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(aktualisiert) Ethnologen: WM-Berichte verbreiten Vorurteile über Afrika

Published on June 13, 2010 by lorenz Posted in Afrika, Ethnologie allgemein, Ethnologie Sozialanthropologie Kulturanthropologie, Medien, Wir und die Anderen

Man soll nicht sagen, Ethnologen würden sich nicht in aktuelle Debatten einbringen. Barbara Meier und Arne Steinforth von der Uni Münster nutzten die Fussball-WM, um einen Dauerbrenner im Fach öffentlich zu diskutieren: die exotisierende Darstellung Afrikas in den Medien.

“Noch ehe der Startschuss zur Fußball-Weltmeisterschaft (WM) in Südafrika gefallen ist, häufen sich die Schauermärchen über archaische „okkulte Praktiken“ im afrikanischen Fußball in den deutschen Medien”, schreiben sie. In vielen Berichten “fertigen die Medien einen ganzen Kontinent als irrational, archaisch und abstoßend ab und bestätigen längst überholte Vorurteile”. Die Medien hätten eine grosse Chance vertan, das Interesse an Gesellschaften Afrikas mit differenzierten Berichten zu wecken:

Schon die Wortwahl mancher Berichte zum Thema „Magie im Fußball“ diskriminiert einen ganzen Kontinent. Afrika mit seinen 53 Staaten, Tausenden von unterschiedlichen Gesellschaften und ebenso vielen Sprachen wird darin zur Heimat von nicht näher be- stimmten „Stämmen“, die ihr Schicksal blind in die Hände von „Hexenmeistern“ und „Scharlatanen“ legen. Viele Berichterstatter haben offenbar einen eingeschränkten Einblick in die Gesellschaften, über die sie schreiben – bedienen aber zuverlässig die Vorurteile ihrer Leser. Dadurch verkaufen sie ein exotisches Afrikabild, das dem der „Wilden“ und „Kannibalen“ aus Kolonialtagen in nichts nachsteht.

“Spirituelles Doping” vor dem Fussballmatch gibt es natürlich in Afrika. Aber nicht nur dort. Fußball ist überall auf der Welt von einer Vielzahl von Ritualen umgeben, auch in Deutschland:

Auch in Deutschland knüpfen Spieler, Trainer oder sogar Fans und Vereine Beziehungen zur Welt des Religiösen, wenn sie um sportlichen Erfolg ringen: Spieler berühren beim Einlaufen ins Stadion aus offenbar unerfindlichen Gründen die Seitenauslinie, ihre Brust oder ihre Stirn; Trainer tragen wochenlang rätselhafte Glückskrawatten; Fans empfinden es als Unheil verheißendes Sakrileg, ihre Fan-Trikots während der Saison zu waschen. Fußballvereine machen religiöse Führer zu Vereinsmitgliedern, richten eigene Friedhöfe für Fans ein, oder sie bauen christliche Kapellen in das spirituelle Zentrum ihrer Stadien – genau unter dem Anstoßpunkt.

>> zum Beitrag von Barbara Meier und Arne Steinforth. Mehrere Medien berichteten darüber, u.a. Focus, Stern und die Sueddeutsche (siehe vollstaendiger Medienspiegel).

Doch sind die Ethnologen so viel besser als die Medien? Afrikanet.info hat in den vergangenen Tagen viel über das Afrikabild in den Medien geschrieben. Im Beitrag Selbstbilder vs Fremdbilder stellt Simon Inou das “Afrika der Ethnologen” (“Hier lernen wir wie primitiv AfrikanerInnen sind. Wie folkloristisch unsere Kultur und Kunst sind”) den Bildern mehrerer afrikanischer Zeitschriften (“signalisieren Aufbruch, zeigen ein neues und anderes Afrika“) gegenüber. Afrikanet.info gibt auch Tips: Wie Medienmacher korrekt über Afrika berichten können

Ein Klassiker zum Thema ist der Text How to Write about Africa von Binyavanga Wainaina (siehe deutsche Uebersetzung). Auf ethno::log wurde der Text einmal in einem Klischee-Check benutzt.

