CCV - City Call Vienna: The Journey
CCV - City Call Vienna: The Journey https://youtu.be/bt0zpM90Nko via @YouTube. You are invited to see more on http://kck.st/2aiDkJV
Showing posts with label diversity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label diversity. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
Thursday, July 21, 2016
Friday, October 05, 2007
Okto: AnthrOkto?
Some weeks ago I attended lectures at Okto. Two colleagues of Social and Cultural Anthropology studies were there, too. We had a little talk about Ethnowelle, afterwards. The lecture held by Mr. Jungwirt focused on various forms of the application of rights in the media. Since I plan to start my own media projects in the near future - I got to make a living and pay my bills - I began to read about copyrights and more applied laws relating to visual media and boradcasting. We discussed some quite interesting points of publishing, i. e. YouTube content and copyright laws, or the causes of difference in European and U. S. laws, as for intellectual property rights. I plan to attend more lectures to start my program. Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Will the "West" become the universal modell of mankind?
The following text is going to line out important parts of Maurice Godelier´s lecture, the name of whom I will be abbreviating with G. Professor André Gingrich translated G.´s "Wiener Vorlesungen", id est Vienna Lectures, from the French language into German. I attempt to translate the important parts into English. The bibliographic data - for students and librarians - published in the German edition are:
Godelier, Maurice (1991) Wird der Westen das universelle Modell der Menschheit? Wien: Picus Verlag, ISBN 3-85452-304-1
The Vienna Lectures were - and are - a series of events to present research in relation to the future of society, progress and tendencies in social issues, and the opportunities of cultural and social developments. Having started in spring 1997, these series of lectures became an intellectual jour fixe. Opinion leading and innovative texts were furthermore published in print to serve a wider audience.
Godelier speaks about his work as an anthropologist, which he conducted from 1967. He observed the transformations to be imposed on the Baruya, a tribe living in Papua - New Guinea. These changes in everyday life and the way of thoughts started 1951, when the Baruya were found on the island. Later, namely 1960, the Australian government colonized them. In 1975, the Baruya were declared independent and UN membership turned them into witness bearers of westly progress in this part of the world. Godelier asks then,
But did not the fall of the Berlin wall initialize a new westernizing progress from November 9, 1989 on?
Godelier argues, that the westernizing process of expansion not only comes from the West, but he also names Japan and four or five little dragons as factors. Japan and these dragons, he mentions, have preserved their political sovereignity and cultural identity; whereas Buddhism has played a decisive role. The westernizing progress goes on and on without transporting all elements that are associated to it. Godelier queries
What is the West in its deeper sense today? What are the underlying elements of it?
Godelier means elements associated with the West, that could be dissociated and combined anew - in social and cultural reality and in other parts of the world. As for Godelier, the West is a mixture of the real and the imaginative, of facts and normative forms, of modes of action and modes of thought; all of which result in an affecting and scuffing pool of energy to move around three axes. These axes are three institutional blocks inheriting their own logic: Capitalism, parlamentary democracy and Christianity. The westly strenghts apply to a combination of three realities, that appeared in different times in history and paired rather late. The West is not a modell without flaws, in contrary, complaints come from all over the world: The West colonizes, conquers, is rich and sucks resources; eyes are closed, when liberties are absent, in case regimes serve or ally with the West; in the West coexist rights and disparity, and some are of the opinion still, that capital accumulation base on the legal exploitation of work. Godelier then focusses on tribal societies by asking
What is a tribe?
He explains, that a tribe is a local society, that comprises of ensembles of kinship groups. These groups of kin feel unified by social organisation, modes of thought, rules of marriage and defense and utilization of rescources in a specified territory. So the tribal identity is a blended identity, compound by social and cultural endowment, as well as by identification of conquered or heritable territory, which has to be given to descendents. Generally, Godelier classifies two criteria in relation to tribal societies:
a. Tribes, who lived sovereign or were already integrated in a precolonial state under the governance of a predominant tribe.
b. Via the segmentation of power, namely allocated between more or less equivalent groups, or in the hands of some on top of a given society and hereditary.
