Place In Anthropology Research Articles

Forensic Anthropology Cases in Uruguay: An Update (1992-2023)

The article presents an update of a quantitative analysis of the forensic anthropology cases that occurred in Uruguay from 1992 to 2023. The number of forensic anthropology cases has rapidly increased in Uruguay. Over 30 years this number had rise from 14 cases in 1992 to 75 cases in 2023, reached a maximum number of cases in 2006 and 2013, ascending to 91 cases for each year. Forensic anthropology cases processed between 1992 and 2023 at the Judicial Morgue of Montevideo ascending at the present to 1752. The Laboratory of Forensic Anthropology at the Judicial Morgue of Montevideo City was created in 1992, as a response to the need to address the backlog of cases. Since 1992 all the remains were analyzed to determine sex, stature and age at the time of death and, eventually the identity of the remains. In cases where a positive identification was made, a forensic anthropology analysis was also performed. The purpose of this paper is to describe the place of forensic anthropology in the Uruguayan medico-legal system, the evolution an increase of the number of cases from 1992 to 2023 and, to show its effectiveness in identification of human remains.

Anthropological Places in Mozambique in the Context of Political Conflict

Soon after independence in Mozambique (1975), the country´s toponymy changed with the aim of decolonizing the past. The article consists of a chapter of an ongoing thesis entitled "The influence of ethnicities in political conflicts in African states: the case study of Mozambique (1976-2019)". The article aims to analyse the use of anthropological places in a context of political conflict. Three research questions were raised: How does the name of a place shape the behaviour of people living or visiting that place? How does the name transform a space into an anthropological place with a sacral meaning? How does political power use anthropological places? Preliminary results show that, during transformation of anthropological places, the new names have a meaning of local events and figures; there are some names with national impact. Therefore, Anthropological places cannot be seen as a potential for conflict emerging. However, the way politics uses public spaces is more propagandistic. Therefore, it creates an environment of political parties’ divisions leading to political conflicts, in addition to other factors. Methodologically, the chapter is a result of a literature review. The study is important because it approaches conflict beyond armed or political ones, but anthropologically.

ANTHROPOLOGY AND SUFI ETHICS

In this article, the author analyzed the anthropology and ethics of the Sufis. The central place in Sufi anthropology is occupied by the teaching about the Perfect Man, who acts as a mediator between God and an ordinary person. As in many others aspects, here one can also trace the influence of earlier teachings on Sufism.

Антропология после метафизики в философии Бруно Латура

Under the influence of science, technology and global changes, the pathos of caring for a person today is transferred to non-human communities. Sensitivity to matter and its changing states has returned to philosophy. Nature is again considered as a universal model of everything that exists. A new value has become the world in all its diversity, the world itself, unlimited by the phenomenon of man. To think in a new way is to think on the other side of a person, to abandon the idea that it is a person who thinks. This is the anthropological trend in modern philosophy. It remains to consider what are the consequences of overcoming anthropocentrism and “posthumanistic” decisions for the individual, culture, and humanities. And why, despite the struggle with the “anthropological dream” (M.Foucault), the anthropological method of research remains in demand. To this end, the author refers to the works of the French philosopher, anthropologist, sociologist of science Bruno Latour to characterize his anthropological project. The author records when solving which issues Latour turns to anthropology. The place of anthropology in the actor-network theory of the philosopher is discussed. It shows the consonance of Latour’s methodological approach to the branch of philosophical anthropology that comes from Н.Plessner and A.Gehlen, in which there is no isolation of either the field of knowledge itself or its subject. On the contrary, philosophical and anthropological reflection is motivated by pragmatics, by what is carried out beyond the boundaries of philosophy and pure consciousness. The refusal to build anthropology on the basis of New European rationalism gives a new breath to the anthropological approach. There is a search for an alternative framework of thinking to anthropocentrism, new foundations from which the position of a person in the world, human reality can be comprehended. An overview of ideas regarding the “anthropology of modern” is given, the purpose of which is to explain to the bearers of modern consciousness that their own actions diverge from their own words. The study of Bruno Latour’s anthropological reflection contributes both to the concretization of the theoretical and methodological foundations of his philosophy and to the clarification of the question of the goals of philosophical anthropology. By publishing this text, the author invites colleagues to discuss the strategies of modern philosophical and anthropological discourse.

