N E W S L E T T E R I S S U E N O . 8 S U M M E R 2 0 13
N E W S L E T T E R I S S U E N O . 8 S U M M E R 2 0 13
Greetings!
The academic year 2012/13 has been busy experience for students and staff across all
for staff and students alike. We have had a areas of academic life in the department.
very successful visit by the Internal Quality
Review, commending the Department for its The past academic year has seen a number
openness and inclusivity, for our enthusiastic of staff- and student-led innovations that
and articulate students, for the accessibility will become fixtures in the calendar for the
of the staff, the effective pastoral support next few years. The first year BSc students
provided to the students, and the commitment were taken again to an away camp in
of staff to teaching. All the students the February, accompanied by a number of
IQR team met were very positive about the staff. Undergraduate students at all levels
Department and were appreciative of the were hugely active again in running the
high quality teaching delivered by staff.
Anthropology Society. We had very successful
debates this year between members of staff
This was the penultimate term ahead of the as well as new events such as a staff/student
UK’s all important REF (Research Excellence ball.
Framework) submission. Preparations reached
a feverish state at certain times during the This term is always tinged with sadness as we
year. The Department’s REF team is grateful say goodbye to our final year undergraduate
for the patience and responsiveness of staff. students, several of whom were successful in
We are going into the important submission winning coveted studentship funding at UCL,
period quietly confident that the Department LSE and Cambridge. It is still too early to
has done everything it can to remain at the know whether we were able to match our
very top of the field.
examination success from last year, when
almost 60% of students received first-class
In April our administrative team was joined degrees, but the headhunting of our students
by our new Undergraduate Administrator, by leading colleges in the UK confirms our
Jolanta Skorecka. For the first time in three standing as a Department leading the
years we now have a full compliment of training in anthropology in the country.
administrative staff and we are looking
forward to creating a smooth and effective Enjoy your summer!
Professor Susanne Kuechler, Head of Department
FIELD-TRIP
Sleeping in the darkness, like a
seed beneath the earth
Fond memories of this year’s First Year field-trip
Johan Greve Petersen
1st Year BSc Anthropology
Going to university of ten carries
the idea of being buried in books,
being locked away in lecture theatres
and moving calmly (sic!) from one
deadline to the next. Equally, does
going to Glastonbury connote ideas
of music, mud and an ocean of happy
festival-goers.
But this February reading-week roundly opportunity to exhale after surviving Our spiritual quest was facilitated by
challenged both of these perceptions. half a year in urban London’s strangling The “Green-Men” of Dundon, a band
This February, music still sounded from lack of nature, but a chance to engage of cultural ‘Others’, alien to the urban
the bottom of the Somerset hills but in matters completely inaccessible in environment of Bloomsbury. With
this time it was the high pitch tone of tutorials and seminars. The Body - as we them, we joined in an appreciation the
swan-bone flutes, and the melancholy were constantly reminded throughout land and its history, saluted the four
ex pressions of 30 ant hropolog y the trip – is the most important tool corners of the world, drank from the
students humming over and over; “I for the anthropologist because bodily spring of enlightenment, and attempted
will sleep in the darkness, like a seed engagement allows the ethnographer (with varying success) to sound like the
beneath the earth. I will sleep in the…..” to tr anscend t he const r aint s of fire and the wind. These rites allowed
armchair research, facilitating deeper us to bond and spend precious time
The first-year field-trip to the Earth understanding and appreciation of with each other and with members of
Spirit Centre was not merely an other cultures and cosmi. If only the staff in ways not possible back ‘home’ in
Victorian evolutionist E. B. Tylor had Taviton Street.
known “I will sleep….I will sleep…”
Was this spending precious department
Bodily engagement meant days of money on just “hippie’ing” around for
exploring the powers of singing, a couple of days? Quite possibly. But
dancing, hiking and storytelling, and three years in this department is a long
above all, wait for it, sweating. Who of time to mingle with students without
us could have imagined at the beginning really knowing them, and we returned
of the year, 30 co-students squeezed as not just co-students, but as friends
tight in a sweat-lodge the size of a with shared adventures and a very real
Ramsay Hall single bed room, staying sense of how to enter ‘another culture’.
put for hours, reciting ancient prayers,
howling like wolves in the night. More
like Summersweat than Somerset!
ANTHROPOLITAN SUMMER 2013
Top: ‘Preparing for the long awaited
sweat-lodge
Left: Warming up for the voice workshop
3
SPECIAL THEME: MYTH AND BINARIES
Fx(a):Fy(b) = Fx(b):Fa-1(y).
engineered wrappings for
mythical sweets
Tobia Farnetti, PhD Anthropology
Alice Elliot, PhD Anthropology 2012
Several decades ago, on the heels of a two-year study of North American Zuni and Pueblo myths, the French anthropologist
Claude Lévi-Strauss came up with a formula which he thought described algebraically the logical structure of myth. In ‘The
Structural Study of Myth’, a canonical essay that all students of anthropology eventually come to read, Lévi-Strauss wrote:
“Finally, when we have succeeded in organizing a whole series of variants into a kind of
permutation group, we are able to formulate the law of that group. It…seems that every
myth (considered as the aggregate of all of its variants) corresponds to a formula of the
following type: Fx(a):Fy(b) = Fx(b):Fa-1(y). Here, with two terms, a and b, being given as
well as two functions, x and y, of these terms, it is assumed that a relation of equivalence
exists between two situations defined respectively by an inversion of terms and relations, under two conditions: (1) that one terms be replaced by its opposite (in the above
formula a and a-1); (2) that an inversion be made between the function value and the
term value of the two elements (above, y and a).”
To evaluate whether or not this attempt to mathematically model myth was a cipher of Lévi-Strauss’s genius or merely a
case of misplaced scientism, CROC (the Cosmology, Religion, Ontology and Culture Reading and Research Group) met
for a full day of reading, discussion and critique on Saturday, January 12th 2013 in the Department of Anthropology. In the
brief text that follows, Tobia Farnetti and Alice Elliot present their reflections on the discussion.
If there is something reassuring about the rule of the kingdom, or just a pot monumental tetralogy Mythologiques
myth and folktales, it is that one always of gold – while the hero’s helper is which excavates the structural logics of
knows where one stands with them. As good-hearted but weak, and the sage indigenous myths from the Americas,
Vladimir Propp (1968) and then Walter is old and blind. One
Ong (1982) observed long ago, the is tempted to say that
characters of myths and oral narratives there are only so many
tend to fulfil stereotypical roles and have characters in folktales
characteristics that confirm them. So, and myths repeated in
the hero is brave, but perhaps poor, and endless permutations,
throughout the story he will undergo Jungi an arche t y pe s
difficult tasks to save the princess (who, hidden behind every
of course, is beautiful but helpless and one of the characters.
generally has lusciously long hair) and
thus climb the social ladder to its I n
Claude
Lévi-
highest point. The hero’s symmetric S t r au s s’ n u m e ro u s
opposite, the villain, struggles for the works on myth, and
same goal – the love of the princess, p a r t i c u l a r l y h i s
4
Greedy Goatsuker
ANTHROPOLITAN SUMMER 2013
SPECIAL THEME: MYTH AND BINARIES
the heroes are not brave knights and
beautiful princesses but somewhat
more colourful characters such as
defecating sloths, greedy goatsuckers,
jealous potters and men without
anuses. What is more, the characters of
Lévi-Strauss’s structuralist analyses do
not represent fixed Jungian archetypes
but constantly change and shift into
something other than themselves,
so that severed heads can turn into
planets and women into birds. With
Lévi-Strauss’s guidance, one will notice
that some of these transformations
are d ow nr ig h t i nve r sio n s . T hey
frequently depict a world in reverse
A young Levi-Strauus in Amazonia, c.1953
or a cosmos turned upside down in
which everything becomes its opposite mythical thought are two autonomous and to concentrate on what the formula
as, for example, when he writes in The and equal ways of thinking (i.e. myth is has to say not only about myth, but
Jealous Potter(1988:80),“earthenware not a precursor of science). In which also about structuralist logic generally.
