{"title":"Kendall, Laurel. Mediums and magical things: statues, paintings, and masks in Asian places. xx, 228 pp., illus., plates, bibliogr. Oakland: Univ. of California Press, 2021. £27.00 (paper)","authors":"Robert Oppenheim","doi":"10.1111/1467-9655.14214","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.14214","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47904,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute","volume":"118 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-10-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142519382","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In Uganda, the ‘traditional’ wedding, wherein a groom brings money and gifts to his father‐in‐law's home, has long been understood as the ultimate demonstration of a man's social maturity. Yet masculine adulthood is becoming increasingly elusive as weddings become more difficult to afford. Widespread unemployment has rendered most young men unable to fund the rituals while weddings themselves have become exceptionally lavish: brideprice payments now include ‘cows’, or millions of Ugandan shillings, as well as furniture sets, refrigerators, televisions, and even cars. With wedding expenses surging and their fiancés out of work, women have begun ‘paying their own brideprice’, as Ugandans say, by contributing substantially to wedding costs. In this article, we explore this oft‐debated phenomenon. We propose that the emergence of women who pay their own brideprice has invited a broad reimagining of the gendered economic ideologies that tether men to money under the rubric of provider masculinity. That celebratory, seemingly innocuous events such as weddings occasion the questioning of hegemonic forms of masculinity is particularly notable in Uganda, where gender conservatism dominates public discourse. Beyond Uganda, our case suggests revisiting the normative as a potent site for observing gendered social change.
{"title":"Women who pay their own brideprice: reimagining provider masculinity through Uganda's thriving wedding industry","authors":"Erin V. Moore, Nanna Schneidermann","doi":"10.1111/1467-9655.14229","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.14229","url":null,"abstract":"In Uganda, the ‘traditional’ wedding, wherein a groom brings money and gifts to his father‐in‐law's home, has long been understood as the ultimate demonstration of a man's social maturity. Yet masculine adulthood is becoming increasingly elusive as weddings become more difficult to afford. Widespread unemployment has rendered most young men unable to fund the rituals while weddings themselves have become exceptionally lavish: brideprice payments now include ‘cows’, or millions of Ugandan shillings, as well as furniture sets, refrigerators, televisions, and even cars. With wedding expenses surging and their fiancés out of work, women have begun ‘paying their own brideprice’, as Ugandans say, by contributing substantially to wedding costs. In this article, we explore this oft‐debated phenomenon. We propose that the emergence of women who pay their own brideprice has invited a broad reimagining of the gendered economic ideologies that tether men to money under the rubric of provider masculinity. That celebratory, seemingly innocuous events such as weddings occasion the questioning of hegemonic forms of masculinity is particularly notable in Uganda, where gender conservatism dominates public discourse. Beyond Uganda, our case suggests revisiting the normative as a potent site for observing gendered social change.","PeriodicalId":47904,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute","volume":"79 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-10-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142536544","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article critically assesses the impact of political and moral positions within contemporary anthropology. Re‐examining ideas of advocacy and the ethical within the discipline, it argues for an alternative political anthropology that focuses on perpetration rather than victimhood, offenders rather than the offended. If anthropology wants to be a discipline that works against social wrongs and suffering, then understanding the positions and perspectives of those causing them is, we contend, a necessary point of departure. Yet how can we approach people ethnographically who transgress bodily, legal, and moral boundaries, and why is this not more commonly done? In answering these questions, we analyse mainstream disciplinary ethics, both current and historical, and highlight some of the reactions that the study of perpetrators evoke in anthropologists. This illuminates an inconsistency within political anthropology. While there is ample theoretical and ethnographic nuance within the subdiscipline, this complexity seems to fade when we focus on perpetration. We suggest that anthropology engages more fully in the study of perpetration and approaches the issue by clarifying how (mis)dynamics are anchored within shared social worlds and historical becomings. This article thus calls upon us to expand our anthropological attention and curiosity beyond what might be morally comfortable.