The Baruya found in 1951 were sovereign rulers on their territory. Ritual and political power was massed in the hands of associations, which traced their descent to conquerer - groups. Godelier focuses his method on the formulation of processes, that describe the westernizing; its stages and forms, which are easily traceable and reproduced somewhere else. The Baruya live in the center of New Guinea, in the mountains 2000m high. 1951 they were 1800 people having lived in approximately 12 little villages. Twelve clans, eight of them belonged to and were descendends of the conquerer group, cultivated their grounds using slash-and-burn. Additionally, irrigations on terraces and pig breeding, as well as trading salt from plants, supported them. Women cared for the pigs, men went hunting to strengthen their predominance. The society was classless, but not egalitarian organised. The westernizing process covered four stages under the influence of several forces.
Already before 1951, the Baruya acquired steel axes from Sheffield and Solingen without knowledge of the industrial Europe and led to economic and material dependence. A plane and some troops led to the imagination of a big fire bird in which divine entities looking like human beings lived. 1951, when Jim Sinclair and his troops entered the woods nearby, the Baruya were subjected to military forces. In 1960, an officer and his troops entered the valley of Wonénara to build trajectories and the local tribes were registered and deprived their right to fight each other. The officer introduced the new order in the name of Her Majesty Queen of England. Many incidents led to the fact, that the Baruya lost their right to apply their own laws on their own territory; they lost their political sovereignty and cultural autonomy. As soon as peace was instituted, they were counted and systematically controled. They were confronted with the state, a sign of civilisation and human evolution.
In 1966, Christianity was established by missionaries, which brought schools and education for the Baruya. In 1965, the administration recruited 30% of the local men to send them to work at the coastal plantations. In 1967, when the troops arrived, an anthropologist arrived. An academic representing the West; the West was complete, so Godelier states. After modes of power established, there was going to be the power of knowledge.
The Brauya society changed and some of these transformations were accepted positively by the Baruya, like having peace, living in other places than the valleys, travelling by plane or driving trucks. Some women married to live in the cities. Godelier emphasises the change of basic structures of Baruya society in gender relationships: Men fear female impurity little and women the symbols of male predominance, nowadays. To the Baruya white people are no divine entities no more, but they stay predominant. In post-colonial times the Baruya refuse to accept commands or violence.
This transformative processes will go on and change the whole world without implying its three elements, after Godelier. Christianity is not the only intrinsic religion and there is none. Political democracy should be transformed into social democracy. Capitalistic economy and its wealthiness should be distributed more efficiently and juster. The West will triumph first in Europe, later expand to the East. Godelier finishes his argument with some questions:
Do we have to accept the negative, which we recognize in the West? Do we have to applaud or should we steal away on the tips of our toes? Why should we be contented with our situation? Do we know the end of history has come and we live in the best of all worlds?
Monday, September 10, 2007
Thought provoking 21st century
1 About 21st Century Anthropology
Please read this post on antropologi.info: Keith Hart and Thomas H. Eriksen: This is 21st century anthropology and the associated texts, like the speech.
2 About Mainstream
I would like to start my reasoning with a citation of the IG-History at the University Vienna. "In der Gesellschaft gilt das Dogma, dass Heterosexualität in allen Lebensbereichen die Norm darstellt und dass Abweichungen gegen diese Dualität nicht nur unerwünscht, sondern sogar bedrohlich sind. Gerade was die menschliche Sexualitaet anbelangt vertritt der Mainstream extrem verlogene Ansichten" (Institutsgruppe Geschichte under Antiheteronormativ). This says, that mendacious dualisms concerning sexuality adhere to the Mainstream of society.
I would not want to anthropologically investigate the mainstream. Society has enough of mainstream sources and testimonials, I think. And especially the Central European public I mean with it. I felt embarrassed having had a lecture about Swedish XMas decoration, some years ago. This is certainly not what I expect from Social and Cultural Anthropology. It is not, that I don´t like Sweden, I have learned Swedish for one semester, I admit - I only can read it, not speak - but: White, catholic or other christians and well living?
