Suchergebnisse

This article examines the "trade and institutional missions abroad of the Central Region". Journeys abroad were configured as a "regional" public policy within the mentioned subnational integration process, largely due to the agro-export profile of the associated provinces, along with the significant weight held by local entrepreneurs. Through focusing on the relevance attributed by "state officials" and "businessmen" to those missions, the article argues that the "success" of these journeys has little to do with their apparent (commercial) content, but more with the production of a (political) dynamic where "federalism" works as a fundamental value-in-action. In theoretical and methodological terms, the analysis is constructed from an ethnographic perspective based on the conceptual developments of political anthropology, and the anthropology of the State. In this regard it seeks to contribute to understand the ways in which various social actors participate in building up state dynamics. ; El presente trabajo examina las "misiones comerciales e institucionales internacionales de la Región Centro". En este proceso de integración subnacional, los viajes al exterior se fueron configurando como una política pública 'regional' debido, en gran parte, al perfil agroexportador de las provincias socias y al peso de los empresariados locales. A través de focalizar la relevancia atribuida por "funcionarios" y "empresarios" a dichas misiones, se argumenta que su "éxito" no tiene que ver tanto con su contenido (comercial) aparente sino con la producción de una dinámica (política) que tiene al "federalismo" como un valor-en-acción fundamental. En términos teórico-metodológicos, el análisis está construido desde una perspectiva etnográfica basada en los desarrollos conceptuales de la antropología política y del Estado, y en este sentido busca contribuir a comprender las formas en que diversos actores sociales construyen las dinámicas estatales. ; O artigo examina as "missões internacionais de comércio e institucionais da Região Centro". Nesse processo de integração sub-nacional, as viagens ao exterior foram configuradas como política pública "regional" devido, em grande parte, ao perfil agroexportador das províncias parceiras e ao peso que têm os empresários locais. Através de um foco na relevância atribuída por "funcionários" e "empresários" a essas missões, argumenta-se que seu "sucesso" não tem que ver tanto com seu conteúdo (comercial) aparente, mas com a produção de uma dinâmica (política) onde "federalismo" é um valor-em-ação fundamental. Teórica e metodologicamente, a análise é feito seguindo uma perspectiva etnográfica, com base nos desenvolvimentos conceituais da antropologia política e antropologia do Estado. Neste sentido, o trabalho busca contribuir para a compreensão de como diversos atores sociais constroem as dinâmicas do estado

AbstractIn this article, I follow a group of professionals in their efforts to address the problem of statelessness in Europe. My interlocutors divide the members of their group into "practitioners," on the one hand, and "scholars" on the other. Relating this emic dichotomization to Antonio Gramsci's dialectical take on common sense, I argue against a theoretical reductionism that regards expertise and activism as two essentially different and mostly separate endeavors, and put forward the concept of the "expert activist." Unpacking what I call the "practitioner–scholar dilemma," I show that in their effort to end statelessness, "practitioners" take a reformist route that aims at realizing citizenship for the stateless, while "scholars" are open to a more revolutionary path that contemplates the denaturalization and even the eradication of the state. By drawing on Gramsci, I suggest that the impasse the group encounters in their work might relate more to the structural constraints imposed by the state within or against which they operate than to the problem of statelessness they are trying to solve. This article contributes to a body of emergent work in anthropology that explores the intersection of scholarly expertise and activism.

Field research, the collection of information outside of a lab or workplace setting, requires skills and knowledge that are not typically taught in the classroom. Fieldwork demands exploratory inquisitiveness, empathy to encourage interview subjects to trust the researcher, and sufficient aptitude to work professionally and return home safely. The Field Researcher's Handbook provides a practical guide to planning and executing fieldwork and presenting the results. David Danelo has written this book based on his experience conducting field research in over fifty countries as well as from teaching others a holistic approach to field research. His knowledge of how to be observant and operate safely in any environment was further enhanced by his time as a combat veteran in the US Marine Corps. This book introduces the skills that new researchers will need in the field, including anthropology, travel logistics planning, body language recognition, interview preparation, storytelling, network development, and situational awareness. Danelo also discusses ethical considerations and how to recognize personal biases. This handbook intended for researchers in a variety of academic disciplines but also government, think-tank, and private-sector researchers

