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Category: English posts

Iran elections(1): Crossing Red Lines

Published June 12, 2009
Photo by: Hapal
Photo by: Hapal

Color has never before played such an important part in an election campaign in Iran. As the country’s election developments are watched closely by the likes of Netanyahu, the Whitehouse, and other international powers with diplomatic stakes in the outcome, Iran’s bulging youth population have their own concerns in mind as they hit the streets in green. This is especially significant in a country where brightly colored clothing, especially when worn by women, is considered a breach of the Islamic dress code and frowned upon by the ruling mullahs.

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Making of: documentary of the release of a Mexican prisoner

Published June 9, 2009
jocobo_joan
Foto: José Luis Hernández Barragán

So much is happening at our department, that we can’t keep track of it ourselves sometimes. Suddenly, Joan, a PhD student who is doing research on violence,  masculinity and substance abuse in Mexico, was gone to make a documentary about the release of a Mexican prisoner that she had been planning a long time. A report by Joan van Wijk.

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Message from our Iraquain visitor

Published June 3, 2009
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Lahay Hussain

It has been one month and a half for me in the Netherlands. Fascinating visit to a typical western culture. This is by itself a very moving experience on the personal level. Here one puts all the theories and ideas made by great American and European social theorists in the right context. They have been talking and interacting with this culture. The great works of Marx, Durkheim, Weber, Simmel, Mead, Park and the rest have been inspired and motivated by the ways of life and thinking of this culture. However, back home in Iraq, we (sociologists and anthropologists) continue to struggle to understand and fit these theories with our current social and cultural situation. Most of the time, they do not work except in an environment that makes the West its source of reference. I have no problem with this. I personally have been blessed by the west.

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