AKTUALISIERUNG 14.6.10 Leider fehlen konkrete Quellenangaben im Text der Ethnologen. Doch heute bittet die Märkische Allgemeine mit folgender Schlagzeile um unsere Aufmerksamkeit VÖLKERKUNDE: Ballmagie mit Talisman Ethnologen der FU Berlin über Zauberei und die Bedeutung des Fußballs für Afrika. Platz fuer Kritik ist, da, doch der Fokus ist und bleibt die Magie. Andere Beispiele: Hexenmeister in Afrika – Fußball von allen guten Geistern verlassen (Spiegel 8.6.2010). Fußball in Afrika
Rezension von Oliver G. Becker: “Voodoo im Strafraum” und Bartholomäus Grill: “Laduuuuuma!” (Deutschlandradio 1.5.10), Voodoo in Afrikas Fußball „Mit Leichenwasser den Gegner schwächen“ (Focus 9.6.10)

Bei dialogtexte.de gibt es Informationen zu “Fußball als transkulturelles Phänomen und “Public Viewing als religiöses Fest”

SIEHE AUCH:

World Cup Witchcraft: European Teams Turn to Magic for Aid

Ethnologe Leo Frobenius und der koloniale Blick auf Afrika

Vermitteln Ethnozentrismus und ein ueberholtes Bild von der Ethnologie?

“Gewalt gehört zu Indien wie ein gut gewürztes Currygericht” – Ethnologe kritisiert SZ

Ethnologe: Afro-Festivale schüren Vorurteile

Geldof’s Live8 and Western myths about Africa

Ethnologe war dabei: Wollte Ethnografie über Gaza-Hilfskonvoi schreiben

Published on June 5, 2010 by lorenz Posted in Ethnologie Sozialanthropologie Kulturanthropologie, Konflikt Gewalt, Naher Osten, Wir und die Anderen

“Sie haben uns alles weggenommen, was die Geschichte, die Wahrheit, hätte dokumentieren können. Kameras, Filme, Fotos, Notizen – alles weg. Es war schwierig für mich, weil ich mit meinen Notizen Informationen preisgab.” Das sagt der 34-jährige Ethnologe Nikola Kosmatopoulos, der gerade seine Doktorarbeit an der Uni Zürich über Friedensaktivisten im Nahen Osten schreibt. Er war an Bord des Schiffes, das Hilfsgüter in den Gazastreifen bringen wollte und von israelischen Soldaten angegriffen wurde.

Sowohl das Schweizer Fernsehen wie 20minuten haben den Ethnologen interviewt.

Er wollte eine Ethnografie über die Fahrt schreiben, lesen wir. Es war ein kosmopolitisches Schiff. “Die Leute haben mir ihre Geschichten anvertraut”, sagt er. Doch nun sind seine Feldnotizen in den Händen israelischer Soldaten.

Der Ethnologe leitet das Projekt Governing Conflict: Expert networks in Lebanon and beyond

Ethnologe Martijn de Koning kommentiert die Berichterstattung und stellt relevante Forschung vor in seinem Beitrag Never mind the bombs, here are the poets – Freedom and #Flotilla

SIEHE AUCH:

Anthropologists on the war on Gaza (2009)

Boycott Israel? – More anthropologists on Gaza (II)

“Voices”: Anthropologist publishes e-book about Palestinian women

Telepolis über Ethnologen im Irak-Krieg: “Sollten lieber das Militär studieren”

"Sie haben uns alles weggenommen, was die Geschichte, die Wahrheit, hätte dokumentieren können. Kameras, Filme, Fotos, Notizen – alles weg. Es war schwierig für mich, weil ich mit meinen Notizen Informationen preisgab." Das sagt der 34-jährige Ethnologe Nikola Kosmatopoulos, der…

A descent into eternal Paris?