The South China Sea has attracted considerable attention among politicians, journalists and scholars since it has become a contested maritime space. Most works concentrate on conflicts and negotiations to resolve the ensuing issues. In this paper, a cultural theory will be applied to stress the importance of conceptions of space found in different cultures. The South China Sea is defined as "Mediterranean." By comparing it to other maritime spaces, like the Baltic and the Mediterranean Sea, lessons will be drawn from the "longue durée" of history, as analysed by French historian Fernand Braudel and from concepts of the cultural theory of Oswald Spengler. The paper will look at the South China Sea from two perspectives. The political perspective will discuss various events that have happened due to political tensions because of territorial demarcations, fishing rights and access to natural resources. Comparing three "Mediterranean seas," I shall argue that Mediterranean seas share certain properties that give rise to tensions and even armed conflict, but also solutions to its problems. The second perspective uses macro-sociology and cultural anthropology to classify and understand actions of the general population as well as political leaders when they ascertain property rights to Mediterranean seas.

From the commemoration of September 11 to the Holocaust memorial in Berlin, recent decades have witnessed a substantial increase in the number of new public memorials built in both Europe and the United States. This volume considers the contemporary explosion of public commemoration in terms of changed cultural and social practices of mourning, memory, and public feeling. Positing memorials as the physical and visual embodiment of our affective responses to loss, Erika Doss focuses especially on the memorial ephemera of flowers, candles, balloons, and cards placed at sites of tragic death in order to better comprehend how grief is mediated in contemporary commemorative cultures.

In this dissertation I approach international development ethnographically as an ongoing fact of life for its subjects in the Hunza Valley of Northern Pakistan. Development in this context is not only a top-down project or set of institutions but as an arena for individual and collective critical and ethical engagement with a set of material possibilities and moral ideals. Through ethnographic examinations of particular ethical practices of giving or sharing labor in the context of the village, neighborhood and religious community; seeking education; and producing locality in the context of material heritage, I explore the ongoing, active negotiation of diverse temporalities, agencies, demands and possibilities associated with development. These practices offer sites to address questions central to the anthropology of ethics, including questions of freedom and reproduction; ethical subjects and their relations with others; and the temporality of ethical orientations. Seeing development as a structure of interaction between agencies (NGOs, governments, donors) and subjects. Such a perspective allows development to be seen as multiple projects rather than one and opens up the space to see what happens 'in the meantime' of development; to see it as a lived and changing set of relations between diverse external and internal agencies

This dissertation attempts to put anthropology in conversation with "the book." It does so through an empirical specification of mass book digitization, the industrial-scale, retrospective conversion of books into digital form. Such mass digitization is the work of research libraries, Internet companies, non-profit organizations, national governments, and the computer scientists, digital librarians, and the lawyers and administrators who advise, encourage, and support them. The dissertation approaches mass digitization as a venue for plumbing the turbulent waters of what I consider the "contemporary book": an arena of experimentation arising from the productive, seismic encounter of the modern book apparatus with an emergent assemblage in motion around the production, authorization, storage, preservation, circulation, and production of knowledge. By the "contemporary book," I refer to the modern book apparatus (dispositif) as it is being worked upon, reconfigured, and called into question in the early twenty-first century. The activities of the digitizers I studied are based upon a shared conviction that the book and its institutions are "closed" and need to be "opened": books are "inaccessible" or "locked up" by virtue of their materiality (their printedness); by the institutions that store and keep them (physical libraries); and by the state's often misguided regulation (copyright). For them, mass digitization is an important development in moving from the closed nature of the modern book apparatus to a remediated knowledge infrastructure, a future book. If it could be achieved, mass digitization would be a breakthrough in the long-anticipated opening of the book.Primary research for the dissertation was conducted at the Internet Archive in San Francisco, CA. Additional research took place in a variety of locations in the United States, in specific relation to the public controversy around the Google Book Search Settlement.

