Working in Africa with public health researchers— sharing goals, respecting science, enjoying company—Wenzel Geissler was time and again struck by our faculty to unknow our daily confrontation with inequality.
Sindre Bangstad gives an historical overview of political experiences which can be connected with attitudes of xenohphobia in Norway. One of his observations is that "it is not white Norwegians of working-class background in Oslo East who hold the most negative views of immigrants and minorities in Norway. Those white Norwegians who are most likely to hold the most negative views of immigrants and minorities are in fact those least likely to have everyday contact with people of immigrant and minority background"
Denne artikkelen skrevet av Jon Henrik Ziegler Remme tar for seg den ontologiske vendingen i antropologien og viser hvordan den tilsynelatende enhetlige vendingen rommer en rekke ulike tilnærminger til ontologi.
Sindre Bangstad explores the recent application of the "racism paragraph" by higher Norwegian courts. Additionally, he provides a defence of the legislation forbidding grossly discriminatory or hateful public expression against the criticism of "freedom of speech" absolutists.
Marit Melhuus has written a new book about the Norwegian Biotechnology Act. The act is one of the most restrictive in Europe, forbids egg donation and surrogacy and limits people’s choice as to how they can procreate within the boundaries of the nation state. The author The author investigates fundamental questions as the relation between individual and society, revealing much about vital processes that are central to contemporary Norwegian society.
Read more about the book on the publisher's website
Unni Wikan has spent more time in sustained fieldwork in more societies than any other anthropologist whom I know, and these essays are the connective tissue among her most substantial work. They demonstrate her theoretical acuity in defining an approach that always places human experience first. As a result, she develops attractive, balanced, pragmatic views of culture, relativism, and the tendency in cultural anthropology, at least, to emphasize difference over the coherence of human experience in whichever culture and society it is engaged. They are exemplars and a test, as well, of just that approach which understands that common humanity is to be found anywhere, though complicated by distinctive cultural orientations to the expression of personhood.
Georg Marcus, University of California, Irvine
With this volume Christian Krohn-Hansen presents an ethnographic study of Dominicans in New York City through their participation in small businesses. Krohn-Hansen demonstrates how Dominican enterprises work, how people find economic openings, and how Dominicans who own small commercial ventures have formed political associations to promote and defend their interests.
Dette temanummeret av NAT presenterer noe av den ANT-inspirerte antropologien fra Sosialantropologisk institutt ved Universitetet i Oslo. Det er et bredt spekter av artikler fra ulike regionale og tematiske felt, men alle benytter begreper og analytiske perspektiver inspirert av ANT-tradisjonen og beslektede teoretiske vendinger innen Vitenskaps- og Teknologistudier og materiell semiotikk.
With this volume Christian Krohn-Hansen presents an ethnographic study of Dominicans in New York City through their participation in small businesses. Krohn-Hansen demonstrates how Dominican enterprises work, how people find economic openings, and how Dominicans who own small commercial ventures have formed political associations to promote and defend their interests.
Unni Wikan has spent more time in sustained fieldwork in more societies than any other anthropologist whom I know, and these essays are the connective tissue among her most substantial work. They demonstrate her theoretical acuity in defining an approach that always places human experience first. As a result, she develops attractive, balanced, pragmatic views of culture, relativism, and the tendency in cultural anthropology, at least, to emphasize difference over the coherence of human experience in whichever culture and society it is engaged. They are exemplars and a test, as well, of just that approach which understands that common humanity is to be found anywhere, though complicated by distinctive cultural orientations to the expression of personhood.
Georg Marcus, University of California, Irvine
I 1988 publiserte Elisabeth L’orange Fürst den banebrytende studien Kvinner i Akademia, der hun fant et mønster som tydet på at kvinner ble utsatt for forskjellsbehandling i ansettelsen til vitenskapelige stillinger i akademia. Det var ikke like populært overalt. I dette essayet, et noe bearbeidet muntlig foredrag, forteller Fürst om reaksjoner hun fikk – og om refleksjoner hun har gjort seg i ettertid.
Jon Henrik Ziegler Remme diskuterer hvordan ba’i blant ifugao,Filippinene, ikke er stabile ontologiske entiteter, men veksler mellom to måter å eksistere på: potensialitet og aktualitet. Korrekte relasjoner til ba'i er livsviktig for mennekskene og kan bare håndteres gjennom å inngå i utvekslinsrelasjoner med dem. Utveksling av griser og andre offer mellom mennesker og ba’i foregår i ritualer hvor ba’iene blir aktualisert som empirisk tilstedeværende personer. På denne måten skapes en felles sosialitet mellom mennekser og ba’i.