[...] is used in ‘anti-cooking’ and… case, the mathematical formula could In fact, with its emphasis on inversion,
boiling water instead of fire sets the be taken as an attempt by the ‘engineer’, structural opposites and permutation
world ablaze”, Behind all of these who for Lévi-Strauss personifies the groups, the canonical formula is possibly
transformations, lies the same structure, logic of science, to break the rules and best seen as the ingenious crystallisation
and this structure can be expressed in imprison the intuitive creativity of myth of Lévi-Strauss’s thought: a refined,
what Lévi-Strauss famously branded in the iron cage of algebraic logic.
clean, concise testimony to the rigour
“the canonical formula of myth” (see
and imagination of structuralism itself.
above), designed to show that ultimately Or, is the canonical formula, on the
there is no single “better” version of a contrar y, an ironic and power ful References
myth, one that is more complete or hint given to us by the master of
authentic but that, rather, the myth is structuralism, of the unfailing structure Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1963. Structural
all its variations and the relationship of mythical creativity: of its ability to anthropology. New York: Basic Books
between them. The message of this stand as a specific type of imaginative
mythologique is that the whole corpus logic that works on and with paradox, _ _ _ _ _ _ _1966. The Savage Mind.
of Amerindian myths is ultimately without needing any external referent London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson
one huge mono-myth with countless or trigger to reproduce itself rigorously
variations, and that the formula is the ad infinitum? Then, the wrapping may _ _ _ _ _ _ _1988. The Jealous Potter.
bones behind the sprawling flesh of its be engineer-like, but the sweet it Chicago; London: University of Chicago
mythical imagination or mythopoeisis.
envelops, and the message it delivers, is Press
especially mythical in taste.
Still, the question remains as to what we
Ong, Walter. 1982. Orality and Literacy.
are to make of the formula. Is it mainly a Should we treat the formula as a feat New York: Routledge
fetishisation of the natural sciences and of applied mathematics and place
mathematics, an imperialistic claim of through its machinery, the myths we Propp, Vladimir. 1968. Morphology of
Western intellectualism over the “mind encounter in our tortuous ethnographic the Folktale. Austin: University of Texas
of the primitives”? In the first chapter trajectories? Probably not. In the end, Press
of The Savage Mind (1966),Lévi-Strauss it may be preferable to abandon the
famously argues that scientific and awkward task of mathematizing myth,
ANTHROPOLITAN SUMMER 2013
5
SPECIAL THEME: MYTH AND BINARIES
Schrödinger’s
Ape: evolving
human-animal
liminality in
modern Britain
Kathleen Bryson
PhD in Biological Anthropology
“Chumanpanzee” – A Human-Animal “Liminal Zone”?
(c) Kathleen Bryson 2002
A s a s t u d e n t o f e v o l u t i o n a r y When we assign such clear binary may not be the way we perceive it, and
anthropology, I am interested in the categories, we implicitly believe that it is possible that essentialist thinking
grey area between modern human there are essential, unchangeable influences scientific results, which
beings and extinct ancestors, as well as qualities that the categorised object are often based on binary, either/or
between human beings and other great possesses: we essentialise. Essentialism, categorical thinking.
apes. I particularly focus on academic dichotomisation and stereotyping help
and social paradigms in which one us make ready sense of our world. Indeed, in terms of the Human/
being is categorised as human (read Such “shorthand” thinking may even be Animal divide and in-group/out-group
non-animal) and the other, an animal hard-wired in evolutionary terms. Does distinctions in general, studies suggest
(a chimpanzee, for example). We often binarism reflect the “real” world? Or that we as humans discriminate against
pigeonhole our surroundings into such were evolutionary forces at work that those we understand to be less than fully
dualistic categories i.e. white/black, favoured dichotomous brains - because human, be they animals or homosexuals
nature/culture, we/they, human/animal. those who simplify were somehow or females or the disabled. This is
Often one side of a dichotomy has be t te r e quipped t o sur vive and an indication of infra-humanisation:
more power in such ‘reciprocal alterity’
(e.g. heterosexuals generally have
more rights and are accorded more
“humanity” globally than homosexuals).
In relation to the Human/Animal
alterity, this distinction between Homo
sapiens and chimpanzees is intriguing,
as many of the boundary enforcements
(such as cumulative culture, complex
one’s in-group is more human than an
“I am particularly focussed
on academic and social
paradigms in which one being
is categorised as human (read:
non-animal) and the other
an animal (a chimpanzee, for
example). “
out-group (Leyens et al. 2000). This
suggestion in terms of discrimination
has particular significance in the field of
prejudice studies, and is linked to my
own doctoral research.
For e x a m p le , my P h D re se arc h
concentrates on four classic binary
alt e rit ie s (H um an /A nim al , M ale /
tool use, Theory of Mind) are subject to reproduce? Alternatively, are dualistic Female, Heterosexual/Homosexual,
interpretation – interpretation, in this categories reflective of our upbringing body/machine) that are often cited in
case, by the more “empowered” half of u n d e r c e r t a i n s o c i o - e c o l o g i c a l biological anthropological studies. As a
the dichotomy.
conditions and power asymmetries and pilot project, I explored the rigidity or
thus social constructs? The world itself fluidity of the Human/Animal alterity by
6
ANTHROPOLITAN SUMMER 2013
SPECIAL THEME: MYTH AND BINARIES
gathering data on boundary perceptions astronomical growth of the internet. Bibliography
of whether humans were considered All of these could be seen as a type
to be animals, apes or primates. I did of “millennial animal-angst” where the Abercrombie, N. (1996). Television and
this via the coding of human/animal category of what was “human” had to Society. Cambridge: Polity Press
boundary categorisations from articles be protected, and thus the boundaries
over a 16-year period of newspaper were drawn more tightly.
Aosved, A .C . & P.J. Long (20 06).
reporting in the UK (1995 –2010).
Co-occurrence of rape myth acceptance,
My goal was to investigate whether Indeed, in regards to in-group boundary sexism, racism, homophobia, ageism,
societal concepts of “real” categories enforcement, several recent sociological classism, and religious intolerance. Sex
potentially reflect political events or studies have indicated a high correlation Roles 55: 481-492
scientific discoveries – in other words, between essentialism by the more
reflect cultural influence.
socially enfranchised party and societal Capozza, D.; G. Boccato; L. Andrighetto
instability that “emerged only when the & R. Falvo (2009). Categorization of
My initial pilot study showed intriguingly dominant group was threatened by the ambiguous human/ape faces: Protection
that inclusionality (humans are animals; prospect of social change” (Morton et of ingroup but not outgroup humanity.
humans are apes; humans are primates) al. 2009).