Migrants in Translation is an ethnographic reflection on foreign migration, mental health, and cultural translation in Italy. Its larger context is Europe and the rapid shifts in cultural and political identities that are negotiated between cultural affinity and a multicultural, multiracial Europe. The issue of migration and cultural difference figures as central in the process of forming diverse yet unified European identities. In this context, legal and illegal foreigners - mostly from Eastern Europe and Northern and Sub-Saharan Africa - are often portrayed as a threat to national and supranational identities, security, cultural foundations, and religious values. This book addresses the legal, therapeutic, and moral techniques of recognition and cultural translation that emerge in response to these social uncertainties. In particular, Migrants in Translation focuses on Italian ethno-psychiatry as an emerging technique that provides culturally appropriate therapeutic services exclusively to migrants, political refugees, and victims of torture and trafficking. Cristiana Giordano argues that ethno-psychiatry's focus on cultural identifications as therapeutic - inasmuch as it complies with current political desires for diversity and multiculturalism - also provides a radical critique of psychiatric, legal, and moral categories of inclusion, and allows for a rethinking of the politics of recognition

The villages on Bali's north-east coast have a long history. Archaeological findings have shown that the coastal settlements of Tejakula District enjoyed trading relations with India as long as 2000 years ago or more. Royal decrees dating from the 10th to the 12th century, inscribed on copper tablets and preserved in the local villages as part of their religious heritage, bear witness to the fact that, over a period of over 1000 years, these played a major role as harbour and trading centres in the transmaritime trade between India and (probably) the Spice Islands. At the same time the inscriptions attest to the complexity in those days of Balinese society, with a hierarchical social organisation headed by a king who resided in the interior - precisely where, nobody knows. The interior was connected to the prosperous coastal settlements through a network of trade and ritual. The questions that faced the German-Balinese research team were first: Was there anything left over of this evidently glorious past? And second: Would our professional anthropological and archaeological research work be able to throw any more light on the vibrant past of these villages? This book is an attempt to answer both these and further questions on Bali's coastal settlements, their history and culture.

Die vorliegende Einleitung gibt einen Überblick über die vielfältigen Beziehungen zwischen Design und Anthropologie in der Stadt, die aktuell diskutiert werden und Gegenstand des Heftes sind. Die Beiträge werden kurz vorgestellt und mit dem übergeordneten Thema verknüpft.

This article draws upon two separate studies on policing in Sweden, both investigating "ethnic diversity" as a discourse and a practice in the performance of policing functions: one interview study with minority police officers from a county police authority and one ethnographic study of private security officers. To examine how "diversity policing" and the "policing of diversity" are performed by policing actors, their strategic reliance on an ethnically diverse workforce is examined. The official discourse in both contexts stressed "diversity policing" as a valuable resource for the effective execution of policing tasks and the legitimation of policing functions. There was, however, also another, more unofficial discourse on ethnicity that heavily influenced the policing agents' day-to-day work. The resulting practice of "policing diversity" involved situated activities on the ground through which "foreign elements" in the population were policed using ethnicized stereotypes. Diversity in the policing workforce promoted the practice of ethnic matching, which, ironically, in turn perpetuated stereotypical thinking about Swedish "others". A conceptual framework is developed for understanding the policing strategies involved and the disjuncture found between the widely accepted rationalities for recruiting an ethnically diverse workforce and the realities for that workforce's effective deployment at the street level.

"Although Mexican emigration to the U.S. is still relevant, it has also become a return, transit, and recipient country for thousands of refugees. Now, many of these migrants, refugees, and their families stay on Mexican soil territory, trying to integrate within Mexican society. This volume brings together leading experts in Mexico and covers the political dimension of integration for migrants in Mexico analysing integration policies, civil society efforts, and public opinion from various angles. In this context, many questions arise. Among the most relevant: What has the federal government done to assist these migrant groups, who often arrive in conditions of great vulnerability? What policies have been implemented at the sub-national level of government to adequately integrate these population groups? What actions have been implemented by other local actors, such as civil society organizations? What do Mexicans think about newcomers? Immigrant Integration in Mexico will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines including International Relations, Development Studies, Anthropology, International Studies, Sociology, and Latin American Studies"--