{"title":"Our other Others: on perpetration, morality, and ethnographic unease","authors":"Trine Mygind Korsby, Henrik Vigh","doi":"10.1111/1467-9655.14212","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.14212","url":null,"abstract":"This article critically assesses the impact of political and moral positions within contemporary anthropology. Re‐examining ideas of advocacy and the ethical within the discipline, it argues for an alternative political anthropology that focuses on perpetration rather than victimhood, offenders rather than the offended. If anthropology wants to be a discipline that works against social wrongs and suffering, then understanding the positions and perspectives of those causing them is, we contend, a necessary point of departure. Yet how can we approach people ethnographically who transgress bodily, legal, and moral boundaries, and why is this not more commonly done? In answering these questions, we analyse mainstream disciplinary ethics, both current and historical, and highlight some of the reactions that the study of perpetrators evoke in anthropologists. This illuminates an inconsistency within political anthropology. While there is ample theoretical and ethnographic nuance within the subdiscipline, this complexity seems to fade when we focus on perpetration. We suggest that anthropology engages more fully in the study of perpetration and approaches the issue by clarifying how (mis)dynamics are anchored within shared social worlds and historical becomings. This article thus calls upon us to expand our anthropological attention and curiosity beyond what might be morally comfortable.","PeriodicalId":47904,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute","volume":"86 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-10-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142490913","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Recent studies suggest that race is no longer viewed as a biological category by most anthropologists in the United States, but less empirical work has been carried out in other countries. In this study, we engaged the Polish academic community in anthropology (biological and cultural) and biology by conducting surveys to assess how its members approach and conceptualize race in these disciplines. We surveyed participants (a total of 270 respondents) on their views on the existence of races (i.e. whether humans may be subdivided into biological races), whether race is a concept that is needed in science, what the term ‘race’ should symbolize, and whether the respondents were familiar with the term ‘social race’. The results demonstrate that although the view on the reality of races is still generally shared by the majority of the studied academic community, an awareness of the non‐existence of races in our species has emerged among a group of biological anthropologists. Both biologists and cultural anthropologists in Poland associated race mostly with a category of biological classification, while for biological anthropologists, race primarily symbolized a relic of the past. The article emphasizes the importance of becoming acquainted with the debate over race in academic discourse as well as the role of education in shaping attitudes towards race.
{"title":"Conceptualizations of ‘race’: surveys of Polish academics on the race concept","authors":"Katarzyna A. Kaszycka","doi":"10.1111/1467-9655.14232","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.14232","url":null,"abstract":"Recent studies suggest that race is no longer viewed as a biological category by most anthropologists in the United States, but less empirical work has been carried out in other countries. In this study, we engaged the Polish academic community in anthropology (biological and cultural) and biology by conducting surveys to assess how its members approach and conceptualize race in these disciplines. We surveyed participants (a total of 270 respondents) on their views on the existence of races (i.e. whether humans may be subdivided into biological races), whether race is a concept that is needed in science, what the term ‘race’ should symbolize, and whether the respondents were familiar with the term ‘social race’. The results demonstrate that although the view on the reality of races is still generally shared by the majority of the studied academic community, an awareness of the non‐existence of races in our species has emerged among a group of biological anthropologists. Both biologists and cultural anthropologists in Poland associated race mostly with a category of biological classification, while for biological anthropologists, race primarily symbolized a relic of the past. The article emphasizes the importance of becoming acquainted with the debate over race in academic discourse as well as the role of education in shaping attitudes towards race.","PeriodicalId":47904,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute","volume":"62 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-10-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142487510","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Pettit, Harry. The labor of hope: meritocracy and precarity in Egypt. xii, 228 pp., illus., bibliogr. Stanford: Univ. Press, 2024. £23.99 (paper)","authors":"Leila Chakravarti","doi":"10.1111/1467-9655.14228","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.14228","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47904,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute","volume":"101 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142449430","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article investigates an increasingly observable yet insufficiently studied phenomenon: the emphasis placed by artists on personal experience as the most legitimate inspiration for art. To this end, I introduce the term ‘sincere realism’ to describe an emerging form of personal cinema in Israel, illustrating how sincerity has evolved into a dominant ‘regime of truth’ that moulds modern forms of critique and expression in contemporary Israeli filmmaking. Through a critique of Foucault's concept of ‘regimes of truth’, I argue that ‘sincere realism’ has ethical and political implications and therefore allows a more nuanced anthropological approach to Foucault's concept of power. This perspective offers a fresh insight into how artists negotiate contemporary ‘regimes of truth’.
