Plenarföreläsningar/Keynotes
Professor David Lewis, London School of Economics and Political Science
The anthropology of policy processes: Making sense of the Bangladesh health and
education 'reality check' initiative
David Lewis is Professor of Social Policy and Development at the London School of Economics
and Political Science. An anthropologist by background, he has worked mainly in Bangladesh,
undertaking research on issues that include rural development, politics and local power
structures, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and civil society. His books include
Technologies and Transactions: A Study of the Interaction Between New Technology and Agrarian
Structure in Bangladesh (1991, Dhaka University), Anthropology, Development and the
Postmodern Challenge (1996, Pluto, with Katy Gardner), NGOs and Development (2009,
Routledge, with Nazneen Kanji) and Bangladesh: Politics, Economy and Civil Society (2012,
Cambridge University Press).
Professor Susan Reynolds Whyte, University of Copenhagen
The Durability of Engagements
Susan Reynolds Whyte, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Copenhagen, carries out
research in East Africa on social efforts to secure well-being in the face of poverty, disease,
conflict, and rapid change. She uses concepts of pragmatism, uncertainty, and temporality to
examine relationships between people, institutions, ideas, and things. For two decades she has
worked with African colleagues on Enhancement of Research Capacity projects. One result of
that collaboration is a forthcoming book, Second Chances (Duke University Press), which is a
‘polygraph’ (not a monograph) by four Danish and four Ugandan scholars on the first generation
of AIDS survivors.
Professor David Price, St. Martin's University
Counterinsurgency by Other Names: Complicating Humanitarian Applied Anthropology in
Current, Former, and Future Warzones
David H. Price is Professor of Anthropology at St. Martin's University in Lacey, Washington. He
has conducted research in the United States and Palestine, Egypt and Yemen. He is writing a
three volume book series using examining anthropologists' interactions with intelligence
agencies: Threatening Anthropology (2004, Duke University Press), examines McCarthyism's
effects on anthropologists; Anthropological Intelligence (2008, Duke University Press),
documents anthropological contributions to World War II, and he is completing a third volume
documenting anthropologists interactions with the CIA and Pentagon during the Cold War. His
most recent book is Weaponizing Anthropology: Social Science in Service of the Militarized State
(2011, CounterPunch Books).
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Panelsamtal: Antropologiska Engagemang/
Round-Table on Anthropological Engagements
Dr. Chris Coulter, Indevelop
Chris Coulter holds a PhD in Cultural Anthropology from Uppsala University. Her research
specialized on gender, conflict and post-conflict in Sierra Leone. Based on her dissertation Chris
Coulter wrote the book, Bush Wives and Girls Soldiers: Women's lives through war and peace in
Sierra Leone (2009, Cornell University Press).
Today Chris Coulter works as a consultant at Indevelop, a Swedish consulting company in
development. Before joining Indevelop she was an independent consultant and a lecturer in
Social Anthropology at Stockholm University. Chris Coulter has also worked as lecturer and
coordinator for a master's degree level course on peace, conflict and humanitarian assistance at
Uppsala University.
Dr. Katarina Graffman, Inculture
Trained as an anthropologist (Ph.D. Uppsala University), Katarina Graffman has studied Swedish
culture and business for almost 15 years. She founded and runs Inculture, a Stockholm-based
consultancy that provides ethnographic research and anthropological analysis on contemporary
culture, trends and branding, and has worked for many organizations including IKEA, Volvo,
Skanska, Sveriges Radio, DN, Bonnier. She has explored this way of working as an anthropologist
in a book: Konsumentnära Varumärkesutveckling: Effektivare varumärkesstrategi med
kommersiell etnografi. This year Katarina and Jacob Östberg (Ph.D. in economy) are publishing a
book about human behavior in contemporary society.
Dr. Shahram Khosravi, Stockholm University
Shahram Khosravi is Associate Professor at Stockholm University and the author of two
books: Young and Defiant in Tehran (2008, University of Pennsylvania Press) and The Illegal
Traveler: an auto-ethnography of borders (2010, Palgrave). His current research is on
undocumented migrants in Stockholm.
Professor Karsten Paerregaard, University of Copenhagen
Karsten Paerregaard is Professor in Social Anthropology at School of Global Studies, University
of Gothenburg. His research is focused on Peruvian migration in the US, Spain, Italy, Japan, Chile
and Argentina and, more recently, climate change, water scarcity and indigenous cosmologies in
Peru. His publications include Linking Separate Worlds. Urban Migrants and Rural Lives in Peru
(1997, Berg), Peruvians Dispersed. A Global Ethnography of Migration (2008, Lexington), The
Question of Integration. Immigration, Exclusion and the Danish Welfare State, co-edited with K. F.
Olwig (2011,Cambridge Scholars) and Return to Sender. The Moral Economy of Peru’s Migrant
Remittances (forthcoming, Stanford University Press).
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Panel 1A
Ethnography in the 21st century: Personal security, uncertainty and conflict in research,
part 1
Chairs: Steven Sampson, Anna Hedlund and Anna Berglund, Lund University
Anna Hedlund, Lund University
Difficult Ethics: Doing research with rebels in the Eastern Congo
In the paper I will discuss some ethical challenges that I encountered during my fieldwork in a
rebel camp in the Eastern Congo. Many of my informants participated in the Rwandan genocide
in 1994. After the genocide the rebel’s crossed the Congolese border and made the mountainous
forests of Congo their base for operation where they are still active participants in the war. To
highlight atrocities that rebels undoubtedly have committed is an important task for
determining human rights violations, war crimes, and bringing war criminals to justice. But
anthropologically, our task is to analyze narratives and acts of violence as social practice and not
through legal frameworks. However, how do justify our own participation, and how do we resist
manipulation of informant’s and the pressure to take sides in conflict situation? In the
presentation I will discuss issues related to ethics and seduction, propaganda, and “friendship”
with perpetrators.
Steven Sampson, Lund University
Solidarity with the powerful? Ethnography with elites
Anthropologists have a long history talking about what we should do when we research less
powerful or subordinate groups. We build rapport, we give them voice, we describe their world
to others, we describe their problems and how they find solutions. With subaltern groups, we
are encouraged to build a kind of solidarity with them. But more of us are now researching
elties: groups with autonomous resources and power. I myself have been with NGO elites,
planners and consultants, global anti-bribery activists and most recently, compliance
professionals promoting business ethics. None of these people are ‘subaltern’. Our project is to
‘tell their story’, but their project is to make sure their story is a good one. While we do not
simply want to ‘expose’ them, we want to tell the truth about how such powerful groups operate.
What kind of ethical obligations and methodological issues arise when we do research with the
powerful? What kind of solidarity should we have with them? Whose side should we be on here?
How many 'sides' are there?
Ruben Andersson, London School of Economics and Political Science
Anthropology unfenced: Borderline ethnography in Europe’s illegality industry
“Illegal” migration into southern Europe is a highly politicised phenomenon with large
consequences. Starting with a field visit to the anti-migration fence around Spain’s North African
enclave of Melilla, this paper delves into the workings of Europe’s “illegality industry” and the
problems and possibilities associated with studying this industry ethnographically. The fence
implicates a range of sectors long relegated to the margins of ethnography– border police,
policymakers, the media and defence industries – while targeting anthropologists’ traditional
“informants”: the formerly colonised “natives”, reimagined by the industry as a security threat.
Conflict, secrecy and symbiosis are key to the relations between the industry and migrants, as
well as between the industry’s actors – one marginal such actor being the awkward
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anthropologist escorted around Melilla’s fence. Drawing on interface analysis and a rethinking of
multi-sited methodology, the paper suggests an eclectic “borderline ethnography” approach to
bridging the fenced-in domains of insiders and outsiders, of the “local” and the “global”, and of
researcher and researched. Despite the ethical and practical concerns illustrated by my fence
visit, it concludes that fence-sitting might not be a second-best option for anthropologists in the
world of complex, secretive networks – it can also be an ethnographic and analytical virtue.
Ivana Maček, Uppsala University
Ethnographic Enmeshment and "Frames"
This presentation has its starting point in the suggestion by the panel conveners that in an ever
more complex and insecure world, the 21st century ethnography might get too complicated.
Ethics, strategy, intellectual, professional, and personal get easily intertwined, entangled, or, as
psychodynamic theory would call it, enmeshed. In the presentation, I will address the conveners'
question: "How do we cope with ethnography?" in this context.
I will give some examples of my own enmeshment and dilemmas as a half-native anthropologist
working in Bosnia during the 1990s, and in Sweden with Bosnian diaspora today. I will specially
dwell upon the dynamic relation between the private/personal aspects in ethnographic work,
and their relation to our general/professional aims. As a contrast to anthropological field with
war-related sensitive issues, I will give an example of a psychologist's work in a similar setting.
The lesson, I believe, that an ethnographer can learn from a psychologist, lies in what in
psychodynamic theory is known as "frames". Consequently, I will develop the concept of
"frames" to fit the 21st century ethnography, and in this way hopefully contribute to answering
the question of how can we best conduct ethnographic research in the increasingly complex and
sensitive global contexts.
Torbjörn Friberg, Malmö University
Ethnography and discovery
Today anthropologists seem to, at an increasing rate, study phenomena in their own societies.
Many have a focus on policies in organizations and an interest to explicate cultural phenomena
constituted by power and governance. Consequently, a recent interest has emerged in regard to
Michael Foucault's philosophy, especially as an inspiration for the ethnographic analysis.
However, such a type inquiry is problematic, because the Foucaultian perspective contributes to
a pre-established idea of social reality, hence distorting essential aspects of the process of
discovery. This paper aims to provide an alternative to recent trends in Foucaultian inspired
analysis by showing how Eric Wolf's anthropological project can contribute to a more discoveryoriented ethnography. Wolf's concept formation of, 1) structural power, 2) tactical power, 3)
chain of signification, and 3) ritual studies are closely examined in relation to studying
organizational phenomena. In particular, an analysis based upon Wolf's concept can be useful for
an increased understanding of policy processes in the field of higher education.
