Barbara Rose Johnston, Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Political Ecology, Santa Cruz, CA, will address hydrodevelopment and its connections to crimes against humanity with reference to Chixoy dam in Guatemala.
When: Wednesday, October 23, 2013, 5:00-6:30pm
Where: 1957 E Street NW, Lindner Family Commons, 6th Floor
George Washington University, Washington, DC
Presented by the Culture in Global Affairs Program Seminar Series and the Global Policy Forum of GW’s Elliott School of International Affairs’ Institute for Global and International Studies
The Global Gender Program will host “Prenatal sex selection: global patterns and a focus on South East Asia”.
In this seminar Christophe Z Guilmoto, demographer and director of research at the Center for Population and Development (CEPED), Institute of Research for Development (IRD), Paris, will discuss current global patterns and trends relating to pre-natal sex selection, as well as the relationship between the practice and kinship structures in Vietnam and Indonesia.
When: October 9, 2013, 2:00-3:30pm
Where: Lindner Family Commons
1957 E Street NW
The Elliott School of International Affairs
Washington, DC 20052
As a graduate student in cultural anthropology whose research focuses on how international, national, and Islamic law have been applied to issues of gender and sexuality in the Indonesian province of Aceh, I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to partake in the recent conference, Sexuality and Political Change: A New Training Program hosted by Sexuality Policy Watch (SPW).
The meeting took place in Rio de Janeiro from March 18-22 and brought together 17 individuals from around the world who do research on sexuality in the global south and look to link their work to movements of political and social change. Sexuality Policy Watch, a Rio and New York-based organization, serves as a global forum for researchers and activists who engage with policy debates and initiatives on sexuality, gender, sexual and reproductive rights, HIV/AIDS, and LGBT activism. This pilot program aimed to provide a forum for participants to share our research and experiences while reflecting on the intersection of theory, research, and change in the realm of genders and sexualities.
One factor that made this conference so important for me—but also challenging—was the diversity of the participants both in interests and backgrounds. Attendees came from Argentina, Trinidad and Tobago, South Africa, Brazil, India, Egypt, the Philippines, Cameroon, China, and Mexico, among others. I was one of two Americans. We ranged from current graduate students to established professors to queer activists to UN lawyers and had expertise in areas including sexual health, LGBT rights, migration, and sex work.
In forums such as this, it is always helpful as a space for knowledge sharing, but it is undoubtedly difficult to negotiate how we translate all of our local identities and nationally-bound political structures into terms and strategies that have currency at the transnational and international level. Continue reading “Reflections on the Sexuality Policy Watch conference”→
Below please find links to an audio interview with Parisa Kakaee, Iranian women and children’s rights activist, about the impact of sanctions on the women’s movement and civil society in Iran.
Thanks to Sanam Naraghi Anderlini for providing this information. Anderlini is Co-Founder, International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN) and Senior Fellow, MIT Center for International Studies.
See also the best cultural anthropology dissertations of 2011, 2010, and 2009.
Again, this year, I did a key term search in Dissertation Abstracts International to find dissertations completed in 2012 that address topics related to the anthropologyworks mission and heart.
Trophies. Flickr/Snap®
I searched for anthropology dissertations related to human rights, justice, migration, gender, health, violence, conflict, environment, and energy. As someone commented last year, this post could be called “Best cultural anthropology dissertation abstracts” since I do not read every dissertation listed. It’s true — I choose my favorites on the basis of their abstracts, assuming that an abstract does have something to do with the body of the dissertation.
So, here are my 64 picks for 2012: cultural anthropology dissertations, mainly in the U.S., that address issues that I think are really important. I am sorry that I cannot provide a more global list, since so many excellent and important dissertations are written outside the U.S./Canada. Maybe others will address this gap?
All the best to my readers, and Happy New Year 2013!
Living in Limbo with Hope: The Case of Sudanese refugees in Cairo, by Gamal Adam. York University. Advisor Daniel A. Yon. This dissertation, about Sudanese refugees in Cairo, highlights the resilience and hope that distinguish refugees’ lives. The research has resulted in three key findings. First, the refugees have adopted a resource pooling strategy, which includes living in larger households, exempting the newcomers from rent and purchase of food for some time, and ensuring that the individuals who have more resources contribute more. Second, the traditional gender roles have changed and in some cases reversed, many spouses have separated, and children have lost the rights of play and education. Third, refugees are hopeful in celebrating events and setting plans for a better future despite the turbulent experiences they have gone through; most of them are resilient people who encourage each other and are rejuvenated by speeches delivered during various events which they celebrate.
