the blogs you find on feeds.antropologi.info are run by organizations or institutes that also use them for self-promotion. The culture of linking to other websites and blogs has died completely. What we see now are “blind” and “inward-looking” websites, as blogging pioneer and activist Hossein Derakhshan calls it in his fantastic piece The Web We Have to Save.
At the same time, most newspapers have moved their content behind paywalls. Sources for learning about the world are disappearing. There is less anthropological content available online than, let’s say, 10 years ago. Searching the web for new anthropological content (as I did before) hardly yields any interesting material to blog about anymore.
There are positive developments, though. More and more journals have become open-access journals. More and more academics have moved from Twitter to open, non-commercial platforms like Mastodon. Some have even started experimenting with open digital gardens as a new way to share knowledge as for example anthropologist Kerim Friedman.
I haven’t been active for some years either—an exception was the Corona lockdown in 2020 and 2021.
In 2016, I lost my job as a science journalist at the University of Oslo and moved to Germany one year later. Here, I was not able to find work within my field either and ended up becoming a freelance teacher for German as a foreign language in the least attractive part of the country (which is also the only place where you can still find affordable flats). Teaching German as a foreign language can be fun and rewarding, especially because of the contact with people from all over the world. But teaching full-time drains all my energy and leaves me bored, as I miss the stimulation from anthropology, university life, journalism, and blogging!
So, what now? There are many things one (or I, if I had time) could do, for example, combining language teaching with anthropology. Why not start something like “Learn German with Anthropology”? Most of the texts for language learners, especially at the beginner levels, are too banal to be interesting. So why not write some more inspiring texts so that you not only learn a new language but also something else?
As I mentioned, more and more anthropological journals have removed their paywalls; there are more and more open-access anthropology journals. I recently wrote a piece for the Norwegian magazine Forskerforum, Tidsskrifter er viktigere enn noensinne—meaning “Journals are more important than ever.” While mainstream media has locked down access to knowledge, scientific journals have opened up. Although journals have become a dumping ground for half-ready texts in the neoliberal university economy (“publish or perish“), there are still many academics who are interested in other things than impact factor and the number of publications on their CVs. You will find many of them writing or working for rather small non-commercial open-access journals.
Browsing through journals like the Finnish Suomen Antropologi, Scottish Medicine Anthropology Theory (MAT), or Brazilian Vibrant, I always find too many articles I’d like to read (and blog about…). Most of all, I am fascinated by the passion that shines through in their editorials! Many of their articles need more publicity. I wish I could write about more such hidden treasures as I did before. Maybe it is now more important than ever, as quality content about the state of the world is getting harder to find, and spammy websites dominate Google results.
Another issue: The blog software that I have been using since 2005 (b2evolution) is no longer maintained by the main developer François Planque, and no one has started forking it. Now I wonder how to migrate to another system and to which one, as choices are more limited than in the old times. More and more solutions have become “evil,” meaning commercial and no longer operating within a true open source and open access gift culture as b2evolution has done and WordPress did in the early years. By the way, developer François Planque just wrote a convincing blog post called My 7 reasons to maintain a blog or website in 2024
In June 2004, I bought the domain antropologi.info, and this website with blogs in English, German, and Norwegian soon became part of a steadily growing anthropology online community. Browsing through old posts, I get surprised by the number of discussions…
Bis vor etwa fünf bis zehn Jahren habe ich regelmäßig hier auf antropologi.info über Nachrichten aus dem Fach berichtet. Aufgrund Änderungen privater und beruflicher Natur blieb in den letzten Jahren für die Webseite nur wenig Zeit. Den zahlreichen Corona-Lockdowns sei Dank konnte ich mich wieder mehr meinen Interessen zuwenden, ich aktualisierte die Blog-Software, beseitigte viele tote Links, experimentierte mit einem Open Access Journal Ticker, der die neuesten Artikel von Open Access Zeitschriften anzeigt, lernte auch etwas mehr über Webdesign, Linux und die Open Source Welt.
Anfang des Jahres machte ich einen ernsthaften Versuch, so wie früher mehrmals wöchentlich die Nachrichten nach interessantem anthropologischen Stoff zu durchforsten. Das Resultat: ein knappes Dutzend Blogbeiträge, allerdings nur auf Englisch. Warum?