Group Processes & Intergroup Relations
started out at a very high rate during
12: 777-787
1995, but t hen dropped stee ply In turbulent and conservative times
towards the year 2000, followed by a our tendency to protect the category Leyens, J-P; P.M. Paladino; R. Rodriguezslight recovery. In 1995 we were fairly of humanity is strengthened (Aosved Torres; J . Vaes; S . Demoulin; A .
comfortable grouping ourselves with & Long 2006; Capozza 2009), and Rodriguez-Perez & R. Gaunt (2000).
fellow animals, and them with us. Then, societal shakiness could account for the The emotional side of prejudice: The
by the year 2000, something shook that minimisation of the “human” in-group at attribution of secondary emotions to
tolerance on a cataclysmic level.
the expense of other great apes as we ingroups and outgroups. Personality and
approached the year 2000. This process Social Psychology Review 4: 186-197
Why these tremors, and why then? of human/animal infrahumanisation
Categorical boundaries are likely to that allows for in-group/out-group Morton, T. A.; T. Postmes; S. A. Haslam
be sensitive to surrounding societal sorting might be based on natural-kind & M.J. Hornsey (2009). Theorizing
narratives (Abercrombie 1996). What categorisations, possibly reflecting gender in the face of social change:
resulted in this period of geopolitical a cognitive adaptation (Atran 1998). Is there anything essential about
upheavals included a post-Cold War H oweve r, t his e sse nt i alism al so essentialism? Journal of Personality and
shift of Western politics to the right in seems sensitive to cultural change – Social Psychology 96: 653-664
about 2000; the 9/11 event and ensuing thus suggesting that our concepts of
military and economic conflicts; fin de reality itself and, therefore, scientific
millennium anticipatory hype; and the discourse, are historically flexible.
Wolf-Woman – A “Natural-Kind” Hybrid
from Winterland / (c) Jessica Cheeseman & Kathleen Bryspn 2012
ANTHROPOLITAN SUMMER 2013
“Animals”
(c) Kathleen Bryson 2009
7
FROM THE FIELD
Living the Angry River:
Bangladesh’s crumbling chars
Rebecca Seglow Hudson
3rd Year BSc Anthropology
I stepped down from the boat and was t h ro u g h B a n g l ad e s h’s e x p a n s i ve increase in intensity and frequency. Char
tugged through the throng of eyes and rivers. Bangladesh is a delta, its land dwellers, with barely a carbon toechattering mouths. The young woman continually carved and re-carved by a print between them, are what theorists
gripped my arm; my brutish English feet network of 200 coursing rivers. Chars mean when they talk about the ‘losers’
failed to grip the sticky earth. Flip flops are the delicate islands that emerge of global warming. I spent two months
bending and sliding, I was rushed to the and disintegrate within these rivers. An doing f ieldwork in the nor thern
island’s edge. She pointed at the silent, estimated 5 million people live on the chars of Bangladesh for my Final Year
swollen river. She talked, ardent with chars, they are some of Bangladesh’s project, trying to comprehend how char
urgency. Her sari whirled colour into m o s t m a r g i n a l i s e d i n h a b i t a n t s . dwellers negotiate the natural disasters
each gesticulation.
Annual flooding, occasional drought that compose much of their everyday
and recurrent erosion rob already lives.
“The land is breaking!” She pointed to indigent households of crops, livestock,
the slice of mud on which we stood. homes and communities. Most of my I travelled to the chars with a local NGO
“Do you see? Is it like this in foreign places? informants had been forced to move and many char dwellers thought I could
Just yesterday there was a piece of land char over 30 times. Yet all insisted they assist them in some way: was I a doctor?
here!” She laughed “In just two days, two weren’t nomadic: “We try to look for A vet? Could I help set up the high
hundred metres of our char has gone! We stability” Muhammed told me, “I invest school they so badly needed? At these
have nowhere to go, we are just waiting my future in this land, and I will continue to moments, anthropology felt sorely
here. We are so afraid”
do so. Maybe tomorrow it will crumble and impractical. More uncomfortable were
I will be left with nothing. But I will keep encounters that revealed the mechanics
I was in charland, the constellation investing; no one can predict what will be of inequality. I arrived at one char in the
of fleeting, delicate islands scattered stable”. Each year, these climatic shifts middle of an argument between a char
8
ANTHROPOLITAN SUMMER 2013
FROM THE FIELD
dweller and an NGO representative. (I fell through a banana-tree raft right programmes. Carbon outputs from
The men stood at the centre of the char, into the river at one point) and long around the globe determine the level of
staring into the oval fish pond the NGO discussions over tea and baked sweets erosion the chars will face in years to
had installed for villagers to produce an gave me a glimpse at the texture of come. All the while, char dwellers patch
income during the monsoon. The fish char life. Villagers banded together in together stability on the great silent
pond was empty, a gaping lacuna at the times of trouble, swim- herding all the whiteness of the river.
village’s centre. “We have nothing to eat! char’s cattle through the river when
There is no work!” the char dweller yelled
“Now the landowner has told us we aren’t
allowed to cultivate fish here. He wants to
do it himself! He will get all the profit! So
what income do we have for the next three
months? You told us the pond was for us”.
Seeing me, the NGO worker turned his
back on the man and rolled his eyes.
My time in Bangladesh was one of the
“My time in Bangladesh
was one of the most disorienting, intense, enriching
and thoroughly enjoyable
times of my short life.”
“He hasn’t a clue what he’s talking about”
He explained, lighting a cigarette with
a smile. “The landowner is a very good
man; we have a good relationship with
him, never mind about this chaura .” He
1
ushered me to the nearest boat and
we left, leaving the villagers to lament
the politics of the pond and devise new
ways to survive the floods.
Anthropology allows us to unpick the
social threads that people make and are
made by. In the dynamic chaos of my
short fieldwork encounter, I saw these
threads spring to life. Happenstances,
observations, stories, jokes, mistakes
ANTHROPOLITAN SUMMER 2013
most disorienting, intense, enriching
and thoroughly enjoyable times of my
short life. People I met both in and out
of the chars were unendingly generous
and patient with me, and I thank them
for teaching me how anthropology
emerges from the spirited shambles of
daily life.
warned of flood, staying awake all
night to ward off armed robbers who
threatened to steal livestock. Yet what
struck me most was how the texture
of this ostensibly remote place was
entangled in social threads on a global
scale, the ‘place-making projects’ 2 of
elsewhere. Development workers from
1
A derogatory term for a char dweller,
associating them with rudeness ,
violence and poverty
2
G ill e , Z . a nd R i ai n , S . ‘G l o b a l
Ethnography’ in Annual Review of
Sociology, 2002. 28:271–95
Dhaka, with money from Britain, install
the promise of fish ponds. Vestiges
of Britain’s colonial land policy allow Below left: Two boys stand on a boat by
landowning elites to revoke rights to the the side of a flooded char. Below right: An
NGO worker tells the local char dwellers
pond. Doctors from Luxembourg visit that they must be united and work hard to
annually to oversee child vaccination cope with the latest flood.
9
FROM THE FIELD
Some views of the Mongolian
‘Wolf Economy’
Rebecca Empson, Lecturer in Social Anthropology
Food Market, Ulaanbaatar
After reading that Mongolia now has the also hunted, hinting at the way in ‘A Partnership You can Trust’ or ‘A
fastest growing economy in the world, which the economy could emerge Mine for Mongolians’. In the city, the
I was keen to visit the country and see with streng th or alternatively, be Soviet-planned boulevards and housing
how things had changed. While most subject to destruction. This fear of complexes had been interrupted by
of the world is suffering the effects of destruction has fuelled widespread new buildings that cut through these
the global financial crisis, Mongolia, concerns that Mongolia’s resources old visions with shining facades that
we are told is apparently experiencing are being exploited by outsiders. The glistened alongside traffic that was
economic growth unlike anywhere else. comparison with the Middle East is in almost permanent gridlock. This
Large-scale foreign- and state-owned also evidence of fears such as potential certainly was a different city to the
mining operations, involving gold, ‘overheating’ of the economy, where one I had encountered just a few years
copper and coal are generating great the exploitation of natural resources before. Money from the new mineral
hope for the future. Mongolia’s ex-Vice leads to a sharp rise in the value of wealth, it appeared, had penetrated
local currency. Moreover, fears of the and proliferated every corner and
“While most of the world
is suffering the effects of
the global financial crisis,
Mongolia, we are told is apparently experiencing economic growth unlike anywhere else.”