Nope. I prefer to learn and write about people, unheard and unseen, whelmed with bias. Well, just some thoughts... probably relationships and communication...
Center for 21st Century Studies: http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/21st/index.shtml 2007-09-03 5:21 PM
Monday, September 03, 2007
Atheism
One of the best resources online is published and updated regularly by the Internet Infidels: http://www.infidels.org/ - the Secular Web offers a drop of reason in a pool of confusion. There is the News Wire for freethinkers, and internet radio by the Infidel Guy, also. The pamphlet provides a description for the services and this list is international.
What is Atheism? I explain atheism like this: Atheism is the absence - but not the lack (atheist do not lose religion or miss it) - of religion or religious behavior. It is the non-existence of belief in entities, a diety or more, often associated with the imagination of (the) supernatural(s), (a) "soul(s)" or "spirit(s)" in material things or symbols or intangible assets, or the non-presence or voidness of any religious acts or agency. Atheism to me is not only agnosia and the denial of a belief in god(s) or similar entities, it is a state of mind, an approach and a view of life without the performance of such.
Beliefs are projections of human thoughts into human environment, beliefs represent assumptions of accuracy of human thought and human existence in the world. Human thoughts are insofar true, valid and inherent, as human communicative processes, and therefore languages, too, are systems to create and to adopt human reality called life. Communication makes human reality together posessed experience and knowledge. Religions are cultural phenomena, here are some explanations at Wikipedia, Durkheim´s theory of the sacred and the profane or the AnthroBase papers tagged Religion.
Events: There is for instance the 2007 AAI "Crystal Clear Atheism" convention online: The Atheist Alliance International promotes a life free from religious intrusions and offers the opportunity of debate about the philosophy of atheism, online. The 2007 Conference of the Center for Inquiry takes place at The New York Academy of Sciences to report about reason and secularism in America. Student freethinkers, scholars and others will speak about Secularism through History, A Time of Challenge and Opportunity or Science and the Public.
Related Links
Atheism http://groups.yahoo.com/group/atheism/ 2007-09-01 6:40 PM
Atheist_Coalition http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Atheist_Coalition/2007-09-01 6:40 PM
AtheistsConnected http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AtheistsConnected/ 2007-09-01 6:40 PM
AtheistsUnited http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AtheistsUnited/ 2007-09-01 6:40 PM
atheist-talk http://groups.yahoo.com/group/atheist-talk 2007-09-01 6:40 PM
Center for Inquiry http://www.centerforinquiry.net/ 2007-09-03 2:11 PM
Secular Humanism http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Human_ism/ 2007-09-01 6:40
Friday, August 31, 2007
A Riddle is a Paradox, indeed
Baumann localised his book on Rethinking National, Ethnic and Religious Identities, and states: "To solve the riddle, one needs to rethink what is meant by nationality or the nation-state, by ethnic identity or ethnicity, and by religion as a basis of culture." (Baumann 1999: vii) Multiculturalism for him is a riddle, "Having reviewed a multiculturalist vision uncritical of the nation- state and another seemingly multiculturalist one that reduces people´s culture to their religion at birth, let us turn to the third reification that must be overcome: the reduction of people´s culture to their ethnic identity." (Baumann 1999: 103)
I think, that multiculturalisms are theories, that are too weak to translate them into everyday practice. In reference to the fact, that human beings may be members of several cultures/cultural groups (rf. Baumann 1999: 99 f.), I think, that 1. people do (re-)define cultural communities, over and over; 2. (multi-)culturalisms of any kind and theory would not practically have an effect in reality, because people wouldn´t let themselves be reduced to their religion, nation or else. So the question arises, how is cultural identity constituted? To make a long story short by assuming, that culture is system of symbols (rf. Geertz), then groups of people would be better understood, if their symbols were socially understandable or explained. If the origins of identity are culturally influenced, because cultures are shared by many, then cultural identity has to do wih communication. From this it follows, that societies in nations or nation-like groups, like for instance the E. U., i. e. their representatives, should reduce their attempts to formulate what culture would be, in a way, that makes respect and tolerance complyable with an (individual´s) human condition(s) and the Human Rights, plus ammendments. A manifold society and multifaceted cultures would respect and accept particularities of individuals or groups. Cultural identities change permanently, communication filtered the cultural divide.
