2015

map-of-the-world-1005413_960_720 — Source: Google Images/Creative Commons

Syrian refugees in poverty

Marketplace (American Public Media) published a piece on the dire economic situation of Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon. According to a new report from UNHCR, Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan have limited opportunities to work since only a small group of refugees has work permits. It quotes Dawn Chatty, professor of anthropology and forced migration at the University of Oxford: “While refugee camps can provide a haven for the displaced population, the reality is that many Syrians in Jordan don’t have access to them…In Lebanon, refugee camps don’t exist…Many are surviving with irregular part-time jobs…and bad pay.”

No lip kissing, please, we’re Indian

770869695-Spectre-Kisses_6 — James Bond gets only a half kiss in Spectre. Source: News Nation

The Times of India carried an article about a talk at the Godrej Culture Lab in Mumbai by William Mazzarella, professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago and author of Censorium: Cinema and the Open Edge of Mass Publicity. He noted how the censorship story has been unfolding in Indian film: “Censorship itself is a kind of publicity that thrives on visibility…Censorship seems to be flourishing despite the fact that it hasn’t been able to silence or control a great deal of our public conscience space. So maybe we need to think differently about what the censors are up to.” He speculated on James Bond’s half kiss in the version of Spectre that made it to Indian movie halls.

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anthro in the news 10/19/2015

486101199_c4663e8840_o — source: The Independent

Muslim refugees and culture talk

The Independent (Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada) carried an article about Canada’s failure to help with the current Middle East refugee crisis, drawing on the fact that Alan Kurdi, the child refugee found dead on a Turkish beach, had an aunt in British Columbia, who had appealed without success to the Immigration Minister to help get the family to Canada. This episode highlights the erosion of government support for refugees with the odds of being granted asylum have declined since 2006, when the Conservatives took power. The article mentions the writings of two Columbia University cultural anthropologists, Lila Abu-Lughod and Mahmood Mamdani. Abu-Lughod argued in a 1991 essay that policy narratives used the “plight of Muslim women” to justify making war after 9/11 at the expense of analyzing the historical development of those contexts in which “Islamic extremism” flourished. Mamdani diagnosed “culture talk” as a central feature in post-9/11 attempts to find links between Islam and terrorism. Cultural explanations tend to erase history he said: “By equating political tendencies with entire communities … such explanations encourage collective discipline and punishment – a practice characteristic of colonial encounters. They also imply that people’s “identities are shaped entirely by the supposedly unchanging culture into which they are born.” The Conservatives in Canada insist they are not targeting Muslims as such. Rather, they claim to be speaking for “Canadian values,” including those of “the overwhelming majority of Muslims who are moderate Muslims.” As Mamdani says, they are pitting “good Muslims” against “bad Muslims,” placing the burden on individual Muslims to prove that they are on the right side.

_86133154_nadinelamoureux_003 — source: BBC News

Welcome to the neighborhood

BBC News carried an article by Irish anthropologist Martina Tyrrell of the University of Exeter has studied the relationship between humans and animals in Arviat, an Inuit community on the west coast of Hudson Bay for fifteen years. The townspeople are increasingly having to cope with polar bears in town. In the past it was rare for bears to enter the town, but now in the summer and autumn, it’s becoming a part of everyday life. Encounters with bears are common, but harm to either humans or bears is rare.

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anthro in the news 9/21/15

North American totem pole; source: Erika Wittlieb, Creative Commons

Indigenous tourism offers hope

CBA Canada reported on a gathering of iIndigenous groups from around the world in Vancouver, British Columbia, to discuss and promote the burgeoning field of “indigenous tourism” or “indigenous cultural tourism” with attention to the value of the unique relationship between First Nations and the environment. Delivering the conference’s keynote address was Wade Davis, professor of cultural anthropology at the University of British Columbia and National Geographic explorer-in-residence. He said that indigenous tourism could potentially revolutionize the industry by encouraging a better appreciation of cultural diversity:

“I think there’s a moral and huge opportunity to become ambassadors for an entire new way of being, a new geography of hope,” said Davis. But it needs to go beyond leveraging quotas of First nations into the field. “Real tourism is when aboriginal societies on their own terms can share their visions of life in a profound way that gives the visitor a true sense of authenticity, such that a visitor goes away as an avatar of the wonder of culture.”

Protests for peace in Japan

sign-24156_640 — Symbol for peace in Japanese

USA Today reported on a surge of youth protests in Japan opposing legislation that would weaken Japan’s post-World War II commitment to pacifism. Weekly gatherings have grown into the largest protest movement Japan has seen in half a century. A crowd estimated by organizers at more than 100,000 turned out on a recent weekend, and nightly demonstrations have taken place outside the parliament building and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s official residence nearby. Young people provided the spark for mass protests this summer, said David Slater, a professor of cultural anthropology and director of Sophia University’s Institute of Comparative Culture, in Tokyo: “Young people have not been apathetic; they have just been disgusted with politics, as have most of the Japanese adult population… This last set of bills just pushed the whole citizenry too far…”

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