Anthro in the news 10/21/13

• Growing bias against Uighurs in China

Region of Uighurs. Photo courtesy of National Geographic education blog.

The New York Times reported on what is apparently growing discrimination in China against Uighurs (or Uyghurs), who live mainly in the northwestern part of the country and are Muslim. The article refers to Beijing’s “strike hard” internal security approach and rapid economic development, both of which increase resentment among Uighurs, who say the best jobs go to newly arrived Han.

Sean Roberts, cultural anthropologist and professor of international development studies in the Elliott School at the George Washington University, is quoted as saying: “The Chinese government is focused on a very outdated understanding of macroeconomic development, thinking that it will bring everyone up to the same level, but it’s clearly not working.”

• Belief in angels and ghosts as hard-wired?

Angel at the Vatican
Vatican angel. Flickr/Madison Berndt

In an op-ed in The New York Times, Stanford University cultural anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann considers various perspectives on how so many people in the U.S. believe in god and other aspects of the supernatural including angels and ghosts.

• Who’s crazy?

An article in Counterpunch about the recent killing of Miriam Carey in Washington, D.C., draws on insights from Luhrmann from her comparative study of narratives of schizophrenics in the U.S. and India.

The study showed that schizophrenics in both countries hear voices, “…but what was interesting was the voices were very different and clearly culturally generated. The Indian voices were ‘considerably less violent’ than the US voices. Americans heard voices suggesting suicide or violence to others, while Indians heard voices suggesting they do their chores or perform disturbing sexual acts. The voices mentally ill people hear are not completely generated from inside their heads; they’re based on things people have experienced in their lives or from the media.”

Implications are that it is important to pay attention to how culture constructs schizophrenia and learn to listen to the voices and respond to them in ways other than shooting them dead. The article raises questions about the voices that journalists do and do not listen to and the sanity of the police who killed Carey.

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Washington, D.C. event: Book launch of Fault Lines – Views across Haiti’s Divide

Author Beverly Bell will conduct a reading, Q&A session, and book signing.

When: Sunday, October 20, 5:30 pm,

Where: The Coupe
3415 11th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20010

Fault Lines is a searing account of life in Haiti since the earthquake of 2010. The book combines street journals, interviews, and investigative journalism to impart perspectives rarely seen outside the country. It studies the strong communities, age-old gift culture, and work of grassroots movements for a more just nation.

Beverly Bell is an award-winning author who has worked and lived in and out of Haiti for 35 years. She runs the economic and social justice group, Other Worlds, and is associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies.

Books will be for sale. (To order a copy from afar, or for more info on the book, visit www.faultlinesbook.org.)

Hosted by Beyond Borders and Just Haiti

Anthro in the news 10/14/13

Gregale cliffs lampedusa
North-Eastern cliffs of Lampedusa, photo by Arnold Sciberras/Wikipedia

• We need a bigger boat

The Wall Street Journal and other mainstream media reported on the second incident of a capsized boat near Lampedusa, in the Mediterranean.

The article quotes Maurizio Albahari, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, who says that the sinking on October 3 hasn’t deterred smugglers from bringing refugees into Europe from the Libyan coast:

“And it cannot possibly deter migrants who have gone through countless stages of peril and exploitation in their own country, especially in Syria and the Horn of Africa.”

• On U.S.-Afghan relations

In an article analyzing current U.S.-Afghan relations and the troop draw-down, Global Post referred to the work of cultural anthropologist Thomas Barfield of Boston University.

Barfield notes that Karzai faces a political conundrum, that: an Afghan ruler, “to be successful … will need to convince Afghans that he will not be beholden to foreigners even as he convinces these same foreigners to fund his state and its military.”

And, pondering the future stability of the country, Barfield is quoted as saying: “In the absence of [a strong leader] and the departure of foreign forces, Afghanistan will not survive as a unitary state. The most likely event in that case would be a sundering of the country along regional lines.”
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GW event: Why the World Bank Should Take a Human Rights Approach to Hydrodevelopment

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

RSVP: go.gwu.edu/hydrodevelopment

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

DC event: Social Media Workshop for Social Empowerment

The Washington Association for Professional Anthropologists presents a discussion of how to use technology to create social networks that promote community education and empowerment.

Speakers: Shanyn Ronis and Kayla Sousa

When: 17 October 17, 2013, 7:00 pm

Where: Sumner School, Rotating Gallery G-4; corner of 17th St and M St NW, Washington, DC

Social media can be a powerful tool for promoting events, expanding the public profile of organizations and causes, and raising funds. This presentation will provide an overview of how to devise a cohesive, successful social media strategy across various platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, E-mail campaigns, Linked-in, Crowd-Sourcing Platforms, and organizational websites. It will explore how this strategy should be used to enhance fundraising efforts and create lasting relationships with donors.