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PANEL 1B
Genus, plats och engagemang
Ordförande: Thaïs Machado-Borges och Lena Gemzöe, Stockholms universitet
Fanny Ambjörnsson, Stockholms universitet
Öppenhet i det samtida Sverige: Förhandlingar om synlighet och osynlighet bland hbtqpersoner
Frågan om öppenhet och synlighet har varit central och omstridd i hbt-rörelsens historia
(Sedgwick1990, Jagose 1991). Från att, i början av förra seklet ha betraktats som i det närmaste
en omöjlighet att leva öppet samkönat, har diskurser om öppenhet växt sig allt starkare, såväl i
majoritets- som i hbtq-samhället. Vissa forskare menar att de ökade förväntningarna att vara
öppen kan kopplas till ett samtida krav på autenticitet – att hitta sig själv blir liktydig med att
vara öppen med vem man är (Lundahl 1998). På så sätt blir den autentiska individen liktydig
med någon som ”kommit ut” med sin sexualitet. I dagens Sverige, präglat av en ökad tolerans och
just öppenhet gentemot sexuell avvikelse (Rosenberg 2001, Lindholm 2003), blir således den
person som väljer att dölja sin sexualitet eller leva s.k. dubbelliv tämligen svårbegriplig.
I detta paper ska jag, med utgångspunkt i en studie av livsvillkor och motståndsstrategier
bland två generationer hbtq-personer i urbana miljöer i Sverige, diskutera olika förhållningssätt
till öppenhet och synlighet. Framför allt tar jag fasta på den yngre generationens kritik av
öppenhetsdiskursen samt deras försök att skapa andra möjliga sätt att förhålla sig till synlighet
och autenticitet. Vad säger oss deras erfarenheter om föreställningar om integritet, synen på det
offentliga och politiskt engagemang?
Åsa Eriksson, Stockholms universitet
Prekära arbetsvillkor och motståndsstrategier bland lantarbetare i Sydafrika
I den här presentationen kommer jag göra några preliminära reflektioner över genus, plats och
engagemang hos lantarbetare i Sydafrikas frukt- och vinindustri.
Paternalistiska relationer har traditionellt präglat arbetet i vin- och fruktindustrin i Sydafrika,
där icke-vita lantarbetare bott i arbetarbostäder på sin vita arbetsgivares mark, och varit i stark
beroendeställning till denne när det gäller allt från arbetsvillkor till bostäder, transport, skolor
och möjlighet att ta emot besök av fackrepresentanter.
Maktrelationerna mellan lantarbetare och gårdsägare kan ses som reglerade genom kontroll
och tillgång av platser, såsom marken, gården, bostad och skolor, men också de platser där
motstånd kan organiseras. Sedan 80-talet och efter apartheids fall har miljontals arbetare vräkts
från lantgårdarna, och flyttat till informella bostadsområden, varifrån många fortsätter arbeta på
osäkra villkor i form av korta kontrakt, säsongsvisa anställningar och arbete via
bemanningsföretag. Nyligen genomfördes en historisk strejk av lantarbetare, som initierades
och leddes främst av arbetare med osäkra anställningar, som inte bor på gårdarna, och som i hög
grad organiserade sig utanför fackföreningarna.
Frågor kopplade till genus och plats är centrala, såsom boendevillkor och tillgång till service
och sociala trygghetssystem, men även vilken form av motstånd och organisering som är möjlig
för exempelvis säsongsanställda kvinnor. I presentationen ställer jag frågor kring hur
maktrelationer kopplade till genus, klass och rasifiering samverkar med en ökande andel
otrygga arbeten (precarious work) och hur det påverkar engagemang och motstånd.
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Anna-Klara Lindeborg, Uppsala universitet
The situated researcher
Carrying out ethnographic fieldwork in Northern Laos between 2008 and 2012 for my PhD
thesis, my relation and position towards the people I have met and talked to and what I
represent has affected these people, fieldwork, myself and my research. In this context, postcolonial perspectives from the very beginning of my fieldwork have been apparent, especially in
the relationship between me, my interpreters and the respondents in the village. These kinds of
relations were, however, integrated with sex, body, age and particular situations. As a female
Western researcher, still quite uncommon in this context, I felt I was caught in between
categories. It is not only one’s place of origin that matters in this context, but one’s material body
and its social constructions in terms of age and ethnicity. This can be illustrated by a situation
where I attained access to a space the local women did not, so in this sense I was treated as a
man in a female body. But in another situation I was treated as a typical woman in a woman’s
body. The awareness of gender relations in fieldwork is something others have discussed and
experienced as well (Silverman 2000), where female researchers sometimes get access to
certain fields that males do not. Several families in HatNyao also said they regarded me as their
own daughter. Furthermore, I felt that my status ranked higher when I got married before my
second round of fieldwork in 2009 and then increased even further when I had a baby son.
Nina Gren, Göteborgs universitet
Vilda pojkar och pluggande flickor: Genus och engagemang i palestinska skolor
Den här presentationen fokuserar på intersektionen mellan engagemang, plats och genus med
utgångspunkt i fältmaterial från FN-skolor för palestinska flyktingbarn på Västbanken. I FNskolorna är genus långtifrån en oväsentlig fråga. De är till exempel könssegregerade; både elever
och lärare arbetar nästan uteslutande med människor av samma kön. Dessutom har rapporter
visat att pojkarnas skolresultat är anmärkningsvärt sämre än flickornas och idag är en klar
majoritet av de elever som hoppar av skolan i förtid pojkar. Flickornas engagemang i sin
skolgång verkar alltså vara betydligt större än pojkarnas. Detta tycks också vara ett mönster som
går igen på många håll i världen, inte minst i Sverige. Även kvinnliga och manliga lärares
förhållande till och engagemang i sitt arbete och sina elever skiljer sig delvis åt. I den här
presentationen vill jag diskutera hur graden av engagemang i skolan hänger samman med
palestinska föreställningar om flickaktigt och pojkaktigt samt kvinnligt och manligt men också
med en pågående ekonomisk och politisk kris i det palestinska samhället där framtiden för de
flesta tycks oviss. Jag menar att engagemanget i skolan har att göra med engagemang i andra
platser som till exempel i hemmet, i sociala nätverk och i politiken.
PANEL 1C
Problematiska engagemang/autoetnografi som engagemang
Ordförande: Loretto Linusson, Karin S. Lindelöf and Ulrika Persson Fischier, Uppsala
universitet
Anders Gustavsson, Oslo universitet
Hur forskaren påverkar forskningsprocessen
I mitt inlägg vill jag visa på hur den personliga bakgrunden spelar in vid ämnesval, både vad man
väljer att studera och vad man medvetet väljer bort. Jag valde länge bort att undersöka jordbruk
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som kulturform. Bakgrunden till mitt negativa val var att jag hade traumatiska upplevelser med
mig från min uppväxt på ett lantbruk. Först långt senare i den akademiska karriären valde jag att
skriva en bok som utkom 2009 med temat Bondeliv på 1800-talet. Då kunde jag dra nytta av
mina tidigare praktiska erfarenheter av ett ålderdomligt jordbruk både mentalt och rent fysiskt.
Något annat som forskare kan välja bort är det som upplevs bekant inom den kultur som man
kommer ifrån utan att det har med något traumatiskt att göra. I stället lockar det obekanta som
forskaren kommit i kontakt med. Jag har studerat folkrörelser som jag inte hade någon
erfarenhet av från min uppväxt. Detta gällde både frikyrkorörelser och nykterhetsrörelser.
Nykterhetsmänniskorna var lika obekanta för mig från början som frikyrkomänniskorna.
detsamma gällde sommargästerna som väckte min nyfikenhet. Jag vill även problematisera
forskarens kön med tanke på att jag utfört kvinnohistoriska studier och mött motstånd i vissa
akademiska kretsar.
Att forskaren inte bara samlar in material och registrerar vid fältarbeten har jag reflekterat över
i mina undersökningar om döden. Hur skall man uppträda när man talar med sörjande
människor? Vilka etiska hänsyn är nödvändiga att ta? Hur skall man klara av att visa empati och
engagera sig i andras traumatiska upplevelser?
Ett annat problem gällande forskarrollen är hur forskaren skall förhålla sig vid studier av
kulturmöten präglade av konflikter. Forskaren står inte bara som en passiv och neutral åskådare
utan blir lätt berörd och engagerad. Kan och skall man visa detta? Hur skall detta kunna
kombineras med en vetenskaplig undersökning av kulturmötesprocesser där olika intressenter
skall studeras på så lika villkor som möjligt? I detta sammanhang kan frågan om
aktionsforskning aktualiseras.
Loretto Linusson, Uppsala universitet
There is an 'I' in 'objective': Auto-ethnography as a subaltern voice
My personal connection to my field of research and topic of study has since the very beginning
had the characteristics of the proverbial elephant in the room: I am a child of Chilean political
refugees studying children of political refugees. I had to make the choice of whether to make the
elephant an obstacle to my scientifically obliged objectivity or use it as part of my method and as
a rich source material. My research project involves dealing with legitimacy of narratives within
the discourse of Chilean post-dictatorship, in which the children of the political exiles remain
silenced and shut off from the general narratives of oppression during the Pinochet regime of
1973-1990.
I see parallels between the lack of channels to speak about their experiences as children of
exiles and the silent voices of the subaltern that are implied in Gayatri Spivak's rhetorical
question: “Can the subaltern speak?” In my presentation I will discuss the possibilities of autoethnography as a method to voice subalterns and how it can challenge Eurocentric claims of
objectivity within Western scientism.