Published on June 3, 2010 by cicilie Posted in Cicilie among the Parisians, Paris, Places

Rue de Belleville, just above the metro station

What is Paris to me now, I wondered when I sat on the plane on my way south after an absence of more than two years and the experience of a couple of seminal, life-altering (no less) events. I didn’t expect to feel at home. I expected to feel a little anxiety, particularly as I was arriving late in the evening, long after dark, but that didn’t happen. Not at the metro, neither at the metro station where I changed to Line 2, my old favourite, and neither as I walked down my old street. What stuck me instead, was the bizarness of Belleville, as I’d been away for a long time. When I exit the station by the electric stairs in boulevard de la Villette, it’s dark in the street and almost deserted at this stretch of the pavement where, except for two a bit lost men playing a ghetto blaster way over the limits of the loudspeakers, nothing else than a scratching white noise coming out of them. And this morning, a screaming man walked down the street in front of the hotel. I heard his screams from far away, once every twentieth second perhaps, and then they faded away again down in the main street, like a weird human Doppler effect.
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Walking down my old street, most is the same. The mild stench reminds me immediately. France smells. And in Faubourg du Temple it first smells of the metro, as everywhere, but then it is transformed into the particular sweet stench of rotting groceries, the butchers, waste, cigarettes, pollution, the density of the population and a hot summer night. I don’t know, I just recognise it immediately and, well, yes, feel warm at heart.

The languages one can hear in this street, I’ve written about before, but they’re the same as always. Belleville Babelville.

The day after, at the café everybody hangs out in, it’s the usual mix of old men (of all backgrounds) and middle-aged and younger people. A young, blond woman engages easily in a conversation with an elegantly dressed black man (suit jacket and straw hat at the chair besides him, collarless dark shirt, leather shoes) who was reading an article in Le Monde on how Sarkozy echants Africa before she sat down and asked for a light. (She left after the coffee, cigarette and good chat.)

Why did I expect to feel anxious?

More than feeling joy of being back, or the nostalgic bitter-sweetness that I expected and that I felt walking the old streets in my neighbourhood in London a year after I moved from there, I feel a warmth recognition. The warmth of enjoying the vibrant street life around me, the sounds of carpenters and other daily activities (and perpetuate traffic), the smells, the – nothing less – humanity gathered, mingling, speaking in different languages, dressed in different styles, exposing different emotions. When I walked down Freemantle Street in London, there was nothing there but memories. I felt pain, so much did I miss my life there. Here I don’t feel any of that nostalgic pain. I wondered before I landed whether it’s true that one will always have Paris. I guessed in a way that no, because most of what made up my world here is gone, as I hadn’t, and probably would never be able again to, keep up all the relations, as in London. But I realise now that that isn’t true. Paris is there exactly – almost – as I left it.

Rue de Belleville, just above the metro station

What is Paris to me now, I wondered when I sat on the plane on my way south after an absence of more than two years and the experience of a couple of…

Hvorfor overlater forskere nettet til anti-akademiske krefter?

Published on June 3, 2010 by lorenz Posted in antropologi allment, formidling, internett og nettkultur, kunnskapsdeling på Internett, sosialantropologi i Norge, Sverige og Danmark

Hvorfor er norske akademikere fullstendig fraværende på sentrale offentlige arenaer – der hvor “den offentlige mening” dannes? Det vil si på blogger, wikier og på twitter for eksempel? Disse spørsmål stiller Martin Grüner Larsen i den nye utgaven av Prosa.

Klassekampens bokredaktør har skrevet noe av det beste om forskningsformidling jeg har lest på lenge.

I forhold til folk flest er akademikere fullstendig underrepresentert på nett, viser han. Hjernevask-debatten gjorde det overtydelig hvordan antiakademisk retorikk får dominere når fagfolk selv ikke tar del i den elektroniske offentligheten: I bloggosfæren, på Twitter og Facebook ble kjønnsforskningen, sosialkonstruktivismen, relativismen, ja samfunnsforskningen som sådan stemplet som udugelig:

I tider som denne, der forskningstradisjoner er under angrep og akademias grunnprinisipper trekkes i tvil, tror ansatte ved universiteter og høyskoler at opinionen kan vinnes med en og annen kronikk i papiravisene. Hjernevaskerne vinner på walkover. Hvorfor holder forskerne seg for seg selv?