Documenting and Contextualizing Pjiekakjoo (Tlahuica) Knowledges through a Collaborative Research Project, by Elda Miriam Aldasoro Maya. University of Washington. Advisors: Eugene Hunn and Stevan Harrell. People in Pjiekakjoo (Tlahuica), Mexico, have managed to adapt to the globalized world. They have developed a deep knowledge-practice-belief system, Contemporary Indigenous Knowledges (CIK), that is part of the biocultural diversity of the region in which they live. I describe the economic, social and political context of the Pjiekakjoo, to contextualize the Pjiekakjoo CIK, including information on their land tenure struggles, their fight against illegal logging and policies governing the Zempoala Lagoons National Park that is part of their territory. The collaborative research is influenced by the ideas of Paolo Freire and, as a translational work, it draws on the New Rationality proposed by Boaventura De Sousa Santos that appeals for cognitive justice.
Career Women in Contemporary Japan: Pursuing Identities, Fashioning Lives, by Anne Stefanie Aronsson. Yale University. Advisor William Wright Kelly. This dissertation explores what motivates Japanese women to pursue professional careers in today’s neoliberal economy and how they reconfigure notions of selfhood while doing so. I ask why and how it is that one-fourth of women stay on a career track, often against considerable odds, while the other three-fourths drop out of the workforce. I draw from interviews gathered during fieldwork in Tokyo between 2007 and 2010 with 120 professional women ranging in age from early twenties to mid-nineties. I organize these interviews along two main axes: the generation when each woman entered the workforce, and the work sector she entered. I look at five work sectors – finance, industry, entrepreneurship, government, and academia – that attract women because of the new career prospects that emerge as the sectors’ institutional policies change.
“If ih noh beat mi, ih noh lov mi” [If he doesn’t beat me, he doesn’t love me]: An ethnographic investigation of intimate partner violence in western Belize, by Melissa A. Beske. Tulane University, advisor Shansan Du. I examine the cultural underpinnings which normalize gender-based intimate partner violence (IPV) in western Belize and efforts of local activists to diminish the problem. I use multiple methods to investigate why women in heterosexual dyads have come to begrudgingly accept or even justify abuse by their male partners with discourses that conflate “love” and “violence.” Joining forces with former NGO colleagues, I initiated a sustainable survivor assistance program. Continuing to incorporate new members since my time in the field, the group now offers occupational and educational assistance to survivors leaving abusive relationships, and the shelter has expanded as well and thus remains a vital resource for women across Belize and surrounding countries.
Infected Kin: AIDS, Orphan Care and the Family in Lesotho, by Mary Ellen Block. University of Michigan, Advisor: Elisha Renne. This interdisciplinary dissertation in anthropology and social work examines the intersections of HIV/AIDS and kinship and its impact on orphan care and the family in rural Lesotho. It is based on fieldwork in the rural district of Mokhotlong, Lesotho. I find that HIV is a fundamentally a kinship disease and therefore: interventions for AIDS orphans need to include caregiver support; the household should be considered as a salient unit of analysis, evaluation and intervention; and biomedical or biocultural interventions for HIV/AIDS that need to incorporate the underlying theoretical framework of HIV as a kinship disease in order to be effective.
To label Paul Farmer as a practitioner or theorist of any one field would be a disservice to the multi-faceted nature of his commentary and points of view. A self-described physician and medical anthropologist by training (Farmer 2001 [1999], 2005), Farmer’s career experiences highlight his other important roles as an academic, humanitarian activist, diplomat, and voice of the poor. Evidence of each can be found when tracing the development of Farmer’s theories through analysis of selected works published since the 1990s. Depending on the function and audience of the work, and its place in his timeline of experience, each book highlights different concepts, practices, and forms of theory.
Paul Farmer/Wikipedia
The categorization of Farmer’s writings into early, middle, and late periods helps to demonstrate the development and evolution of his core theories, how they build on each other, and how their progression is affected by each of his varied perspectives and audiences.
Analysis of selected works by Farmer traces the development of his main theories and arguments as they build on each other over time. Over the last two decades, Farmer’s central theories have evolved from studies of social suffering to practical analysis of political, social, and economic inequality and structural violence, and to pragmatic solidarity and the provision of tools of agency and targeted solutions to suffering stemming from tuberculosis (TB), HIV/AIDS, and poverty. The use of ethnography, local and international history, and the practice of actively bearing witness to violations of health as a human right facilitate what has become a collective, comprehensive approach and body of theory associated with Farmer. Consideration of his central concepts, writing style, and practical experiences serves to demonstrate how his unique approach came to be associated with the household name he is today.