Samantha Hyler, Lunds universitet
Planning integration: Social sustainability, multiculturalism, and autoethnography
In a public lecture held in December 2012 at the University of Copenhagen, Thomas Hylland
Eriksen offered the phrase ‘zombie concepts,’ to refer to concepts that have become empty of
meaning by overuse or multiple definitions, yet continue to ‘live on,’ like popular notions of
zombies as animate beings despite their loss of a ‘soul’ or life-force. Included in his list of zombie
concepts were: identity, integration, boundary, multiculturalism, exclusion, and change.
Sustainability, I believe, also belongs on the list of zombie concepts, and in particular, social
sustainability. In city planning, social sustainability has a particular contrived meaning that
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more often refer to particular classes of homogenized housing and retail-focused spaces rather
than to community sustainability. From an ethnographic perspective, there is a disconnection
between everyday life in multicultural cities and social sustainability as conceived in city
planning projects. Planned space in cities may differ greatly from how it is used, and by whom,
and its intended use by planners. Urban design and policy making maintains a top-down
perspective on planning, and citizen participation remains limited. How are multicultural
communities factored into socially sustainable planning? As a migrant to Sweden herself, the
author intends to explore the use of autoethnography as a method (combined with other
ethnographic fieldwork) for engaging with the zombie concepts of integration and social
sustainability. This paper aims to explore multicultural communities in Helsingborg, Sweden, by
investigating a specific community network funded by the city that aims to facilitate integration
of ‘new Swedes.’
Heidi Moksnes, Uppsala universitet
Taking a stance: For whom?
For many years, I have worked in Chiapas, Mexico – the place for the indigenous Zapatista
uprising that ignited broad indigenous and general leftist hopes for change towards a socially
just society. Many scholarly texts about Chiapas and Maya peasant communities after the
uprising have been highly politicized, the region sometimes becoming the projection screen for
various political visions, making it difficult to distinguish the agenda of the author from that of
the people described. However, I found it important, as a temporarily visiting foreigner, not to
engage in political activity or influence people to make choices for which I would not have to
bear any real consequences. Furthermore, there are various political positions among Mayas,
and far from all find the open oppositional stance of the Zapatistas a wise or desirable choice,
and I found it central – professionally as well as ethically – to try understand these, bracketing
my own opinions and preconceptions. This implied that Mestizo friends in town commonly
regarded me as a wish-washy and meek person. From old habits, I have regarded myself as a
politically engaged anthropologist. But is a true anthropological position that of staying out of
any clear-cut political position? And then what?
Jan-Åke Alvarsson, Uppsala universitet
Emic, Bias and Preconception: To Study One’s Own Culture
An anthropologist studying an exotic culture faces a set of difficult challenges: a new language,
new thought patterns and the like. She or he struggles with misunderstandings, the bothersome
role of always being an outsider, with shifting modes and challenging new perspectives. The
person studying his or her own culture has quite a different set of challenges and needs another
type of approach. This presentation discusses how to transfer emic knowledge into something
that is possible to use in one’s research; how to uncover and present one’s own bias; how to
integrate one’s memory in the investigative process and discusses the use of preconception. The
case study is the author’s own fieldwork among the Pentecostals of his childhood, in the light of
experiences gained from his first fieldwork among Amerindians in the Gran Chaco. The main
objective is to examine the role of the researcher in the investigative process in a more general
way, discussing the stages in which the research situation is influenced by personal choice, local
scholarly traditions, gender bias, or just the present debate.
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PANEL 2A
Ethnography in the 21st century: Personal security, uncertainty and conflict in research,
part 2
Chairs: Steve Sampson, Anna Hedlund and Anna Berglund, Lund University
Aje Carlbom, Malmö University
A friend of Islam?
I have conducted various types of empirical studies among Muslim activists in the city of Malmö
since the 1990’s and through the years several political and scientific questions have become
topical. In the presentation I will talk about how I as a researcher am used as a political
instrument in the politics of Islam in Malmö. In contemporary bureaucratization of ethical codes
for research the assumption is that the researcher is in possession of all power and therefore
knowledge about the Other needs to be regulated. In the talk I will problematize this idea by
showing that informants, in my case Muslim activists, are in a position of political influence visà-vis the researcher and through this has a leverage over production of empirical knowledge
and, as an extension of this, may infringe career possibilities. Generally, the relationship between
the ethnographer and informant is organized by a tacit contract where I as an ethnographer
have “signed” up to be a friend of Islam in order to get access of informants.
Susanna Persson, Lund University
Being the bad guy: Another perspective on anthropology and the military
Wake up early, do my morning arrangements, put on the uniform, gather my gear and weapons,
walk over to the defack. Eat breakfast, make some sandwiches and fill up the thermos. Walk over
to the office, double check and make the final arrangement with the gear, put on the body armor,
mag to the AK 5 check, mag to the side arm check, hand grenades check, intercom check. The last
words before the door closes, be safe and “håll i hatten”. Then out to the sand box… During the
last years there has been an ongoing debate about anthropology and the military within the
discipline. To be an anthropologist and work within the military is probably perceived by many
in the discipline as something more or less unethical. Based on my own experience a will with
this paper problematize and bring forward a discussion about fieldwork, ethics and the mindset
when working in a military context.
Victor O. Okorie, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA
Living by torture: An ethnography of violent labor in postcolonial Nigeria
Many discourses of conflicts in postcolonial Africa are couched in terms of identity and ethnicity
as well as in rhetoric of birth and belonging. Although highly important for understanding cases
of genocide and violent identity politics, these narratives ignore the nexus between war and
work. Based on my ethnographic and archival research on the working conditions and the lived
experiences of young ex-militias employed in quasi-legal torture centers in the Niger Delta, I
argue that violence has become highly fluid and fungible while identity is comfortably
contradictory, especially in the context of West African post-Fordist regime characterized by
outsourcing of violent labor and warring at the speed of light. Also I uncover how the Nigerian
government reproduces citizens whose work is to wage war and structures social context in
which war is work; and thereby fulfills its roles of securing conditions for the valorization of
capital and reproduction of labor-power in post-Fordist economy. In this way, I demonstrate
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how labor of war and production of violence have become a globally interconnected
phenomenon as well as an ethical dilemma for frontline ethnographers in the twentieth first
century.
Keywords: Violence, labor, ethnography, torture, and post-Fordism
Tova Höjdestrand, Lund University
Komprometterande samarbete eller stängda dörrar? Några reflektioner över ett fält där
man stämplas som spion.
Jag forskar nu på ultranationalistiska, värdekonservativa gräsrotsorganisationer i Ryssland som
slåss för ”familjevärderingar”. Detta innebär motstånd mot dels nationell policy baserad på FN:s
konvention om barns rättigheter, dels homosexualitet. Båda företeelserna ses som strategier
från en västerländskt baserad världskonspiration att eliminera den ”traditionella ryska familjen”
och, därmed, även Ryssland som nation. Därför möts jag själv av stor misstänksamhet av
gruppernas ”gatekeepers”. Man har klargjort för mig att för att få tillgång till deras
organisationer, så måste jag också tydligt positionera mig på deras sida genom att ställa min
akademiska ”cred” till förfogande, exempelvis genom att förse dem med västerländsk forskning
som backar upp deras idéer om sakernas (och sexualitetens) tillstånd. Eftersom jag varken kan
eller vill detta, så blir detta metodmässigt en inte särskilt antropologisk studie, men deras
förfrågan väcker en rad frågor om akademisk integritet och forskarens roll i fältet.
PANEL 2B
Ethics and the environment: Anthropological perspectives
Chairs: Gudrun Dahl and Mark Graham, Stockholm University
Andrew Mitchell, Stockholm University
The 'Scandinavian Wolf’
As the debate that surrounds the ethics of hunting wolves in Sweden becomes increasingly
polemical, questions of how such perceptions are engendered and maintained come to the fore.
This paper will consider how ‘biological’, ‘environmental’ and ‘ecological’ discourses are utilised
in order to legitimise perceptions and actions amongst conservationists and hunters. The paper
shall also consider how dogs have come to play a crucial role in the wolf hunting controversy, as
being one reason the reaction to the presence of wolves in Sweden is both ‘heated’ and
‘emotional’. In some instances hunting dogs have been killed or injured by wolves, ironically,
however, according to the traditional definition of the biological species concept, dogs and
wolves are essentially the same species as they can interbreed and produce viable offspring.
With such thoughts in mind, what is a wolf, and in particular what is the ‘Scandinavian wolf’,
where do the boundaries between wolves and dogs lie, and how are they constructed and
maintained? Domestication is often cited as the ‘process’ that separates dogs from wolves,
however, what does this phenomenon mean in practice with regard to human-wolf, human-dog
and wolf-dog interactions?
Susann Ullberg, Stockholm University
The moral life of forests in Argentina
The role of forests for global environmental concerns makes the study of deforestation relevant.
In Argentina deforestation has accelerating recently due to increased soybean and beef
10
production. The Province of San Luis in the Argentinean hinterland was historically a region of
small scale farmers and cattle raisers. Currently, the cattle and agro industry, alongside tourism,
are the principal economic activities here. Population growth has put pressure on local
resources and changed the social structure. Against this backdrop, conflicts around the use and
value of forests have emerged in certain areas. Involved actors (small and large scale farming
companies, tourism entrepreneurs, local and provincial governments, and local and national
environmental NGOs) position themselves in a field of social tension by justifying their own
actions, and judging those of others, largely in moral terms. This research is planned to be
carried out as a postdoctoral project and aims at examining how moral reasoning is used in
these conflicts. How are the forest and the involved social actors construed as moral objects and
subjects respectively? How are global environmental concerns versus national, regional and
local interests framed and negotiated between different actors involved in the conflict?
