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Schiffauer: “Man sollte ein Bekenntnis zum Grundwertekatalog verlangen”

Published on March 26, 2006 by lorenz Posted in Deutschland, Oesterreich, Schweiz, Ethnologie Sozialanthropologie Kulturanthropologie, Migration Integration, Wir und die Anderen

In einem Interview mit dem Deutschlandfunk sagt Ethnologe Werner Schiffauer, dass Integration nicht durch Einbürgerungsfragebögen ermittelt werden kann. Ein Bekenntnis zu dem Grundwertekatalog sei allerdings ratsam, da er das Selbstverständnis der Gesellschaft widerspiegele. Schiffauer plädierte außerdem für das kommunale Wahlrecht fuer Auslaender.

Er sagte u.a.:

Man sollte ein Bekenntnis zum Grundwertekatalog verlangen und man sollte den Grundwertekatalog vermitteln. Das Problem der Diskussion im Augenblick ist, dass man diese ganzen Sachen fokussiert und zu einem Misstrauensdiskurs gegen eine ganz spezifische Bevölkerung wendet. Und das ist nun wirklich, im Bezug auf die Identifikationsbemühungen, wirklich kontraproduktiv. Der Punkt ist, dass man, wenn man einer Bevölkerung Misstrauen entgegenbringt, man tatsächlich die Identifikation verhindert.

(…)

Wir dürfen uns von Einbürgerungssachen, Fragebögen, aber auch Bekenntnissen zur Verfassung, nicht versprechen, dass wir solche Probleme [Ehrenmorde, Zwangsheiraten etc] in den Griff bekommen. (…)
Hier finden andere Mechanismen statt. Sie sind Ausdruck einer Migrantenkultur, die sich in sich selbst zurückzieht aus ganz verschiedenen Gründen, die aber mit der Herkunftskultur wenig zu tun haben, statt. Wir wissen es ja, dass Einwanderer oft konservativer sind als im Heimatland, einfach weil sie sich gegen die Mehrheitsgesellschaft meinen verteidigen zu müssen. Und hier führt zusätzlicher Druck oft ganz kontraproduktiv wieder dazu, dass die Leute ihre Borsten aufstellen, dass sie in Verteidigungshaltung et cetera gehen und sich tatsächlich zurückziehen. Und all das ist der Boden, wo tatsächlich solche Probleme aufkommen können.

>> zum Interview im Deutschlandfunk

SIEHE AUCH:

Ethnologe Werner Schiffauer über Hintergründe von Verbrechen im Namen der Ehre

Einwanderung, Stadtentwicklung und die Produktion von “Kulturkonflikten”

Einbürgerung – offizielle Seite mit Infos

Einbürgerung: Kauder kündigt bundeseinheitliche Regeln an (Spiegel, 22.3.06)

Einbürgerung: Bundesländer lehnen „Gesinnungstest” für Muslime ab (faz, 6.1.06)

Hätten Sie es gewußt? Fragen aus dem Einbürgerungstest (faz, 15.3.06)

“Ooohhh … Vaterland!” Der russische Schriftsteller Wladimir Kaminer füllt den Frageborgen aus (taz, 1.4.06)

Telemarkskua, bygdeliv og næringsutvikling

Published on March 26, 2006 by lorenz Posted in Kultur tradisjon kunnskap, Norge, økonomi, sosialantropologi i Norge, Sverige og Danmark, turisme

Dag og Tid skriver om forskningsprosjektet natur- og kulturbasert næringsutvikling i Telemark der antropolog Dag Jørund Lønning kartlegger hvordan Telemarkskua kan spille en rolle i næringsutvikling i Telemark.

15.–16. juni arrangeres det en stor internasjonal konferanse i Seljord: «Bygdeliv 2006. Kulturlandskapet og kulturell identitet». 17. juni er det så festdag i Kviteseid, der det skal avdukes en bronseskulptur av ei telemarksku i full størrelse med kronprinsparet til stede.

Antropologen forklarer:

– Telemarksfeet er omspunne av mytar og mange soger. Her er innslag av soger om tussekyr som kom inn i flokken, her er forteljingar om korleis telemarksfeet varslar vêret ved å te seg på visse måtar, og soger om klokskapen hjå desse dyra. Sogene skal no samlast inn og nyttast mellom anna i reiselivssamanheng. Sogene gjev meirverdi til Telemark som reiselivsprodukt. Det er utsikter til at telemarksfeet vil få sitt eige museum òg, eller lat oss kalla det opplevingssenter – i Seljord.

