Tag: anthropology

Busting apart the silos of knowledge production

Published January 28, 2013

Below, a blog by Erin B. Taylor, published earlier on the blog Anthropologies (see Anthropologies or even the summary of the Anthropologies issue), and re-published on StandplaatsWereld with kind permission of the author and the Anthropologies-blog. The contribution addresses an issue important to anthropology and to our students. The message: knowledge production does not only take place in universities – and maybe universities are not even any longer the best places for the production of knowledge. There are lots of other places where new knowledge can be created!

By Erin B. Taylor The southern European sunshine bounces off the Atlantic Ocean and into my eyes, making it difficult for me to read my laptop screen as I work at the dining table in my Lisbon apartment. Closing the curtains, I return to concentrating on my work. A few emails, some editorial work, and polishing off a journal article are my tasks for the morning. Later, I’ll go for a stroll along the beach to stretch my body and my mind.

Today’s nothing special: this has been my everyday life since I began my research fellowship eighteen months ago. Funded by the Portuguese government and based at the University of Lisbon, I have no classes to teach and not a shred of administrative responsibility. I’m expected to publish, of course, but like many of my colleagues, I work at home most days, and turn in a yearly report detailing my achievements. The pay isn’t great, and the job is temporary, but the freedom is insurmountable. Freedom to think, freedom to create, and most importantly, freedom to fail. The perfect conditions for the production of knowledge.

Who will halt the bloodshed in Syria?

Published January 22, 2013

A young boy amidst the debris of his parental home in Idlib, Syria

By Erik van Ommering More than eighty people were killed in two bomb attacks on Aleppo’s university the day before yesterday. It was the first day of exams, yet countless non-students were identified among the victims—people who had sought refuge on campus, fleeing the brutal war between regime forces and armed opposition groups across Syria. Until now, Syria’s civil war has killed more than sixty thousand people, with vast material damage being inflicted and an estimated three million people being forced to flee their homes. Hostilities are likely to turn even more gruesome in the months ahead. Or is there anyone out there willing to halt the bloodshed?

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Brazil, Haiti and nailpolish

Published January 21, 2013

Our masterstudents are in the field! We expect interesting posts from them, from all over the globe. Below, find the first one, talking about the fieldwork-preparations. It is by Luiza Andrade. The focus of her study will be the Haitian immigrants’ settlement in Brazil after the earthquake of 2010. During the fieldwork, she will try to gather information on their aspirations for the future and memories of the past, in an attempt to find out if such investments in migration may influence the way people perceive situations as either “temporary” or “permanent”. Her fieldwork will be conducted in Brasiléia, a small town located at the Brazilian boarder with Bolivia, where thousands of Haitian migrants have crossed the border to build a new life in Brazil.

By Luiza Andrade I love nailpolish. Back home, I have an extensive collection of several different colors and shades. As a typical brazilian girl, I enjoy getting my nails done weekly and matching colors with clothes and accessories. Honestly, it’s part of my weekly routine. But today… today was different. I came home from running errands and the first thing that came to my mind regarding the preparation for fieldwork was: I gotta file my nails.

Blackening Up for the Festive Season

Published November 28, 2012

As in earlier years, the controversy on the significance of the figure of ‘zwarte piet’ cropped up again. On those earlier occasions, we have posted both blogs arguing in favor of the ‘tender Dutch tradition’, and blogs stating that the arguments about the ‘innocent custom’ simply won’t do. This year we again, simultaneously, publish two contributions, by Duane Jethro and Rhoda Woets, questioning the guiltless-ness of the figure of zware piet.

By Duane Jethro It is that time of year again when, slowly, the Netherlands is being invaded by those loveable effigies of dark-skinned, red-lipped ZwartePieten. From Albert Hein to the Kapsalon, Rotterdam to Maastricht, little dark Pieten are colonizing inches of display space, as all across the Netherlands children wait anxiously for their white, bearded boss-man, Sinterklaas, to arrive from Spain and steam into cities and towns this November.

In keeping with the annual celebration, I have been asked to engage with the significance of the commemoration of Sinterklaas. I hope to use this opportunity to embark on my own intocht into the tradition, with the intention of dishing out intellectual snoepjes and cadeautjes that hopefully will add to the annual Standplaatswereld debate about the significance of that mercurial of Dutch folk characters, Zwarte Piet.

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A ‘Rite de Passage’ in the Construction Industry

Published November 23, 2012

By Leonore van den Ende A while ago, I witnessed the baptism and name-giving of a tunnel-boring machine used to excavate part of the North-South metro line of Amsterdam. This phenomenon stems from a long-standing ritual traditionally practiced by mine workers and tunnel builders for safety against hazards during the construction process. On this occasion, the ritual signified the launch of the third phase of tunnel construction, attended by a large group of project managers, employees, contractors, stakeholders and members of the press. This same ritual is held cyclically, every time the project enters a new construction phase.