Gudrun Dahl, Stockholm University
Constraints on collective accountability and moral self-representation
This project looks at how moralizing arguments relating to human concerns or to environmental
considerations are mobilized in environmental work and debate. Statements of right and wrong
are often emotionally loaded by a connection to identity-making. They tell what kind of people
we are or want to be seen as. Such issues arise when individuals reflect on themselves but also
affect voluntary organizations seeking members or funds, companies seeking permits to carry
out operations or branding themselves and authorities seeking political legitimacy. This paper is
an attempt to delineate a framework for understanding moral debates relating to the
environment from the point of view on the constraints that act upon different types of
organizations in presenting themselves as morally engaged vis-à-vis the environment and/or
socially conscious.
Christer Norström, Stockholm University
Brokers in the international aid industry: The blending of values in negotiations between
non-governmental organizations
This paper will discuss the blending of values in negotiations between NGOs and the importance
of environmental identity construction for involved key actors and the outcome of
environmental projects. This presentation is part of a wider project with the title “The right to
have a vision: Globalization and political space among small farmers in south India”, based on
fieldwork 2006 – 2012. During the last ten years Swedish NGOs have supported watershed
management projects among farmers through local NGOs in dry-land areas in Tamil Nadu. The
cooperation is based on a general idea of aid through the exchange of, on the one hand,
resources basically in the form of economic funds and knowledge from the donor country and,
on the other hand, the beneficiaries fulfilling a role for accomplishing Swedish international aid
policy. However, through an anthropological perspective, looking into the everyday negotiations,
this paper suggests that less obvious values become important part of the outcome of these
projects. I will discuss the importance of identity construction, trust and friendship between key
actors (brokers) within the involved NGOs.
11
Örjan Bartholdson, Swedish University of Agriculture Sciences
The making of a climate crisis: NGOs and media’s moral framing of notions of climate
change
The climate crisis has emerged at the intersection of global and local ecosystems, politics,
cultures, ethics and technologies. It is often perceived by the population at large via the framing
by journalists and NGOs, operating within local political, economic, cultural and ethical contexts.
This paper focuses on which types of stories and narratives that are constructed out of the
sources of NGO-reports and science research, and which form of moral that permeates the
narratives. Furthermore, the project aims at scrutinizing the interactions between NGOs and
media, i.e. how NGOs work to attract media’s attention for their reports on aspects of climate
change, and how media draw on NGOs for their creation of specific narratives of climate change.
The study comprises two distinct but related cases studies, one located in Sweden and one in
Brazil, focused on a selected number of the largest newspapers and environmental NGOs in the
respective countries.
PANEL 2C
Indigenous Futures: Anthropology and indigenous people – present and future, part 1
Chairs: Kaj Århem and Ingrid Slotte, University of Gothenburg
Anders Burman, Lund University
Indigeneities of the Past, the Present, and the Future in the Bolivian Andes
In this paper I explore the ever-shifting semantics and semiotics of the concept “indígena”
(indigenous) in the Bolivian Andes. The paper puts an ethnographic focus on the changing
discourse of the indigenous Andean organization CONAMAQ and its ambiguous relation with the
government of president Evo Morales. It identifies a recent conflict in the Bolivian lowlands
between indigenous organizations and the Bolivian state as a decisive moment when two
divergent projects of indigeneity erupted in the Bolivian Andes: one governmentalized project
and one counter-project. The conflict raises a number of questions and suggests that
“indigeneity” is not a fixed thing with a definite meaning, but a floating signifier charged with
different meanings by different actors in changing contexts of territorial and political struggles.
Indisputably, the language of political protest has been “indigenized” in Bolivia during the last
few decades. However, in this paper I argue that not only the language of political protest has
been indigenized, but also the language of geo-political government, and even the language of
political reaction. In the sense that indigeneity has surfaced as a core element and a fundamental
but contested point of reference in national political debate, just about all political language has
been indigenized.
Dan Rosengren, University of Gothenburg
Matsigenka modernity and projects for the future
In common with many indigenous peoples the overwhelming majority of Matsigenka people live
today what they themselves would describe as a modern life. Even though this life style shares
some traits with life in the urban centres of the region that to local people represent the essence
of modernity, Matsigenka modernity has a distinct flavour. Following Marshall Sahlins,
Matsigenka modernity might be described as an expression of “indigenous modernity”, at least
12
in the sense that it is a life influenced by extensive contacts with “modern” society and its
representatives and, consequently, it is regarded as different from both pre- and early contact
society. In order not to end up in the ahistoricism that commonly is implicated in the
“modern”/”traditional” distinction we need to explore the significance that indigenous peoples
give to the concept of “modernity”. Thus, in this paper I examine Matsigenka people’s notions of
“modernity” and social change in relation to local conceptions of development.
Karsten Paerregaard, University of Gothenburg
Bare Rocks and Fallen Angels: Global Warming, Local Counterpoints and Anthropocenetic
Dilemmas in the Peruvian Andes
One of the many dimensions of globalization is climate change that in recent years has caused
much concern in the developed world. The aim of this paper is to explore how people living on
the margins of the developing world conceive climate change. Drawing on ethnographic field
data from the 1980s and today it examines ritual practices and the religious belief of a rural
community in the Peruvian Andes before and after the villagers became familiar with the global
discourse on climate change. The paper argues that this discourse articulates an anthropocene
world-view and presents an image of the world as divided into one global and many locals. By
contrast Andean people traditionally conceive the world through a universal/particular
paradigm that pictures humans as one among many beings co-inhabiting the environment.
However, the paper also suggests that rising temperatures and water scarcity in the Andes have
caused a shift in the world-view of Andean people who now view the relation between nature
and humans through a universal/local paradigm. It concludes that this paradigm offers a new
perspective on climate change in Peru that is being used by environmental movements to
practice so-called cosmopolitics.
Maria Gonzalez, University of Gothenburg
IF THE PLANTS ARE NO LONGER THERE: Knowledge and learning among the Indigenous
Shipibo-Konibo of the Peruvian Amazonia
Plants are central in the acquisition of personal qualities, knowledge and skills among the
Shipibo-Konibo in the Peruvian Amazonia. The juices of plants are drunk, poured into eyes and
massaged onto bodies to make persons dream, learn and live in specific and desirable ways.
Plants teach people how to be successful in all sorts of activities, from fishing and painting, to
finding lovers and having good relations with authorities. Each plant is associated with a specific
kind of knowledge or situation and, as might be imagined, the number of plants that are used is
large. This paper explores the Shipibo-Konibo practice of learning from plants and the worry
often expressed by members of this community of loosing the base of their lifestyle if the plants
that they were able to learn from are no longer there. Many important plants are said to have
disappeared already and with them knowledge that the Shipibo-Konibo so highly value and
depend upon.
Keywords: plants, knowledge, dreaming, indigenous, Shipibo-Konibo, Amazonia, Peru.
13
Nicholas Waller, University of Gothenburg
Adopting the past, adapting the future: Crow idealism and the narration of a fortunate
people
Plenty Coups, last traditional war chief of the Crows had said about his people’s life on the
reservation, “After this nothing happens”. His people were left in waiting for the good life to
return. There is no denying the significant change in lifestyle and livelihood for all Native
Americans once the reservation era was in place. The tribes were heaved into a system of
poverty and assimilation that has left its mark on Native American communities still today. Yet
even in this period of despair, Plenty Coups gathered strength through his vision of the future,
his knowledge of survival for his people was guided by the blessings of a spirit being that once
visited him. His strategy was to learn how to think like the whites in order to challenge them.
Today, Crow Indians interpret themselves as at the point of turning away from poverty through
recent settlements regarding disputes of land ownership and water rights. With those issues
nearly resolved, it has paved the way for Crows to broker their own deals in the coal mining
industry. These major developments are reflected upon to fit the narratives provided by leaders
and heroes of the past that are essential in guiding a Crow way of life and living on their own
terms. This paper discusses the ways in which Crows attempt to shape their futures through
lessons of the past found in the visions of the old generations, and how the idea of the past
guides the present tribal leadership and its choices for the future.
PANEL 2D
Masters of Engagement, part 1
Chair: Eren Zink, Uppsala University
Obaidur Rehman, Uppsala University
Practicing Islamic Ritual of Salat in Secular context
The basic premise of this paper is the reinvention of the role ascribed to Islamic ritual of Salat in
the secular context. The paper will explore the experiences of young Muslims; participation in
Islamic ritual of Salat and religious pedagogical activities to learn Islamic ritual in the mosque of
Uppsala. The involvement of young Muslims is obvious both in performing religious rituals
collectively (congregational prayer) and attending different religious learning pedagogical
activities to learn these rituals “correctly”. These activities include gathering in groups for the
sake of learning religious knowledge and to cultivate virtues and habits required to practice
Islamic principle in everyday living. Ritual of Salat is used by young Muslims living in Uppsala, as
a mean to develop a sense of “self consciousness” to deal with their mundane activities. The
relationship among ritual and mundane activities are examined with the help of ethnographic
case study in Uppsala Mosque
Aïdas Sanogo, Uppsala University
Urban planning and populations moves: behind the scenes. Study case of 1st September
2009 flood’s management in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
The majority of studies carried out on displacements all over the world have proved that despite
the range of reasons for displacements, the movement of population can be attributed to
common features. In most cases, displacements are characterized as being unprepared, under-
14
financed and they occur without policy standards. Both host populations and displaced people’s
livelihoods are more likely to become impoverished rather than safeguarded. The relocation
case of flood victims in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, in 2009, is no exception to the rule. Three
years after being relocated in a “non flood” zone in the outskirts of Ouagadougou, displaced
populations struggle to make a decent living and nearly half of them returned to their former
informal settlements in flood risky zones in town, in spite of State’s ban. The paper addressed
here demonstrates, through several life stories, how the relocation process has been a headlong
rush for communal authorities, an attempt to solve the thorny issue of informal settlement that
Ouagadougou has been facing for a couple of decades now.
