Applying Anthropology in Brazil: Professionalism and the Commitment to Social Action

2004 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 2-5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis Forline

The practice of anthropology in Brazil has a long history of engagement with local communities, development projects and political advocacy. While the practical aspects of the discipline do not fall under any special rubric of "applied," per se, Brazilian anthropologists have been actively involved in lobbying, policy formulation, community development, and advocacy. These activities are often embraced as a distinct subfield of the discipline of anthropology by their North American counterparts. However, although they are quite evident in Brazil, these activities have never been termed as a special component of Brazilian Anthropology. Thus, while unnamed, applied anthropology in Brazil has been part and parcel of the profession almost since its inception.

Ethnologies ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 34 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 133-147
Author(s):  
Andrée Gendreau

This article provides a comparative overview of the history of museums in Europe and North America, from their origins to their most recent postmodern transformations. It highlights the very unique evolution of museums in North America compared to their European counterparts due to their emphasis on leisure and their strong ties with local communities. It also shows how museums in Quebec, and in Canada as a whole, tend to focus more on ideas than those in Europe, the Musée de la civilisation being a prime example. North American museums have demonstrated the capacity to adapt to the specific needs of communities by being open and flexible institutions capable of preserving heritage, speaking to citizens, and transmitting − or simply bringing life to − past and present cultures.


2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kingsford Gyasi Amakye

Community development is fundamentally about the development of community involving a sense of common identity, capacity and purpose. It can take the form of unpaid active citizenship with community members organizing themselves and taking on leadership roles. Community development emphasizes empowerment, equality, social justice, participation and representation. This means that community development is fundamentally concerned with decision-making processes affecting users, community-based agencies and services. It is premised on a ‘bottom-up’ approach, which means enhancing the capacity of communities to determine goals and to pursue issues of importance to them, and to make decisions affecting their lives, for example, the direction of services and the allocation of funds. In Ghana, governments under the various regimes, the community members themselves, and NGOs have promoted the CD practice in several ways since independence in 1957. Preceding governments in Ghana through the Department of Community Development have played a central role in the exercise of CD work. Community development has not been thoroughly investigated in SCDA. This paper gives a clear understanding of CD in SCDA. This paper seeks to assess how the local communities take part in the siting, planning and implementation of development projects in their communities. Further it explores community development projects in the district and how projects are financed in the district. Finally, investigates the obstacles that impede the realization of community development process. This paper was carried out using a mixed method approach. Four area councils in SCDA were randomly selected for this work. These were taken from a total of 10 different local communities spread across the four area council. The study reveals that facilities in terms of education, health, potable water, roads rehabilitation, sanitation and rural electrification have improved tremendously (Fieldwork 2015). The study recommends that policies should be geared towards agriculture to improve the lives of the people in the district since the district is agrarian in nature.


2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 501-518
Author(s):  
Graham Crow ◽  
Sue Rawcliffe ◽  
Bernard Harris

Abstract Accounts of the Community Development Projects (CDPs) that ran as experimental interventions in twelve deprived UK localities in the 1970s concentrate on those projects identified as ‘radical’. Focusing on the often-neglected history of Paisley’s CDP, this article extends recent critical re-evaluations of how CDPs have been characterized. Ferguslie Park in Paisley was the most disadvantaged of the CDP areas on several criteria, and the only CDP to be based in an outer-urban area, as well as being distinct in further ways. This influenced how the CDP team devised its community development strategy, which is misunderstood when treated as embodying a parochial ‘kailyard’ mentality. Paisley’s CDP has continuing relevance to debates about area-based policy and public involvement in research as they are rehearsed in new contexts.


2018 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 3-31
Author(s):  
Lynn Schler ◽  
Yonatan N. Gez

Communities that were once the target of postcolonial development schemes still contend with the legacies of these interventions, long after such projects have been abandoned. This article looks at the afterlife of Israeli-led agricultural cooperatives that were initiated in the Zambian Copperbelt during the 1960s. Although these schemes collapsed in the decade following their establishment, local communities are still coping with the history of their rise and fall. In the Kafubu Block and Kafulafuta, the physical, social, and economic landscapes resonate with the successes and failures of this modernist planning. The schemes continue to provide a fundamental and contentious point of reference in both individual and community lives. A long-term perspective on the communities’ continued engagement with the legacies of the abandoned schemes deepens our understanding of development's complex “afterlife,” and demonstrates how the past retains its relevance by taking on different meanings over time.


1994 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Cole

A community accounting matrix (CAM) is an economic model that summarizes the transactions between the various industries and types of household in a neighborhood, as well as the neighborhood's links with its adjoining city and region. This article describes the construction and findings of a prototype CAM for the mainly African-American-populated East Side neighborhood of Buffalo and the more affluent, mainly white-populated city and suburbs. The CAM thus quantifies key structural relationships between race, space, and class in the Buffalo area. The CAM is used to calculate the implications of changes in this structure, such as continued shifts from manufacturing to services in the metropolitan area. It may also be used to evaluate neighborhood development projects and strategies that are designed to reverse the East Side's historic decline. The article begins with a summary of the demographic and economic history of Buffalo and the East Side and summarizes an analysis by Taylor of the need for a territorially focused community development strategy for the East Side. In the light of this analysis, several requirements for the CAM are discussed. The construction of CAM is then described, using a variety of data and a cultural accounting methodology developed elsewhere. Calculations are presented that demonstrate the “multiplier” and income distribution processes at work in the East Side's economy. Last, some possible applications of the CAM are discussed, and the empirical structure of the CAM and preliminary findings are related to other theories of poverty and the inner city.


2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-30
Author(s):  
Matt Sheedy

I interviewed Russell McCutcheon back in March 2015, about his new role as president of the North American Association for the Study of Religion (NAASR), asking him about the history of the organization, goals for his tenure, and developments for NAASR’s upcoming conference in Atlanta in November 2015.


Author(s):  
Sara Lorenzini

In the Cold War, “development” was a catchphrase that came to signify progress, modernity, and economic growth. Development aid was closely aligned with the security concerns of the great powers, for whom infrastructure and development projects were ideological tools for conquering hearts and minds around the globe, from Europe and Africa to Asia and Latin America. This book provides a global history of development, drawing on a wealth of archival evidence to offer a panoramic and multifaceted portrait of a Cold War phenomenon that transformed the modern world. Taking readers from the aftermath of the Second World War to the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, the book shows how development projects altered local realities, transnational interactions, and even ideas about development itself. The book shines new light on the international organizations behind these projects—examining their strategies and priorities and assessing the actual results on the ground—and it also gives voice to the recipients of development aid. It shows how the Cold War shaped the global ambitions of development on both sides of the Iron Curtain, and how international organizations promoted an unrealistically harmonious vision of development that did not reflect local and international differences. The book presents a global perspective on Cold War development, demonstrating how its impacts are still being felt today.


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