Anthropology as Method: North Korea at a Distance

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-203
Author(s):  
Sonia Ryang
Keyword(s):  
North Korea ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
The World

Abstract North Korea is one of a very small number of countries in the world that an anthropologist has not set foot in with the purpose of conducting long-term ethnographic fieldwork. Given the country’s closed nature, anthropology seems to be the least qualified discipline with which to approach North Korea. Upon closer examination, however, this might not be the case; anthropology may offer unexpected advantages, not only permitting us to study North Korea but also to reflect on aspects of our own societies and cultures with a critical eye. This article explores both the challenges to be faced and the rewards to be gained by an anthropologist studying North Korea.

Bringing the Dead Home: Hindu Invitation Rituals in Tamil South India

2021 ◽  
Vol 89 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-142
Author(s):  
Amy L Allocco
Keyword(s):  
South India ◽  
Human Host ◽  
Sacred Texts ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
The World ◽  
The Dead

AbstractDrawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork carried out in Tamil-speaking South India, this article presents one Hindu invitation ritual to return dead relatives known as pūvāṭaikkāri to the world of the living and install them as household deities. This two-day ceremony demonstrates that prevailing scholarly perceptions of death and what follows it in Hindu traditions have constrained our ability to appreciate other models for ritual relationships between the living and the dead. These vernacular rituals call the dead back into the world, convince them to possess a human host, and persuade them to be permanently installed in the family’s domestic shrine so they may protect and sustain living kin. Rather than aiming to irrevocably separate the dead from the living, these rites are instead oriented toward eventual conjunction with the dead and therefore reveal a fundamentally different picture than that articulated in the majority of Hinduism’s sacred texts and scholarly accounts.

scholarly journals Global Migration, Local Communities and the Absent State: Resentment and Resignation on the Italian Island of Lampedusa

Sociology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 591-608 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michela Franceschelli
Keyword(s):  
Local Community ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Global Migration ◽  
Local Public Services ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Historical Processes ◽  
The World ◽  
Socially Situated ◽  
Deep Sense

This article draws on the case of the Italian island of Lampedusa to explore how global migration nurtures populist discourses at the local community level. Lampedusa, a key transitory site for migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe, revealed strong concerns about the neglect of local public services and the mismanagement of migration. These concerns fed a deep sense of resentment that the islanders addressed toward the Italian state, resonating with the experiences of other communities around the world and reifying populist ideas. Based on interviews and ethnographic fieldwork, and disseminated by a film documentary, the article reveals how apparently similar global populist experiences disclose different local worries and long-term historical processes. In doing so, it unfolds the socially situated nature of Lampedusa’s populist resentment and so it contributes to a more thorough understanding of the relation between local communities and the national state as it is being reflected through debates on migration.

scholarly journals Dezinformacja jako element wojny informacyjnej Federacji Rosyjskiej – założenia i efektywność

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (4) ◽  
pp. 159-186
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Legucka
Keyword(s):  
European Commission ◽  
North Korea ◽  
Democratic Institutions ◽  
International Crises ◽  
The World ◽  
Extensive Range

The aim of this article is to analyse the Russian concept of disinformation and its effectiveness. It highlights the goals and instruments of Russian disinformation and outline Russia’s methods of manipulating the narrative from the beginning of the war in Ukraine and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Russia uses disinformation to weaken democratic institutions around the world and take advantage of international crises for its own benefit. According to the European Commission, Russia differs from other countries that disseminate disinformation, such as China, Iran, and North Korea. Its actions are long-term, systematic, and employ an extensive range of instruments to spread disinformation.

scholarly journals Anthropology from Home

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-52
Author(s):  
Magdalena Góralska
Keyword(s):  
Physical Contact ◽  
Foreseeable Future ◽  
Social Anthropology ◽  
Research Practices ◽  
Digital Ethnography ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
The World ◽  
Critical Insight ◽  
Insight Into

The coronavirus pandemic has made ethnographic fieldwork, as traditionally conceived in anthropology, temporarily impossible to conduct. Facing long-term limitations to mobility and physical contact, which will challenge our research practices for the foreseeable future, social anthropology has to adjust to these new circumstances. This article discusses and reflects on what digital ethnography can off er to researchers across the world, providing critical insight into the method and offering advice to beginners in the field. Last, but not least, the article introduces the phrase ‘anthropology from home’ to talk about research in the pandemic times – that is, geographically restricted but digitally enabled.