Arlena Liggins, Uppsala University
'The doubled burden: Diabetes Mellitus in Uganda': Realities and challenges among
Ugandan diabetic patients
Diabetes is regarded as one of the most challenging health problems in the 21st century
(Sicree/Shaw/Zimmet 2010: 1). It is estimated that 346 million people worldwide are affected
by diabetes, more than ten times as many than in 1997 [World Health Organization (WHO)
2011]. There is evidence that the numbers will grow further in the next centuries and is
epidemic in many developing and newly industrialized nations.
The paper seeks to present the major findings of a fieldwork conducted between September and
December 2012 in Uganda examining the perceptions and the knowledge of diabetes among
diabetes patients in four district hospitals. Hereby I will refer to diabetes as part of the so-called
double burden Uganda is facing, however questioning the status of diabetes as a 'new' disease.
By giving a picture of the circumstances evolving around the treatment of diabetes (e.g. shortage
of pharmaceuticals, access to health care etc.), I want to give an impression, which challenges
diabetic patients in Uganda face daily especially in remote areas and which strategies they have
developed to cope with the chronic disease. Recommendations of further research
opportunities/questions in the field of diabetes in Uganda shall conclude my paper.
Ismael Ibrahim Omer, Uppsala University
Breaking the Ritual: Field Identity and the Rites of Passage in Ethnographic Research
Fieldwork is one of the highlights of being an anthropologist. Many anthropological scholars
stress upon the importance of fieldwork as an initiation rite for young student in coming of age
into the discipline (Van Gennep 1960; Johnson 1984; Berger 1993; Robben and Sluka 2007). As
Freilich (1970:16) and Tedlock (1991:70) respectively write”…fieldwork proclaims manhood
and generates a major transformation: [where] a student of culture becomes an anthropologist”,
it is a “necessary initiation… a puberty rite, ritual ordeal, or rite de passage”.
Van Gennep (1960:28) states four unchanging patterns and sequences in which a stranger must
go through in order to get access to a host society. The sequence involves stopping, waiting, a
transition period and finally incorporation. Drawing upon my own two ethnographic research
experiences, while studying identity transformation among “illegal” migrants in the small town
of Isbergues and the port city of Calais France, I will discuss the impact of color , gender,
nationality and religion of the anthropologist, on the liminal experience of ethnographic
research.
15
Jessica Kleveland, Stockholm University
Religion som ”något annat”: Om religion och sekularism i den svenska skolans
undervisning.
Den svenska skolans läroplan slår fast att undervisningen i skolan ska vara icke-konfessionell.
Samtidigt står det att skolans arbete med att gestalta och förmedla grundläggande värden ska
ske ”i överrensstämmelse med den etik som förvaltats av kristen tradition och västerländsk
humanism” (lpo2011:7). Vad som syns här är en motsättning mellan det sekulära (här i
betydelsen det icke-religiösa) och det religiösa (framförallt kristna). Med detta som
utgångspunkt diskuterar jag hur lärare och elever talar om religion och tro - hur religion
kommer till uttryck samt vilken förståelse av religion som överhuvudtaget blir möjlig. Min
diskussion förs utifrån två centrala teman: separation och reduktion. Etnografiska exempel från
mitt fältarbete i en grundskola visar hur religion i skolan ständigt behandlas som ”något annat”
genom att separeras från andra kategorier så som ”kultur” och ”tradition”. Religion reduceras
också genom att emotionella och fenomenologiska aspekter får stå tillbaka till förmån för det
rationella. I klassrummet framträder religion därmed som något privat som går att bortse ifrån
och som inte bör spela någon roll i skolan. Genom min diskussion vill jag väcka djupare frågor
kring hur religion får och kan ta plats inom ramarna för en sekulär diskurs.
PANEL 3A
Anthropologies of the contemporary
Chair: Sverker Finnström, Uppsala University
Alexandra Kent, University of Gothenburg
The Hybrid Khmer Rouge Tribunal and Social Justice in Cambodia
A hybrid tribunal was inaugurated in Phnom Penh in 2006 to try those most responsible for the
mass crimes perpetrated in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge period 1975-1979. However,
since its very inception, it has been marred by antagonism between the international and
national sides, reports of corruption and political interference, threats of bankruptcy and the
impending risk that the remaining suspects will die of old age before the trials have been
completed. Most Cambodians are deeply distrusting of their domestic legal system and although
the hybrid court may deliver some valuable outcomes, it may also ultimately reaffirm popular
perceptions of the court as a forum in which ‘the strongman always wins’. Many Cambodians
continue to articulate yearnings for a just society in terms of Buddhist world order rather than in
terms of the Rule of Law and it is upon Buddhism that hopes of moral accountability are
frequently still pinned. Given that the Buddhist clergy was given no role in the establishment or
procedures of the tribunal, this article considers what its legacy may be in terms of the kind of
justice that many Cambodians today continue to hope for.
Anna Laine, Dalarna University
Ethnic Identity and the Art Market: An Example from the Tamil Diaspora
This paper will demonstrate how a Tamil artist based in London explores issues of identity and
belonging through his art practice, and how the local art scene responds to his works. Born in
Britain, the artist has developed from a rejection of his Sri Lankan background and its negative
attitude towards full time art practice to a close investigation of how his family history forms a
continuation in his present life. He plays with the notions of nostalgia and a glorious past that
16
informs neoclassical Tamil aesthetics (Bate 2009) in combination with constructions of
diasporic existence and painful experiences of loss. The resulting images embody creativity as
well as destruction. The art works are formed in relation to the British art market, where certain
gallerists argue for the full inclusion of artists with ‘other’ ethnic belonging, but at the same time
require visual references to that belonging in order to display any of the artists’ works. The
paper will discuss how artists try to navigate in this ambiguous terrain.
Åsa Bartholdson, Dalarna University
Programming emotion: The conceptualization of anger in programs for social and
emotional training in Swedish preschools and schools.
This paper deals with the conceptualization of anger in manual based programs for social and
emotional training used in preschools and schools in Sweden. The implementation of these
programs is generally prescribed in some Swedish municipalities, and in others they are used on
initiative of school principals or devoted teachers. There are some varieties in which and how
many emotions to work with, but the programs take special interest in what is labeled “strong
emotions”, and in particular problems concerning expressions of anger and ways of managing
this emotion.
The paper is based on material from participant observation in a preschool group (children 3-5
year olds) and a preschool class (children 6 year olds) within the Swedish educational system
and on analysis of the text manuals of programs used in these settings.
Björn Schwartz, Lund University
The expressway to enlightenment: VIP Religion
This paper will explore how an upwardly mobile social group in the media field in Beijing
utilizes religion in its attempt to naturalize its newly acquired social superiority, or VIP status. It
will link the group’s religious efforts to its distinction work (Bourdieu, 1979) in the VIP sections
of high end nightclubs, and in settings where service interactions allow group members to
receive status affirmation in status rituals. The paper will show how becoming religious should
be seen as a reaction to what anthropologist Amy Hanser has termed ‘The emerging structure of
entitlement’ (Hanser 2008), and it will discuss how positioning within this emergent hierarchy is
carried out through the enactment of personal qualities believed to be contained in superior
selves in Chinese cosmology, which is based on a narrative of morality, control, affluence and
selflessness. In reverse, the paper will show how these enactments of social superiority
construct the givers of deference as valueless or cheap.
The paper is based on fieldwork conducted in a group which consists of young successful people
connected to the private media field in Beijing, who have recently started worshipping a Tibetan
Llama of the Vajrajana, or ‘esoteric’ Buddhists school.
Jan Ovesen, Ing-Britt Trankell, Uppsala University
Engaging with Micro-Credit in Cambodia
The idea that micro-loans to poor people are an efficient instrument for poverty reduction has
gained wide acceptance among the general public; and it is, unsurprisingly, promoted by
microfinance institutions (MFIs), in Cambodia as elsewhere. In the absence of concrete empirical
evidence, however, the idea remains a postulate. Resulting from our engagement, through
anthropological fieldwork, with a Cambodian MFI, we suggest that the counterfactual insistence
17
on micro-credit as an instrument of poverty reduction stems not (only) from an effort to whitewash MFI profitable practice, but (also) from a relative ignorance on the part of MFIs of the
social and economic living conditions of the borrowers and prospective borrowers in the
Cambodian countryside. In the paper we give some ethnographic background from the
borrowers’ perspective. We accounted for our ethnographic findings in a dialogue with the MFI
management, thereby influencing their lending policy. We also demonstrate that, contrary to the
received opinion, the availability of micro-credit has by no means made private lenders
redundant, but that in practical terms MFIs and private lenders engage in a symbiotic
relationship vis-à-vis the borrowers. A general conclusion is that the poorer you are, in terms of
economic and social capital, the larger the cost of loans and the less you are able to borrow.
PANEL 3B
Lisen Dellenborg, Göteborgs universitet
Margaret Lepp, Göteborgs universitet
Carola Skott, Göteborgs universitet
Kristina Nässén, Högskolan i Borås
Workshop om etnografiskt drama
Etnografiskt drama har utvecklats i en aktionsforskningsstudie som bedrivs tillsammans med
personal på en vårdavdelning vid ett sjukhus i Västsverige. Metoden är en förening av etnografi
och dramapedagogik, vilka båda berör mänskliga situationer med utgångspunkt i deltagarnas
levda erfarenhet. Vi använder oss av forumspel, en pedagogisk form av rollspel som syftar till att
utveckla alternativa sätt att hantera konflikter och dilemman, i kombination med ett
dramapedagogiskt och etnografiskt förhållningssätt för att både handleda vårdpersonal och
utforska en vårdmiljö. Forskargruppen består av tre antropologer och en dramapedagog.
Workshopen syftar till att presentera metoden etnografiskt drama. Under forskargruppens
ledning erbjuds konferensdeltagare att delta i och pröva forumspel för att belysa och diskutera
olika erfarenheter från etnografiska fältarbeten.
