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Anthropology in China: IUAES-conference boycott due to Uyghur massacre

Published on July 24, 2009 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, Asia, ethics, indigenous people / minorities, politics, Us and Them

(UPDATE 27.7.09: Chinese media propaganda at IUAES anthropology conference in Kunming? / UPDATE 30.7: IUAES-anthropologists “praise” Chinese government’s relation to minorities )
Last year, the conference was cancelled by the Chinese government for fear of protests. Next week, the 16th congress by the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES) finally will be held – but without the IUAES vice president Petr Skalník. He decided not to participate due to the recent massacre where several hundred Uyghurs were killed.

“I will not meet and shake hands with people who must be responsible for the above tragedy”, Skalnik writes in a letter to the State Ethnic Affairs Commission of the People´s Republic of China that he also emailed to a large number of anthropologists (and that was forwarded to me), hoping many will read it.

Two weeks ago, Skalnik received an invitation letter from the State Ethnic Affairs Commission, indicating that on July 26, on the eve of the 16th World Congress of International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES), “several IUAES high officials” will meet in Beijing with “a senior State leader of China”:

This invitation was a surprise to me as I was not at all planning to travel via through Beijing on my way to Kunming. No agenda for the meeting was mentioned except that it is „in honor of the IUAES leadership“.

At the same time as the letter was coming, there was this massacre happening in Urumqi:

Although this grave event directly touching the field of activities of your Commission, namely ethnic affairs, there were no signs either directly from PRC SEAC or from the Chinese Association of Anthropology and Ethnology.

My life experience of studying ethnic problems in other countries (e.g. South Africa, West Africa, Soviet Union and Europe) have taught me that conflicts of the size like that in Urumqi this July or Lhasa last year are not and cannot be caused just by some malicious plotters. There must be also a deal of responsibility on the side of the power holders, your Commission not excluded. However, no self-criticism and constructive proposal for remedy has come out from China till this very day.

Therefore, I have to turn down your invitation for the above ethical reasons. Human rights were served a crippling blow in Urumqi by apparently wrong analysis and heavy-handed response of the Chinese state, your Commission included. I will not meet and shake hands with people who must be responsible for the above tragedy. I will not accept reimbursement monies and other perks mentioned from the Chinese state. I protest in this way against policies which smack of demographic aggression and ethnocide.

I also will not participate in the Kunming congress (to be held next week, July 27-31, 2009) because I do not want to be part of overt and/or tacit legitimation of evidently erroneous handling of nationality question in China. As a person with a particularly strong IUAES loyalty who participated in almost all its congresses and other events starting from Permanent Council meeting in Prague back in 1962 I was very keen on participating and playing active role as a Distinguished Speaker, member of the Executive Council (EC) of IUAES, Czech member of the Permanent Council of IUAES, chairperson of the Commission on Theoretical Anthropology (COTA) and thrice paper giver. The above mentioned reasons, however, thwarted these intentions. Under present circumstance I would not feel free to express my thoughts and research findings.

He also indicates possible discrimination of Chinese scholars with ethnic minority background who were not able to register for the conference. Also some scholars from abroad were not able to obtain Chinese visa.

He closes with these lines:

I would like to emphasize that this letter was written by myself alone and I express my views freely as I did when I criticised apartheid policies in South Africa, misguided theories and practices in ethnic field in the Soviet Union or failure of American anthropologists to warn the then U.S. government of the adverse consequences of its war plans and acts in Iraq. Anthropologists and ethnologists by the nature of their work which includes ethics of research, respect for human life and culture, do not know of any „internal affairs“, especially if human rights are violated.

I have made a pdf of the documents, including the letter he sent by email.

UPDATE 27.7.09: Chinese media propaganda at IUAES anthropology conference in Kunming?

UPDATE 30.7.09: More propaganda: IUAES-anthropologists “praise” Chinese government’s relation to minorities (Xinhua 30.7.09)

Concerning the canceled conference, see China Cancels IAES (Savage Minds, 8.5.08) and Anthropology: a Taboo Topic in China? (Angry Chinese Blogger, 24.5.08).

(UPDATE 27.7.09: Chinese media propaganda at IUAES anthropology conference in Kunming? / UPDATE 30.7: IUAES-anthropologists "praise" Chinese government's relation to minorities )
Last year, the conference was cancelled by the Chinese government for fear of protests. Next week, the 16th…

Identity politics: Have anthropologists gone too far?

