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– Arabiske friskoler er et fristed for barna

Skolene blir beskyldt for å være fundamentalistiske koranskoler. Men hvordan har barna det og hvorfor har foreldrene valgt bort folkeskolen? Disse spørsmålene har antropolog Gry Thorsen undersøkt i sitt “speciale”, leser vi i Information.

Etter fire måneders feltarbeid på en arabisk friskole i København er hun blitt klar over at folkeskolen ikke nødvendigvis er det beste alternativet for etniske minoritetselever i det danske utdanningssystemet.

Antropologen fant ut at den arabiske friskolen er et fristed for barna: Her slipper de å bli sett på som annerledes:

Mange af børnene har erfaringer med mobning i folkeskolen, og næsten alle har oplevet, at der konstant bliver stillet spørgsmål ved deres identitet. Friskolerne bliver derfor et fristed for mange af børnene, fordi de her kan få lov til bare at være børn i stedet for etnisk eller religiøst anderledes”

På friskolen får det enkelte barn flere muligheder for at udfolde sin identitet, fordi etnicitet bliver mindre afgørende for børnenes position, end den gør i den danske folkeskole, hvor børnene først og fremmest kategoriseres som minoriteter.

Der bliver lagt meget vægt på danskhed i folkeskolen, men det fokus gør, at mange af de her børn bliver låst fast i nogle forudfattede positioner, som kan være meget svære at komme ud af.

Noe som kanskje er overraskende er at mange foreldre helst ville sendt barna til folkeskolen – hvis barna kunne lære arabisk:

Mange af børnene og deres forældre ville hellere vælge folkeskolen, hvis der var mulighed for at lære arabisk. Derfor kan det godt undre, at man har afskaffet modersmålsundervisningen. Undersøgelser viser jo, at modersmålet er udgangspunkt for al anden læring. Nogle af børnene taler både dårligt dansk og dårligt arabisk, og det er et stort problem, hvis børnene hverken kan få forklaret et matematikstykke på dansk eller arabisk, så de kan forstå det.

>> les hele saken i Information

Flere andre antropologer har forsket på muslimske friskoler, bl.a. Annette Ihle, se – Muslimske friskoler er bedre enn folkeskolen og Åsa Aretun, se Doktoravhandling: Forskjellene mellom offentlige og muslimske skoler er overdrevet. Å si noe positivt om islam er blitt farlig i disse dager. Åsa Aretun trengte politibeskyttelse for å forsvare doktoravhandlingen sin

Skolene blir beskyldt for å være fundamentalistiske koranskoler. Men hvordan har barna det og hvorfor har foreldrene valgt bort folkeskolen? Disse spørsmålene har antropolog Gry Thorsen undersøkt i sitt "speciale", leser vi i Information.

Etter fire måneders feltarbeid på en…

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Antropolog disputerer om Sveriges pensjonsreform

En antropolog som studerer pensjonsreformer? Er ikke dette en sak for jurister og økonomer? Nei da. Anette Nyqvist har skrevet en doktoravhandling om temaet som hun skal forsvare neste uke, melder Stockholms universitet.

Ved å studere reformene ville hun finne ut mer om omformingen av velferdsstaten der markedskreftene har fått større spillerom. Rollene mellom staten og innbyggerne er ikke lenger de samme.

Nyqvist har vært på feltarbeid blant politikere, eksperter, teknokrater, byråkrater og blant ’vanliga medborgare’ .

Hun forteller:

– Sveriges nya pensionssystem ses här som en ’politisk teknologi’ med makt att omdana samhället genom medborgarna. Min studie visar hur olika sammankopplade teknologier inom det nya pensionssystemets konstruktion frambringar processer som avpolitiserar pensioner och förflyttar betydande ansvar till enskilda medborgare.
(…)
– Ett exempel är att den individuelle medborgaren nu har att hantera den ekonomiska risken och det ansvar för framtida pensioner som staten tidigare tog på sig.

>> les hele pressemeldingen

Disputasen finner sted på fredag 31. oktober, men av en eller annen grunn er avhandlingen allerede lagt ut på nett.

Se også tidligere omtale av Nyqvists forskning Hva sier det nye pensjonssystemet om vår kultur? Hvordan påvirker den vårt liv?

SE OGSÅ:

“Tilliten mellom mennesker og til staten gjør Norden så rik”

Er staten i ferd med å dø eller ikke? Hva innebærer dette for antropologien?

Debatt omkring Halvard Vikes bok “Velferd uten grenser”

Når velferdsstaten møter verden – ny bok

En antropolog som studerer pensjonsreformer? Er ikke dette en sak for jurister og økonomer? Nei da. Anette Nyqvist har skrevet en doktoravhandling om temaet som hun skal forsvare neste uke, melder Stockholms universitet.