Klar, ich habe früher auch viele eigene Beiträge wie Interviews, Buchbesprechungen usw geschrieben. Viele Beiträge auf dieser Webseite begannen jedoch mit einer simplen Google-News-Suche. Auf Deutsch bringt dieselbe Suche heute weniger interessante Resultate als früher.
Der Grund: Die meisten deutschsprachigen Zeitungen und auch viele andere Netzpublikationen haben sich vom offenen Internet verabschiedet. Ein Grossteil der Klicks auf die Ergebnisse meiner Google-Suche führt zu Login-Boxen: Nur für Abonnenten! Das betrifft deutschsprachige Publikationen mehr als englischsprachige. Ich müsste Hunderte oder eher Tausende von Euros monatlich für Abonnements aufbringen, um einen ähnlich umfangreichen Überblick wie früher über "Ethnologie in den Medien" bieten zu können.
Gleichzeitig sind auch die meisten Forschenden selbst vom offenen Internet verschwunden. Früher gab es viele Anthropologen, die auf Deutsch bloggten – sei es Studierende, Doktoranden oder etablierte Forscher. Eine ethnologische Blogosphäre, in der es wie früher um gegenseitigen Austausch geht, gibt es nicht mehr auf Deutsch. Stattdessen tummeln sich viele Forschende in den weniger offenen Silos der kommerziellen sozialen Medien wie Facebook oder Instagram. Diese Entwicklung machte auch nicht vor dem ersten deutschsprachigen ethnologischen Gruppenblog halt – ethno::log. Ende 2019 erschien dort der letzte Beitrag mit den Worten:
I think it’s time to close the weblog, it’s already sleeping since years. People went to other places online and offline, which is quite natural. It was fun! CU somewhere else.
Die Konsequenz: Unterm Strich finden wir weniger deutschsprachige sozial- oder kulturanthropologische Inhalte im Netz als noch vor zehn Jahren.
Wer auf Deutsch googelt, bekommt weniger interessante Antworten – und vor allem keine fachlichen.
Ein zunehmender Anteil der noch gratis zugänglichen Inhalte im Netz ist mehr oder weniger offenkundige Werbung.
Das betrifft auch Webseiten von Anthropologen. Wer von ihnen heutzutage eine eigene Seite ins Netz stellt oder bloggt, tut dies in vielen Fällen, um sich auf dem zunehmend prekären Arbeitsmarkt möglichst attraktiv darzustellen. Ähnliches kann man über universitäre Einrichtungen, Institute und Organisationen sagen. In denen für sie offenbar so wichtigen Bestrebungen, stets "weltweit führend" und so für potentielle Geldgeber attraktiv zu sein, geht es ihnen in ihren Publikationen immer mehr um Selbstvermarktung als um demokratisch motivierte Forschungskommunikation. Verstärkt wird diese Entwicklung natürlich von den kommerziellen sozialen Medien, in denen nicht nur Institute, sondern auch Einzelpersonen sich als "Brand" vermarkten können.
Bei den Artikeln, die nicht Werbung sind und trotzdem gratis im Netz zugänglich sind, stellen sich andere Hindernisse in den Weg. So gut wie alle Publikationen wollen uns nur ihre Artikel lesen lassen, wenn wir unsere Internetaktivitäten von ihnen und anderen oft dubiosen Akteuren überwachen lassen.
Dark Pattern: Ablehnen nicht so leicht möglich. Viele Medien wollen sich unsere Zustimmung zur Überwachung erschleichen
Laut GDPR müssen sie von uns die Zustimmung zur Überwachung einholen. Die Möglichkeit, die Überwachung abzulehnen, geben sie uns jedoch nicht so leicht. Viele Extra-Klicks und ein waches Auge sind notwendig, um nicht auf ihre Tricks hereinzufallen, mit denen sie sich unsere Zustimmung zur Überwachung erschleichen wollen.
Illegal: Vorausgefülltes Ja zur Überwachung der Nutzer bei der Frankfurter Allgemeinen (FAZ).
Manche Publikationen sind hier besonders dreist. Dem Spiegel, der Zeit und dem Standard zum Beispiel reicht die Zustimmung, dass sie uns mit Cookies überwachen dürfen, nicht.
Sie verlangen auch, dass wir sämtliche Browser-Erweiterungen, die uns vor Schad- und Spionsoftware schützen, ausschalten.