Published on July 24, 2009 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, indigenous people / minorities, persons and theories, Us and Them

Inspired by a lecture by Peter Geschiere, anthropologist Yara El-Ghadban discusses a difficult and central question in our discipline: How to deconstruct a notion without destroying the meaning that it has for people?

In order to challenge stereotypical Us-and-them-thinking, anthropologists show how notions like nationality, the nation state, ethnic group, race or culture are constructions. But for many people, belonging to “artifical” groups is extremly important. Anthropologists should therefore take people’s striving for belonging more seriously, Yara El-Ghadban writes:

Palestinians in diaspora have survived and continue to survive because they can still imagine being part of a shared homeland. Artificial or not, idealized or not, the imagined homeland has served as a catalyst of resistance and getting out of the refugee camps.
(…)
Constructed or not, artificial or not, these notions are invested in meaning, they are used and referred to in everyday life, so unless anthropologists are willing to go back to their old habits of telling people who they are and how they should think, we have an obligation to take seriously the meaning and value that groups and individuals invest in belonging.

The method of deconstruction, she continues, has been fruitful in denaturalizing and exposing implicit discourses of power. But it has been unsatisfying in understanding why people are attached to such notions beyond treating them as being manipulated and helpless.

So how to resolve this dilemma of trying to deconstruct a notion without destroying in the same exercise the meaning that it has or has always had for people, she asks. Anthropologists should change the root question, she suggests:

Instead of starting from the premise that autochtony is constructed and thus inevitably artificial, I would actually build on the premise that human beings are quintessentially social and can only enact their humanity by relating to others, and in that sense, the longing to be part of something, to be attached is a condition of being (be-longing to cite David Goldberg). The question then is not how artificial or hegemonic one form of being is or not, but how individuals and groups strive to find belonging in a contemporary world that is constantly calling into question canonized myths of origin.

>> read the whole post on her blog tropismes.org (LINK UPDATED 7.8.2020)

Interview with Benedict Anderson: “I like nationalism’s utopian elements”

In order to challenge stereotypical Us-and-them-thinking, anthropologists…

When should anthropologists work for the military?

Published on July 23, 2009 by lorenz Posted in Africa, anthropology in the news, applied anthropology, ethics, politics

The debate on anthropology and the military is extremly polarized. Mats Utas, Head of the Africa Programme at the Swedish National Defence College, has written an interesting article where he challenges both sides. Among other things, he shows that there might be legitimate reasons for collaboration with the military even if you are against the U.S. war of terror.

“I currently would see many problems in cooperating with the US armed forces, or the Danish army for that matter, due to their cumbersome commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, I still describe the debate within our discipline as one of moral panic”, he writes and asks:

It is important to remember that all relationships with the military do not imply the same type of structural involvement, just as doing work with the military means different things depending on which country one works in (it is obvious that engaging with the armed forces in Sweden or Switzerland is not the same as in US or North Korea).
(…)
Sweden is, still today, more or less neutral and has kept a low profile in the war on terror (or the terror on terror), and Swedish military interest in Africa is by and large peacekeeping missions. The Africa programme at the Defence College aims at servicing the army with knowledge about areas in conflict and potential future conflicts where a Swedish EU or UN force could employ as a neutral (as neutral as one can be anyway) and stabilising force.

It was far from an easy task, but after looking at pros and cons I decided to accept the offer of the Swedish National Defence College and I am currently directing their Africa programme. Does this imply that I fit into the derogatory category of ‘mercenary anthropologists’?

Specific task and regional political logic should guide us in how we commit ourselves, he writes and lists some tasks that anthropoloigists should not get involved with and that is for instance direct military intelligence:

Where research material can not be published for military reasons we should certainly stay out: We must keep working with open sources. Similarly we should not be involved in intelligence work where individuals are pointed out (unless this information is already available in other open sources). There is nothing wrong in teaching militaries how to understand some of the social complexity that exists in social life instead of letting them base their actions on social stereotypes.
(…)
If social embeddedness is part of the method for a subtle social anthropology then we must ask ourselves what happens with us if we enter alongside a military machinery, such as the US or Nato forces in Iraq or Afghanistan? Is it at all possible to carry out anthropological research? What happens if the fly in the soup becomes a ‘Stealth bomber in the soup’? My argument is simply that anthropological research cannot be efficient if the researcher is brought in alongside the heavy guns of imperial machinery. An anthropologist in military fatigues cannot conduct high quality fieldwork – results become seriously flawed. In this situation what the mercenary anthropologist can give to the military power is impotent research findings; in consequence not very much to fear.

