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Month: December 2015

Op naar 2016!

Het is de laatste dag van het jaar, een jaar dat voor velen van ons is omgevlogen. Het hectische leven op de universiteit, voor zowel stafleden als studenten, maakt dat we vaak veel te weinig tijd…

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Open doors in Paris: when the private becomes public

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sebastiendubey.com

By Lucrezia Giordano

Home is the private space par excellence. It is a place where people can develop their own micro-society, based on the relationship with a space they feel as familiar and intimate, and whose access is usually permitted to a few people only. Nevertheless, there are some exceptional cases where homes can become public spaces; public arenas where strangers meet and interact.

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It’s hard to ignore a camera

By Matthias Teeuwen      On Thursday 3 December 2015 the department of Social and Cultural Anthropology of the VU held its first ever Ethnographic Film Festival. Throughout the day ten films were screened in the Church Hall of the university, each followed by a short Q&A session with the filmmakers. What struck me during the screenings was the question: What is the difference between a documentary and an ethnographic film? What is the difference between making films in order to raise awareness about the plight of a group of people and making films in order to make a visual depiction of a group of people?

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Anthropologist? You’re hired!

3decgiuliaBy Giulia Sinatti (photographs by Vishvas Pandey)

The stereotypical image of anthropologists as weird people studying local customs in odd corners of the globe could not be less accurate, according to speakers at the “Why the World Needs Anthropologists – Burning Issues of Our Hot Planet” symposium held in Ljubljana (Slovenia) on Friday 27 November 2015. People trained in anthropological skills, they suggested, can play a pivotal role as the world struggles to cope with a number of burning issues of our time. Most importantly, they can play this role by understanding local communities far away as well as on their doorstep, and through work in and outside the academic Ivory Tower. Anthropologists, in short, are an urgently needed “breed” of professionals.

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“Responsibility to Protect-lobbyisten hebben hun geloof in mensenrechten zo goed als opgegeven”

© UN Multimedia

Door Annette Jansen        Genocide en etnische zuivering komen al sinds het begin van de 19e eeuw voor, maar pas eind jaren 90 – na de bloedbaden in onder meer Rwanda en Oost-Timor – ontstonden er groepen activisten die pleitten voor militair ingrijpen door de Verenigde Naties bij massale wreedheden. Wie zijn deze antigenocide-activisten en wat beweegt hen om geweld met geweld te bestrijden? Annette Jansen onderzocht het mens- en wereldbeeld van twee groepen antigenocide-activisten: Oost-Timor-activisten, die actief waren van 1975 tot 1999, en Responsibility to Protect (R2P)-lobbyisten, actief van 2001 tot op heden.

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