(inspirert av Hjorthen og Konrads tankesmie hehe) Majoritetsbefolkningen er dårligere representert enn minoritetsbefolkningen i etnisk mangfoldige frivillige organisasjoner.
– Dette kan ha konsekvenser for integreringen av etniske nordmenn i verdenssamfunnet, sier Eivar Imhjellen og Bigne Sock Gesaard til forskning.no.
De to forskerne står bak rapporten “Etniske nordmenn og frivillige organisasjoner” som peker på at representasjonen av etniske nordmenn er lavere. Forfatterne mener dette er problematisk.
– Gjennom deltakelse i frivillige organisasjoner får man tilgang til ressurser i form av kunnskap, fellesskap og nettverk. Man får også arbeidserfaring og attester som en kan bruke på arbeidsmarkedet.
– Når etniske nordmenn er dårligere representert enn minoritetsbefolkningen, har de ikke den samme tilgangen til disse ressursene, sier Imhjellen. Det er en demokratisk utfordring at representasjonen er lavere for etniske nordmenn, spesielt med tanke på medlemskap og tillitsverv i organisasjoner.
(inspirert av Hjorthen og Konrads tankesmie hehe) Majoritetsbefolkningen er dårligere representert enn minoritetsbefolkningen i etnisk mangfoldige frivillige organisasjoner.
– Dette kan ha konsekvenser for integreringen av etniske nordmenn i verdenssamfunnet, sier Eivar Imhjellen og Bigne Sock Gesaard til…
(via evifa) Den Geisteswissenschaften geht es nicht gut in Deutschland. In Bonn wird nun seit über zwei Jahren gegen die Abschaffung der Kulturanthropologie und Volkskunde protestiert.
Kürzungen, die eine Abschaffung des Faches bedeuten würden, sind erstmal erst auf Eis gelegt. Die Fakultät hatte eine Abschaffung der Professur für Kulturanthropologie / Volkskunde vorgeschlagen. Damit wird erst mal nichts, doch die Sache ist damit noch lange nicht gewonnen:
Nach einer langen Diskussion entschied der Fakultätsrat – gegen die Stimmen der studentischen Vertreter – für die Einstellung des laufenden Berufungsverfahrens. Es wurde jedoch zugesichert, dass die Professur für Kulturanthropologie/Volkskunde weiterhin „geparkt” ist und vorerst nicht in andere Fachbereiche verschoben wird. Eine Neuausschreibung ist in absehbarer Zeit wahrscheinlich, hängt aber unmittelbar von den Entwicklungen der nächsten Wochen ab. Die Schließung der kulturanthropologischen Profile im Bachelor- und Master-Studiengang, die ebenfalls auf dem Plan steht, wurde vertagt.
Der Teilerfolg sei durch Unterstützung aus dem Inhalt und Ausland ermöglicht worden.
(via evifa) Den Geisteswissenschaften geht es nicht gut in Deutschland. In Bonn wird nun seit über zwei Jahren gegen die Abschaffung der Kulturanthropologie und Volkskunde protestiert.
Und zwar nicht vergeblich. Ein weiterer Teilerfolg wurde vor ein paar Tagen erzielt, meldet Oliver…
But as usual, it’s hard to find any press coverage. There are some blog posts about the conference, though, and more than 1000 tweets. “This year was a breakout year for the use of Twitter at the AAA”, Kerim Friedman writes at Savage Minds. The tweets – mostly internal conversations – aren’t of much value for us who haven’t been there, though.
One of the few stories that made it into mainstream media is Modelling not just about a pretty face (Times of India). Stephanie Sadre-Orafai explored how casting agents consider race, the transformation of appearance, balancing fantasy and truth, and selling an image, plus how that process affects a culture’s views on race and image.
On the positive side, the AAA asked anthropologists to blog about the conference. Ashely Duperron for example summarizes a session on the financial crisis. In this session, Gillian Tett (Financial Times) questioned why anthropology does not play a better role in the country’s political policy when in fact it could be used to help predict and make sense of finance and the credit crisis. The banking sector should be studied as a subculture with its own sets of rites and rituals. Her talk was also covered by the Times of Higher Education. See also an earlier post Used anthropology to predict the financial crisis.
Our motto shouldn’t be “publish or perish, but rather, public or perish,” archaeologist Jerry Sabloff said. He delivered the AAA’s Distinguished Lecture that Mark Sanders summarizes for us. The lecture, he writes, “was met with wild applause, and a standing ovation and likely more than a few anthropologists considering their future (however large or small) in the public spotlight.”