>> read the whole article over at Ruben Eberleins Africa blog (interesting comments as well)

Military anthropologist starts blogging about his experiences

Militarisation of Research: Meet the Centre for Studies in Islamism and Radicalisation

Cooperation between the Pentagon and anthropologists a fiasco?

The dangerous militarisation of anthropology

“Arabs and Muslims should be wary of anthropologists”

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

War in Iraq: Why are anthropologists so silent?

Masteroppgave om bedehuskultur i endring

Published on July 20, 2009 by lorenz Posted in individ og samfunn, kristendom, master-/ hovedoppgaver, Norge, portretter og intervjuer, sosialantropologi i Norge, Sverige og Danmark, vi og de andre

Hvordan utvikler kristenlivet seg i Norge? En av de første antropologiske studiene om bedehuskulturen i Norge er nettopp blitt publisert.

Edle Lerang Nes har vært på åtte måneders feltarbeid på Finnøy nord for Stavanger, der det er fem bedehus, men ingen pub. Informantene hennes – også de yngre på rundt 20år – har folk vokst opp med bibellesing, bønn før maten og søndagsskole. Her har KrF høyest oppslutning av alle kommunene i Rogaland

Det er en kultur som tidligere holdt et fast grep om samfunnet men er nå blitt en minoritetskultur – i nasjonal sammenheng. På Finnøy står den fortsatt sterkt.

I et intervju med meg for forskningsprogrammet Culcom snakker hun om forholdet mellom troende og ikke-troende, vekkelser og vitnemål, ungdommenes forhold til bedehus og om homofili-debatten etter at Arnfinn Nordbø publiserte boka “Bedre død enn homofil”.

>> les intervjuet “Urgent anthropology på bedehuset”

Oppgaven er også på nett og er faktisk lettlest og forståelig også for folk uten mastergrad

>> last ned oppgaven ““Myke brudd. Endring og kontinuitet i bedehusmiljøet på Finnøy””

Jeg intervjuet henne tidligere engang, se Intervju: På feltarbeid i bedehuset

SE OGSÅ:

Der religionen skiller bygda – masteroppgave om læstadianismen

Bordbønnen erstattes med nye ritualer

Slik preger kristne ideer våre bilder av verden

Isolerer seg for å bli frelst – Doktoravhandling om konservativ kristen minoritet

Misjonsbildenes makt over sinnene – ny bok av Marianne Gullestad

Forsker på “Norges mest flerkulturelle menighet” – den katolske St.Olav-menigheten i Oslo

Antropolog med ny bok om prester, folkekirken og autoritet

Kristendommen øker mer enn islam

Hvordan utvikler kristenlivet seg i Norge? En av de første antropologiske studiene om bedehuskulturen i Norge er nettopp blitt publisert.

Edle Lerang Nes har vært på åtte måneders feltarbeid på Finnøy nord for Stavanger, der det er fem bedehus,…

Er det derfor danskene er så “kalde” og “fremmedfientlige”?

Published on July 17, 2009 by lorenz Posted in Danmark, individ og samfunn, kommune stat forvaltning, neoliberalisme / velferdsstaten, sosialantropologi i Norge, Sverige og Danmark, vi og de andre

I en interessant kronikk i Jyllands-Posten forklarer antropologen Dennis Nørmark hvorfor utlendinger ofte opplever dansker som kalde og lukkete. “Det er ikke jer, vi ikke kan lide. Sådan er vi også overfor hinanden”, skriver han – mye kan sikkert overføres til andre land:

Vi vil så nødigt trænge os på overfor naboen, passagererne, dem i køen, kollegaerne eller nogle af de andre, der ikke lige er vores bedste venner. Henvender nogen sig til os i offentligheden, bliver de fleste af os ilde tilpas og håber, at de snart holder op igen. Man kan sidde i evigheder og blive gal over, at nogen taler i stillekupéen, for ingen tør konfrontere den formastelige synder.
(…)
I det hele taget undgår vi at gå for meget i vejen for hinanden. Respekt for privatlivet kalder vi det, men man kan også se det som en nærmest neurotisk angst for at ”trænge sig på” og ”blande sig”. Et par af mine studerende på Aarhus Universitet satte sig engang for at undersøge, hvor nye passagerer satte sig i bussen. Deres lille studie viste, at folk havde en suveræn evne til at finde det sæde, der var længst væk fra alle andre.

