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Et flerkulturelt Bunads-Norge og norske stammeidentiteter

“Bunaden samler Norge til fest. Men samtidig viser den hvordan vi kan opprettholde enhet gjennom et stort mangfold. Siden bunaden har så store lokale variasjoner og slik viser at mange forskjellige kulturer og tradisjoner kan leve innen én og samme stat – og feire Grunnlovsdagen i fred og fordragelighet. Det lover godt for det flerkulturelle Norge”, skriver Per Normann Waage i en interessant artikkel i Dagbladet.

Waage nevner den søramerikanske antropologen Julian Kramer som i boka Den norske væremåten (Oslo 1984) sammenligner 17. mai med markering av stammeidentiteter i sitt hjemland. Men Kramer ser mindre positiv på vektleggingen av norske stammeidentiteter enn Waage. Den legger alvorlige hindringer i veien for utviklingen av et pluralistisk samfunn i Norge, skriver han.

Fokuset på lokale stammeidentiteter er også grunnen til at selv innflyttede nordmenn ikke blir integrert og blir ansett som fremmede selv om de har bodd i bygda i mange år, skriver Kramer:

“Man ble norsk fordi han eller hun var trønder eller hedmarking, og ved denne understrekningen av at man enten var trønder eller hedmarking ble det mulig å bevise sine ekte norske røtter. Man kan med andre ord ikke bli regnet som ekte norsk uten at røttene er iorden og festet til det rette sted. Det er fremdeles slik i dag at mange nordmenn vil si at selv om de bor i Oslo, kommer familien deres egentlig fra Setesdal, Telemark osv. (…) Det kan med andre ord ikke eksistere en kategori med svarte nordmenn – i alle fall ikke slik Norge er idag og slik norsk identitet knyttes til opprinnelse” (side 94-96).

SE OGSÅ:
Norge i rødt, hvitt og bunad (Aftenposten, 18.5.05)
Også nordmenn er flerkulturelle (egen tekst, 20.11.2002)

"Bunaden samler Norge til fest. Men samtidig viser den hvordan vi kan opprettholde enhet gjennom et stort mangfold. Siden bunaden har så store lokale variasjoner og slik viser at mange forskjellige kulturer og tradisjoner kan leve innen én og samme…

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Arbeidsledig antropolog innkaller til inspirasjonsmøte

Moss Avis

Nicole Rezende (31) har hovedfag i sosialantropologi, men er arbeidsledig. – Slike situasjoner vil vi gjøre noe med, sier Anita Elsrud Lauli. Hun innkaller til inspirasjonsmøte. – Ideen med det åpne møtet på Son kro 31. mai er å samle folk som føler at de ikke er der de ønsker å være rent karrieremessig i yrkeslivet. Vi søker arbeidsledige, studenter, eller folk som vurderer å starte noe eget. Vi skal utveksle erfaringer, og så får de som møter bestemme hvordan fortsettelsen skal bli, om det er behov for en jobbklubb eller andre typer nettverk. >> les mer

SE OGSÅ:

Akademikere uten jobb

Generasjon P: Tyske antropologistudenter aksjonerer mot arbeidsledigheten

Moss Avis

Nicole Rezende (31) har hovedfag i sosialantropologi, men er arbeidsledig. – Slike situasjoner vil vi gjøre noe med, sier Anita Elsrud Lauli. Hun innkaller til inspirasjonsmøte. – Ideen med det åpne møtet på Son kro 31. mai er å…

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More and more blogging anthropologists – but the digital divide persists

Savage Mind – the new anthropology group blog is big news and is being discussed in many blogs (interesting to see how fast the news is spread). Recently I mentioned several new anthro-blogs – Kerim Friedman has discovered even more, for example The Old Revolution by “tak”, a cultural anthropologist and New Yorker and a Tokyoite who has compiled a list of Anthropology and Japan blogs – even more to explore.