Minister of Finance has captured this
sense of hope in his term ‘The Wolf
Economy’ to describe how Mongolia
could potentially ‘leap-frog a Western
development model, drawing lessons
from the Middle East, and be inspired by
stories of Asian Tigers to build [their]
own model’1.
In Mongolia, the wolf is revered but
10
social and political pitfalls associated could be spent in the range of new
with the development of a rentier state, shops and restaurants that filled the
deriving most of its income from the streets. It could also be invested in the
foreign exploitation of its resources, exclusive gated residential villas, such
also abound. Aware of the economic as ‘Dream Land’ or ‘Buddha Vista’,
and political disenfranchisement being located in the ever-expanding outskirts
played out in the Middle East and West of the city which also house (albeit in
Africa, Mongolians are rightly seeking a another direction) the growing felt-tent
different kind of solution. But what kind settlements of those who migrate to
of effect is this economic growth having the city from the rest of Mongolia in
on people’s everyday lives?
search of work.
Arriving at Chinggis Khaan International Leaving Ulaanbaatar, I was keen to see
Airport last summer and driving along what impact the emerging economy
the potholed road to Mongolia’s had on the countryside. Travelling
capital, large posters lined the roadside acros s M ongoli a’s b e au t i f ul a nd
depicting smiling men wearing hardhats vast countryside, the seasonal rain
and shaking hands in front of heavy transformed most of our route into a
machinery with slogans proclaiming: muddy swamp, giving the sense that, in
ANTHROPOLITAN SUMMER 2013
FROM THE FIELD
terms of infrastructure at least, things
were very much the same as before.
Arriving at a small district centre, of
no more than 2,000 people, on the
Mongolian-Russian border, however, it
was obvious that things had changed.
Mobile phone coverage now extended
to the countryside. People could call
each other before embarking on a
visit. Electricity was available, if you
had the money, and televisions were
showing the London Olympics, while
freezers hummed away in corners,
interrupted only by power cuts when alone. We stayed in the far countryside down on another dry, salted cashew.
meat defrosted for the millionth time, with my friend Dondog and his family. Walking round the 360 degree vista up
and floors became sodden with the They are pastoral herders whose here in the clouds, the world felt quite
pinkish colour of blood. Motorbikes two youngest daughters now go to divorced from that going on down
were everywhere, zipping past corners university in Irkutsk, in Siberia. Picking below, where people were avoiding
and over rivers in all directions so that wild strawberries in the forest, milking being splashed by the af ternoon
one could almost always guarantee a their cows, preparing products for the traffic speeding past. This building, the
lift from one side of the district to the winter, and chopping wood for the bar, its people, as well as the sheer
other.
stove, things did not seem so different distance and exclusivity it afforded on
from before. Shamanic initiation the city and the country as a whole,
T he se , along w i t h new e le c t r ic ceremonies were being held, parties and was another kind of materialisation
cookers and sometimes washing gatherings took place, and slowly, as the of Mongolia’s so-called mineral boom,
machines, appeared to be the material autumn began to show in the yellowing albeit one granted only to certain kinds
manifestations of the ‘Wolf Economy’. grass, the hay-collecting season began.
of people. Here, then, are some snap-
The district centre now had two banks
shots of Mongolia’s emerging economy
with bank workers in crisp uniforms Returning to Ulaanbaatar, I scurried from some very different perspectives.
sit ting behind desk s. They were around visiting friends across the city Outside of the GDP figures and indexes
issuing a range of a different loans and before our return to the U.K. Cold and that circulate in the international press
repayment schemes so that people wet from the rain, on my last day, I took media, it remains to be seen how far
could purchase different commodities a chance and walked in through the this economic growth will actually
or start businesses of various kinds. glass doors of Mongolia’s largest new go in creating the kinds of places,
Making this money available to people sky-scraper. Shooting up its transparent communities and activities that have
was one way in which the government lift, I glanced out of the window at the been predicted in its wake.
was trying to diversify the economy. sprawling city down below. On the
So that while economic growth may be 25th floor I stepped out into a kind of
1
w w w. g a n h u y a gc h h . b l o g s p o t .
inevitable from the mining industry, it nest on top of the world. This was the com/2010/10/wolf-economy.html
should not be confined to this activity infamous Blue Sky Lounge. Here foreign
men in well-cut suits could be seen
sitting in low-slung chairs behind cold
beers or martinis talking to Mongolians
through interpreters while crunching
Top: Summer party for elders
Left: Local naadam celebration
Right: Delivering milk for sale
All photos © Rebecca Empson
ANTHROPOLITAN SUMMER 2013
11
STAFF PROFILE
An Interview with
Susanne Kuechler
Professor in Anthropology and Material
Culture in the Department of Anthropology,
her research focuses on creativity, innovation,
and futurity in political economies of
knowledge.
W H AT A R E YO U C U R R E N T LY elaborate destruction of everything focusing on the displacement of barkDOING RESEARCH-WISE? WHAT that was associated with a deceased cloth production. However, the early
PROJECTS ARE YOUR STUDENTS person, including the figures that are departure of a postdoctoral fellow
INVOLVED WITH AT THE MOMENT? made as an image of the social body to assigned to study the fabrication of
complete the last phase of the funerary large elaborate patchwork quilts in
I have been Head of Depar tment process, the secondary burial. Made the Cook Islands, Eastern Polynesia,
for a period of five years, and the for exchange, to mark and underwrite forced me fortuitously to take on the
comparative perspective I had already future relations of sharing land and its ethnographic research to be conducted
come to appreciate, coupled with products, Malanggan sculptures and in this area. There are no museum
a theoretical introspection into the masks comprise one of the largest collections to work from because
‘material mind’, has been a life-saver. ethnographic collections housed in all quilts are gifted to be eventually
Comparison imposed itself productively museums all over the world. This is returned to the maker’s household
on my work when, after 15 years of because their sale by islanders came to and wrapped around her own or her
conducting research in Island Melanesia, be seen as a way to secure the financial husband’s or child’s body in the grave
several factors conspired to suggest resources required to stage ever more house that is positioned in every
a relocation of my field-site to The elaborate and costly ceremonies. My garden. So, it took me a number of long
Cook Islands in Eastern Polynesia, research established the first case study return visits to gain the confidence of
where I have worked for the past 12 of what came to be known as ‘image- informants who were willing to open
years. Gradually, too, the radius of my exchange’ and established its pivotal the trunks in which quilts are stored
activities has shifted to more domestic importance to political economies temporarily between exchanges and
fields, though not permanently, I hope.
of knowledge that extend across their eventual deposition in the grave.
expanding regions in Island Melanesia, Learning the art of stitching tivaivai
My first long-term field-site was in as I was able to show that proprietary also led me to discover a topological
the island of New Ireland, northeast rights to image-based resources (and way of thinking about transnationally
of mainland Papua New Guine a . their mnemonic capacity) are central to e x t e n d e d r e l a t i o n s o f a f f i n i t y
This island is known for its elaborate the governance of land-holding polities. (in-lawship), sustaining household
funerary ceremonies that culminate in
economies affected by migration to
the carving, weaving, and moulding of When turning some 13 years ago to New Zealand and elsewhere. Inspired
sculptural works for exchange between the history of the take-up of cloth by my growing curiosity in the many
land-holding groups. Known under and clothing as ‘new’ material in the conne c t ions and disconne c t ions
the generic name Malanggan, ritual Pacific, I initially had intended to between the ethnography of Island
work and its product culminate in an continue working in New Ireland, P apu a New Guine a and E astern
12
ANTHROPOLITAN SUMMER 2013
STAFF PROFILE
Polynesia, and against the background the difference made by the ‘design’ of organised now the second panel to be
of my involvement in the writing of the materials to our perception of ‘cultures hosted on the international conference
Art of Oceania book recently published of materials’. The theme of the social circuit, the American Anthropological
by Thames & Hudson, I set out to write lives of materials is the subject of the Association meetings. Every single
a comparative study of image economy second manuscript that I am currently one of my past students has become a
and body politic in Oceania which I in the process of writing.
professional anthropologist, taking up
hope to finish this year.
posts in publishing, museums, NGOs,
CAN YOU TELL US SOMETHING and university departments, and I am
WHAT NE W DIRECTION S HAS ABOUT YOUR PhD STUDENTS?
very proud of all of them.