Vermutlich auch illegal: Erzwungenes Tracking beim Standard
Wie ich haben eine wachsende Anzahl von Internetnutzern eingesehen, dass es unverantwortlich ist, im Internet ohne Werbe- und Trackingblocker unterwegs zu sein. Uns lassen Der Spiegel, Die Zeit und der Standard erst gar nicht rein. Wir sind Opfer kommerzieller Zensur.
Macht es da noch Sinn – oder Spass-, weiter auf Deutsch zu bloggen?
Die Google News Suche, die mich stets zu Login-Boxen führte, empfinde ich als reine Zeitverschwendung. Und will ich in meinen Blogposts Artikel verlinken, die sich auf mit Trackern verseuchten Webseiten befinden? Solche Fragen habe ich mir in der letzten Zeit oft gestellt.
Ich werde mich nun mal wieder etwas systematischer im Netz umschauen, wie man sich abseits der kommerziellen Webseiten auf Deutsch über sozial- und kulturanthropologische Forschung informieren kann. Wie sieht es an den Instituten aus? Engagieren sich anthropologische Organisationen? Gibt es gute Zeitschriften im Netz? Und sonst? Podcasts? Youtube-Channels? Für Tipps bin ich immer dankbar.
Bis vor etwa fünf bis zehn Jahren habe ich regelmäßig hier auf antropologi.info über Nachrichten aus dem Fach berichtet. Aufgrund Änderungen privater und beruflicher Natur blieb in den letzten Jahren für die Webseite nur wenig Zeit. Den zahlreichen Corona-Lockdowns sei…
When graduate student Ahmed Samir Santawy December last year arrived at Sharm el-Sheikh airport from Vienna (where he studies at the Central European University), he was taken aside by the National Security Agency and questioned about his research. One month later, his family home in Cairo was raided, and the security forces looked through the family’s phones. As Ahmed Samir was not present, the NSA officers told his family to send him to the police station as soon as he’s back.
The anthropologist went to the police station on January 30 and 1st of February. Since then, nobody has seen him anymore. He never returned.
Forced disappearance are usually defined as cases when a state actor or collaborator secretly abducts or imprisons a person and refuses to acknowledge their fate or whereabouts. In Egypt, forced disappearances have become a common way for the regime to deal with its (perceived) opponents and critics.
In Egypt, the case of the Italian PhD student Giulio Regeni from the University of Cambridge is maybe the most famous one internationally. Regini was researching workers’ rights in Egypt. Five years ago, while on his way to meet a friend in downtown Cairo, he disappeared. More than one week later his dead body was found on the side of a highway on the outskirts of Cairo bearing marks of severe torture.
But it is only one year ago when another academic, the Egyptian Erasmus student Patrick George Zaki who was pursuing a master’s degree at the University of Bologna, was arrested from the Cairo airport and forcibly disappeared, beaten, stripped, and electrocuted on his back and his stomach, and threatened with rape. "A new Zaki case in Egypt" was therefore the headline when Italian news wrote about Ahmed Samir Santawy*s dispperance two days ago.
Ahmed Samir Santawy reappeared a few days ago, frightened and with a swollen face, he was beaten. He was not with his family, though, but behind the bars of the State Security Prosecution of Cairo. He was – as the other journalists, researchers and activists before him – charged for joining a terrorist group and dissemination of false information. He has been ordered held in remand for 15 days by the State Security Prosecution.
Tweet by the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA)
EASA writes:
The European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) is deeply concerned by the detention without charge of Mr Ahmed Samir Abd El-Hai Ali, a Sociology and Social Anthropology Masters student at Central European University, Vienna, by Egyptian security services in Cairo. Mr Abd El-Hai Ali is a researcher and student of good standing, working on the history of reproductive law and policy in Egypt.
EASA urges the government of Egypt to take all steps necessary to ensure Ahmed’s swift and safe release, that his legal rights are respected and that he is afforded all legal assistance necessary.
(…)
As scholarly associations with a combined membership of more than 20,000 worldwide, we are committed to the principles of academic freedom and freedom of expression in a democratic society. Our Associations stand for advancing understanding of the human condition through anthropological research, and for applying this understanding to addressing some of the world’s most pressing problems. As an Egyptian student pursuing his Master’s degree in anthropology at Central European University in Vienna, Ahmed is making significant scholarly contributions to help build these bridges of understanding.
We strongly urge the Egyptian Ministry of Interior to do what it can to effect Mr. Samir’s release and safe return to his family. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if we can provide additional information.
PS: He is both called Ahmed Samir Santawy and Ahmed Samir Abd El-Hai and Ahmed Samir Abdelhay Ali – Arab names are a complicated matter!