I began to work with this blog (which also includes a kind of Norwegian anthropology journal), because I missed anthropological content on the web. Much has changed since then. But nevertheless, my impression is that Internet is still a quite new medium for many anthropologists – at leasts in Norway. People here do read the national and regional newspapers online, send mails and transfer money. But none of my friends and people I know at the University know what a blog is, let alone RSS. Only a few have heard about Wikipedia. They’re not familiar with the gift economy principles on the Internet either (I heard of anthropologists who don’t publish online because they don’t want their ideas to be “stolen” (!) before they can elaborate them in a traditional paper-journal.

Those people (the majority) don’t participate in discussions. They are the unknown passive readers. It’s quite striking: All the (few) comments to entries in my Norwegian blog are made by people who already have a website or an own blog.

I think here we see another type of a digital divide – between those who know how to use the internet actively (or are interested in it) and those who don’t.

UPDATE: See also the post by Alexander Knorr on xirdalim on academic blogging and its difficulties: “What struck us most was the fact that the vast majority of our institute’s anthropology-students (and we have 1200+ !) never made good use of the ethno::log >> continue

Savage Mind - the new anthropology group blog is big news and is being discussed in many blogs (interesting to see how fast the news is spread). Recently I mentioned several new anthro-blogs - Kerim Friedman has discovered even more,…

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Today’s National Day – or “Something rotten in the state of Norway”

As today the people here in Norway celebrate the National day you might want to take a look at the essay collection SOMETHING ROTTEN IN THE STATE OF NORWAY, written by anthropologists and other social scientists four years ago.

From their introduction:

“In spite of the fact that the country possesses enormous financial resources, Norway is unable to administer this capital in an appropriate manner on behalf of the population. It is not invested in education, either at school or university, the health service is deteriorating, cultural institutions are not regarded as important and become balance sheet items.

We have brought about a country that stigmatises and excludes those inhabitants who do not conform to an increasingly uniform and standardised citizenship ideal. In the Norway of today market liberalism is the dominant attitude among the people and leaders.”

>> continue to Something Rotten in the State of Norway

See also:

Sámi flag will not fly in Oslo
Oslo Municipality will not hoist the Sámi flag on Constitution Day, 17 May, the Oslo Municipal Board decided. “We are not one people with two flags, but rather one people with one flag,” stated Labour Party member Runar Gerhardsen. >> continue

Of course you can read an official description of the National Day with typical Norwegian statements like “there’s no celebration quite like it anywhere else in the world.” or take a look at some 17.may-pictures with lots of people in their national costumes. There are also some photos on flickr. Or check Aftenposten (newspaper) for today’s photos.

RELATED:
Thomas Hylland Eriksen: Immigrants – The Norwegians who don’t exist
Thomas Hylland Eriksen: Being Norwegian in a shrinking world. Reflections on Norwegian identity

As today the people here in Norway celebrate the National day you might want to take a look at the essay collection SOMETHING ROTTEN IN THE STATE OF NORWAY, written by anthropologists and other social scientists four years ago.

From their…

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New anthropology group blog: Savage Minds: Notes and Queries in Anthropology

Great! A new anthropology group blog! Something like an American version of the German Ethno::log. It was started the day before yesterday. We know some of the authors from other blogs. The authors are Alex Golub, Kerim Friedman, Dustin M. Wax, Nancy Leclerc, Antti Leppänen and Christopher M. Kelty.

From their self-description:

“Savage Minds is a collective web log devoted to both bringing anthropology to a wider audience as well as providing an online forum for discussing the latest developments in the field. We are a group of Ph.D. students and professors teaching and studying anthropology and are excited to share it with you. You can find out more about the contributors by clicking on the ‘about’ pages on the right for each of us.”

>> continue to Savage Mind

PS: Their newest entry deals with Anarchists in the Academy: Yale anthropologist David Graeber has been recently fired for his anarchist activism – something that was mentioned in Kerim Friedman’s blog before and shortly afterwards by Alex Golub. See some reviews of Graebers “Fragments of an anarchist anthropology”. Or download the whole book (pdf, 220kb) and visit the webpage Solidarity with David Graeber

Great! A new anthropology group blog! Something like an American version of the German Ethno::log. It was started the day before yesterday. We know some of the authors from other blogs. The authors are Alex Golub, Kerim Friedman, Dustin M.…

Read more