PANEL 3C
Indigenous Futures: Anthropology and indigenous people - present and future, part 2
Chairs: Kaj Århem and Ingrid Slotte, University of Gothenburg
Bengt G. Karlsson, Stockholm University
Recognition and Rights: Taking Stock of Contemporary Transnational Indigenous
Activism
The main question dealt with in this paper is what thirty years of indigenous activism has
achieved. Indigenous peoples have a strong global presence today. They have gained recognition
as right bearing subjects under international law. Still, in many parts of the world, indigenous
peoples remains the poorest, most vulnerable and marginalized sections of the population. How
are we to make sense of this? Should we claim the transnational indigenous movement a success
story or are we up against a rather lame paper tiger?
18
Kaj Århem, University of Gothenburg
The great transformation: Post-war development and the impact of forest policies on
indigenous communities in the uplands of Central Vietnam
Market-oriented economic development and forest conservation are both corner-stones of
Vietnam’s post-war state policies towards its indigenous upland peoples who tend to live in the
country’s remaining rich forest areas. Current forest policies, classifying all forest land into
production forest aimed at industrial forest production and various types of protected forests
excluding human forest use, increasingly enclose the indigenous upland population and
dramatically reduce their access to traditionally used forest land. At the same time, statedevelopment policies push for an all-out transformation of the local sufficiency-oriented
economies towards market-oriented cash-crop production and small-scale agro-forestry. An
important step in this direction is the devolution of forest land to households and the conversion
of swidden land into heavily subsidized small-scale rubber-plantations and other forms of
industrial tree plantations.
The paper examines the social and environmental consequences of these twin processes,
seemingly opposed but unfolding side by side as parts of a single “sustainable-development
package”, on a particular indigenous society in the uplands of central Vietnam. It argues that the
state policies engender growing inequalities and the progressive erosion of local communities as
well as, seemingly paradoxically, accelerating environmental destruction and deepening poverty.
Nikolas Århem, Uppsala University
The Lost Landscape: Hydroelectric development and landscape spirits in Maccoih
Municipality (Vietnam)
The hydro-power project in Maccoih municipality was initially hailed in Vietnamese media as a
flagship of Vietnamese development interventions. With input and financial support from
foreign donors, the dam was constructed in 2008 and all the municipality’s villages were
resettled. This paper, based on conversations with local people about the effects of the project,
not only reveals that the locals suffered a great deal from the project (a fact that went largely
unnoticed by the involved international development actors) but also interesting facts about the
cultural landscape that was lost in the process. In particular, the paper explores the interplay
between the local landscape spirits – particularly two spirit hills – and the dam project. The two
hills were surrounded by important environmental taboos which contributed to maintain the
biologically rich forests in the municipality. The effects of the dam, however, brought the
protective landscape spirits to their knees, thus leaving the forest and its resources open to
increasing commercial exploitation. The paper provides a poignant example of the subtle
interconnection between cultural traditions and environmental conservation and its rapid
erosion as a result of developmentalist intervention – with grave consequences for the local
indigenous population.
Ingrid Slotte , University of Gothenburg
Closing the Gap or Closing the Trap? Indigenous Perspectives on Government
Intervention and Development in northern Australia
This paper examines a government Intervention and development program among the Yolngu
people of northern Australia, its consequences for the local population and the basis for
indigenous opposition. This is a case where Government development goals stand in contrast
with indigenous aspirations. What will the future hold for the Yolngu? Can they be successful in
their struggle for self-determination? Ronald Niezen, in his book The Rediscovered Self,
19
Indigenous Identity and Cultural Justice (2009), suggests that the future of indigenous peoples
depend on their ability to make use of international declarations to claim their rights and gain
sympathy and support on a transnational level for their causes. This paper argues that
indigenous protest against government Intervention in Australia is developing according to the
pattern perceived by Niezen where on the one hand transnational activism becomes more
important, and, on the other hand there is an increasing ethnic formalism. Yolngu leaders now
lean on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and turn to the United
Nations for support. At a local level, Yolngu have established a ‘Yolngu Nations Assembly’ to
represent the ‘Yolngu Nation’ and Yolngu law has been formally written down and published
over the internet.
PANEL 3D
Masters of Engagement, part 2
Chair: Eren Zink, Uppsala University
Ann-Marie Karcsics, Uppsala University
“Knowing that somebody is there for you”: Exploring different forms of friendship among
young adults in Sarajevo
Several recent studies on former Yugoslavian countries indicate that young people confronted
by challenges of risk and uncertainty in the current post-war and post-socialist arena are turning
away from the national and political sphere. Rather, they often seek trust and opportunities from
their networks and relationships at a personal level (Bozic, 2007; Perasovic, 2008; Obradovic,
2008). This paper seeks to present findings from my qualitative study conducted in Sarajevo,
Bosnia and Herzegovina during 2012. I will open by giving a brief introduction and background
of the framework of the observed personal communities in my fieldwork. I will thereafter
continue giving personal examples from my interviews of how different forms of friendship are
developed, differentiated and instrumentalised as resources in order to get access to benefits
and support.
Finally, by drawing upon previous sections I will conclude my paper with a discussion of
what these forms of friendship can tell us about the contemporary Bosnian society in a broader
socio-economical perspective.
Alexander Salberg, Uppsala University
Platos temple as liminal space
"But he who, having no touch of the Muses' madness in his soul, comes to the ... he, I say, and his
poetry are not admitted; the sane man disappears and is nowhere when he enters into rivalry
with the madman”. -Socrates
I am interested in discussing the space which south-Chinese modern artists from the city of
Kunming create their art in and especially this space seen as Plato´s temple, a liminal space.
Artists, have a licence to, and, a space from which they break conventions, turn morals and
concepts on their heads in order to get their message across. A liminal space entered at will by
means of artistic licence but also a space which represents a transition period, a creative process
within which change is potential-if not expected. From my fieldwork I find that artists not only
have a clear notion of such a “sacred” space, but that they experience the creative act as a
transitional period, during which they are neither here nor there, solely beholden to their art
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and in many ways seen as just as undefinable, dangerous, crazy or “natural” as participants in
the manhood-rituals described by Victor Turner.
I would like to discuss whether the space within which the artist creates could be argued to
be very much the liminal space of Turner and whether it is the capacity of entering this “Temple”
that…makes an artist and artist.
Per Anders Eriksson, Uppsala University
Negotiating change in tradition: Responses to a proposed renewable energy wind farm
project in two upland communities in the Philippine Cordillera
This paper is based on three months of field work from February to April 2012, in two
neighboring communities in the Cordillera central in northern Philippines. I will discuss one of
the main findings of the research. Proponents of the project look for a legal framework and the
political leaders to frame an agreement, while members of the local communities expect a
process on consensus-building where many aspects are to be considered, some in opposition to
national laws. Initially, corporate information about and actions to win support for the project
used ways of mainstream Philippine politics. Winning support by political assemblies through
gifts, attempts to have endorsements from politicians before community consultations could
take place were examples of such practices. In contrast, discourse and decisions in the
communities were based on concerns for existing local management systems, sharing of
benefits, future unity of the communities and a long-standing mistrust of the legal system.
Yifei Wu, Uppsala University
When an Iphone Case is awarded a Duodji Mark: Changes in Sámi life and handicraft in
Jokkmokk
This paper addresses two questions: How does a Sámi person today self-identify with regard to
being a “real Sámi” in the modern world? How have new handicraft materials and styles come to
be seen as “authentic” and “traditional” by Sámi people, not only for use in the making of
traditional objects, but also when used in the creation of objects formerly unknown in Sámi life?
This paper focuses on how young Sámi in Samernas education center are educated to use
new technologies and materials in handicraft production, while they are simultaneously
encouraged to maintain Sámi handicraft traditions. Through visits to the Sámi Duodji
organization, established to maintain authenticity and tradition, the author explores how an
iphone case made by a Sámi handicrafter came to be awarded a Duodji Mark of approval.
The paper illustrates important points by presenting personal stories of two handicrafters.
One story concerns a pioneer Sámi handicrafter of the new generation, who became a Sámi
Duodji board member. The other is of a Swedish handicrafter who works as a handicrafter in
both Sámi and Swedish contexts in Jokkmokk.
Mary Fraser Berndtsson, Lund University
From Meaning to Breathing: Rationalization, Translation, Embodiment, and Cultural
Meaning: Four Method Assemblages, Four Realities of Prechoreographed Group Exercise
Instructing
Group exercise-to-music classes have long been a popular keep-fit activity and long criticized for
their so-called alienating and objectifying aspects. Today there is an ongoing trend from the
“freestyle” type where instructors chose their own music and moves, to the “prechoreographed”
type produced by corporations like Les Mills International (LMI). LMI prepares standardized,
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class-in-a-box music and choreography kits which local instructors deliver in licensed clubs—a
practice critics claim leads to deskilling, and further alienation and loss of meaning for
instructors. Yet, not all instructors feel alienated. So how do instructors who like the
prechoreographed system experience it as meaningful and worthwhile? Through John Law’s
method assemblage approach, I argue, it is possible to use different, sometimes contradictory
theoretical perspectives to capture these instructors’ realities. The approach was used in the
analysis of data collected through qualitative interviews with LMI instructors and participants,
participant observations, and examination of LMI texts. Material was analyzed from a Grounded
Theory approach and resultant categories were used to build four method assemblages from
existing theoretical perspectives. The assemblages shed light on processes of rationalization,
translation, embodiment, and cultural meaning which make LMI instructing worthwhile. The
paper also demonstrates the utility of a multi-method assemblage approach.
Keywords: method assemblage, prechoreographed, group exercise instructor, rationalization,
ANT, body-subject, ritual
PANEL 4A
Aktuell antropologi
Ordförande: Sverker Finnström, Uppsala universitet
Ingeborg Svensson, Uppsala universitet
”Varför lycka? Varför nu?”