>> les hele saken i Dag og Tid

SE OGSÅ:

Dag Jørund Lønning: Fra palestinsk aktivisme til merkevarebygging i Telemark

Dag Jørund Lønning: Stemningar til sals: Landskap som ressurs i kulturøkonomien

Lanserer Telemarkskua i Europa. Telemarkskua er eit viktig symbol for fylket vårt, sier Dag Jørund Lønning

Dag Jørund Lønning: Tankar om ungdom og Bygdenoreg i ei brytningstid (pdf)

15.–16. juni arrangeres det en stor internasjonal konferanse i Seljord: «Bygdeliv 2006. Kulturlandskapet…

Too engaged anthropology? The Lumpenproletariat on the US-Mexican Border

Published on March 26, 2006 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, applied anthropology, books, ethics, migration, Northern America, poverty, Us and Them

“The most important information, which we can get out of this study, is how and what kind of action one can take.”

How much should anthropologists get involved in changing the lives of their informants? Johannes Wilm didn’t limit his research to presenting his findings about the daily life in in Douglas, an US-mexican border town. In his conclusion of his book On the Margins: US Americans in a bordertown to Mexico, he considers several forms for action.

The challenge: More than half of the 14000 inhabitants in Douglas are unemployed, 53% of the under 18 years old are officially living under the poverty line. The main source of income for the town: Smuggling of people and drugs. He proposes among others:

Constantly high unemployment figures can tell us, that an organization of the lumpenproletariat is neccessary in the planning of a world revolution or some more localized struggle for a democratic and economically just society.

It becomes obvious that Wilm works within a Marxist framework. He is an peace and media activist and has been socialized through the globalisation from below movement.

People in bordertowns are especially skilled, he found:

Also, in a border town, knowledge is spread according to a much more heterogeneous pattern, and a group of people cooperating across the various barriers will therefore be likely to build up a great amount of knowledge of how to circumvent the power apparatus of either of the involved states. Just for this, in the planning of a cross-national or global change, towns like Douglas should not be ignored.

In bordertowns, we find more ethnic diversity than in other areas. This might be a hinder? Wilm denies:

While ethnic diversity often has been seen as a hinder to organisation, it seems that combined with unemployment, its force is not as negative. In cases where people are forced to live close together and each person only has access to a part of the things seen as desirable (…), it even integrates rather than segregates.

The inhabitants with Mexican background are often “the better Americans”:

And while lots of Hispanics with strong personal ties to Mexico in Douglas seem to believe in the “American way of life”, it is Anglos that are the first ones to actively break out of the hegemonic space once they have the chance. (…) It is Anglos that represent resistance and not Hispanics.

He quotes an Hispanic father who has returned from the war in Iraq:

“Seen to many dead children”, he explains, while he almost seems to start to cry. However, he finds time commenting on the amount of Anglos in the military. “I guess white people don’t like serving their country that much” as he puts it.

Generally, he found, that ethnicity / race or class don’t play a role in the daily life in Douglas. That’s due to the economic crisis in his view:

Even though Douglas has had a history of segregation based on ethnicity, the complete lack of any kind of job for vast proportions of the population, and consequently the prevalence of the lumpenproletariat, has also done away with the ethnic model of stratification. None of my Anglo informants are in any position of power due to their ethnic background.

(…)

Had I been in Douglas during the good days of American capitalism, while Phelps Dodge still was there, they would have been strictly segregated according to race in the earlier period, or according to income layer in the latter period. Keoki, Art and Tim, all with somewhat more of an intellectual background also find themselves in this classless society in which everyone is part of the lumpenproletariat.

While I agree that advocacy is one of anthropologists’ jobs, we should, I think, be cautious about presenting final solutions as he does when he describes the problems connected with organizing people:

(…) A fourth problem (…), the amount of Marxist or anarchist literature read by the members of the lumpenproletariat seems quite low, and is often replaced by the Bible, Adam Smith or, in the case of the cultural elite, various critics who are looking at single issues. This means that agitation has to start from the very beginning.
(…) What has to be done, is to develop a generic psychologic strategy to win over people with background from “serving the nation”.

>> more information on the book

>> download the whole book (pdf, 30 MB )

"The most important information, which we can get out of this study, is how and what kind of action one can take."