Arnd Schneider has written a new investigation and theoretical discussion on practices of appropriation from indigenous cultures among interior and accessories designers in Misiones province, northeast Argentina. The article is published in the Journal of Material Culture.
Research for this article was carried out as part of the HERA project "Creativity in a World of Movement (CIM)", where Arnd Schneider was a senior researcher (pro-rata) 2010 -2012.
Read the article in the Journal of Material Culture
Susanne Brandtstädter argues that, where the realities of market liberalisation and governing through law are experienced as corruption, feudal superstition recreates the conditions to realise liberated peasant subjects: a participatory local public sphere, political visibility, investments in the public good, and a new collective property.
The key focus for Susanne Brandtstädter, Peter Wade and Kath Woodward is the conjuncture in which culture – claims of a collective distinction concerning heritage, location, moralities and values – has become the terrain of political struggles over the subject of rights in national and international politics, the re-allocation of entitlements, definitions of value, and new forms of political representation.
In his review article Sindre Bangstad refers to Jeremy Waldrons defense of the regulation of hate speech positions itself within a liberal framework concerned with the balancing of individual rights.
-With The Harm in Hate Speech, Prof. Jeremy Waldron (New York University School of Law and All Souls College, Oxford) has simply written the most balanced, moderate and eloquent defense of laws restricting hate speech to date. Whether politicians, legislators and academics will be prepared to engage honestly and reflectively with his arguments remain to be seen.
Marit Melhuus has written a new book about the Norwegian Biotechnology Act. The act is one of the most restrictive in Europe, forbids egg donation and surrogacy and limits people’s choice as to how they can procreate within the boundaries of the nation state. The author The author investigates fundamental questions as the relation between individual and society, revealing much about vital processes that are central to contemporary Norwegian society.
Read more about the book on the publisher's website
In his article Knut Christian Myhre explores social anthropology’s relationship to, and conception of, language, and uses kinship as an example to show how the discipline presumes and entails a digital conception of social relations, which leaves little room for language as a constitutive phenomenon.
Sindre Bangstad gives us an overview of the history of the concept of Islamophobia together with discussisng Chris Allen article.
Bangstad points out that in recent years, new academic titles on Islamophobia in the form of monographs, reportsand journal articles have been piling up on his office desk. The term has been used by nolesser figures than the former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, by various UN and Eagencies, as well as the essential magazine for liberal free-marketers and thinkers, TheEconomist
.
Signe Howell is arguing that the Chewong’s understanding of causality in human existence has no conceptual room for luck or fortune. Metaphysically derived knowledge is applied in daily and ritual practice, ensuring a life that, ideally, is prosperous and devoid of unwanted or dangerous events. In egalitarian Chewong society, every person is responsible for the correct application of this knowledge for the benefit of oneself and others. The premise for well-being is dependent upon the relationship between every individual Chewong man and woman and the numerous conscious beings that populate their environment. Sociality can be understood only from this perspective.
In this article Jon Henrik Remme contribute to an understanding of interreligious encounters that underlines the processes of separation. By an analysis of the meaning-generating processes that were found to be operative in a burial ritual, observed among the Ifugao of northern Luzon, the Philippines.
On the anniversary of the terrorist attack on 22/7 2011, Sindre Bangstad has written a summary of the trial and the public discussion attached to it. – This much is clear, he writes: the now thirty-three year old Anders Behring Breivik has already lost the battle to shape the future of multicultural Norway. And we will say this again and again: history does not – and never will - absolve anyone for human evil of the kind perpetrated against innocent children, women and men in Norway.
Arnd Schneiders chapter in The SAGE handbook of Social Anthropology is divided into five main headings: (1) agency and relationality; (2)artworlds;(3) mimesis and appropriation; (4)materiality; phenomenology, skills and creativity; and (6) practice.
I siste nummer av American Anthropologist fokuserer Sindre Bangstad på intern norske meningsdannelse før og etter terroraksjonen den 22.07.2011. Et sammendrag av artikkelen kan lastes ned her
I The end of history and the last man (2006) lanserer Francis Fukuyama hypotesen om at menneskeheten i dag for første gang står uten en forestilling om en alternativ framtid. Muligheten for å drømme om å skape et fundamentalt annerledes samfunn er undergravet av det liberale demokratiets seiersgang. Denne samfunnsformen kan simpelthen ikke overgås av en fantasi om noe alternativt, skriver Halvard Vike i sin innledning.
Artikkelen er publisert i Norsk Antropologsik Tidsskrift, nr. 2, 2012