YO U R R E S E A R C H TA K E N I N
EUROPE?
I have been fortunate to be able to WHAT NEXT?
supervise a tremendous group of
My work took a new direction when PhD students throughout my time I am half way through my 5 year role as
it came to be informed by another here at UCL. Those that are in the HoD. I love to be mother-hen and look
research project that started in 2005. process of research and writing up after the many needs of the department,
Here, I headed a research group which now are working on the gold nexus, on whose manifold nature never ceases to
is part of a European Network project networks in the UK materials industry, surprise me, but I cannot claim that it
on Sustainability in a Diverse World. on hierarchy and sociality in the Max has not affected me. I rely heavily on
Questions of why materials are taken Planck , on ar tistic inter ventions students and colleagues to tell me what
up and others rejected, what provokes in Canada and New Zealand using I need to read to keep up, and busy
material translation, and what it does woollen trade blankets, on material myself writing, trying to complete two
to the way people think about their religion in Orthodox Christianity and major publications, rather than doing
relation to one another and to the in the International Society for Krishna more research, every minute I can find
objects they love, had emerged already Consciousness (ISKCON) in India, between admin and teaching. When
from the ethnographic foci of the Cook and on disaster, ecology, and material the going gets really tough, I dream
Island tivaivai. The European project on culture in northeast Queensland. My of returning to the Pacific. I love to
diversity and sustainability inspired me students have been hugely active in plot the research proposal that will
to direct my inquiry to the complex various Research and Reading Groups, enable me to triangulate my research
world of the UK’s and European from chaos to organisations and by extending my comparative frame
materials industry and to questions of sustainability, and they have collectively to Micronesia. Presently I have landed
Below: Tivaivai from the Cook Islands
ANTHROPOLITAN SUMMER 2013
13
STAFF PROFILE
on the decision to do research in the Then, in that very month of May when
Marshall Islands where ironically I school finally was behind me, a notice
almost ended up some thirty years appeared in the local newspaper
ago, when, en route to fieldwork in that the local ethnographic museum,
New Guinea, I decided to disobey my the Uebersee Museum Bremen, was
supervisor, heading to New Ireland looking for volunteers to help move
instead. Before I can reconnect with the objects in the exhibition into the
the big wide world, however, I will have store in time for the renovation of the
to finish writing my manuscripts – a museum. My mother, keen to have me
motivating thought.
out of the house and away from books,
enlisted me, and I remember turning up
H OW D I D YO U B E C O M E A N rather grumpily one bright May morning
ANTHROPOLOGIST? TELL US A BIT on the steps of the museum. Amazingly,
ABOUT YOUR CAREER SO FAR.
I had finally found what I was looking
for. By pure chance I was assigned to
I grew up as a child in Germany, moving the Pacific curator who had himself
every three years, which, given the conducted fieldwork in New Ireland
federalist nature of Germany, involved (PNG), and I busied myself moving very
Above: Malanggan Figure
a considerable culture shock with every large Malanggan carvings into the store,
move. For as long as I can remember cataloguing them, and reading about
my all too vivid imagination has been them in the library of the museum
occupied by books that opened up (I returned for three consecutive
a world of intricate and fascinating summers, finally helping to reinstall
relations, and after feeding on adventure the new exhibitions). Raptured, I
books about American Indians, New tormented the curators to tell me what
Zealand sheep farmers and African they had studied and where best to go,
tribes, I soon turned to books in my and they suggested the Department
father’s huge collection of French and of Ethnology at the Free University
German literature and philosophy. in Berlin, where again by pure chance
Today, af ter both my father and British social anthropology was read
mother’s deaths, I have come to own in English. As I had been taught purely
what has remained of the collection and in the classical languages of Latin and
I share it with my eldest daughter, who Greek, I had to learn English before
has taken after my father’s bibliophilic being able to read, and decided that
inclination. Among these books was a I needed to spend a year in England
copy of Malinowski’s Father in Primitive to really understand the books that I
Psychology (Vol 5 of Magic, Science and found in the small ethnography section
Religion) which I remember to have of the FU library. I enrolled as an
devoured when I was around 14 years exchange student in the Department of
old, as my mother recalled how I vividly Anthropology at the LSE and took part
explained to her the role of the father in the 3rd year. On the back of the exam
and the mother’s brother in Trobriand marks, I was invited back for MPhil/PhD
Islands, while walking the dog. I had no work there. I indeed did return a year
idea that a subject such as anthropology later after completing my masters in
existed and could be studied right up Ethnology in Berlin. When arriving at
until the completion of the German the LSE for MPhil/PhD work, Alfred
Bache laureate.
Gell, who became my supervisor, had
in Australia. The rest is history.
ARE
YOU
O N LY
AN
ANTHROPOLOGIST?
Ye s , I wo u l d s ay t h a t I a m a n
anthropologist with a radar for the
ethnographic and that this extends
to all aspects of my life. I am afraid
that I have been so very busy, juggling
teaching, research, and raising a family
that I have become a truly boring
person, clinging to straws that are held
out to me in the attempt to catch up
with what is going on around me, often
in vain. My imagination is lived out
almost completely in my ethnographic
and theoretical ruminations, and I
look forward to the time when I can
return to the books I once so loved and
reach out to discover the new heights
in the publishing world. I have been
able to maintain a few passions, such
as swimming and opera, tending to my
orange tree (now bearing fruit after
13 years) and, as most of you will have
realised, eating pretzels.
also just returned from a period spent
14
ANTHROPOLITAN SUMMER 2013
FROM THE FIELD
Go your own way: new directions
from walking in the field
David Jeevendrampillai
PhD Anthropology (Material Culture)
Early spring 2012 I started my fieldwork. In mid-February I walked into the back
As part of UCL’s Adaptable Suburbs of a traditional local pub in Surbiton,
Project, and funded by the Engineering a leafy affluent suburb of London, storytelling and the invention of myth.
and Physical Sciences Research Council knowing that a group of people who The third walk recreated an old English
(EPSRC), the project aimed to develop called themselves ‘Seething villagers’ ritual called ‘beating the bounds’ in
a deeper understanding of suburbs as were preparing for a community parade. which the boundaries of place were
‘small settlements’ in spatial relation to I found them crafting giant lamps, fish marked out through an annual walk and
other areas of the city. It was hoped that and giants heads. When I asked why site specific ritualistic ‘taking of pains’.
by understanding the changing patterns they were doing it they responded ‘it’s (We swapped this last bit for more fun
of road networks and the patterns for fun’ and handed me a glue brush. things than pain-taking!) The last walk
of business activity along them, the That was day one and, by the end of it, I merged the personal archive of home
project could inform policy on how to had made a giant wicker lamp!
and memory with arrival histories to
best plan for (sub)urban environments,
the area.
especially those which are vulnerable Over coming months I told people
to changes in economic planning of my interest in their relationship to At the end of the fieldwork, I was
and implementation. The role of the Surbiton and invariably I was told to struck by how the map remained empty
anthropologist (me) on this project was ‘talk to so and so’ and more often than and how local enthusiasm had rejected
to chart how people understood the not, told to visit places, buildings or funded training from Blue B adge
role and importance of change where streets. People regularly offered to walk walking guides, but had rather done
they live in relation to street networks me around and show me their place. things on its own terms, using creativity
and associated business activity.