Mellon Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor, City University of New York Graduate Center
When: Thu, Apr 12 | 5:30pm – 6:30pm Where: 5th floor Seminar Room, Suite 501
1957 E St, NW
Elliott School of International Affairs
Eben Kirksey first went to West Papua in 1998 as an exchange student. During his later study of West Papua’s resistance to Indonesian occupiers and the forces of globalization, he discovered that collaboration, rather than resistance, was the primary strategy of this dynamic social movement. The revolutionaries have a knack for getting inside institutions of power and building coalitions with unlikely allies, including many Indonesians.
This event is free and open to the public. RSVP here.
Read Kirksey’s past guest post on anthropologyworks here.
Sponsored by the Culture in Global Affairs (CIGA) Program which is part of the Elliott School’s Institute for Global and International Studies
The case concerning the right of return of the Chagos Islanders, who were forcibly removed from their homeland by the British authorities between 1968 and 1973 to make way for the U.S. base on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, is before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. In the near future, the judges will rule whether the case falls within the court’s jurisdiction. If it does, a verdict is expected by July or August.
Diego Garcia Atoll, Chagos Islands, British Indian Ocean Territory. WikiCommons
In the meantime, a petition to the Obama Administration is calling for the Chagossian exiles to be able to return to the outer islands of the Chagos Archipelago like Peros Banhos and Salomon, along with financial compensation and targeted employment programs. The petition has just been launched by the SPEAK Human Rights and Environmental Initiative. The organization was founded in 2010 by a small group of Mauritian lawyers, and is working with the Port Louis-based Chagos Refugees Group led by Olivier Bancoult.
The aim of the petition is to collect at least 25,000 signatures by April 4. A successful number of signatories on the “We the People” website will oblige White House staff to review the issue, seek expert opinion and provide an official response. Details can be found here.
Stuart Kirsch, anthropology professor at the University of Michigan, shared a link to a Huffington Post editorial updating the human rights situation there. Written by the Lowenstein International Law Clinic at Yale University, the essay highlights land grabbing and controversial development plans in the West Papua rain forest. The Clinic will be producing a full report in near future.
On December 2nd, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi at her house in Burma (renamed Myanmar by the military government in 1989). It was truly a historic meeting. Aung San Suu Kyi had spent most of the past 22 years under house arrest, but was freed in November 2010. President Thein Sein, a former military general who was inaugurated in March 2011, has surprised Burmese citizens and the world by introducing tentative political and economic reforms and reaching out to Aung San Suu Kyi and the United States. United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meets with Burma's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, December 2, 2011. Wikimedia Commons
Hillary Clinton’s visit was meant to encourage the government to commit to further reforms, as well as to demonstrate support for Aung San Suu Kyi and the democratic movement. Hillary Clinton and Aung San Suu Kyi gave a joint press conference on Aung San Suu Kyi’s porch, which ended with a heartfelt embrace. Clearly these two women feel great affection for each other, and for Burmese inside and outside the country, it was an ecstatic moment.
In the press conference and other recent statements, Aung San Suu Kyi emphasized the need for the rule of law and the cessation of civil war in Burma. If there were rule of law, meaning independent courts as well as protections for freedom of speech and peaceful assembly, there would be no more political prisoners.
Currently there are several hundred prisoners of conscience, including a number of women. In 2009, Hla Hla Win was sentenced to 27 years in prison for her undercover reporting on the second anniversary of the monks’ 2007 protests and other sensitive stories for an exile media outlet. In 2008, Nilar Thein was sentenced to 65 years in prison because of her leading role in non-violent political protests in 2007 and earlier. Her husband is also a political prisoner, and their young daughter must now be raised by her husband’s parents.
In the ethnic states, decades of civil war have resulted in widespread destruction and displacement, while countless girls and women have been raped. As Burmese women’s groups and the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights for Burma have documented, Burma Army soldiers commit rape with impunity. While for decades, the Burmese military leadership has sought to force the country’s non-Burman populations into submission, Aung San Suu Kyi has called for a genuine union of Burma in which the rights of ethnic minorities would be respected. If she, the United States government, and others can persuade Burma’s military leadership that a federal system of government is viable, then genuine peace can be restored and the healing process can begin.
If all goes according to plan, Aung San Suu Kyi will run for parliament in an upcoming by-election for a number of vacant seats. She is encouraging other women to run as well. They are likely to push for more attention on health, education, poverty alleviation, and humanitarian assistance.
Should the reform process continue, Burma could at last move toward recognizing and valuing the contributions of all its citizens. That would really be something to celebrate.
Christina Fink is a professor at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. An anthropologist who has focused on Burma for many years, she is the author of Living Silence in Burma: Surviving Under Military Rule (2009).
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