Regio Latijns-Amerika

A picture of a trocha through which David passes almost every day to reach Cúcuta.

Localising the Pandemic: Understanding Global Disruption through Online Media

- by standplaatswereld

by Maddalena Conte It does not happen every day that a worldwide crisis completely overturns a discipline’s research methods, giving no choice but to experiment with new practices. This is exactly what is going on in anthropology due to the Covid-19 pandemic: by not being able to go “in the field”, which, anyways, would probably be empty, ethnographers need to expand their methodological horizons, and, together with most areas of life, take research online. In my case, as a second-year Cultural Anthropology student, I gladly accepted Professor Eva van Roekel’s offer to assist her in pioneering social media research, on …

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Webinar: Ethnographic encounters with morality, crisis and extractivism in Venezuela

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The complex humanitarian crisis in Venezuela has caused more than five million Venezuelans to flee their country. In turn, Venezuelans that stay have developed multiple subsistence strategies, ranging from remittances, emergency gold extraction and resale of dollars and gasoline. These improvised survival practices create opportunity and insecurity in multiple sites of economic and environmental activity. In a webinar organized by the ISR lab Infrastructure, sustainability and commons we investigate what anthropology can add to the timely debates on economic crisis, natural resource extraction and environmental threats. In conversation with social anthropologists Iselin Åsedotter Strønen (University of Bergen) and Matt Wilde …

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Venezuelans affected twice by COVID-19 actions in Latin America

- by standplaatswereld

Rigorous measures against the corona pandemic in Latin America affect the millions of Venezuelan migrants harder than local populations on the continent. The closure of borders with neighbouring countries also has far-reaching consequences for Venezuelans at home. International action is needed to avoid a worsening humanitarian drama. Mid-March, the Colombian government declared a state of emergency because of COVID-19, and abruptly closed its borders with Venezuela. In response, local authorities transported undocumented Venezuelans across the country to the border in hundreds of buses. Since informal businesses dried up and local soup kitchens closed in Cúcuta, the largest border town in …

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Bolivia – terwijl het stof nog niet is neergedaald

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DOOR TON SALMAN De mensen in het land demonstreren, vloeken, vechten, tieren en vieren. President Morales, reeds veertien jaar aan de macht, trad gisteren, zondag 10 november 2019, af – drie weken na een omstreden nieuwe verkiezingsoverwinning. Hij lichtte toe dat hij dat deed om verdere confrontaties tussen zijn mede- en tegenstanders te vermijden. Het zag er inderdaad lelijk uit op de Boliviaanse straten en pleinen, de afgelopen weken: leden van “het andere kamp” werden niet alleen uitgemaakt voor rotte vis, ze werden ook gemolesteerd, geslagen, er werd brand gesticht in huizen en partijbureaus. Er vielen drie doden en 200 …

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Honger in een land van overvloed

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Door: Eva van Roekel “Hier, eet.” Ik ben net aangekomen in Caracas en het eerste dat ik voorgeschoteld krijg is een groot stuk ananas. We zitten midden in de grootste economische en politieke crisis van Venezuela. Negentig procent van de bevolking leeft in armoede. Meer dan 4 miljoen Venezolanen zijn gevlucht. Ze zijn veelal op zoek naar eten, medicijnen, veiligheid en schoon water. De afgelopen twee jaar is de ‘gemiddelde’ Venezolaan in de statistieken meer dan 10 kilo lichter geworden. Wat betekent honger in een land van overvloed? Met al deze informatie en vragen in mijn gedachten kijk ik naar …

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Van masterscriptie naar gepubliceerd boek: The Urban Gardens of Havana

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Door Ola Plonska In juli 2017 was het eindelijk zover. Na maandenlang hard werken was dit het moment om onze masterscripties in te leveren. Ik herinner het mij nog alsof het gisteren was. Al voor openingstijd stond ik zenuwachtig voor de deur van de printshop om mijn scriptie te laten printen. Toen ik naar de afdeling liep hield ik het ingebonden werk dicht tegen me aan terwijl ik een gezonde dosis adrenaline door mijn lijf voelde stromen. Dit was het dan, het punt waar ik twee jaar lang naartoe had gewerkt. Destijds was ik er zeker van dat dit de …

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Film and theory: Knots and Holes

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By Matthias Teeuwen           “What becomes of the medium of film in the hands of an anthropologist?” asks Mattijs van de Port in the introduction to his new film Knots and Holes, an essay film on the life of nets (2018). This project, he tells us, was born from his frustration with the offer of films at ethnographic film festivals: they are all very beautiful and evocative and they manage to take us places we have never been for the length of their duration, but they pass over the most exciting thing about anthropology: theory. “What becomes of theory in …

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Ayahuasca teaches Europe

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By Barbara Arisi      The ancient drink ayahuasca or daime is one of the powerful forces that connects the seemingly distant worlds of Amazon and Europe, ‘indigenous’ and ‘metropolitan’. It is born from the encounter and circulation of many traditions such as popular Catholicism, local shamanism and the Afro-Brazilian  pantheon. Forest beings such as the snake, the jaguar and the humming bird coexist in rituals with saints, gods and spirits. The result is a unique and powerful experience for those who humbly surrender to learn what ayahuasca, a beverage prepared with the jagube vine and the leaves of the chacrona, has to teach.

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In memory of a shaman: Tëpi Pajé

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    By Barbara Arisi Tëpi Pajé was a powerful shaman of the Matis people. He was called xó’xókit, a word that names the one who cooks xó, the one who carries, owns or works with too much xó. The Xó is the shamanic substance of power for the Matis. Tëpi was the only matis to be called xó‘xókit. On March 7th, Tëpi died.

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Some thoughts on film in ethnography

- by standplaatswereld

By Ina Keuper     On 7 December the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology organized its second Ethnographic Film Day, which featured four rather different ethnographic documentaries. Former staff member Ina Keuper was there and shares some thoughts on Standplaats Wereld about these particular films and the role of this visual medium in anthropology.

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