Walking was important not only in the and fun to develop sociality and spread
sense that people perceive, interact it through the resulting ‘landscape of
I was tasked to roll out and encourage and understand the world in this way value’. It is this spreading, sharing and
the use of an ‘auto-ethnographic’ web but also it is important in showing and scaling up of values, associations and
tool called a community map, through sharing with others the values and meanings that I’m currently fascinated
which people could upload their stories associations with place.
by, and my thesis seems to be talking
of what it was like to live in the suburbs.
less about spatial properties but more
I wondered about what sort of people Through the f ieldwork I became about forms of knowing and how they
would spend time doing this, who would interested in the notion of showing place move, spread and share, and so change
want to show me, us ‘their’ place, and through walking. In all I developed four the material expressions of self and
what was is in it for them. I started to walks with the residents of Surbiton, landscape.
think about local enthusiasts and set off but the form they took and the interest
to find some.
they took in them surprised me. The It’s funny how you set off to walk one
first walk involved no leader but rather way, but end up somewhere else. But
an exercise in collective decision then fieldwork in anthropology is all
making about the next place to walk about being guided someplace new.
to along the route, resulting in a messy Right?
and contested walk. Walk Number
Two merged fact & fiction using local
history creatively blending fact with
ANTHROPOLITAN SUMMER 2013
Top: Debating the boundaries of place.
Far left: The Giant of Seething parades through
Surbiton.
15
CURRENT STUDENTS
Doctoral research
feature – Art and
Anthropology
an interview with
Eitan Buchalter...
Eitan studied Fine Art at Oxford, publications or funding proposals) but
graduated with an MSc in Medical my research shows they can be better
Anthropology here in UCL, and is understood as dynamic processes.
now researching his doctorate in In the former case, ideas become
the Department.
institutionally ‘frozen’, permitting only
incremental shifts in thinking.
Conveyor, performance at Tate Modern, 2009
What is your research about?
Why did you move from a degree in Fine Art
In my work, I explore ideas as an to an MSc and then PhD in anthropology?
Which of your works are you most happy
analytical category and examine what
with?
‘ideas’ mean to scientists. By their I can see how it may seem like a change
nature, ideas are dynamic and are best of direction but, in my head, it all Well, Conveyor was a very exciting
thought of as ‘networks’ that are acted makes perfect sense! As an artist, I project . This was a per formance
upon by scientists’ beliefs, experiments, am interested in human behaviour and where I stood at the top of one of
discussions and the institutional settings so, in an attempt to delve more deeply the escalators at Tate Modern (see
within which science takes place.
into this, further study in anthropology photo) and made eye contact with
seemed like a perfect fit.
“As an artist, I am interested
in creative human behaviour and so, in an attempt to
delve more deeply into this,
further study in anthropology
seemed like a perfect fit.”
everyone who happened to be on it.
The escalator gradually became a stage
Are you an artist first, and anthropologist filled with people working out that they
second?
were performing.
If you force me to choose, then I think How do people react to your art work?
so, but I never really think about it like
this! I am sure I am not alone in saying Everyone reacts differently and, for me,
that I just try and do as much of the observing these different reactions is
things that interest me as possible. exactly what I am interested in.
The central argument is that there is
a disconnect between the dynamic
way that scientists themselves think
about ideas and the stifling institutional
environment in which academic science
is conducted. At the heart of this tension
are institutions that value ideas as static
objects (for example, as delivered
and communicated in peer-reviewed
16
It just so happens that this interest
crosses the boundary between art and What’s your next project?
anthropology. Can I be an artist first
and an anthropologist first, as well?
I am working on a book in collaboration
with the photographer Manuel Vason.
Who are your main inspirations for your
artwork?
What do you plan to do after your PhD?
Marcel Duchamp and Tino Sehgal
Teach!
ANTHROPOLITAN SUMMER 2013
CURRENT STUDENTS
Tasty things!
... and an interview with Arsim Canolli
A r s i m C a n o l l i w a s b o r n i n forms to grow and flourish. I was then food’, they ask, ‘in the country that only
Prishtina, Kosova. He came to the exposed to the anthropology of art and politics matters?’ Sometimes I have an
UK in 1997 where he studied art at landscape, and that was the main thing answer, but most of the time I listen to
London College of Music and Media that encouraged me to enrol to do an their answers.
and then anthropology at UCL In MA in Material and Visual Culture at
2010, he left to do his fieldwork in UCL.
What’s your next project?
Kosova. He is currently writing up
his PhD thesis entitled “Behind Why did you choose to study food for your I’m inspired by ethnographic film.
open doors: the social significance PhD project?
Robert Gardner films are my favourites,
of food in Kosova”. He loves his ale
especially “Dead Birds”. He is one of
and fish and chips.
Well, as I grew into anthropology, the most passionate hunter-gatherer
I came to think that food and art are of visual images in the discipline of
Why did you move from a degree in art to “tasty things” that people cannot live ethnographic film. And so, after my
an MA and PhD in anthropology?
without. And their significance lies in PhD, I want to complete a documentary
film I’ve already commenced called
“All art aspires to the condition of
music” said Walter Pater. This saying
was uttered to me by the pathway
leader at the London College of Music
and Media (in Ealing) when I went for
an interview in 2001. I came to enjoy
“I felt that exploring how food
works with people would
give me some ideas of how to
proceed with anthropology.”
surroundings that enable particular art
old couple who have turned their house
into an ethnographic museum in Lekaj,
Montenegro. The film-making process
started in 2011 and is still going on.
What do you plan to do after your PhD?
studying art and aesthetics, but felt
that I wanted to explore the cultural
“The Highland Museum”. It is about an
the traditional as well as innovatory
relations bet ween them. A s the
philosopher Berkeley said, the taste
of an apple is neither in the apple –
for an apple cannot taste itself – nor
in the mouth, but in the eater. It is in
the contact between them. I felt that
exploring how food works with people
would give me some ideas of how to
proceed with anthropology.
How do people react to your work?
I want to go back to teach at the
University of Prishtina in Kosova and
help my colleagues in the Department
of Anthropology there. It is a young
department and we believe it has great
potential. Last semester I taught a
course in Legal Anthropology which was
a whole new area for me. It helped me
better understand legal anthropology
and teaching. During this time I also
translated Malinowski’s “Crime and
Custom in Savage Society”.
Well, people in Kosova sometimes get
surprised about my food project. ‘Why
Both interviews conducted by Paul
Carter-Bowman
Left: 100m long breadloaf served in Prishtina
during Albanian’s In dependence Day - 28
November 2012
ANTHROPOLITAN SUMMER 2013
17
RESEARCH
Life insurance, risk and
hope in London
Sofia Ugarte Pfin
MSc in Social and Cultural Anthropology
‘Life isn’t predictable and for this reason it’s wise to plan ahead and look at all the options that
could help secure your future.’
(The Guardian 2012)
How does life insurance work upon Working with the concept of ‘hope’ deal with loss and failure in the financial
modern life’s uncertainty? And how can gives rise to new perspectives when market. Hope for them is a method
this be of interest to Anthropology? studying life insurance and risk as it of knowledge, specifically, a ‘method
Despite being a quotidian practice both shows how uncertainty, knowledge, of radical temporal reorientation of
in urban and rural areas, insurance has agency and temporality play together knowledge’ (ibid.).
been almost completely ignored by in a different level of analysis. Vincent
anthropology. The first challenge faced Crapanzano views hope as a category
during my Masters research, has been of experience that presupposes a
to relate life insurance to anthropology metaphysic and is embedded in peoples’
in a theoretical and ethnographic way. cultural and historical reality. His theme
To this end, I am applying frameworks is hope as a subject of analysis. Hope
from the anthropology of risk and the mediates and realistically opens up the
anthropology of hope to the voices of future in front of us, pushing its borders
the insured, the uninsured and the life towards a mysterious and transcending
insurance companies.