Vad är lycka för dig? Hur luktar den, hur smakar den, hur låter den? Detta frågar sig Jeppe Hein i
konstprojektet Happiness där han utforskar lycka. I min studie ”Varför lycka? Varför nu?” följer
jag under 2013 detta konstprojekt i spåren och betraktar det som ett sätt att engagera sig i
samtiden. Det är en samtid som jag, med Zygmunt Bauman, ringar in med begreppet
interregnum – en tid där den västerländska ordningen gått mot sitt slut och ingen ny ordning
finns i sikte. Mer konkret rör det sig i Sverige om nedmonteringen av välfärdssamhället så som
vi känner det. Mot denna bakgrund av oviss framtid, och genom ett fokus på lycka, är studiens
syfte är att adressera frågor om ”det goda livet”, ”det goda samhället” samt hur dessa hänger
samman. Utöver konstprojektet och dess två kommande utställningar på konstparken Wanås
och Bonniers konsthall, omfattar studiens material utställningarnas framväxt med såväl
planeringsmöten, marknadsföring som hängning. Därutöver utförs även deltagande observation
på projekt som planeras i anslutning till utställningen, exempelvis en lågstadieskola som arbetar
med konstnärens frågor om lycka samt rundabordssamtal med lyckoexperter – från
hjärnforskare och clowner till Buddistiska munkar. I denna presentation fokuseras främst på
hur konstprojektet Happiness artikulerar föreställningar om lycka och olycka samt kopplingen
till ett samtida välfärdssamhälle i kris.
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Jenny Gleisner & Corinna Kruse, Linköpings universitet
Att lära sig koden: Språk, stereotyper och fältarbeten på hemmaplan
Att lära sig ett nytt språk brukar vara en viktig del i ett ”traditionellt” fältarbete. Genom våra
fältarbeten mycket nära hemmaplan – barnmorskestudenter och polisens kriminaltekniker i
Sverige – vill vi prata om betydelsen av att lära sig inte bara fältets språk utan också fältets
språkliga koder.
Båda verksamheter som vi har studerat innebär kommunikation kollegor emellan i situationer
som är tillgängliga för andra personer, såsom journalister, brottsoffer, potentiella förövare eller
blivande föräldrar. Med andra ord, det är verksamheter där samma ord är avsedda att förmedla
olika saker till olika människor, parallellt till exempel brådska till kollegan utan att samtidigt
oroa den blivande föräldern.
Utmaningen med fältarbete på hemmaplan är hur vi som antropologer kan se mer än toppen på
isberget dvs. komma åt den gemensamma förståelsegrund som döljs under ytan. Vad betyder
orden, vilka bilder, kontext, och stereotyper förmedlar en formulering, och, framförallt, hur kan
vi komma åt det som döljer sig i de till synes välbekanta orden?
Vi vill således använda dessa exempel för att väcka en diskussion om hur fältets koder och de
gemensamma, ibland stereotypiserade, förståelser de bygger på kan vara fruktbara sätt att tänka
kring hur vi som antropologer lär oss fältet och förstår våra informanters världar.
Aimée Ekman, Linköping universitet
ETT FETT LIV: En artikulering av viktordningen på bas av överviktiga människors
erfarenheter
Syftet med avhandlingen är att utveckla en begreppslig och teoretiserande förståelse för villkor
och möjligheter i kraftigt överviktiga personers handlingsliv. Med utgångspunkt i intervjuer med
feta svenskar, deltagande observationer, vardagliga observationer, erfarenhetsbaserad
fetmaforskning samt samhällsvetenskaplig kroppsstorleksrelaterad forskning i allmänhet har
slutpunkten för studien kommit att bli en artikulering av processer och subprocesser inom
viktordningen. Viktordningen är ett system som ordnar alla horisontellt, som underviktiga,
normalviktiga eller överviktiga. Den ordnar oss även vertikalt, genom att över - och underordna
oss beroende på vilken viktkategori vi tillhör. Feta tenderar att underordnas genom detta
system. Att feta är en grupp som i den västerländska kulturen tenderar att både underordnas,
förtryckas och missgynnas har humanistiskt och samhällsvetenskapligt orienterad
fetmaforskning visat. Den forskningen, såväl som fetas redogörelser för sina liv, vittnar också om
det viktordnande systemet. Genom att teoretisera kring viktordningen vill jag öka förståelsen för
hur underordandet, förtrycket och missgynnande av feta är möjligt. Viktordningen är således
inte i sig ett system för underordning av feta. De som dominerar är själva i vissa avseenden
dominerade. Underordandet är snarare en effekt sprungna ur det viktordnande systemet.
Viktordningen inkluderar mer än det som uppmärksammas i den här studien. Den
teoretiserande framställningen behandlar fyra processer samt viktiga subprocesser och element
i viktordningen: viktordnandets betingelser, viktiggörande, inordnande viktgörande och
oviktiggörande. Viktordnande betingelser behandlar de kulturella och sociala förutsättningar
som möjliggör viktordningens existens. Dessa betingelser gör att vikten blir viktig mer allmänt
och för alla. I de övriga processerna är det fetas position och roll i viktordningen som är i fokus.
Viktiggörande, belyser olika sätt varigenom feta människor kan kommer att uppleva och
uppfatta sin övervikt som något negativt viktigt i sina liv. Inordnande viktgörande behandlar de
sociala och kulturella medel som är ämnade att göra den feta smal (-are). Dessa tenderar också
att göra vikten negativt viktig för feta. De tre första processerna behandlar syftets första del, det
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vill säga fetas villkor. Syftets andra del, möjligheterna, lyfts fram i den fjärde och sista processen,
oviktiggörande. Oviktiggörande kan enkelt beskrivas som viktiggörandets motkrafter, och
refererar till hur feta kan göra sin övervikt mindre viktig.
Elias Mellander, Göteborgs universitet
Balansakter: Förhandlingar mellan det enkla och komplexa i tillämpad kulturforskning
I ”den nya ekonomins” spar har kultur och ekonomi kommit att blandas da foretag i allt hogre
grad stravar efter att salja efemara och svarfangade produkter, sa som upplevelser, emotioner
och autenticitet. Intresset for det kulturella har i sin tur oppnat nya mojligheter for
kulturforskare att ta plats pa den oppna marknaden, men vad hander med kulturen nar den skall
paketeras och saljas som en produkt? Presentationen baserar sig pa intervjuer med antropologer
och etnologer som pa olika vis bedriver konsultverksamhet inom den privata sektorn och
kommer att diskutera dessas strategier for att marknadsfora och salja kunskap om ”det
kulturella”. Deras arbete praglas av ett balanserande mellan en komplex, processuell
kulturforstaelse samt krav pa att leverera handlingskraftiga rad till sina kunder. Den
kommodifiering av kultur som detta resulterar i leder till att begreppets mening reduceras och
forenklas, men samtidigt finns potential att berika och belysa komplexitet i kundernas
verksamhet. Centrala fragor for presentationen ar: Vad betraktar informanterna som det
centrala bidraget i sina produkter och tjanster? Hur anvands saval forklarande fakta som
analytiska koncept for att belysa kulturell komplexitet? Och vilka lardomar kan de akademiska
disciplinerna dra av dessa balansakter mellan det komplexa och det enkla?
PANEL 4B
Municipal Ethnography: Citizen Participation and Local Democracy
Chairs: Sten Hagberg and Clarissa Kugelberg, Uppsala University
Jennifer Mack, KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Planner as Diplomat: Mosques, Churches and the “Politics of Urban Design” in Sweden
When Switzerland famously banned minarets in 2009, Foreign Minister of Sweden, Carl Bildt,
commented on this unusual case abroad, saying: “Normally Sweden and other countries have
city planners that decide this kind of issue. To decide…in a referendum seems very strange.”
Bildt’s formulation thus suggests something novel: that municipal urban planners should be the
arbiters of appropriate use, deciding which publics should have what rights to build.
How do planners respond, then, when a Somali faith group meeting since the 1970s in a “cellar
mosque” within a suburban, modernist housing complex proposes a behemoth new structure,
using financing from a “Saudi prince”? I examine how spatial demands like these require urban
planners to reconsider their professional methods; they mediate, for example, between the
concerns of immigrant faith groups and xenophobic organizations that decry the “takeover” of
Swedish territory. If planners must now act as both urban experts and diplomats, I explore how
proposals to construct several new churches and mosques on the outskirts of Stockholm are
requiring these professionals to negotiate the “politics of public space” (Low and Smith 2006),
here recast as a politics of urban design. With such projects beyond their formal training,
planners adapt on the job.
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Theodora Vetta, Lund University
Whose stick for what carrot? Revitalizing communities in post-conflict Serbia
Since the mid-90s the concept of Civil Society appears more and more often as a global axiom in
development discourse and policies dealing with ‘transition’ and reconciliation in postcommunist and post-conflict countries. Major international organizations have begun to address
political issues at the side of economic ones, claiming to have brought back ‘the people’. The shift
towards democracy promotion was materialized through hundreds of ‘community’ projects,
focusing on the development of citizen-participation strategies at the municipal level. This paper
examines ethnographic data collected from such a USAID democracy-project, implemented in
Serbia from 2001 to 2007. Having a budget of $200 million and technical expertise, this aidintervention was promising the fostering of a new Serbian democratic culture through the
promotion of civic engagement at the grassroots level. Anthropological insights can help us
understand the doings and outcomes of this project through analyzing the multilevel power
relations built around it. This paper sets thus to problematize and deconstruct the normative
discourse of ‘participation’ by looking at the different meanings and contestations of implicated
actors, paying attention to local histories and existing socio-political patterns of organization,
people’s motives, understandings, amnesias and strategies as embedded in a wider framework
of current capitalist and state restructuring.