PPS: Embedding of Tweets did not work well on all devices, I replaced them with screenshots
Ahmed has been involved in several projects with human rights organizations and NGOs in Egypt as a vocal human rights defender. Ahmed’s case is the latest in a series of cases of students being harassed and forcefully detained by Egyptian authorities.
Forced disappearance is a threat to those that oppose regimes. In Southeast Asia, forced disappearance has long been a tool for dictatorial regimes to silence critics. For example, in the Thai case, in the past 5 years, there have been 10 dissidents abducted, forcedly disappeared and killed. The disappearance of Ahmed Samir Abdehay Ali reflected this trend of state crimes across the region.
UPDATES: He was released by presidential decree on July 30, 2022 and now has successfully defended his Master's thesis :Following Unjust Imprisonment, Ahmed Samir Santawy Completes Master’s Studies at CEU (28.9.2023) but the Egyptian authorities have imposed an arbitrary…
One month ago I have written about anthropologist Kareem Ahmady, who has researched child marriage, female genital mutilation (FGM) and sexuality in Iran, before:
Eventually, in a bitterly cold, dark night, I embarked on a journey. Every hour of that unforgettable night, with every path that opened before me through the tough route, I wondered whether there are any roads more impassable than prejudice, ignorance, tyranny and isolation from the rest of the world.
Kurds are known to have no friends but mountains; on the night of my departure, with no lantern to light my path but the white snow, I realized again that the mountains were giving me a shelter and aiding me to start a new beginning with even stronger determination. (…)
What I have been through for the past one and a half years, is the story of a sad tragedy whose sequence, although real, is unbelievable. The Revolutionary Guard security system intended to introduce me as one of the main tools of the “infiltration scenario”. (…) They had come to the conclusion that I had been trained as a teenager for the purpose of infiltration and overthrowing the system.
Ahmady who is a British-Iranian dual national is now safe in the UK. In Iran he was sentenced to nine years prison. In the verdict that he put online (in English!), we read on the first page:
Kameel Ahmady has been acting as a senior expert in sociology and anthropology, directing the propagation of western principles and weakening Sharia/lawful rules and fundamentals in the field of family and marriage, and promoting the necessity to adopt western and humanist values. He was under observation by the Intelligence Organisation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)
And on page 10:
Generally, it can be said that increasing the age of marriage for children is one of the strategies of the enemy for weakening and ruining the family system; andthat Mr Kameel Ahmady is one of the leaders in the implementation of this strategy in Iran.
And finally:
Ahmady communicated with anti-revolution and problematic institutes and foundations and travelled to occupied Palestinian territories. A teaser, pepper spray, alcohol to the value of alcohol were discovered by Iranian customs (3150000 Rials), as well asother available evidences and documentation. His crime is proved.
Short time after he was everywhere in the news, among others in The New York Times. In an interview with the BBC he said he left without telling anyone but his immediate family:
"I just simply left. I packed my bag with a shaving kit, a few books of mine, and a laptop. And warm clothes, because I knew I had to smuggle myself out of that train in the mountains. It was very cold, very long, very dark and very scary.
In an interview with The Guardian he nevertheless expressed slight optimism and said he would like to have a role in helping create a dialogue.:
“The Islamic regime is run by a small minority, the so-called hardliners, but that generation of leaders are dying out.
“Most people, those not making a living from high politics, corruption, are not reformers or fundamentalists but people who want to see change. There is a hint of hope after the years of hardship and sanctions that have brought people to their knees and crippled the economy.
“If negotiations restart, it’s very important that Iranian civil society and opposition groups are heard on issues like human rights. Nothing good ever came out of conflict and fanaticism, and I say that from personal experience.”
Four women have separately claimed to the Guardian that he assaulted them, and others have made allegations of repeated sexual harassment. (…)
Ahmady said in a statement that the accusations were “baseless slander” organised by professional rivals and the Iranian state in an attempt to smear him and undermine his work. He also said two accusers had been in consensual relationships with him.
SEE EARLIER ON ANTROPOLOGI.INFO with more information about Kameel Ahmady’s research:
Kareem Ahmady: "I just simply left". Photo: Ahmady's website
One month ago I have written about anthropologist Kareem Ahmady, who has researched child marriage, female genital mutilation (FGM) and sexuality in Iran, before:
Iran jails anthropologist for "subversive research", "seeking…