The making of a mushroom people: Toward a moral anthropology of psychedelics beyond hype and anti‐hype

As regulatory agencies have put psychedelics on an expedited path to market approval, North Americans and Europeans might turn away from their repression and join the subset of cultures that have institutionalized the use of hallucinogenic drugs. What is the place of anthropology in this psychedelic renaissance? More specifically, how should anthropology relate to the cycles of hype and anti‐hype, which have been identified as a recurrent pattern in the careers of new drugs as psychedelics have entered a second round of cultural enthusiasm and critique? This article suggests extending ethnographic studies of the psychedelic renaissance from medical to moral anthropology. The case of psychedelics is especially interesting for moral anthropology because these drugs frequently induce mystical‐type experiences, which can play an ethically irritating role as mysticism challenges a strict moral order enforced through disciplinary practices. What cultural consequences would the spread of mystical experiences have for contemporary European and North American societies?

Tylor Strikes Back

The notion of a “survival” in culture, first proposed by E. B. Tylor in 1871, was used extensively for perhaps three decades, and then fell into disfavor, and came to be regarded by many anthropologists as unworthy of further consideration. Yet the concept of a survival is logically coherent and is strongly supported in sister disciplines such as linguistics. This paper maintains that – despite whatever excesses may have given it a bad name – the concept of a survival has a legitimate place in cultural anthropology. Beyond that, I maintain that Tylor missed what is surely the most dramatic example of a cultural survival that he might have used to make his case, namely the idea of the dragon, which has baffled anthropologists, folklorists, and others for generations, but which emerges from basic application of scientific method, as a survival of the rainbow serpent in post-animist societies. [Tylor’s legacy, concept of survival, comparative method, rainbow, serpent, dragon]

Antropolodzy wobec niespokojnych krajobrazów współczesnego świata w kontekście Cool Anthropology

The article is a reflection on the place, tasks and purpose of cultural anthropology in the contemporary world. It was inspired by a discussion that took place during Ethnology Without Borders 2022 Conference. The 21st century shook the foundations of anthropology’s relationship with politics and society: from the devastating pandemic and the increasing effects of climate change, to the outbreak of war in Europe. The author ponders how anthropology should operate in the face of these crises. The presentation of various research concepts aims to bring closer where the problem is while everyone means well. The article presents the achievements of some anthropologists who criticize actions based on good intentions and draws attention to the achievements of Anthropology of Development, which the author illustrates with some examples from her own observations made during field research in Nepal and NATO training. The Cool Anthropology trend is potentially a right direction for development of contemporary anthropology. The questions posed in the article are intended to provoke reflection on the author’s thesis that as anthropologists who are part of a privileged social layer, should ask themselves the question: how to reconceptualize anthropological activities outside the resources of the academic spheres in order to become socially useful.

Kant’s pedagogical thought and current problems of education

Reflection on education has a central place in Kantian anthropology. The human being can only become human through education. In my analysis of Kant’s standpoint, I identify the characteristics of education that underlie Kantian anthropology: the exclusive predisposition of humans to education, the duty of a human to be educated, the communicative nature of education, education as a product and goal of humanity, the continuous development of education plans and education as a tool to improve humanity. In interpreting the latter idea, I reveal the specific optimism and pessimism of Kant’s pedagogical thought. Further, I analyse the key characteristics of education to transfer Kantian ideas to the present context. I also reformulate current problems in education in comparison to, and with the help of, Kantian pedagogical ideas. These issues are the correlation between Kant’s pedagogical anthropologism and the problem of artificial intelligence, the transformation of the teacher-student relationship, extended adolescence, personal growth of the educator, the consequences of education digitalisation, the advantages and disadvantages of using the Internet in education, the effect of an information society on education, and the role of the state in education. I conclude that commitment to Kantian principles in contemporary education is nominal rather than substantial and that embracing these principles is complicated by the pervasiveness of modern technology in human life. Overall, Kant’s pedagogical theory is the perfect reference point for an optimistic outlook on education.