I USA er det helt annerledes, påpeker han. Der har også akademikere kommet langt mer på banen enn i Norge (gjelder forresten også antropologien. I USA er blogging er blitt mainstream blant antropologer, mens jeg føler meg ganske ensomt her på norsk…).

Ved å være fraværende på nett, viser Grüner Larsen, mister forskerne verdifulle muligheter for dialog, kunnskapstilegnelse og forskningsformidling. “Det er uforståelig at ikke akademiske institusjoner og personer allerede har fattet at bloggen er som skapt for akademisk kommunikasjon”, skriver han.

I motsetning til hva Bologna-byråkratene måtte mene, er ikke skriving og forskning to separate prosesser:

Bloggens form er skriveprosessen. Man leser, man noterer, skriver, analyserer og diskuterer – og over tid dannes en tankeverden i teksten. (…) Hyperlenken gjør referanser og diskusjoner mellom tekster og stemmer enkelt, både når man fører diskusjoner på tvers av flere blogger og andre medieplattformer, og gjennom kommentarfeltet som muliggjør intens debatt og margskribling til alle publiserte tekster. (…) På sitt beste virker denne dialogen som en konstant fagfellevurdering. De elektroniske offentlighetene har iboende kvaliteter som egner seg til akademisk arbeid, om bare forskerne hadde vært der.

Hva er så problemet? Han peker på disse tre:

(1) manglende incentiver for å drive med forskningsformidling:. Det norske forskningssystemet er regulert slik at forskere drives mot å publisere rituelle tekster i prestisjetunge internasjonale fagtidsskrifter, som kun leses av en håndfull fagfeller, og som sikrer at kun ytterst få, meget spesielt interesserte nordmenn skal få tilgang til disse.

(2) Kultur for å være fagintern: Mange forskere signaliserer (åpent, eller mer skjult) skepsis til aktive og synlige kolleger. “Det virker nesten som om motviljen mot den elektroniske offentligheten handler om motvilje mot en pluralistisk, folkelig offentlighet like mye som noe annet. På dette punktet har nok kulturkjempere rett: Akademia er en elitistisk institusjon.”

(3) Manglende ferdighet til å tenke høyt og skrive kort: Vi må anerkjenne at former som Twitter og bloggen har en naturlig plass i kommunikasjonsfloraen sammen med avisen, tidsskriftet og boka, mener han: “Om du ikke kan skrive en 400 siders fagintern avhandling om ditt forskningsfelt, så er du ikke en fullkommen forsker. Men om du ikke kan komprimere sentrale teser til en 30 sekunders elevator pitch eller noen 140 tegns twittermeldinger, så gjør du nok også noe galt. Hvorfor er det så lett for norske forskere å innrømme det første, men ikke det andre?”

Om ikke akademia deltar i de elektroniske offentlighetene, så oppfyller ikke dagens forskere sin samfunnsoppgave, mener han:

Samtalen har flyttet ut i disse rommene, og det er, som alltid, akademikernes profesjonelle plikt å bidra til samtalen. Norske forskere kan ikke vente på insentivene. Det har offentligheten ikke tid til.

Ved ikke å ta i bruk formidlingsmulighetene, men overlate viktige offentlige rom til andre, gir man antiakademiske meningsytrere stort spillerom. (…) Om ikke de 99 prosentene av norske forskere som uteblir fra de elektroniske offentlighetene, kan ønske det store, trådløse kommunikasjonseksperimentet som omgir dem velkommen, så har de antiakademiske kreftene ikke bare vunnet, de har kanskje til og med rett.

