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Lernen von den Yanomami-Müttern?

Published on May 14, 2007 by lorenz Posted in Ethnologie Sozialanthropologie Kulturanthropologie, Gender, Indianer, Latein- und Mittelamerika, Wir und die Anderen

In manchen Laendern wurde gestern der Muttertag gefeiert und deshalb interviewte der FOCUS die Ethnologin Gabriele Herzog-Schröder zur Situation der Mütter bei den Yanomami in Venezuela.

“Frauen, die zugunsten ihrer Karriere auf Kinder verzichten, können hier zu hohem Ansehen und viel Geld kommen”, sagt sie. Die Entscheidung zwischen „Rabenmutter“ oder „Heimchen am Herd“, lesen wir, stelle sich für sie nicht. Sie koennen ihre Kinder bei fast allen Tätigkeiten um sich haben. Und wenn nicht, greife das soziale Netz (Familienzusammenhalt, Nachbarschaftshilfe, Frauensolidarität). Kinder übernehmen früh Verantwortung und seien, so die Ethnologin, stolz darauf, mithelfen zu können.

Wie immer wenn ueber Indianer geschrieben wird, werden Stereotype verbreitet. Die Journalistin schreibt “Naturgesellschaften sind einfach strukturiert”. (Es gibt keine Naturgesellschaften und auch von aussen “einfach” wirkende Gesellschaften koennen hoch komplex organisiert sein).

Auch die Ethnologin kommt mit einer problematischen Aussage:

„Wir lernen von den Yanomami-Müttern nicht, wie wir es besser machen können. Jede Kultur hat ihre eigene Strategie.”

Man kann vielleicht nicht alle Organisationsformen vom Regenwald in eine Millionenstadt 1:1 uebertragen, jede Uebertragungsmoeglichkeit grundsaetzlich auszuschliessen mit dem Hinweis, es handele sich um eine “andere Kultur”, grenzt schon an (kulturellen) Rassismus – vorausgesetzt das Zitat ist korrekt.

>> zur Geschichte im FOCUS

SIEHE AUCH:

Ethnologen protestieren gegen Mel Gibsons „Apocalypto“

Romantisierungen am “Internationalen Tag der indigenen Völker”

Die SZ und die Ureinwohner: Gestrandet im vorsintflutlichen Evolutionismus

“Leben wie in der Steinzeit” – So verbreiten Ethnologen Vorurteile

In manchen Laendern wurde gestern der Muttertag gefeiert und deshalb interviewte der FOCUS die Ethnologin Gabriele Herzog-Schröder zur Situation der Mütter bei den Yanomami in Venezuela.

"Frauen, die zugunsten ihrer Karriere auf Kinder verzichten, können hier zu hohem Ansehen und…

Eight anthropology careers: Life outside the university

Published on May 14, 2007 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, applied anthropology, corporate & business anthropology, design anthropology

Where do anthropologists work outside the university? And how do you get a relevant job? Andreas Lloyd has been at the annual Career day at his old anthropology department (University of Copenhagen) and gives ut a great summary of eight presentations and eight ways to make an anthropology career.

He writes about both old and new careers. Inger Merete Hansen for example is now close to 60, has combined her anthropology degree with primary school teaching:

Anthropology gave her both a method and outlook which proved vital to her work, especially in order to work against the heavy-handed and indirectly racist school bureaucracy and work towards new ways of integrating immigrant children into the Danish society.

Kirsten Becker works to build relationships between the department and the “real world” outside. She told about the growing popularity of our discipline. Anthropology is being hyped at all of the conferences on innovation these days:

“Before, nobody really paid attention when I spoke at conferences, but now everybody shushes and listens to every word. Being an anthropologist is like being a shaman – the industry thinks we have some secret magic they need. My job is to maintain that impression.” Another grin.

Anne Weber is working as a recruiter. She argued that anthropology is just as much a way of personal development as it is an academic discipline. This is because anthropologists invest themselves so much in their work, learning new ways of being present, of observing and of being surprised. Thus, for an anthropologist, it is much more a matter of personality that it is about grades and recommendations when applying for jobs in the real world.