Thoughts on the Long-Term Strategy, Science and Democracy

2006 ◽  
pp. 4-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Abalkin
Keyword(s):  
Strategy Development ◽  
Russian Science ◽  
Global Trends ◽  
The World ◽  
World Development ◽  
Crucial Condition

The article covers unified issues of the long-term strategy development, the role of science as well as democracy development in present-day Russia. The problems of budget proficit, the Stabilization Fund issues, implementation of the adopted national projects, an increasing role of regions in strengthening the integrity and prosperity of the country are analyzed. The author reveals that the protection of businessmen and citizens from the all-embracing power of bureaucrats is the crucial condition of democratization of the society. Global trends of the world development and expert functions of the Russian science are presented as well.

Coal's Persistence in the Capitalist World-Economy

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul K. Gellert ◽  
Paul S. Ciccantell
Keyword(s):  
World Economy ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Energy Transition ◽  
Ecological Modernization ◽  
World Systems ◽  
Coal Consumption ◽  
The World ◽  
Capitalist World Economy ◽  
Capitalist World

Predominant analyses of energy offer insufficient theoretical and political-economic insight into the persistence of coal and other fossil fuels. The dominant narrative of coal powering the Industrial Revolution, and Great Britain's world dominance in the nineteenth century giving way to a U.S.- and oil-dominated twentieth century, is marred by teleological assumptions. The key assumption that a complete energy “transition” will occur leads some to conceive of a renewable-energy-dominated twenty-first century led by China. After critiquing the teleological assumptions of modernization, ecological modernization, energetics, and even world-systems analysis of energy “transition,” this paper offers a world-systems perspective on the “raw” materialism of coal. Examining the material characteristics of coal and the unequal structure of the world-economy, the paper uses long-term data from governmental and private sources to reveal the lack of transition as new sources of energy are added. The increases in coal consumption in China and India as they have ascended in the capitalist world-economy have more than offset the leveling-off and decline in some core nations. A true global peak and decline (let alone full substitution) in energy generally and coal specifically has never happened. The future need not repeat the past, but technical, policy, and movement approaches will not get far without addressing the structural imperatives of capitalist growth and the uneven power structures and processes of long-term change of the world-system.

Covid-19 and Mining industry

2020 ◽  
pp. 10-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
V.B. Kondratiev
Keyword(s):  
Mining Industry ◽  
Commodity Markets ◽  
Current Crisis ◽  
Mining Companies ◽  
The World ◽  
Commodity Demand ◽  
Long Term Impact

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the commodity markets and mining industry around the world in different ways. Mining company’s operations have been hit by coronavirus outbreaks and government-mandated production stops. Demand for many commodities remains low. This paper examines the potential long-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on future commodity demand, mining prospects, as well as tactical and strategic steps by mining companies to overcome the current crisis quickly and effectively.

Unmaking and Remaking the World in Long-Term Solitary Confinement

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 16
Author(s):  
Lisa Guenther
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Solitary Confinement ◽  
Hunger Strike ◽  
State Prison ◽  
Legal Documents ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Collective Resistance ◽  
Civil Death

In The Body in Pain, Elaine Scarry analyzes the structure of torture as an unmaking of the world in which the tools that ought to support a person’s embodied capacities are used as weapons to break them down. The Security Housing Unit (SHU) of California’s Pelican Bay State Prison functions as a weaponized architecture of torture in precisely this sense; but in recent years, prisoners in the Pelican Bay Short Corridor have re-purposed this weaponized architecture as a tool for remaking the world through collective resistance. This resistance took the form of a hunger strike in which prisoners exposed themselves to the possibility of biological death in order to contest the social and civil death of solitary confinement. By collectively refusing food, and by articulating the meaning and motivation of this refusal in articles, interviews, artwork, and legal documents, prisoners reclaimed and expanded their perceptual, cognitive, and expressive capacities for world-making, even in a space of systematic torture.

Engineering for good: A case of community driven engineering innovation

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chinweike Eseonu ◽  
Martin A Cortes
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Students ◽  
Technology Innovation ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
First Year ◽  
Engineering Curriculum ◽  
Engineering Design Process ◽  
The World ◽  
The University ◽  
Social Consideration

There is a culture of disengagement from social consideration in engineering disciplines. This means that first year engineering students, who arrive planning to change the world through engineering, lose this passion as they progress through the engineering curriculum. The community driven technology innovation and investment program described in this paper is an attempt to reverse this trend by fusing community engagement with the normal engineering design process. This approach differs from existing project or trip based approaches – outreach – because the focus is on local communities with which the university team forms a long-term partnership through weekly in-person meetings and community driven problem statements – engagement.

The Long-term Use of Short-term Debt around the World

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lifang Chen ◽  
Yong Li ◽  
Yizhong Wang ◽  
Bohui Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Short Term ◽  
The World
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