Ved å studere reformene ville hun finne…

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Klarer urbefolkninger ikke å håndtere alkohol?

Dobbelt så mange aboriginer dør på grunn av alkoholrelaterte helseskader sammenlignet med den australske befolkningen forøvrig. Er dette fordi aboriginer og andre urbefolkninger rett og slett ikke kan håndtere alkohol? I en ny bok som heter “First Taste” slår antropolog Maggie Brady hull på myter om aboriginers forhold til alkohol, melder bladet Mana.

En utbredt myte som hun setter spørsmålstegn ved, er at alkoholmisbruket blant urbefolkninger har biologiske og ikke sosiale årsaker. Ifølge henne er dette tankegods som stammer fra kolonitida. Kolonistene mente at kun “siviliserte” mennesker hadde evnen til selvbeherskelse.

Antropologen tilbakeviser også myten om at aboriginerne ikke hadde drukket alkohol før deres land ble kolonisert av de hvite i slutten av 1700-tallet.

>> les hele saken i Mana

Antropologen har gitt ut en podcast om funnene sine, se First Taste History & Culture in Indigenous Alcohol Use

Det fins ikke mye av Maggie Brady på nett, men jeg fant tekstene Petrol sniffing among Aboriginals
Differing social meanings
og Where the beer truck stopped : Drinking in a Northern Australian town (rapport fra 1988!)

SE OGSÅ:

Public views of Aboriginees: Why talking about culture?

To mastergrader med fokus på unge kvinner og alkohol i u-land

– Helgefylla skyldes kristendom

Hva har filmen “Kautokeino-opprøret” med innvandringsdebatten og Afghanistankrigen å gjøre?

Dobbelt så mange aboriginer dør på grunn av alkoholrelaterte helseskader sammenlignet med den australske befolkningen forøvrig. Er dette fordi aboriginer og andre urbefolkninger rett og slett ikke kan håndtere alkohol? I en ny bok som heter "First Taste" slår…

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Accused of being CIA-spy: Anthropologist on fieldwork among Cambodian muslims

Are muslim communities getting more sceptical towards anthropologists? In an interview with Phnom Pen Post, anthropologist Bjørn Blengsli tells about his research among muslims in Cambodia – “one of the fastest-changing Muslim societies in the world”.

After September 11, he got arrested and expelled from the village and the district. He was accused of being one of “60 identified CIA spies”. (After a letter from the Ministry of Religion and meetings with undersecretaries of state, he could continue his research.)

Furthermore, Blengsli is concerned about reports of certain researchers who have pretended to convert to Islam in order to gain the confidence of Muslim informants. Muslims consider such people hypocrites, or munafiq – one who is more dangerous to Muslims than the enemies of Islam, he says. “I am afraid that this kind of devious behavior will negatively impact legitimate researchers in the future.”

Blengsli is especially interested in religious change and the impact of foreign donors on religious schooling. He found out that the schools’ religious content is closely linked to the type of religion practiced in the donor countries – often conservative Arab countries. Islamic schooling has led to a “growing sympathy for fundamentalist understandings of the faith and terrorism”.

In his opinion, secular education should be implemented in all Muslim schools:

The secular education among Muslims is still low when compared to that of the Khmer, with Muslim girls most disadvantaged in their pursuit of secular education. Increased knowledge not only about the Khmer society, but also the different sects within Islam is also imperative. As many as 99 percent of Muslim religious students believe there is only one correct interpretation of their religion and this is extremely dangerous.

>> read the whole interview

Earlier, he told Arab News:

In Cambodia … religious activists from the Arab world are arriving with a new view on religion and they preach an austere version of Islam. These organizations want to purify Cham Islamic practice by getting rid of the many influences from Buddhism.

He was also interviewed by the New York Times. He said:

‘This country is ripe for Muslim missionaries. They had to start all over again. They had no religious leaders, nothing. They lost almost everything — their script, their rituals, almost all their written material. They were left with a couple of myths. That’s why today a purification movement is so easy. They are very vulnerable, and a lot of people are coming into Cambodia and telling them how to change.

But he added that ”being fundamentalist does not mean being a terrorist.” And ”If you have radical, militant Muslims living in Cambodia, I have not seen any proof.”

SEE ALSO:

Protests against British research council: “Recruits anthropologists for spying on muslims”

“Arabs and Muslims should be wary of anthropologists”

Anthropology and CIA: “We need more awareness of the political nature and uses of our work”

Religious divide grows amid Thai unrest

Doctoral Thesis: Is Islam Compatible with Secularism?