Due to life’s uncertainty, some people
decide to contract a life insurance
policy in order to feel secure that their
families’ will always be provided. The
nature (2004: 100-104). Hope, unlike
unconscious desire, orients knowledgewise towards the future, having its
However, how does hope relate to the
work life insurance in securing the future
of uncertain livelihoods? The hypothesis
I want to develop during my fieldwork
is that life insurance works as a source
of hope in Miyazaki’s sense: as an aid
to knowing outcomes in the context
of radically uncertain futures. How life
insurance works as a ‘technology of
hope’ is what I aim to explore among
both insured and uninsured Londoners.
source in a non-human agency that REFERENCES
could be God, fate, chance, fortune.
Crapanzano, V. (2004). Imaginative
insurance is a contract whereby an By contrast, Hirokazu Miyazaki’s work horizons: an essay in literary-philosophical
insurance company promises to pay on hope is related to his ethnographic a n t h r o p o l o g y. C h i c a g o: C h i c a g o
selected beneficiaries money when the work he has conducted with Suvavou University Press
insured person dies. The insurance has people in Fiji and Japanese traders in
a cost determined by the life insurance Tokyo. He approaches hope not as an
company and the expected mortality emotional state or a positive feeling but
rates. This translates into an insurance rather as a method (Miyazaki 2004:5).
Miyazaki, H. (2003). The Temporalities
of the Market. American Anthropologist,
105(2), 255-265.
policy that can be paid by the insured He uses hope to understand how
person once a month, once a year, or different forms of knowledge make sense
once in a lifetime. The decision to take to people in uncertain circumstances:
life insurance is related primarily to the Fijians who want to recover their
risk of dying.
18
ancestral land and Japanese traders who
ANTHROPOLITAN SUMMER 2013
EVENTS
Travel, imagination
and experience
Will Self and Jonathan Lamb visit the Department
Professor Chris Pinney introduced the as Will’s own first book – about an drawing much authority from the fact
event to a packed house of staff and anthropologist from South London who of ethnographically ‘being there’ and of
students, describing Will Self first of all discovers a ‘boring’ tribe in Amazonia. framing the cross-cultural encounter in
as “novelist, cultural critic and psycho- Today, though, will went on, this trend narratives that drew in a wide audience.
geographer enthusiast for armchair is reduced to parodies of its former Today, though, (Jonathan Lamb thought)
anthropology, author of an imaginary glory in TV shows like Jungle Jane or the anthropological attempt to express
ethnography of sorts (The Book of Bruce Parry’s Tribes. This has occurred the inexpressible in ethnographic
Dave), and Professor of Contemporary mainly because the bre adt h and language seems distinctly limited.
Theory at Brunel.” And then, Jonathan density of communications networks
Lamb “Professor of Literature at have ended the pristine isolation of Unsurprisingly, the anthropological
Vanderbilt University, a specialist in Anthropology’s traditional subject- audience was enthralled and miffed
Eighteenth-century literature who has matter. Instead, anthropology is being at the same time. From it, came the
written extensively about travel and popularly replaced by activities like his strident response that, true enough,
who, like Will, has done some really own psycho-geography where walks the discipline is no longer popular in the
punishing travelling not least through anywhere without computer and mobile same genres. But that, in different ways
his participation in the BBC programme phone (ouch!), for example, between and with varied publics and on different
The Ship, a re-enactment of Cook’s Piccadilly Circus and Heathrow Airport, geographical scales, it continues to
first voyage.”
escape the net and enter ‘the wild’ in a develop as a strongly influential vehicle
way analogous to Anthropology in its for the exploration of social and cultural
The pair were invited to address a hey-day.
otherness. The audience agreed. The
range of themes that, they were told,
speakers looked doubtful. The meeting
might include travel literature and Jonathan Lamb then went on to place ended. Drinks ensued. Thanks Chris!
anthropolog y as cultural critique, Anthropolog y within a venerable
the relationship between imagination history of influential writings based
and experience and, crucially why upon epic Western contacts with
anthropology may have lost the ability remote otherness. This meant not just Concocted by Chris Pinney & Allen
to confidently narrate alterity or expressing the strangeness of other Abramson (staff), and Kiran Morjaria
‘otherness’ to a broad public.
cultures specifically (as Rousseau did) & Alistair Cooper (MSc in Social and
but, more widely, trying to capture Cultural Anthropology)
Will Self stressed that the 1970s the sublime otherness of any elusive
a nd 8 0 s we re a b oom - t ime for phenomena that have only ever been
Anthropology in popular culture. The translated and conveyed subjectively. In
striking convergence of anthropology a sense, you really did need to “have
and popular culture was reflected in been there to know”, ‘there’ being
the works of Desmond Morris and where the expressible meets with
Carlos Castaneda (the latter’s accounts the inexpressible to nonetheless be
of the Mexican Yaqui shaman, Don Juan expressed! Anthropology classically
sold over 28 millions copies), as well sited itself at this anomalous interface,
ANTHROPOLITAN SUMMER 2013
19
EVENTS
To Hypothesise or not to Hypothesise?
That is the Question!
Ruth Mace and Sara Randall
‘fight’ it out for The Anthropology
Society
One of the highlights of this year’s already established, and therefore material that fall outside the scope of
Anthro Soc events was the much whether demography should in fact, be the pre-fabricated hypothesis. The
anticipated meeting between two of the considered, a science. Professor Mace audience of staff and student argued
department’s longest standing members, suggested that Professor Randall’s the point enthusiastically. A fascinating
Professor Ruth Mace and Professor demographic methodology ultimately evening that provided insight into
Sara Randall. Expected to be something amounted to data collection, providing both the disciplines of demography
of a showdown (hence we advertised the raw materials through which and human evolutionary ecology and
it with a boxing-style poster), the scientists like Professor Mace test their the motivations and opinions of their
evening was surprisingly convivial! One hypotheses. In return, Professor Randall (convivial) exponents!
particularly lively point of debate was argued that entering the field with a
whether in “doing science” one must hypothesis in mind may pre-emptively
Liz Fox
approach one’s data with a hypothesis exclude anomalies or unexpected
Foreign Bodies: understanding
the Other
Foreign Bodies is an exhibition
embodiment of sin due to its
t h at i s i n U C L’s N or t h
wild yet human-like behavior.
Cloisters and across UCL
Through seven very different
Museums from 18th March -
research projects, audiences
14th July 2013.
are invited to explore the
idea of what is alien to us –
The exhibition is curated by
biologically, psychologically,
research students and its
socially and politically – and
aim is to re-interpret UCL’s
how this concept has shifted
museum collections through
across history, culture and
the theme of ‘foreign bodies’.
even species.
M y o w n w o r k a s a b i o l o g i c a l attempts to understand primates across We are also expanding the topics
ant hropologist involves studying thousands of years. For example, the covered in the exhibition online, at
baboon behavior in Gashaka Gumti Egyptian God of writing, Thoth, is http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk /researchersNational Park in Nigeria. And, as one depicted as a baboon scribe in an ancient in - museums / and on Twit ter @
of UCL’s Researchers in Museums as explanation of the dexterity of primate ResearchEngager.
well, I have is presented relevant images hands, while a 15th century Christian
alongside objects that illustrate similar ar twork depicts a monkey as the
20
Suzanne Harvey
ANTHROPOLITAN SUMMER 2013
EVENTS
Economic and Political
Transformations in Inner Asia
Cerne Abbas Trip
At the end of the Spring term, a self-presentation among Mongolia’s
one-day workshop was held in the urban elite.
