Search results for " ANTHROPOLOGY"

How to study bureaucracies ethnographically?

2019

We propose a short epistemological and methodological reflection on the challenges of doing ethnographical research on public services (‘bureaucracies’) from the inside. We start from the recognition of the double face of bureaucracy, as a form of domination and oppression as well as of protection and liberation, and all the ambivalences this dialectic entails. We argue that, in classical Malinowskian fashion, the anthropology of bureaucracy should take bureaucrat as the ‘natives’, and acknowledge their agency. This means adopting basic anthropological postures: the natives (i.e. the bureaucrats) must have good reasons for their seemingly ‘absurd’ (or arbitrary) practices, once you underst…

Expecting justice: struggling with the indeterminate between ideals and practices

2018

This commentary contextualizes Jacobs’ study as a contribution to a body of anthropological research concerned with theorizing the state, and more importantly concerned with closing the analytical ...

Contesting Cultural Heritage: Decolonizing the Tropenmuseum as an Intervention in the Dutch/European Memory Complex

2019

AbstractThe chapter discusses how (post-)immigrant activism in the Netherlands currently impacts Dutch and European cultural heritage and their cultural archive and memory complex. The discussion focuses on the Tropenmuseum and the way postcolonial (post)immigrants carried out interventions there, resulting in new ways of visually and textually representing the colonial past. Though the end result is not a final ideal decolonized situation, it did evince de-essentializing processes in which intersectional perspectives are taken up. The interventions coincide with other national and international protests and processes, making it part of a project or movement that produces decolonial counter…

Comparing Notions on European Cultural Heritage in EU Policy Discourse and Scholarly Discussion

2016

Cultural heritage is an idea and a concept repeatedly brought up in current EU policy discourse. In recent years the European Commission has launched several initiatives which aim to foster the idea of a common European cultural heritage. The idea is also often referred to in scholarly discussion. There has been vivid discussion in academia about the possibility of a European cultural heritage and what it could be grounded upon. What is a European cultural heritage? How has it been explicated and defined in recent EU policy discourse and scholarly discussion? Through qualitative content analysis of diverse EU policy documents and selected scholarly publications, the article clarifies the mu…

Minority Languages and Markets

2018

This chapter explores how minority languages figure in economic development and are invested with values of expertise, distinction and authenticity. Drawing on previous research, including the authors’ own studies on minority and indigenous language practices and discourses in peripheral, multilingual Irish and Sami sites, the chapter discusses the changing and expanding role of minority languages in some key economic domains: advertising and marketing, tourism, the media and job markets. It reflects on the conditions and consequences of economic processes for the exchange value of minority languages in changing markets.

Chapter 10. The perception of Somali place names among immigrant Somali youth in Helsinki

2017

Tracing the indexicalization of the notion "Helsinki s"

2017

AbstractEarlier research has concluded that there is a strong symbolic relationship between Helsinki as a place and non-standard /s/ pronunciation. This phenomenon is likewise in continuous evidence in the Finnish media and social media. The notion of “Helsinki s” has become a folk linguistic fact although it lacks a clear linguistic correlate or even status as a linguistic fact. The only sibilant of the Finnish language is officially a voiceless alveolar, while the “Helsinki s” is most often discussed as “hissing”, “sharp” or “fronted”. However, according to recent research based on listening tasks, any /s/ may be designated and discussed as a “Helsinki s” if the speaker is regarded as a H…

One confession, multiple chronotopes: The interdiscursive authentication of an apology in an international criminal trial

2020

Why being there mattered: Staged transparency at the International Criminal Court

2021

Abstract The International Criminal Court (ICC) represents a criminal justice setting exceptionally welcoming to discourse scholars. The court website provides ample information about ongoing cases, hearings are livestreamed, and transcripts, video footage, and other relevant documents are available online. Against this background of comprehensive transparency, this paper explores the additional value of physically attending ICC trial hearings. An auto-ethnography of how the ICC court landscape structures the visitor's path to the courtroom gallery, it is claimed, brings out the staged nature of the Court's projection of transparency. The ensuing discussion explicates the implications of th…

Die Bedeutung Samarias für die formative Period der alttestamentlichen Theologie- und Literaturgeschichte

2018

Fur die fruhe nach-exilische Zeit, also die formative Phase des Judentums und des Alten Testaments rucken vor allem die Innovationsleistungen der judaischen Gola-Gemeinde in den Blick der Forschung...