The roundtable sessions “Engaging New Orleans” on “public art in this culturally diverse city” sounds interesting as well. “The roundtable engaged New Orleanian activists as well as anthropologists in an attempt to better understand the circumstances of the city”, Caitlyn McNabb writes.
Do Indigenous Studies reproduce elite knowledge within Indigenous communities? Do they overlook the realities of violence, class, and social disruption? A panel at the AAA meeting critized the “parochialism of Indigenous studies”. In an interesting comment, Charles Menzies explains why he stood up and and laid out a full-blown critique of the panel and papers within it – something that doesn’t happen so often at conferences.
There are several personal accounts about New Orleans that seems to be a very special city.
One of the more inspiring ones was written by Mira Z. Amiras about a seemingly “little ting”: The water went out. In the whole town. Without any warning. And this was not the only “system failure” during the stay in New Orleans. That’s something she is used to when travelling in Eastern Africa or the Middle East. But in the U.S.? “We’ve been seeing one system failure after another, each one a little bit different”. “Maybe, as good little anthropologists, we just take notes and watch it all fall. Watch cities fail, one at a time.”
John L. “Anthroman” Jackson shares some experiences with last years’ conference blogging in the Chronicle of Higher Education where he received comments like “How many classes did you have to cancel to attend your little conference?” This year, he tried to “get the word out about some new scholarly initiatives that he is helping to launch: a book series on the intersections between race and religion and an ambitious and expansive on-line bibliography for the discipline of anthropology”.
Finally, I found some stories about anthropologists who received awards.
It has been one of the best attended conferences ever. More than 6000 anthropologists went to the 109th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Society (AAA) in New Orleans.
But as usual, it's hard to find any press coverage.…
More and more anthropology videos and documentaries are available on Youtube and Vimeo. Among the more recent additions we find these ones here that I enjoyed watching – and at the same time show the diversity of the discipline:
[video:vimeo:17148719]
Run and Become is a film project by the Jon Mitchell, Sam Pepper and Jenni Rose Human from the Department of Anthropology at the University of Sussex: What motivates people to carry on training and carry on running? How are people transformed through the act of training and running a marathon – bodily, emotionally, personally? Together with Brighton-based artist Matt Pagett they even put on an exhibition.
[video:vimeo:17031582]
In Fashioning Faith, anthropologist Yasmin Moll portrays fashion designers in New York. Her film gives a more fun and everyday perspective on the politized issue of wearing hijabs and other elements of Islamic fashion. Moll grew up in the United Arab Emirates, Switzerland, Bahrain and Egypt.
More and more anthropology videos and documentaries are available on Youtube and Vimeo. Among the more recent additions we find these ones here that I enjoyed watching - and at the same time show the diversity of the discipline:
Maximilian Forte is out with a new book on anthropology, military and imperialism. Yes, you can order it the usual way. But you can also download it as pdf file, for free!
On his blog he explains how he combined web and paper, how he set up his own publishing entity, Alert Press including print on demand by Lulu.com. The book consists of 14 papers, written by his students.
I hope more authors will choose similar ways of spreading knowledge.
Paper books lock in knowlegde – they will most likely be read by specialists only. Paper publications have to be ordered and paid for – an often lengthy and expensive process. Web publications are more democratic: They can be downloaded from every location in the world with internet access. They will be read by more people, including casual browsers. It’s obvious, so why not combining both paper and web?
When I recently heard about Keith Hart‘s new book The Human Economy, I was thrilled: Finally a book with contributions of a wide range of social scientists (including many anthropologists like David Graeber and Thomas Hylland Eriksen) about one of the most important issues – our economic system. It’s obvious that the current models of economic organisation is not the best one. What alternatives are there?
But why on paper only? Shouldn’t a publication that they call “a citizen’s guide to building a human economy” be accompanied by a web version to ensure a widest possible readership and to discuss and expand the contents of the book?
But the book is new and I’m sure Keith Hart, who shares more knowlege online than most other anthropologists on his website and blog The Memory Bank, is working on this issue of dissemination. I’m looking forward to the book launch in Oslo next week and am going to blog about it.
Maximilian Forte is out with a new book on anthropology, military and imperialism. Yes, you can order it the usual way. But you can also download it as pdf file, for free!