>> les hele saken i Prosa

Se også Jon Hoems kommentar Om fraværet av en digital offentlighet blant akademikere (infodesign.no)

Og Martin Grüner Larsen er selvfølgelig aktiv på nett, han blogger og twitrer.

Heldigvis er denne saken altså lagt ut på nett – i motsetning til Frode Storaas’ utmerkete ideer om multimedia-antropologi på nett i Norsk antropologisk tidsskrift (NAT) som Universitetsforlaget nektet å frigi til nettpublisering i fjor høst. NAT er et tidsskrift som man ikke bør velge når man vil dele kunnskap på nett.

En bør da heller velge open access tidsskrifter, her er en oversikt. Et av de nyeste tidsskriftene prøver å bruke web2.0-teknologier, se New Open Access Journal: Anthropology Reviews: Dissent and Cultural Politics (ARDAC).

Her er en oversikt om interessante nordiske blogger (kun få antropologer). Masterbloggen er et lovende initiativ. Noen forskere har begynt å blogge på forskning.no.

På arkeologi-bloggen Ting och tankar har Åsa M. Larsson skrevet om vetenskapsblogging.

Jeg har vært opptatt av formidling på nett siden jeg startet opp antropologi.info for seks år siden, se et utvalg tidligere saker:

For mer antropologi på blogger, YouTube og Twitter!

Thomas Hylland Eriksen: – Antropologer må bli flinkere til å bruke nettet

On fieldwork: “Blogging sharpens the attention”

Paper by Erkan Saka: Blogging as a Research Tool for Ethnographic Fieldwork

Hvordan lage et akademisk tidsskrift som appellerer til flere?

Interview with Michael Wesch: How collaborative technologies change scholarship

En vitenskaplig innføring i blogging

Skriver heller blogginnlegg enn aviskronikker

Elfenbenstårn akademia: Lav interesse for publisering på nettet

Hvorfor er norske akademikere fullstendig fraværende på sentrale offentlige arenaer – der hvor "den offentlige mening" dannes? Det vil si på blogger, wikier og på twitter for eksempel? Disse spørsmål stiller Martin Grüner Larsen i den nye utgaven av Prosa.

Klassekampens…

”Eurovision produces a new form of unity”

Published on June 3, 2010 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, cosmopolitanism, Europe, journal articles / papers, music, Us and Them

”The Eurovision Song Contest is torture to my ears”, was one of my recent Facebook status messages. But as I learnt, the mega event is not primarily about music, it’s a ritual, a transnational social event that connects people and that – according to a recent paper “produces a new form of unity among people in Europe”.

In the most recent issue of the European Review of History, anthropologist Marijana Mitrovic analyses some of the recent Serbian contributions (2004-2008) to the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC).

In her view, the ESC is a good place to discuss potentials for creating a critical, post-national and cosmopolitan European public sphere that challenges the governing paradigms of identity and belonging.

She writes:

My thesis is that both the ESC and the strategies of Serbia’s participation in this event present attempts to move on from bipolarisation (East/West on the geopolitical map of Europe and First Serbia/Second Serbia in Serbia), respectively, to turn bipolarisation to multiplicity – and through that, paradoxically or not, to produce a new form of unity.

The Western, more ironic stance towards the competition can be seen as opposed to a more strategic attitude of the Eastern European participants, she writes. Similar observations were made by Onnik Krikorian at Global Voices. “While some media reported lagging interest in the 54-year-old competition”, he writes, “countries such as those in the former Eastern bloc continue to take it seriously.”

Popular culture events such as the ESC have according to Marijana Mitrovic “the power and ability to reshape the geopolitical map of Europe and are also used in this way by the new and aspiring member states of the European Union”:

Those are mostly countries that are undergoing a post-socialist transition. Participation in the ESC and a potential victory are a chance for them to invert the social and economic order, on a symbolic level. But paradoxically or not, with that inversion, they also integrate into Europe and inscribe themselves into its symbolic map. Thus rite de passage becomes a transition ritual indeed.