The most repeated and probably most important refrain was, Lloyd writes, mot offer up some easy and shrinkwrapped solution, but saying “I don’t know the answer to that question, but I do know how to find out.”

>> read the whole text “Anthropology Careers” on Andreas Lloyd’s blog

Criticizes the “apathy of anthropologists toward the human rights situation in Balochistan”

Published on May 14, 2007 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, Asia, indigenous people / minorities, politics

“Anthropologists should shed light on the violence in Balochistan Province in Pakistan, anthropologist Hafeez Jamali writes in Anthropology News May 2007. Balochistan is presently the scene of a bitter and violent struggle. Multinationals are exploiting the region’s mineral resources. Hundreds of ordinary Baloch died, some 84,000 civilians predominantly have been displaced and hundreds of political activists have been arrested and tortured.

Jamali criticizes the “apathy of the discipline and of anthropologists toward the appalling human rights situation” there: There is hardly any effort by anthropologists who have worked amongst Baloch people to raise this issue in their ethnographic work, he writes. Most of the current work on Baloch people does not address current political issues:

Indeed (…) much of the past and recent anthropological work on the Baloch people has tended to focus on pastoral-nomadic aspects of Baloch social organization by employing concepts of ecological adaptation and kinship networks. These ethnographic works (…) give the impression that the Baloch are pre-modern beings living in bounded cultural groups which are relatively unconcerned with larger geo-strategic and political developments in the region and the world.

This approach is misleading because Baloch tribes’ resistance movements against colonial rule of the British Raj as well as against inequities of postcolonial states such as Iran and Pakistan were intrinsically linked to regional anti-colonial struggles. The present day struggle in Balochistan also draws inspiration from contemporary movements for self-governance in other parts of the world and in that sense is comparable to the struggles being waged by Palestinians, Kurds and other marginalized ethnic groups.

In view of this situation, it is important that anthropologists who work in and study Balochistan take the influence of regional geo-strategic politics as well as the intrusion of neoliberal globalization in the Baloch people’s lives and the response of the Baloch to such intrusion more seriously in their work.

>> read the whole article in Anthropology News

MORE INFO:

Hundreds missing in conflict-torn Balochistan (IRIN, 10.5.07)

Pakistan’s battle over Balochistan (BBC, 26.8.06)

By the way, in Anthropology News April 2007, there are several articles on the Oaxacan Rebellion (Mexico)

Engaged anthropologists beaten by the Mexican police

‘War on Terror’ Has Indigenous People in Its Sights

Riots in France and silent anthropologists

Anthropologists on the Israel-Lebanon conflict

"Anthropologists should shed light on the violence in Balochistan Province in Pakistan, anthropologist Hafeez Jamali writes in Anthropology News May 2007. Balochistan is presently the scene of a bitter and violent struggle. Multinationals are exploiting the region’s mineral resources. Hundreds…

AAA: “Open access no realistic option”

Published on May 14, 2007 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, Open Access Anthropology and Knowledge Sharing, University / Academia

In an article in Anthropology News May 2007, Bill Davis, Executive Director of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) explains why he doesn’t embrace the arguments of open access advocates to make electronic versions of scholarly journals free to anyone.

He writes:

AAA’s publishing program financial structure is not unlike those of many scholarly society publishers in the social sciences and humanities. Library subscription revenues are critically important to maintaining the stability and viability of our publishing programs. Thus it is understandable that nonprofit society publishers fear losing library subscription revenue if their journal contents were available to all readers for free.

But Davis is no opponent of Open Access. He discusses several options:

Maybe there are options not yet widely discussed. For example, the proposed legislation requiring that any federally supported research be published through an open access repository could be accompanied by a requirement that every federal research grant include in its amount the costs of such publication. Another possibility would be for colleges and universities to provide supplements to faculty compensation to cover the costs associated with their faculty’s scholarly publishing work.
(…)
For all scholars, authors and readers, the challenge is to figure out how to provide as much content as possible free to those who we want to have access to it without losing our ability to continue to publish that content.

>> read the whole article in Anthropology News

In Anthropology News April, Alex Golub claimed that the pay-for-content model has never been successful and that we ought to move beyond the idea that our current reader-pays model is somehow more “realistic” than open access alternatives.

