search expand

33. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Völkerkunde

30.9-3.10.09 Frankfurt am Main

Die DGV-Tagung 2009 wird vom 30. September bis zum 03. Oktober 2009 unter dem Titel “Kulturelle Aneignungen: Anpassung – Anverwandlung – Camouflage” an der Goethe Universität Frankfurt a. M. in Kooperation mit dem Frobenius Institut und dem Institut für Ethnologie statt finden.

Während ältere ethnologische Ansätze vorrangig an den Formen des Widerstands gegen kulturelle Außeneinflüsse interessiert waren, rücken neuerdings Strategien der aktiven Auseinandersetzung mit den Herausforderungen der Globalisierung in den Fokus ethnographischer Forschung. Sie sollen auch im Mittelpunkt der kommenden DGV-Tagung zum Thema „Kulturelle Aneignungen“ stehen.

Unter Anverwandlung wird dabei der selektive Umgang mit Kulturimporten sowohl materieller als auch ideeller Art verstanden, die nicht einfach übernommen, sondern an tradierte Lebensformen adaptiert und mit alternierenden Bedeutungen versehen werden. Im Gegensatz zu diesen Formen kultureller Nostrifizierung erfolgt die Anpassung an dominierende Ordnungen als Bruch mit den eigenen Überlieferungen, der – sofern er scheitert – oft forcierte Retraditionalisierungsbemühungen zur Folge hat. Unter dem Begriff Camouflage schließlich lässt sich eine Strategie fassen, die sich den von außen erhobenen Forderungen nur scheinbar beugt, um damit Spielräume zur Verfolgung traditioneller Zielsetzungen zu schaffen.

Mehr Informationen: http://tagung2009.dgv-net.de/

30.9-3.10.09 Frankfurt am Main

Die DGV-Tagung 2009 wird vom 30. September bis zum 03. Oktober 2009 unter dem Titel "Kulturelle Aneignungen: Anpassung - Anverwandlung - Camouflage" an der Goethe Universität Frankfurt a. M. in Kooperation mit dem Frobenius Institut und…

Read more

“Løfter debatten om majoritet og minoriteter opp på et høyere nivå”

Forfatterne av boka Adskillelsens politikk mener monokulturalisme og multikulturalisme er like forkastelig. “Alt i alt er det en storartet bok”, skriver Thomas Hylland Eriksen i Morgenbladet.

Han er ikke enig i alt Jens-Martin Eriksen og Frederik Stjernfelt skriver, men mener de “lykkes i å løfte debatten om majoritet og minoriteter opp på et høyere refleksjonsnivå enn det som er vanlig”.

Bokens primære mål, skriver antropologen, er å argumentere mot kulturalismen – altså det syn at mennesker er formet av sin kultur og at politikken også må basere seg på kulturelle gruppeidentiteter. Den politiske formen blir enten nasjonalistisk eller multikulturalistisk. En ekstrem form for denne kulturalismen er apartheid.

Mot denne sosiale ontologien setter Eriksen og Stjernfelt en liberal posisjon der politikk dreier seg om felles anliggender uavhengig av folks bakgrunn. Kultur (inkludert religion) skal være en privatsak. De går inn for “et samfunn der det er en felles fremtid og ikke fragmenterende, mytiske fortider som utgjør grunnlaget for solidaritet og tilhørighet”.

>> les hele saken i Morgenbladet

Boka er tidligere blitt omtalt i Morgenbladet, se Går til angrep på kulturalismen. Den kom opprinnelig ut på dansk, se bl.a. aneldelser i Politiken, Jyllands-Posten og Kulturkapellet

På Eurozine fant jeg Eriksen og Stjernfelts tekst Culturalism: Culture as political ideology

Jeg har formulert en lignende kritikk i min tekst Finnes det kulturer?: “Mens rasister tror at det ikke kommer noe godt av når “forskjellige kulturer” møtes, så tror multikulturalister at “andre kulturer” er en “berikelse”. Men begge argumenter er egentlig like rasistiske.”

SE OGSÅ:

Skal vi slutte å snakke om kultur?

Multikulturalisme – en ideologi for de privilegerte?

Kritiserer undervurdering av klasseforskjeller i innvandringsdebatten

Rosengård: “Snakk heller om makt enn kultur”

For en multikulturalisme uten kultur

Æresdrap og dovaner: Kun innvandrere har kultur

The Five Major Challenges for Anthropology

Forfatterne av boka Adskillelsens politikk mener monokulturalisme og multikulturalisme er like forkastelig. "Alt i alt er det en storartet bok", skriver Thomas Hylland Eriksen i Morgenbladet.

Han er ikke enig i alt Jens-Martin Eriksen og Frederik Stjernfelt skriver, men mener…

Read more

Army-Anthropologists call Afghans “Savages”?