Anthropology Department, dedicated
to exploring themes of economic and The second panel examined processes
Cerne Abbas Giant
political transformation in Inner Asia.
of political tr ansformation, and
included presentations on the political-
The research and reading group,
This region has experienced profound economic situation in the Kalmyk
‘ Primate Sexualities: Beyond the
economic and political changes since Republic and nomadism among the
Binary’, is co-facilitated by Professor
the end of State Socialism in the Humli-Khyampa of Nepal. It went on
Volker Sommer and Kathleen Bryson.
1990s, and our workshop provided to look at techniques of the self in
We explore dichotomous concepts
an oppor tunity for scholars and China with presentations exploring the
such as “us” and “them”, and “gay” and
students working on this region to use of new media among the Hui, and
“straight”, and various ideas linked to
come together, and present their self-cultivation through tea drinking in
the biology and cultures of sexuality:
work on these themes in a series of Beijing.
how differences might be shown to be
panel presentations. It was especially
hard-wired (or socially constructed) by
interesting to hear presentations from The third panel engaged with routes
studying primates, and how we as naked
students from different Universities and borders, and addressed China’s
primates define each other against
(UCL , Cambridge, SOAS, LSE), at economic presence on Russia’s border,
perceived normative behaviours.
different stages of research.
as well as reindeer herding in northern
Mongolia, and rumours circulated on
After discussing a variety of papers
Drawing together case-studies from the internet in Russia and China.
exploring how sexuality is expressed
Mongolia, China, Siberia, a Tibetan
and accepted - from fetishism to
community living in Nepal, and the T h e ‘ E c o n o m i c a n d P o l i t i c a l
bisexual males, and from asexuality
Kalmyk Republic in southwest Russia, Tr a n s for m at ion s in I nne r A si a’
to robot-human sex - we visited the
the workshop was divided into three workshop delivered a highly enjoyable
Cerne Abbas Giant in Dorset in early
panels.
day, and provided a crucial opportunity
April. The landmark is relevant to
to engage with people working in this
the exploration of attitudes towards
The first panel focused on Mongolia region, and to hear them present their
public sexuality in medieval Britain and
and it addressed ritual economies - work.
provided an excellent opportunity for
with a focus on shamanic economies,
a comparative assessment of modern
and money used to decorate shamanic
British societies and social landscapes.
coats – as well as processes of learning
Joseph Bristley
a m o ng M o ngo li a n c hild re n a nd
After visiting the “Rude Man” himself
- weather did not permit us to have
Mongolia , by Liz Fox
a reading group al fresco, as was our
original intention - we hiked down
to the local abbey and stockade (see
photo), then took refuge in pubs and
teahouses and held our discussions
over lunch. It was a fascinating end to a
stimulating year.
Kathleen Bryson
ANTHROPOLITAN SUMMER 2013
21
DEPARTMENT NEWS
Padma Shri
Award
intended to enable graduate students in Gottingen (Germany) and carries
to advertise their innovative research. out interdisciplinary social science
Overall, 247 posters were displayed in research on diversity in historical and
the North & South Cloisters.
contemporary societies, particularly
conce r ning e t hnic a nd re ligiou s
First prize in the faculty grouping “Arts forms and dynamics. The institute is
& Humanities, Laws, Social & Historical leading a European pilot project about
Sciences” was secured by Kathleen medical diversity which Bea’s work will
Bryson, PhD student in the Department contribute to directly.
o f A n t h ro p o l o g y su p e r v i se d by
Professor Volker Sommer. Her poster
entitled “Evolving the Binary: Are
Faith and Flame
We Already Living on the Planet of
Christopher Pinney, Professor of the Apes?” featured a case study that Victoria Baltag has won a prestigious
Anthropology and Visual Culture at UCL explored fixity and ambiguity in social award in Popular Prize category at the
has been awarded a Padma Shri by the and scientific categories. The judges LSE Research Festival for a short film
Government of India for contributions lauded Kathleen’s work for its simple she made: Faith and flame.
to Literature and Education.
explanations of complex concepts. See
Kathleen’s article on page 6.
108 Padmas were awarded this year, six
Faith and Flame is an anthropological
documentary about the life of Roma
to non-Indian nationals of whom three Kathleen’s winning post can be viewed people in modern Romanian society.
were persons of non-Indian heritage. A at: www.grad.ucl.ac.uk /comp/2012- The film focuses upon Roma history,
medal and scroll was presented by the 2013/poster/slash-wi1.html
President of India Pranab Mukherjee in
the Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi on
20 April in the presence of the Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh.
Max Planck
Award
Professor Pinney has worked on
popular visual culture in central India Beatriz Aragon, a first year PhD student
since 1982 and has taught and lectured in the department, has been awarded
widely in India. His publications cover a 2-year doctoral researcher position c u l t u re a n d i d e n t i t y a n d Ro m a
photography and printed political and with stipend at the Max Planck Institute Holocaust, as well as on contemporary
devotional images. His first book was for the study of Religious and Ethnic issues including the predicament of
Camera Indica. His latest, due later this Diversity. The award will help fund her Roma children in schools.
year, is Lessons from Hell on popular PhD research about Roma minority
printed Hindu images of punishment in and their interactions with healthcare LSE’s Research Festival is a celebration
hell.
Poster
Competition
Won by Kathleen
Bryson
services in Madrid.
of the creativity that lies at the heart
of all research. This year, the posters,
The Max Planck Institute is located films, photographs and apps entered by
research students and staff from LSE,
Cambridge, SOAS and UCL formed a
brilliant showcase of work that engaged
fellow researchers and general public
alike,
UCL ran its 2012/13 Graduate School
Research Poster Competition on
25th and 26th February. The event is
22
ANTHROPOLITAN SUMMER 2013
Recently Awarded PhDs
Alison MacDonald - Breast Cancer
Emiliano Zolla Marquez - Territorial
Survivorship in Urban India: Self and
practices: an anthropolog y of
Care in Voluntary Groups
geographic orders and imaginations in
the Sierra Mixe
Tom McDonald - Structures of hosting
in a south-western Chinese town
Beata Switek - Reluctant intimacies.
Japanese eldercare in Indonesian hands
Alice Elliot - Reckoning with the
outside: emigration and the imagination
Sumiko Sarashima - Intangible cultural
of life in Central Morocco
heritage in Japan: Bingata, a traditional
dyed textile from Okinawa
Heidi Colleran - The evolutionary
anthropology of fertility decline in
Catalina Tesar - “Women married off
rural Poland
to chalices”: gender, kinship and wealth
among Romanian Cortorari Gypsies
Sandra Tranquilli - African great apes:
assessing threats and conservation
Alesya Krit - Lifestyle migration:
efforts
Architecture and kinship in the case of
the British in Spain
New Appointments
Jolanta Skorecka joined the department administrative team in April as a new
Undergraduate Administrator. She previously worked in Development Planning
Unit, The Bartlett.
ANTHROPOLITAN is published by UCL Anthropology.
Contributors: Beatriz Aragon, Arsim Canolli, Joanna Cook, Joseph Bristley, Kathleen
Bryson, Eitan Buchalter, Alice Elliot, Rebecca Empson, Tobia Farnetti, Liz Fox, David
Jeevendrampillai, Suzanne Harvey, Rebecca Hudson, Susanne Kuechler, Johan Greve
Petersen, Sofia Ugarte Pfin, Christopher Pinner, Chris Russell
Editors: Allen Abramson, Paul Carter-Bowman, Man Yang
/UCLAnthropology
Cover Photo Courtesy of Joanna Cook
www..ucl.ac.uk/anthropology