It became clear that the ritual had commenced when a Catholic Priest dressed in traditional white and gold robes came to the fore at the dark, cold construction site reaching 25 meters underground. He started by imparting the significance of the ritual he would perform, while presenting a statue of Santa Barbara; a Patron Saint acknowledged by the Catholic Church as the protector of harm and later espoused by mine and tunnel workers for this very purpose. He explained that even though he would physically bless the statue and the machine, he would emblematically yet truly be blessing the tunnel workers who necessitated protection.

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Tribal peoples for tomorrow’s world

Published September 5, 2012

Tribal peoples for tomorrow’s world, a groundbreaking new book by Stephen Corry

By Nellie Werner The treatment of indigenous and tribal peoples, the world’s largest minority, is a major humanitarian issue. It shapes world history and raises profound questions about what it really means to be human. Tribal peoples for tomorrow’s world explains who these peoples are, how they live, why governments hate them and why their disappearance is nevertheless far from inevitable.

It looks at many aspects of tribal peoples’ lives, including their attitudes to sex, religion, and money. Concepts such as ‘culture’ and ‘the noble savage’ are examined, as well as the impact of big business, globalization, backpackers and the internet.

Easily accessible, the book is a distillation of Survival International Director Stephen Corry’s 40 years’ work with and for tribal peoples. It argues passionately, and controversially, that hunting and nomadism are neither backward nor primitive, but intelligent and conscious choices – and that upholding the law and understanding racist prejudice solves most tribal peoples’ problems. It shines a light on the ground-breaking, but entirely unrecognized, contributions they have already made to the world, and exposes the inconvenient truth that their survival is in everyone’s interest.

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The Bible as Floral Pattern

Published June 22, 2012

By John Boy. The Bijbels Museum, a museum dedicated to the Bible founded in 1852, is located along the Herengracht in the center of Amsterdam. Finding myself with a few free hours one afternoon during a recent stay in the Dutch capital, I decided to tour the museum, notebook in hand. Wikipedia encumbered me with the knowledge that the museum’s public funding was subject to debate several years ago because “it has not done enough to attract a more diverse (i.e., non-denominational) audience”—and by non-denominational, this Wikipedia author evidently means people with no denominational affiliation. How does the museum present the Bible in a city known for its museums, especially its splendid art museums? And, more importantly, how does it cater to an audience that may not hold the Bible in special esteem?

The answer apparently is to display lots of flowers, or at least it was at the time of my visit. The main exhibit on display in the Bijbels Museum was “Belief in Nature: Flowers with a Message.” We are in the land of tulips and hothouses, after all. So while the publisher of the postwar British publication The Bible Designed to be Read as Literature broadened the appeal of the Bible by presenting it as beautifully typeset literature, the Bijbels Museum seeks to do so by presenting the Bible as floral pattern. That’s a very unfair characterization, but a worthwhile comparison. As Talal Asad writes, “the way people engage with such complex and multifaceted texts [such as the Bible], translating their sense and relevance, is a complicated business involving disciplines and traditions of reading, personal habit, and temperament, as well as the perceived demands of particular social situations.” In the case of “the Bible as literature,” that complicated business had to do with the emergence of literature qua imaginative writing in the long eighteenth century. What complicated business is going on in the Bijbels Museum? How does it manage to translate the “sense and relevance” of the Bible in the pluralistic, secular-liberal setting of Holland?

The Politics and Ethics of keeping things clean: striking insights from South Africa

Published March 10, 2012

Image taken from http://kimmoment.wordpress.com/2011/08/18/mayhem-madness-media-exaggeration/

By Tarryn Frankish Globally, the question of how to deal with the ‘dirty business’ of keeping things clean remains pertinent. In this blog I look to South Africa for insight into these questions as strikes around the globe by cleaning staff force us to think about the politics and ethics of keeping things clean elsewhere.

As a Desmond Tutu scholar, working at the Vrije University in Amsterdam in the Netherlands and the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa I have the unique opportunity of spending time in two countries as I work towards my doctoral degree. My first trip to Amsterdam coincided with a strike by cleaning services in May 2010. More recently, as I was leaving Amsterdam in February 2012, the working conditions of cleaning staff were again in question. This question resonates with what I have come to know in South Africa. Striking similarities in the way ‘cleaning’ is organised in the Netherlands and South Africa became apparent to me during my stays despite the contextual differences between the two countries, wherein cleaning work is performed and negotiated. The situation in South Africa (and some of the similarities witnessed in Amsterdam) suggests much for thinking about the politics and ethics of keeping things clean in a global context.

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From ‘youth’ to ‘newly weds’: a Mennonite Wedding

Published December 1, 2011

By Karen Smits It was a cold and crispy, sunny Saturday afternoon in a little German town in the province Nordrhein-Westfalen. The family, whom I had not seen for over five years, warmly welcomed me and asked me to sit with them at one of the first rows of the church. From my memory, they wear cowboy boots, jeans, flip-flops and t-shirts. But today, for this occasion, the Mennonite family is dressed in more fancy clothing. This occasion is special to them, and they traveled from Belize to Germany to witness this event. For the past 20 years they have been waiting for this moment: their son and brother, who is 42 years old, is getting married. This is not just a marriage, it is a Mennonite marriage: a ritual in which their son, the eldest ‘youth’ member of their church, will obtain a new status.

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