The contributers used the ESC to transform the image of the Balkan/Serbian from a militant and non-cultivated savage, into someone civil, emotional, yet archaic – while at the same time promoting a ”certain level of (Balkan?) universality”. The “new face of Serbia” is “pacified and friendly” and “meets both European and local values”. This new Serbia “is a ‘country in the Balkans, a country of peasants’, but peasants who recognise European values.”

An example is the performance of Zeljko Joksimovic (2004)

Serbia and Montenegro - Eurovision 2004 - Lane moje (LIVE)

❤❤❤ Zeljko Joksimovic and Ad Hoc orchestra - Lane moje - The song came on the 2nd place after a great competition with Ukraine. Only a difference of 17 points !... About Zeljko - he plays 11 musical instruments!!! Istanbul 15 May 2004.">

The anthropologist comments:

Visual identity, crucial for the whole construction, is almost entirely recycled form the ‘memories’ of medieval Serbia. The members of his ad hoc orchestra are dressed in quasi medieval garments, while Joksimovic’s suit is modern, white and minimalist, but with an impressive ‘ethno’ accessory – modification of the belt typical of Serbian costume with an attached golden needle. He has a perfect haircut, his beard is tidy, he is sophisticated, reserved, unobtrusive and somewhat apart from the scene.

By means of a minimalist and modernised wardrobe, accessories and make-up which strongly referred to the medieval tradition of Serbia, the Balkans, but also the Byzantine Empire (not the Ottoman, although the Balkans are often associated with the Ottoman legacy), the Serbian team tried to transform the image of the Balkan/Serbian male, and people for that matter, from a militant and non-cultivated savage, or brute, always ready to fight, into someone civil, emotional, yet archaic

The recipe, she writes, was followed by the Croatians in 2005 and 2006, the Bosnians in 2006 and 2007, and peaked in the winning solution in Serbia’s 2007 winning song Molitva.

Many different groups, including socially marginalized groups, ethnic and sexual minorities invest their expectations and cultural preferences in this spectacle. Gay organisations are among the greatest fans of the event. They see this event as a symbolic representation of differences that guarantees the possibility of their social visibility according to Marijana Mitrovic:

Although some have derogatively proclaimed Marija Serifovic’s performance as an overtly lesbian one, that did not prevent their countrymen from awarding her a maximum 12 points. (…)

Preparing her ESC performance, her creative team reached the solution intentionally offered to be read as gay (with five female backing vocalists dressed in male suits the same as that of the lead singer, one of them locking hands with Marija to connect two halves of the heart tattooed on their hands). The symbolic value of her victory gained special weight through the association of her performance with lesbians and her origin with Roma communities in Serbia. It was argued that this was a victory for Serbian minorities as well.

But the problem with the new politics of Serbian identity is according to the researcher that the last revision of the past has erased all recent past, more than half a century of the region’s history:

Instead of continuity, ‘a time hole’ is opened up. This was reflected in the performances chosen to represent the state. For the turbulent sociocultural Serbian history, identity constructions based on the recycling of different memories turn out to be some of the main mechanisms for the construction of potential ‘new’ identities. Music themes and the way they are performed, as part of the representational and signifying system, manage to evoke and embody the nostalgia for the memory of the past in rational and affective ways; nonetheless, they also shape and direct the process of building and performing the national identity in the present and for the future.

I just picked some parts of her paper that is only available for subscribers.

On her webpage you can read a related paper about music and the “new face of Serbia”: Serbia – from Miki and Kupinovo to Europe: Public Performance and the Social Role of Celebrity (pdf).

Marijana Mitrovic is by the way member of the Eurovision Research Network.

Check also the overview over the ESC 2010 by anthropologist Erkan Saka

Links updated 23.5.2014

“Pop culture is a powerful tool to promote national integration”

Durham Anthropology Journal: How “post-socialist” is Eastern Europe?

How anthropology in Eastern Europe is changing

For an Anthropology of Cosmopolitanism