Islam in Morocco: TV and Internet more important than mosques

Are muslim communities getting more sceptical towards anthropologists? In an interview with Phnom Pen Post, anthropologist Bjørn Blengsli tells about his research among muslims in Cambodia - "one of the fastest-changing Muslim societies in the world".

After September 11, he got…

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George Marcus: "Journals? Who cares?"

(LINKS UPDATED 20.5.2022) When George Marcus, one of the most influential anthropologists, was in Oslo recently, I asked him what he thinks about Open access. His answer surprised me. “Journals? Who cares?”, he replied. There is in his opinion little original thinking in journals, there are no longer exciting debates. “Maybe it’s because I’m getting older”, he said. “I don’t care.” He explained that “journals are meant to establish people”, to advance careers.

George Marcus offered similar pessimistic views in an interview in the journal Cultural Anthropology (subscription needed) in spring. Among other things, he said, that there are “no new ideas in anthropology”.

Maximilian Forte at Open Anthropology does not agree with Marcus and summarizes parts of the interview in his post George Marcus: “No New Ideas” (2.0) & the After-Life of Anthropology (1.1)

I mentioned Forte’s critique. Marcus replied “Of course Forte does not agree. Younger anthropologists are interested in progress and new ideas.”

Additionally, Marcus explained me his vision of the anthropologist as collaborator. Anthropologists should not study other people, but work together with them, and treat them as co-researcher. Nowadays, our informants may be interested in the same questions as the anthropologst, and they might even have studied anthropology as well. Marcus wrote an experimental book about the nobility in Portugal called Ocasião: The Marquis and the Anthropologist, A Collaboration.

George Marcus talkes about these issues in another interview in the Open Access journal After Culture, see Elise McCarthy, Valerie A. Olson: After Writing Culture: an interview with George Marcus.

See also the website of the Center of Ethnography that he has established and the website of the Anthropology of the Contemporary Research Collaboratory where there are lots of papers, among others Marcus’ Notes on the Contemporary Imperative to Collaborate, the Traditional Aesthetics of Fieldwork That Will Not Be Denied, and the Need for Pedagogical Experiment in the Transformation of Anthropology’s Signature Method – check also the 2020 update

George Marcus is best known for the books Writing Culture (edited together with James Clifford) and “Anthropology as a cultural critique” (written together with Michael Fischer)

For those of you who can read Norwegian, there’s an article by me on George Marcus here.

UPDATE: Peter Suber (Open access news) comments:

Did this transcript miss something or did George Marcus miss something? Even if we concede for the sake of argument that there are no new ideas in the field of anthropology, and that journals are more about advancing careers than advancing research, Marcus’ answer was not responsive. Apparently he thinks OA is all about journals, which it isn’t. It’s all about access, which may be through journals or repositories or many other vehicles (like wikis, ebooks, multimedia webcasts, P2P networks, RSS feeds…). It’s as if someone had asked, “What do you think about freedom of speech?” and he answered, “Public speaking? Who cares? It’s all grandstanding and vanity.”

Good point! I have to admit that Marcus was very busy and did not have much time for this interview – and I had lots of questions! We talked just a few minutes on Open Access while we we took the subway from the city up to the university campus at Blindern. He said he admires Chris Kelty’s work on open source and open access, but he does not seem to be up to date in regard to blogging, web2.0 etc (few anthropologists actually are, and most anthropologists have never heard of the Open Access movement)

ANOTHER UPDATE Dorothea Salo does not agree with Peter Suber. Yes, its about journals, she writes.

What is it we’re asking faculty to self-archive? Theses and dissertations, yes; (…) If we weren’t talking about the journal literature, why would repository-rats get so much flak (…) when we take in other things?

So follow Dr. Marcus’s train of thought here: if the journal literature isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, why would he waste time fighting for open access to it? There’s a lot to fight for in the world!

Interesting comment by Chris Kelty on journals:

I think George is right that journals are not where the action is—- and this is related to why I and others are so passionate about open access. Journals are increasingly getting slower, more clogged with submissions, finding it difficult to get reviewers, cash strapped and so on. And at the same time, getting published in a “good” journal (i.e. one with “prestige”) is getting more and more important for people who want permanent jobs in the academy.

the result is that the interesting debates and discussions have moved elsewhere… in some fields (though not anthropology, I fear) they have moved online and into the blogosphere. In others (anthropology I fear) they have retreated into departments and enclaves of other sorts, or have produced and increased sense of alienation from things.

(LINKS UPDATED 20.5.2022) When George Marcus, one of the most influential anthropologists, was in Oslo recently, I asked him what he thinks about Open access. His answer surprised me. "Journals? Who cares?", he replied. There is in his opinion…

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