How much should anthropologists get involved in changing the lives of their informants? Johannes Wilm didn't limit his research…

Danske tilstander i Norge

Published on March 25, 2006 by lorenz Posted in innvandring migrasjon, media, Norge, sosialantropologi i Norge, Sverige og Danmark, vi og de andre

Ønsker vi danske tilstander i innvandringsdebatten i Norge? Dette var tema for en debatt i Oslo igår. Danske tilstander i Norge heter tilfeldigvis også kommentaren min i den nye utgaven av avisa Utrop. Den begynner slik:

En sint araber truer oss på forsida. “Innvandring er vår tids største utfordring”, forklarer bildeteksten. Lenger inne i bladet varsler Ole Jørgen Anfindsen en borgerkrig og Sigurd Skirbekk advarer: “Snart er nordmenn en minoritet i sitt eget land”. “Noen ganger er vestlige verdier best”, fastslår redaktøren i lederen. Nei, det er ikke utklipp fra FrPs partiavis. Heller ikke fra Human Rights Service sine rapporter. Sitatene stammer fra Dagbladets nye satsing, nyhetsmagasinet Memo.

>> les hele teksten “Danske tilstander i Norge”

SE OGSÅ:
Allierer seg med ytre høyre: Dagbladets nye kampanje mot innvandrerforskningen

En sint araber truer oss…

How To Present A Paper – or Can Anthropologists Talk?

Published on March 24, 2006 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, notes

My wishlist:

1. Tell us your main points and findings before you start (“I will show that the Earth is flat” or so) and sum up your paper at the end.

2. Tell us why we should listen to you. Yes, it’s interesting that you have studied childhood in India. But why can your research be interesting or relevant for us who are not specialists in your field? What new insights does your paper give regarding general theories in anthropology and being a human?

3. 20 minutes are 20 minutes. Stop talking when your time is over. Check the length of your presentation a few days before the conference, so that you avoid struggling with the introduction few minutes before your time is over.

4. Don’t read from your paper. Talk to and with your audience! By reading from your paper you show disrespect to your audience. This is the most important point and can’t be stressed enough. Many speakers at conferences and seminars don’t bother presenting their papers in a way that is understandable for us who came to listen. We have discussed anthropological writing. Maybe we should also talk about anthropological talking. Anthropologists can’t write. Maybe they can’t talk either.

UPDATE 1:

Steve Portigal, a customer research consultant using ethnography, has written a brilliant post about his experiences at academic conferences, among others about a conference with both anthropologists and designers.

Meanwhile, the theory presentations emerged. And here we saw the academic tradition, I believe, where instead of a presentation or a talk, a paper was delivered. Several people in a row stood in, some without any visual aids, and read. For forty-five minutes. They read. At least one person had the ability to jump in and out of his text, make eye contact, and spontaneously offer up a clarification or a hand gesture. But others simply read. It was horrifying. The density of prose was (as with the 7-minute DUX example above) way beyond my ability to parse and it was boring and not engaging.

(…)

But back to the reading. What the hell? Is this standard? How is this a way to convey information or start a dialog? I got a lot of grumbling from my colleagues about this; some would have rather read the paper on their own time, rather than coming a great distance to watch someone else read it. Others just stopped coming into the sessions.

A common experience: The speakers go over time. Five minutes before their offical time is over, they still struggle with their introduction. I always wondered why they haven’t checked the length of their presentations before.

Steve Portigal writes:

(…)
a read paper could not be modified when time ran out, and so facilitators inched closer to presenters in the hopes of having them wrap things up, but no, darn it, I’ve written these 20000 words and I’m going to spit them at you regardless of what time it is. The emphasis was not on making connections between people and other people and ideas. It was really a drag.

>> read the whole post by Steve Portigal

UPDATE 2:

Denise Carter comments:

Reading How To Present A Paper – or Can Anthropologists Talk? had me nodding along in agreement at the wishlist.
(…)
I’ve had some experience of conference presentations in various parts of the world with poor presentations that had left me bored and fidgety. Hence I have already decided NOT to write a paper, but instead, to write a presentation around my topic ‘Order and Disorder in the Virtual City’. My intention is that a fruitful and enlightening dialogue will emerge that will clarify some of my ideas – resulting in a more rounded and polished paper that will address some important issues.

>> read the whole post

UPDATE 3:

Links updated 17.9.2021

My wishlist:

1. Tell us your main points and findings before you start ("I will show that the Earth is flat" or so) and sum up your paper at the end.

2. Tell us why we should listen to you. Yes, it's…