Danmark, skriver han, er “et ekstremt eksempel på det, som den amerikanske antropolog Edward T. Hall har kaldt et lavkontekstsamfund”:

Lavkontekstsamfund har meget store offentlige rum, hvor man kan lave en hel masse med hinanden uden egentlig at kende hinanden. Jeg kender ikke manden eller kvinden, der reparerer min cykel, sælger mig en bil, passer mine børn eller har kontor ved siden af mig. Ej heller behøver jeg. Deres handlinger er fastsat af klare regler, de udfylder nogle specifikke roller, og alt, hvad vi gør med hinanden, er reguleret af konkrete aftaler.

Men det fins også lavkontekstland der folk er mer imøtekommende enn i Danmark, skriver han. USA for eksempel. Forskjellen mellom USA og Danmark er at Danmark er en velferdsstat. Velferdsstaten overflødiggjør personlige relasjoner:

Vi bryster os af at have en stor tillid til hinanden. En høj sammenhængskraft. Men den sammenhængskraft er måske i bund og grund ikke andet end en statsgaranteret mulighed for gensidig isolation. Vi behøver ikke at kende hinanden for at få omsorg, vi har et retskrav på at blive passet, vi behøver ikke naboen til at holde øje med indbrud, eller om vi eventuelt er døde. Det overlader vi til politiet, og vi behøver ikke tysse på vores støjende medpassagerer, men blot vente til konduktøren kommer.
(…)
Når centrum-venstre således rutinemæssigt klandrer den danske befolkning for at være kold, fremmedfjendsk, isoleret og selvtilstrækkelig, skal man lige huske på, at den omsorgsfulde stat, de holder så meget af, bærer en stor del af ansvaret for, at de personlige relationer, det personlige sociale ansvar, er blevet overflødiggjort.

>> les hele saken i Jyllands-Posten

En interessant tese. I enkelte deler av Nordnorge er det veldig lett å bli kjent med folk. “Ja, du vet, vi er jo vant til å hjelpe hverandre”, fikk jeg ofte som forklaring. I Nordnorge kan det vært langt til nærmeste politistasjon. Det er kanskje ikke nødvendigvis velferdsstaten som er har noe å si her, men hvor avhengig folk er av institusjonene og hvor synlige de er i livene deres (og selvfølgelig mye annet også)?

Nørmarks tekst ble kommentert av Bo Grünberger: Velfærdsstat, socialismen og sandheden om Guds rige og Per Lau Jensen: En omsorgsfuld stat

Lignende konklusjoner om danskene trakk også antropologen Anne-Marie Christensen som studerte nabokrangler. “Forskanset bag mure, stakitter og hække er vi vore egne værste terrorister og urostiftere”, sa hun i et intervju. “Set i mikro-makro perspektiv foregår der på ligusterplan nogenlunde det samme mellem danskere som mellem stridende lande og grupper”, se “Danskene er sine egne verste urostiftere og terrorister” og Hva kan vi lære av nabokrangler?

Antropologen Henrik Sinding-Larsen snakker forresten om relasjonelle og post-relasjonelle samfunn. I “post-relasjonelle samfunn” er det ikke lenger personlige relasjoner som utgjør samfunnets viktigste lim, men institusjoner og systemer. Se intervju med Henrik Sinding-Larsen og hans tekst Eksternaliserte og relasjonelle trygghetsregimer.

SE OGSÅ:

Politisk korrekte svensker og islamofobe dansker?

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

Er kontakt mellem etniske danskere og flygtninge og indvandrere viktig?

Nordmenn, høflighet og kunsten å omgås fremmede

Ensomme nordmenn – tabutema ensomhet

I en interessant kronikk i Jyllands-Posten forklarer antropologen Dennis Nørmark hvorfor utlendinger ofte opplever dansker som kalde og lukkete. "Det er ikke jer, vi ikke kan lide. Sådan er vi også overfor hinanden", skriver han - mye kan sikkert overføres…