READ THE COMMENTS BELOW – AND THE UPDATE “Army-Anthropologists don’t call Afghans “Savages”

Do you want to know what anthropologists who work for the US military in Afghanistan write about the people America is at war with? I resist to believe it but according to the Sydney Morning Herald they call some Afghan societies “utter savages”.

Here is an excerpt from the report:

“The Zadran have been written up as a small tribe, but they are the biggest in the south-east. Their manners resemble the Waziris [who straddle the nearby border with Pakistan] and the Kharotis [also concentrated in the east], from which we may infer that they are utter savages. They live in small villages … they are great robbers and their country was a refuge for bad characters.”

Sydney Morning Herald correspondent David Brill who has travelled to Afghanistan’s south-east talked to an anonymous American analyst who refuses to endorse the report’s terminology and can’t believe what he is reading there.

Thomas Ruttig, a member of the Afghanistan Analysts Network, is also “shocked by the anthropologists’ assessment of the locals as savages” and says:

“I have been working in Afghanistan for 25 years. They might look like savages, but they have a sophisticated political understanding. ‘There is great hostility to the Americans, but it is not because the people are savages.”

The ”savage’s” point, and Ruttig’s, is that America’s military tactics have created so much local hostility that it has become difficult, if not impossible, for the locals to accept the US presence and what Washington calls “aid”. The “savages” told Ruttig that they had no option but to join a tribal uprising after a controversial civilian “casualty” (meaning the locals were killed by Americans)

>> read the whole story in the Sydney Morning Herald

A few days ago, anthropologist Hugh Gusterson explained Why the war in Afghanistan cannot be won (by the Americans, I assume)

PS: Maybe this issue makes more sense when we remember what the researchers in militarized institutions like the Centre for Studies in Islamism and Radicalisation write about “Americas enemy”.

UPDATE: Much new information: “Army-Anthropologists don’t call Afghans “Savages”

SEE ALSO:

Humain Terrain anthropologist attacked in Afghanistan has died

How the Human Terrain System anthropologists think

Cooperation between the Pentagon and anthropologists a fiasco?

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

“Anthropology = Smarter Counterinsurgency”

The dangerous militarisation of anthropology

Thesis: The limits of youth activism in Afghanistan

War in Iraq: Why are anthropologists so silent?

READ THE COMMENTS BELOW - AND THE UPDATE "Army-Anthropologists don't call Afghans "Savages"

Do you want to know what anthropologists who work for the US military in Afghanistan write about the people America is at war with? I resist…

Read more

France asks anthropologist for advice on burqa-ban

France banned burqas in public schools in 2004. Now, a parliamentary commission is investigating a possible ban on burqas in public places and anthropology professor John Bowen was asked to testify on this matter, Student Life and New York Times report.

As far as I know, anthropologists aren’t very visible in public debates in France.

Bowen is the author of the book Why the French don’t like Headscarves.

According to Bowen only a few hundred women in France wear burqas. A ban, though, could potentially have a profound impact on some of those women which means they would dissappear from public spaces and stay at home.

Bowen considers it highly unlikely that a ban would ever pass. “I think that French politicians will find that it would be absurd to create a set of clothing police to decide whether what a woman is wearing on the street counts as a burqa or a niqab…or just a headscarf.”

>> read the whole story in Student Life

>> Interview with Bowen in French on nonfiction.fr

I’ve collected some Bowen related links on my earlier post Why the French Don’t Like Headscarves. There are several papers on Bowen’s website.

SEE ALSO:

Thesis: Hijab empowers women

Lila Abu-Lughod: It’s time to give up the Western obsession with veiled Muslim women

Phd-Thesis: That’s why they embrace Islam

France banned burqas in public schools in 2004. Now, a parliamentary commission is investigating a possible ban on burqas in public places and anthropology professor John Bowen was asked to testify on this matter, Student Life and New York…

Read more

What has anthropology taught you?

(LINKS UPDATED 5.1.2021) A friend of mine sent me a link to the website of the Norwegian migration researcher Jørgen Carling www.dragoeiro.comIt has an unusually nice design, but what I’m even more impressed about is the section “Research findings”. Here, he lists selected findings from his own research on migration in a very simple but convincing manner like

“It is misleading to say that the ‘total effect’ of labour emigration is either positive or negative for a given country.”

or

“We are living in an era of involuntary immobility”

followed by a short explanation and link to the relevant publication.

I haven’t seen something like this on other websites, it looks like a great way to present one’s own research – and it might be even a good exercise for the reasearcher: What have I learnt through my research? What has anthropology taught me? Yes, what would you answer?

(LINKS UPDATED 5.1.2021) A friend of mine sent me a link to the website of the Norwegian migration researcher Jørgen Carling www.dragoeiro.comIt has an unusually nice design, but what I'm even more impressed about is the section "Research findings".…

Read more