UPDATE:

Interesting comment by Peter Suber at Open Access News. In his opinion, Bill Davis is wrong in several points. The study that he refers to (that shows that Open access archiving will lead to journal cancellations) is flawed. And even when the AAA-Director discusses possible options he doesn’t seem to be well informed according to Suber:

But he misunderstands a key fact about OA archiving when he suggests that FRPAA (which would require OA archiving for most federally-funded research) “could be accompanied by a requirement that every federal research grant include in its amount the costs” of such OA archiving. OA repositories never charge deposit fees. There are modest upkeep costs for the repository but no costs for authors or readers.

Suber encourages anthropologists to publish their journal articles online – as it is already allowed:

Finally, the AAA is a green publisher (according to SHERPA). Its journals already allow authors to self-archive their peer-reviewed postprints. Hence, even if the AAA can’t find a way to convert its non-OA journals to OA, or to provide gold OA, authors should provide green OA on their own initiative and take advantage of the opportunity the AAA has already created.

>> read the whole comment by Peter Suber

American Anthropological Association opposes Open Access to Journal Articles

Open Access: “The American Anthropological Association reminds me of the recording industry”

Open Source Anthropology : Are anthropologists serious about sharing knowledge?

New Open Access Anthropology Website, mailinglist, chat and t-shirts!

In an article in Anthropology News May 2007, Bill Davis, Executive Director of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) explains why he doesn't embrace the arguments of open access advocates to make electronic versions of scholarly journals free to anyone.

He writes:…

Doktoravhandling: Skolen skaper skiller

Published on May 13, 2007 by lorenz Posted in doktoravhandlinger, innvandring migrasjon, kommune stat forvaltning, sosialantropologi i Norge, Sverige og Danmark, Sverige, ungdom oppvekst, vi og de andre

I over fem år har antropolog og pedagog Sabine Gruber (Linköpings universitet) vært på feltarbeid i klasserommet, i matsalen, på temadager og i personalrommet. Nå er doktoravhandlingen publisert der hun viser hvordan elever blir forskjellsbehandlet på grunn av etnisk bakgrunn, melder Norrköpings Tidningar.

Hun sier til avisa:

– De invandrare som gjorde bra ifrån sig i skolan ansågs som invandrare bara ibland, medan de mer stökiga stämplades annorlunda av klasskamrater och lärare. Ett dåligt studieresultat förklaras för en ”svensk” att det beror på individen själv, medan invandrareleven fråntas sitt personliga ansvar och föses in i ett kollektivt fack.

– I skolan speglas samhället i övrigt. Med studien önskar jag att man funderar över lärarutbildningens innehåll, och uppmärksammar varför dessa olikheter fortsätter accepteras i samhället.

>> les hele saken i Norrköpings Tidningar

I avhandlingens abstract leser vi:

Studien undersöker hur etnicitet görs till en central kategori för skolans sociala organisation och används för att markera skillnader och därigenom gör elever till svenskar och invandrare.

(…)

En viktig iakttagelse är att skolpersonalens dagliga arbete med eleverna omges av höga ambitioner vad gäller rättvisa och tolerans, men att dessa intentioner sällan förenas med insikt om de maktaspekter som omger sociala relationer. Istället överskuggas den dagliga praktiken av det som är relaterat till att fullfölja olika undervisningsmoment, där uppmärksamheten koncentreras till klassrumssituationen framför att synliggöra eller diskutera elevers skilda erfarenheter och livsvillkor. Därigenom riskerar även skolans intentioner och möjligheter att arbeta för jämlikhet och mot diskriminering att förvandlas så att den snarare producerar och upprätthåller ojämlika relationer.

>> last ned doktoravhandlingen

SE OGSÅ:

Eksotisering: Skolan gör barnen till invandrare

Innvandrerelever stemples som dumme – Ny bok om etnisk mangfold i skolen

Integrering: “Barnehagene kan gjøre mer skade enn gavn”

– Historiefaget er etnosentrisk

Rapport: Diskriminering innen utdanningssystemet motvirker integrering

Ogsaa vi, naar det blir krævet … Ny bok om skolebøker og nasjonsbygging

For mer kosmopolitisme – ny bok: “Verdensborgeren som pædagogisk ideal”