I don´t know how many Anthropologists are comissioned in the E. U. executive boards, I mean, how many Social and Cultural Anthropologists - specialists for cultures - are employed to solve problems relating to culture(s). And: How can tensions relating to culture(s) be resolved without specialists for culture(s)? "How can we award the same universal recognition to an ever-widening variety of mutually exclusive designs of authenticity and identity, especially when these involve a politics of (stressing) difference?" (Baumann 1999: 108)
As for Baumann pluralisms were inconclusive and the meaningful exclusivist in extreme. Professor Gingrich offers the dialogue as a medium to communicate social and cultural conflicts to achieve respect and tolerance. The Respect Project offers scientific and lawful standards, they have a database online.
***************************
Contents
1. "I Have A Dream" - but Who Os It For? Civil Rights, Human Rights, or Community Rights?
2. From Dreaming to Meaning: The Multicultural Triangle. National Culture, Ethnic Culture, Religion as Culture
3. The Nation-State, I: Postethnic or Pseudotribe? Why Nationa-States Are Not Ethnically Neutral
4. The Nation-State, II: Business or Temple? Why Nation-States Are Not Religiously Neutral
5. Ethnicity: Blood or Wine? Not Immutable Heritage, but Positioning in Context
7. Culture: Having, Making, or Both? From an Essentialist through a Processual to a Discursive Understanding
8. Multicultural Theory, I: The Sales Talk and the Small Print. Are You Same ENough to Be Equal?
9. Multicultural Theory, II: The Values and the Valid. What Is It Prof. Taylor Should "Recognize"?
10. Multicultural Praxis: The Banal and the Best. From Culti-Parading to Multi-Relating
11. From Dreaming to Meaning: A Summary. Multiculturalism Is A New Understanding of Culture
12. From Meaning to Practice: What Students Can Do. New Understandings Require New Projects
References
Index
***************************
Baumann, Gerd (1999) The Multicultural Riddle. Rethinking National, Ethnic, and Religious Identities. New York: Routledge.
Quote of the Day:
If we find a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
blackaustria
blackaustria announces its program on blackaustria.at: Black people in Austria still have lots of problems. Discrimination - see also: ENAR Fact Sheet on multiple, compound and intersectional discrimination (*.pdf, 119,62 KB) - is still a part of day-by-day life in Austria. blackaustria therefore started a so-called communication campaign to explain and train reductions of prejudices. Biased opinions, ignorance and partiality derive from little knowledge, stereotypes need enlightenment. Individuals may support community work by writing articles in their blogs, papers or reports. This is why I will implement this banner on Anthropologic Diary, I feel deeply moved by having been invited for a project presentation. I would like to direct you to these studies published, they are in German and relate to the impact of the communication campaign on a. elders, b. people without High School Diploma in Vienna and c. the Black Community.
This party has Leiberltausch as its motto, T - Shirts will be presented this evening in September.
This project won with the Sozialmarie 2007 in the category new and innovative social projects!
Monday, June 04, 2007
Fairness
This list of friendly restaurants and shopping malls was created by BIZEPS and DSA Manfred Srb. BIZEPS is a group to support disabled people. They publish news on their site, here is an article about the ENAR, short for European Network Against Racism, publication on Multiple Discrimination. This Fact Sheet defines issues of discrimination to differ multiple, compound and intersectional discrimination. There is a paper available written by Timo Makkonen, explaining this three dimensional approach, plus examples.
The NCDDR provides a systematic registry, having published Essays and Overviews. In the course of my studies I wrote Loon (PDF 183KB), a study relating to Disability Research. The text (in German) describes social perception by disabled people.
Goodman, Alan H. / Heath, Deborah / Lindee, Susan M. (2003): Genetic Nature/Culture. Anthropology and Science beyond the Two-Culture Divide. U. S. A.: University of California Press
© Sybille Amber: Intellectual Property 2005/2006/2007
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