Een wekelijks portie burgerschap 34 – Helden en Pakistan
Een wekelijks portie burgerschap. Deze week helden en Pakistan.
Category: anthropology
Sexual Nationalisms – Gender, Sexuality and the Politics of Belonging in the New Europe
An increasing number of scholars in the humanities and social sciences have begun to investigate the important shifts taking place in discourses of sexual freedom and gender equality across the continent. These shifts open up new arenas for ethnographic and other empirical research. What role do sex and gender play in various European nationalisms? In which cultural terms are sexual and gender boundaries articulated? What different trajectories can be discerned, and how can differences between countries be explained? What are the effects of these transformations at the level of the formation of community and subjectivity? How do these discursive shifts become tangible in everyday life? And how can sexual politics avoid the trap of exclusionary instrumentalization without renouncing its emancipatory promise? These and more questions will be addressed at the conference Sexual Nationalisms – Gender, Sexuality and the Politics of Belonging in the New Europe. More information here.
Closer Holiday Service – Most cited AAA Anthropology Articles Available
It’s almost holiday here and what is better than to read a good article from an anthropological journal (except swimming, riding and/or walking in the mountains or doing nothing at all)? Anyway, because the AAA journals do so well, they decided to give people free access to the most cited articles of their different journals, for one one month. Here’s the overview with the links you need.
Autumn School AISSR – Secular sounds, Islamic sounds: Politics of listening in secular-liberal nation-states
This Amsterdam University Autumn School wants to think through the conundrums posed not only by the visible but also by the sonic presence of Muslims in the West. It aims at understanding the issues at stake of the sensing, and more particular listening body, in connection to secular-liberal governance by post-Christian nation-states. We want to tackle several questions: What does the emerging and quickly evolving Islamic soundscape and their interlinked listening practices in the West tell us about new (ethical) Muslim subjectivities? How does this relate to the ways in which sonic experiences affect the body? What kind of transformation occurs when these new practices leave the protected space of the counter-public sphere? How can these Islamic sound practices be submitted to governmental regimes? To what extent are sound policies implemented in order to securize the Western (European) secular (post-Christian) hegemonic project? The three days summer school, followed by a one-day workshop, will take place from 27-30 October
Europe and Islam: Dutch elections – Have the Dutch become intolerant?
Attributing Wilders’ victory to a rise of Dutch intolerance (although that may be the case) means neglecting a trend that has been going on for more than a decade now and the variety in people’s motives for voting for him. It also neglects the fact that other parties have been subjected to the same trend as well. This is a trend in which people increasingly perceive conflict according to a logic of ‘culture talk’.
Pedagogiek – De moskee als partner in het onderwijs
Kan een moskee een partner zijn voor het voortgezet onderwijs? Dit onderwerp komt aan bod in een special van het Tijdschrift Pedagogiek. Dit themanummer is gebaseerd op de jarenlange praktijk in Gouda waar moskee An Nour een project verzorgde voor schoolloopbaanbegeleiding voor Marokkaans-Nederlandse en (later ook) autochtone Nederlandse jongens en meisjes. In dit nummer aandacht voor de debatten en conflicten door voortkwamen uit de samenwerking van deze moskee met jeugdhulpverleningsinstelling RCJ/Het Woonhuis en Goudse scholen. Vanuit antropologische, rechtsfilosofische, ethiek en godsdienstfilosofie invalshoeken wordt gereflecteerd over deze specifieke pedagogische casus.
Reflectie op publieke sociaal-wetenschappelijke kennis
Sociaal-wetenschappelijk onderzoek staat ter discussie. Het zou vooringenomen links zijn, niet wetenschappelijk en niet meer dan ‘de zoveelste mening’. In dit stuk ga ik in op het onbehagen ten opzichte van sociaal-wetenschappelijk onderzoek, de (twijfels omtrent de) geldigheid ervan en de rol van wetenschappers.
Cartoonesque 15 – Muhammad Cartoons and Public Anthropology
An anthropologist in the Muhammad Cartoon debate. Last week there was a lot of talk about the publication of one of the Muhammad cartoons in a Dutch newspaper. A Muslim group responded and launched a video in which several people appeared, including your blogger. In this post I reflect about that and the ensuing debate and its relation to the Dutch Islam debate and public anthropology.
Chart Wars: The Political Power of Data Visualization
Political leaders, social movements and opinion leaders use visual rhetoric for the public representation and manipulation of their ideological messages by means of culturally recognizable symbols but (and this is the interesting part of chart wars) also by more abstract images conveying the message of chaos or order. What people need to know about the political power of visualizing data in 5 minutes.
Contested 'Dutch' Space – Place, space and field
Much of the debate about the establishment of mosques, women with niqab, processes of alienation among native Dutch in migrant areas, christmas decoration and so on, pertain to the issue of ‘place’ as in physical areas that are related to humans and their practices in particular ways. All kinds of histories, practices, meanings and experiences turn an area into much more than just an area. It is an imaginary landscape imbued with all kinds of meanings and contestations of those meanings changing over time. The dynamics of space and place constitute an important research field for anthropologists as they try go grasp the significance of the connections between people’s everyday lives, materiality and place in particular contexts.