{"title":"Sincere critique in Israeli filmmaking","authors":"Maayan Cohen","doi":"10.1111/1467-9655.14231","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.14231","url":null,"abstract":"This article investigates an increasingly observable yet insufficiently studied phenomenon: the emphasis placed by artists on personal experience as the most legitimate inspiration for art. To this end, I introduce the term ‘sincere realism’ to describe an emerging form of personal cinema in Israel, illustrating how sincerity has evolved into a dominant ‘regime of truth’ that moulds modern forms of critique and expression in contemporary Israeli filmmaking. Through a critique of Foucault's concept of ‘regimes of truth’, I argue that ‘sincere realism’ has ethical and political implications and therefore allows a more nuanced anthropological approach to Foucault's concept of power. This perspective offers a fresh insight into how artists negotiate contemporary ‘regimes of truth’.","PeriodicalId":47904,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142405163","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Microbial turns","authors":"Hannah Brown","doi":"10.1111/1467-9655.14210","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.14210","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47904,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute","volume":"70 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142397987","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Recent debates in the anthropology of Islam have centred on the relationship between ‘everyday Islam’ and ‘piety’. Some scholars have posited that these are two opposing theoretical poles, while others have described how religion permeates the everyday. I add to these debates by describing how, for one group of young Turkish‐American Muslim women in a piety movement, the everyday permeates religion. Specifically, my ethnography shows that the ‘everyday’, constructed as a site of struggle and reflection, is seen as at the core of being and becoming a Muslim. Their diverse and shifting responses to the ethical dilemma of how to emulate the Prophet's vefa (loyalty) after moving away from one another – specifically whether to engage with Facebook for this reason – show how piety and the everyday, and the sacred and the secular, infuse one another in complex ways in their moral projects, and hence how what is considered normative and pious need not be static and homogeneous.
{"title":"Being and becoming through Facebook: morality, sociality, and reflection among young Turkish‐American Muslim women","authors":"Ashley Hahn","doi":"10.1111/1467-9655.14230","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.14230","url":null,"abstract":"Recent debates in the anthropology of Islam have centred on the relationship between ‘everyday Islam’ and ‘piety’. Some scholars have posited that these are two opposing theoretical poles, while others have described how religion permeates the everyday. I add to these debates by describing how, for one group of young Turkish‐American Muslim women in a piety movement, the everyday permeates religion. Specifically, my ethnography shows that the ‘everyday’, constructed as a site of struggle and reflection, is seen as at the core of being and becoming a Muslim. Their diverse and shifting responses to the ethical dilemma of how to emulate the Prophet's <jats:italic>vefa</jats:italic> (loyalty) after moving away from one another – specifically whether to engage with Facebook for this reason – show how piety and the everyday, and the sacred and the secular, infuse one another in complex ways in their moral projects, and hence how what is considered normative and pious need not be static and homogeneous.","PeriodicalId":47904,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute","volume":"31 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142397917","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Spaces of revolution: ethnic oppression and liberation in Myanmar","authors":"Elliott Prasse‐Freeman","doi":"10.1111/1467-9655.14209","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.14209","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47904,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute","volume":"225 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142384376","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
William Jones, Joel Robbins, Rupert Stasch, Leanne Williams Green
{"title":"Otto, Ton, ChristianSuhr & GaryKildea (dirs). On behalf of the living. DVD (video). Documentary Educational Resources, 2023. $34.95 (home use)","authors":"William Jones, Joel Robbins, Rupert Stasch, Leanne Williams Green","doi":"10.1111/1467-9655.14217","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.14217","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47904,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute","volume":"69 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142383928","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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