Juan Velasquez-Atehortua, Stockholm University
Citizen participation and women’s power in Venezuelan Social Battle Rooms
This paper looks at citizen power in Venezuela as practiced in Social Battle Rooms (SBRs), a
venue for the aggregation of grassroots to conduct both urban planning and political activism. In
light of Sherry Arnstein’s Ladder of Citizen Participation, the article examines how partnerships
between the central government and local grassroots allow for barrio women to emerge as key
receivers of power delegation in SBRs. With increased citizen control the SBRs manage to
overcome the balkanization of public services and enable the transition to full managerial power
in which a women-based, bottom-up community development can begin to be performed.
Key words: citizen control, power delegation, partnership, communal councils
Anna Sofia Hedberg, Dalarna University
A National Strategy for Roma Inclusion 2012-2032:
Some notes on marginalization, participation and exclusion from a Roma activist
perspective
Ever since the first Roma came to Sweden in the 16th century, this minority has categorically
been discriminated and marginalized by the majority society. In order to solve the problems of
Roma otherness and segregation, countless political actions have been taken; historically
through various types of assimilation measures and more recently a striking example is the 20year national strategy for Roma inclusion, initiated in 2012. The discourse surrounding this
latest initiative is characterised by concepts such as influence and participation regarding the
Roma minority. Whereas majority society representatives assert that the Roma are being
directly involved in designing and implementing the strategy, Roma representatives and
activists perceive their rights to participation circumscribed at all levels. This disparity in views
constitutes main focus of this paper and the overall aim is to consider factors reproducing this
gap. An additional concern, however, is the anthropologist’s position. In their efforts to focus
relevant societal problems, such as the glaring discrepancy described above, the commitment
25
and responsibility of ”the dedicated anthropologists” constitute pressing issues. Not least in this
case, which involves a minority group whose vulnerable position in society is undeniable, yet
whose reluctance – and even fear – regarding researchers, experts, and others wanting to speak
for them, is openly articulated.
Elisa Maria Lopez, Uppsala University
Cannibal Geology: Apprehending uncertainty and potential social futures in the miningbased relocation of the city of Kiruna, Sweden
This paper will discuss ongoing fieldwork with local residents in the city of Kiruna, Sweden, who
in 2004 were notified by the state-owned mining company, LKAB, that central portions of the
town, including the historic church, city hall, hundreds of apartments and houses, major
infrastructure, two highways, and the railroad had to be relocated due to severe ground
deformations caused by the Kirunavaara mine. LKAB estimates that approximately three
thousand people will be relocated in the next 20 years, with the worst-case projections
rendering parts of the town uninhabitable as soon as 2013. In addition, the indigenous Sámi of
the area stand to lose lands that are being proposed as sites for the new city and expanded
mining complex, upon which cultural and economic livelihoods depend. In this paper, I seek to
explore notions of uncertainty and social futures as expressed by various actors in Kiruna, and
argue that these highlight existing social, cultural, and economic realities and power relations in
the city today. These have thus far been attempted to be overcome through planning and
technoscience. Additionally, can we trace municipal and corporate discourses of “urban
transformation” and “regeneration”, rather than “displacement”, through both historic and
contemporary Swedish modernity?
PANEL 4C
States and Anthropologists Engaging with Ritual: Representation, Regulation and Use
Chairs: Nathan Light and Vladislava Vladimirova, Uppsala University
Molly Sundberg, Uppsala University
Learning and Performing the Role of the ‘Model Citizen’: Civic Education in Rwanda
When studying popular, state-orchestrated rituals, one of the strengths of ethnography is its
capacity to deconstruct official descriptions and understand activity from the perspectives of the
performers. In Rwanda, an on-going civic education programme called Itorero ry’Igihugu is
meant to change the entire population into ‘model citizens’. Its official description traces it to a
pre-colonial institution used to educate the future military and administrative elite. It is also
profiled as a traditional alternative to the formal school system by offering a more grass-roots
orientated and holistic way of learning based on ritual transformation of one’s ‘mentality’.
Having participated in a variety of these training camps during ten months of ethnographic
fieldwork, I argue that not only does Itorero ry’Igihugu bear little resemblance to the content and
form of the pre-colonial institution, but its execution is also meticulously directed, leaving little
room for individual agency and giving scant attention to the actual perceptions of learners.
Moreover, Itorero ry’Igihugu is but one of many government-orchestrated ‘spectacles’; the
ongoing redistribution of power to local levels in Rwanda involves the same kind of rituals and
the same discourse to describe them. However, in all such ritualised state spectacles people as
performers/citizens are far from passive puppets who follow official government scripts and
26
appear as either ‘converted devotees’ or ‘adversaries’ forced into submission. Rather, they follow
the scripts to various extents and for many different purposes.
Nathan Light, Martin-Luther-Universität, Halle (Saale), Germany
Moral Discourses of Social Scientists: What is wrong with Kyrgyz civil society, social
capital and politics?
Public village rituals in Kyrgyzstan involve loosely linked political, religious and civic
dimensions. This paper describes school graduation celebrations and a large sacred meal at a
mosque in a Kyrgyz village. These public events have many participants but politicians play only
circumscribed roles, while religious leaders and school officials serve as ritual speakers and
provide institutional resources. The events are organized and carried out by village networks
with well-established and effective techniques for planning events, finding resources, resolving
conflicts and assigning people to carry out the necessary work. Many social scientists have
biased views of social organization in Central Asia, pointing to clans and networks as sources of
nepotism and corruption. While the decline of Western social capital is widely mourned
(Putnam, Bowling Alone2000), researchers accuse Central Asian societies of excessive social
capital (Collins, Logic of Clan Politics 2006, Schatz, Modern Clan Politics 2004). In addition, the
Kyrgyzstani state is seen as weak, implying that it should do the work now done by village social
groups. More careful study of everyday civil society and participation is needed before passing
judgment on Central Asia’s supposed social and political flaws.
Vladislava Vladimirova, Uppsala University
‘Sport and Folklore’ Performances as Rituals among the Indigenous People of the Russian
North
Anthropologists of the Russian North show that institutions created during Soviet rule, like
‘houses of culture’, museums, and sport and folklore festivals have recently become sites for
indigenous political movements to make claims about their traditional culture and community.
Even though these institutions were created to promote state control and transformation of
traditional society, economy, and religion by disseminating proper socialist values, they also
reproduced politically useful representations of indigenous culture, following the principle
‘socialist in content, ethnic in form.’ Drawing upon examples of three sport-folklore festivals in
the Kola Peninsula, Northwest Russia, I show how these are arenas for enactment and
contestation of political agendas, and become ritualized as performances imbued with
contrasting meanings. The officials who organize the events and performances attempt to
package indigenous culture as folklore and to demonstrate ‘traditional economy’ through sport,
relying on the canonic images of Sami folklore, created by Soviet ethnographers. At the same
time, Sami ethnic activists promote them as celebrations of indigenous livelihood and proofs of
authentically enduring traditions. Reindeer herders, use the events to demonstrate their
professional skills and make little money driving tourists on reindeer sleds, while many tourists
perceive the festival as mere play.
Éva Sebestyén, Stockholm University
New feast, old rituals to strengthen Mbadja identity, Angola
Due to the brave resistance of people of Ovambo (living presently in the both sides of the border
between the present Angola and Namibia) it was the last region military conquered by
Portuguese during the first two decades of twentieth century. The last battle with strong South
African participation was conducted against the Kwanyama king, Mandume who preferred to kill
27
himself at the end of the battle than be prisoner of war. The other ethnic group called Mbadja , a
relative to Kwanyama although they had been leading the resistance against Portuguese during
decades hadn´t become well-known. The Portuguese and South African media was not
interested to present the African merits in war therefore they used the defeat of the young
Kwanyama king for glorifying themselves. This journalistic coverage created a strong contra
reaction in the African population and the young king, with especially strong character, became
a national hero. A memorial park was constructed by the provincial government in Angola.
Astatue and street´s name make us remember him in Namibia. The Mbadja people share this
opinion and at the same time they want to celebrate their own kings who were the only ones
could resist against Portuguese. A new energetic king of Mbadja was elected in 2009. Among
various candidates he was chosen by the elder’s council due to his abilities of modern leader of
the demining operation in their Province. The council of elders encourages him to recreate the
kingdom on the base of their traditions and corresponding to the new challenges of our epoch.
Without any external help and with the participation of the entire people of Ombadja under the
management of the king the population reconstructed the royal court, a memorial grave to the
late king Shahula, Mbadja symbol of resistance against Portuguese. The king introduced a new
weekly feast in memory of the last glorious war against Portuguese. This ceremony contains a
Mbadja feast with dance, telling the old events of wars and and lectures concerning to HIV, other
health problems, some conflicts between Church and Mbadja habits concerning to the female
initiation ritual. An eminent Mbadja scholar was requested to compose the Mbadja hymn on the
base of the war songs for this yearly celebration. The king acts as catalyst in strengthening his
people´s identity through preserving past rituals and introducing new actions to serve current
necessities. He is strategically uses various measures to get the result or applying for
government help, or requesting his own people support to realize their plans. Reflecting on his
results he got an idea and asked my help is to realize a memorial house destined to the history
and culture of the Mbadja (Angola and Namibia).
PANEL 4D
Film session
Chair: Andrew Mitchell, Stockholm University
Discussants: Thaïs Machado-Borges, Stockholm University
Chris Allingham, producer and director of documentary films, Stockholm
Sweetgrass (2009)
Directors:
Ilisa Barbash
Lucien Castaing-Taylor
An unsentimental elegy to the American West, Sweetgrass follows the last modern-day cowboys
to lead their flocks of sheep up into Montana’s breathtaking and often dangerous AbsarokaBeartooth mountains for summer pasture. This astonishingly beautiful yet unsparing film
reveals a world in which nature and culture, animals and humans, vulnerability and violence are
all intimately meshed.
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