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Category: Diversiteit & etniciteit

Should we all radicalize? Anthropology in times of capitalist crises

A response to the inaugural lecture of Dimitris Dalakoglou, Chair in Social Anthropology at VU University Amsterdam.

Refugee crisis in Europe, via creative commons
Refugee crisis in Europe, via creative commons

By Herbert Ploegman            As Dimitris Dalakoglou argued in his inaugural speech “Anthropology and Infrastructures. From the State to the Commons”, on the 13th of June, “our humanity and our human lives” are truly at stake in the events unfolding at the borders of Europe. He referred in particular to the people trying to cross the Mediterranean while facing extreme risks of drowning, but also to the modified forms of governance in Southern European countries over the years that we understand as crisis.

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Racialisering van moslims schaadt onderzoek en debat

SpWRacisme

Door Ton Salman en Peter Versteeg     Op de Volkskrant-pagina’s speelde recentelijk een interessante en antropologisch belangrijke discussie. Op 7 mei poneerde oud-collega Martijn de Koning de stelling dat de huidige maatschappelijke kritiek op de islam het karakter van een ras-onderscheid krijgt. Ook al wordt de ‘buitenstaander’ niet vanzelfsprekend als ras gezien, zij wordt wel op deze manier benaderd: “als een herkenbare groep, die specifieke, onveranderlijke en natuurlijke eigenschappen wordt toegedicht en die als inferieur geldt”.

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The reality of race: fieldwork experiences from Ghana

Millicent, one of the staff members of the hostel where I stayed, and I.

By Marije Maliepaard     Recently my Colombian friend and I were talking about being white in a country like Ghana. I told him I had never been aware of my ‘whiteness’ until I got to Ghana. In reply he said “of course you weren’t aware, you are part of the majority in your country”.

We silently continued our walk along the main road in Accra as I pondered his comment. I broke the silence and said, “It’s not only me being part of the majority but I just don’t see it. I don’t recognize people as being black or white.” He firmly said: “That can’t be true, no one is colorblind! Do you see those people approaching us? You see they are a woman and a man, you also see if someone is black or white.” I thought about it and said: “I don’t register it all the time, when I see people I don’t consciously think that is a man or a woman, or that person is black or white.” He finally saw my point which made me happy because I was starting to think that maybe my views on this differ from the view of others.

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What war? Whose war?

Internal changes must come about. © Cindy Cornett Seigle, via creative commons.

By Thijl Sunier            The day after the attacks in Paris, the French President François Hollande declared war to Islamic State. In the Netherlands, Prime Minister Mark Rutte also declared that ‘we are now at war’. Not with Islam, he added.

What bewilders me is that these declarations suggest that we are only now dragged into a conflict we supposedly have no part in. Baffling and indeed cynical. The Taliban, al Qaeda and Islamic State are monsters that the West and Russia have co-created in a decades-long struggle for power, influence and resources. This war has already started a long time ago at the cost of many thousands of innocent victims primarily in the region itself and the West has been involved in this right from the beginning.

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Grijs gebied: identiteitsvorming onder Nederlandse meisjes met een islamitische vader

Culturele verdeeldheid, via creative commons

Door Christel de Bruijn    Je bent 16 jaar en al je vriendinnetjes willen op zaterdagavond de stad in om te dansen en te drinken. Na je eindexamen verhuist iedereen naar een studentenstad om daar op zichzelf te gaan wonen. Ze worden verliefd en gaan trouwen. Maar niet voor ieder meisje is dit van-zelfsprekend. Ook niet als je geboren en getogen bent in Nederland.

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Religious violence in South(East) Asia

garycycles photo modified (2)The majority Buddhist and Hindu societies of South(East) Asia are not traditionally associated with conflict and intolerance. Yet recent years have seen a surge in international reports of religious tensions and violence by Buddhist and Hindu majorities towards Muslim minorities in the region. A seminar on this topic was organized by VU University’s Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology and the International Institute for Asian Studies on Monday 15 June 2015.

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Woordwaarde. De keuze van woorden en de beeldvorming over moslims in Nederland

islamophobia
CMO

Door Aalt Smienk            Waarom lezen en horen we in media vaak ‘moslimterrorisme’ en minder vaak islamterrorisme’ of ‘terroristische moslims’. En wat betekent deze keuze van de zendende partijen voor het debat over de positie van moslims in de Nederlandse samenleving? Aalt Smienk, promovendus verbonden aan de afdeling Sociale en Culturele Antropologie, doet onderzoek naar de beeldvorming over minderheidsgroepen in de Nederlandse pers.

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Promotie Daan Beekers: Opvallend veel overeenkomsten tussen jonge christenen en moslims

Overtuigde christenen en moslims in Nederland hebben meer met elkaar gemeen dan vaak wordt gedacht. Dit blijkt uit het proefschrift Kwetsbare vroomheid: het geloofsstreven van jonge moslims en christenen in Nederland (Precarious Piety: Pursuits of Faith among Young Muslims and Christians in the Netherlands) van antropoloog Daan Beekers. Hij promoveert op 1 juli aan de Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

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Contestation as claim to integration: the May 2015 public protest movement of Ethiopian Israelis

 

JASPW3

Ethiopian Israelis demonstrating in Tel Aviv, with Ethiopian and Israeli flags side by side, 3 May 2015

Jan Abbink.  April-May 2015: Ethiopian Israelis come out en masse onto the streets of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa, the three largest cities of Israel, following a filmed incident of police abuse of an Ethiopian Israeli man. The short recording goes viral and evokes the anger of recognition among most of the ca. 135,000 Ethiopian Jews in the country. On 30 April, they protest in the thousands and demand ‘an end to discrimination, racist incidents, discrimination and inferior socio-economic position’. Some of the happenings turn into clashes with the police. In Tel Aviv, on 3 May, dozens of people get injured, and many arrested in the second demonstration. These are some of the largest protests of recent years in Israel.

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