Shanyn Ronis is a sociocultural anthropologist trained at the George Washington University and the University of Chicago. She has worked for the past five years in domestic politics, managing campaigns in Virginia and working on the independent expenditure committees for Colorado State House races. She has also worked throughout Latin America and Western Europe. In 2013, she founded the Education Global Access Program (E-GAP) in order to create a development strategy that relies heavily on anthropological methods of ethnographic assessment and grassroots community empowerment, and that works with local forms of knowledge. E-GAP was established through a partnership of anthropologists, teachers, IT professionals, and globally-minded volunteers. It currently has projects in Peru, Guatemala, and India.

More information and to RSVP: WAPA Presents: Social Media and Fundraising Workshop

GW event: Documentary on data from Internet and cell phones

Join the GW Anthropology Department for a free screening of the documentary, Terms and Conditions May Apply.

This documentary exposes what corporations and governments learn about people through Internet and cell phone usage, and what can be done about it … if anything.

GW professors Joel Kuipers, Joshua Bell, and Alex Dent will lead a discussion following the film.

Where: Seminar Room, Hortense Amsterdam House 202,2110 G Street, Washington, DC

When: October 25, 2013, 2 pm – 4:30 pm

Please RSVP to gwsicellphone@gmail.com as space is limited

International conference in Oslo

This Africa Center for Information & Development conference, “Africa’s triple threat — The rise of transnational and jihadist movements on the continent,” will cover Boko Haram, Al Shabab, and Al Qaeda in the Maghreb and Sahel. Speakers include:

Norad logo Twitter
Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation Twitter page

  • Dr. Emmanuel  Franklune Ogbunwezeh, Head, Africa department of the International Society for Human Rights (ISHR) in Frankfurt
  • Stig Jarle Hansen, Associate Professor, Department of International Environment 6 Development Studies, Noragric. UMB
  • Morten Bøås, Senior Researcher at Fafo’s Institute for Applied International Studies in Oslo
  • Imam Ibrahim Saidy, Imam at Darus Salam Islamic Center Masjid Attawwabin, Oslo
  • Ms. Samia Nkrumah, Ghanaian politician and Chairwoman of the Convention People’s Party
  • Mr. Mohamed Husein Gaas, PhD Fellow at Norwegian University of Life Sciences and a Research fellow a Fafo Institute for Applied International Studies

When: October 17, 2013, 10am – 5pm
Where: P- Hotels, Oslo, Norway
Conference funded by Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation.

Louisiana event: Come to Promiseland

ADHT Save the Date African Burial Ground

The 9th Annual International Conference of the African Diaspora Heritage Trail, called Come to Promiseland, will take place in Parks and St. Martinville, Louisiana on October 11-12th for the Dedication and Declaration of the Indigenous African Creole Protigenitors’ Burial Ground and Inaugural Cultural Heritage Symposium.

Professor Bob Maguire of the Elliott School will present a paper, entitled “The Stone Junkies of Parks: Playing Ball and Strengthening Community.”

(Click on image to enlarge.)

Anthro in the news 10/7/13

Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai
Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai in May 2012. Flickr/isafmedia

• Another run for Afghanistan presidency

Al Jazeera carried an interview with Ashraf Ghani Aamadzai (known more in the U.S. as simply Ashraf Ghani) about the Afghanistan presidential race. The article introduces him by saying: “On paper Columbia-educated cultural anthropologist Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai is an ideal candidate to be Afghanistan’s president. Ghani has worked at the World Bank and United Nations, and has written a book on failed states. In Afghanistan, however, his 2009 bid for the highest political office was dogged by criticism that his 24 years abroad meant Ghani had become a virtual stranger to the Afghan people.”

Ghani speaks about engaging youth and fighting corruption. On the latter, he comments:

There are 100 countries that are extremely corrupt. There are 20-25 countries that came out of corruption and succeeded. The United States still has major corruption, particularly at the municipal level. England invented corruption. Dealing with corruption is a multi-pronged agenda.

Ghani also ran in the last election and garnered only 3 percent of the vote. This time around, he may be running against a brother of his.

• Freedom’s just another word…

According to an article in The Globe and Mail (Toronto), “we” are overly comfortable with debt. The article mentions LSE cultural anthropologist, David Graeber, author of the book Debt: The First 5,000 Years. According to Graeber, the English word “freedom” was originally associated with freedom from debt. It translated into “return to mother” because when debtors fell into arrears badly enough, their children were taken away from them.
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