The quest for Jewish anthropology in Germany post-1945

ABSTRACT While some of the founders of American cultural anthropology and British social anthropology were part of the transregional Jewish and non-Jewish German speaking community, Jewish anthropology, and anthropology by or on Jews in German-speaking countries, was seriously impacted by the Shoah. Some sources in the area of historical anthropology engage with Jews, who were anthropologists, and who were murdered or who fled, others focus on the appropriation of Jewish cultural heritage and zoom in on discourses about Jews. Living Jews are oftentimes covered in dissertations, after which the nascent ethnologist/anthropologist vanishes from academia, or leaves the country: research on living Jews seems an unsustainable career move. This paper is a first attempt to sketch out the developments of Jewish anthropology – in the broadest sense – in Germany post-1945. It will pay due attention to structures, societal, social, and academic; the place of anthropology within these structures; and Jews, as an ethno-religious group being researched by anthropologists (and other ethnographers); and the anthropologists/ethnographers who research them. By paying close attention to the anthropologists and ethnographers themselves, it is possible to “map the margins” (Crenshaw 1991) of anthropological and ethnographic work in an emotionalized, ideologized, and politicized field, a field that is indicative of post-genocidal intergroup relations in situ.

Древнее население Нижнего Поволжья по данным краниологии и антропологической скульптурной реконструкции лица по черепу

Human skulls study occupies a special place in anthropology due to a significant informational role of this part of the skeleton in determining both general (group) and individual features enabling restoration of individual physical topology and lifetime appearance. The paper provides the anthropological type description of the ancient population from the Lower Volga region according to the data of craniology and sculptural anthropological reconstruction of the face from the skull. In the course of the study, two female and two male skulls were craniologically analyzed using the typological approach. Sculptural anthropological reconstructions were obtained for three skulls: the two female and one male. Reconstruction of the external appearance of the face from the skull of the second male skull was carried out using a digital method. Anthropological type featuring of the two female skulls from the Srubna culture and the pre-Sauromatian time burials allows us to determine their type as a Long-headed Caucasoids, predominant among the Late Bronze Age population. The male skulls of the Early Iron Age are also characterized by Caucasoid features, but they have a brachycranial skull and a weakened horizontal profiling of the face. The presence of a long-headed Caucasoid complex on the female skull from the pre-Sauromatian burial, combined with a crouched on the left side funeral rite, suggests that the studied individuals had a partial continuity from the Bronze Age population. The morphological features of the Sauromatian and Early Sarmatian skulls have analogies in the synchronous population of Western Kazakhstan, Southern Urals and the Lower Volga region. Visualization of the bone structures of the facial skull gives an idea of how the population from the Lower Volga region looked like in different eras.

Rerooted and Reimagined: Dance, Palestinian Women, and the Reclamation of Urban Spaces

Manar Hasan employs the term “memoricide” to describe the systematic eradication of Palestinian society from modern memory, a process, she points out, that occurred not only through the destruction of its major cities, but also through the erasure from public consciousness the inhabitants of those cities, and specifically the Palestinian women who once played highly visible, integral roles within them. This paper enters into conversation with Hasan’s argument in its exploration of the work of Palestinian choreographer Shaden Abu Elasal, focusing on dances performed in urban spaces—locations from which she draws historical and creative inspiration to imbue her choreography with layers of meaning. I show how through her choreography, Abu Elasal reroots and uproots herself from the place in the very same acts of dance. She resurrects both the city and the women, revealing the obscured and retrieving the forgotten. I argue, then, that in staging dances in what Marc Augé terms “anthropological places” in Israel/Palestine, locations saturated with historical and conceptual significance, Abu Elasal both deepens her roots to the land, her land, and rises anew from it, freeing herself of its heavy shackles. Moreover, by reintroducing specifically Palestinian women dancers as elements of the “flesh and stone” of Israel/Palestine, spaces rife with histories of trauma, dominated by patriarchy and a Zionist ideology that privileges Jewishness and whiteness, Abu Elasal excavates a forgotten past, negotiates a restrictive present, and shapes a future for herself and her community. The paper brings together the ideas of anthropological space, which recognizes the identity of place as not merely physical but comprised of the breadth of human activity (symbolism, history, imagination, vision) that has taken and is taking place in it; and dance’s power to inspire a sense of losing oneself or transcending the existing, tangible world. In both ideas, consciousness and the material, stone and body, entwine and shape one another in the ongoing process of (re)forming identity and reclaiming history.

Old Discipline, New Trajectories: Theories, Methods and Practices in Anthropology

Going under the title “Old Discipline, New Trajectories: Theories, Methods and Practices in Anthropology”, the conference seeks to provide a “home” for socio-cultural and linguistic anthropologists as well as archeologists and bio-evolutionary anthropologists who identify themselves and seek to connect with scientifically minded anthropologists. It does not neglect the humanistic aspect of anthropology and embraces it as part of the unity implicit in the study of human lifeways and the cultural stuff that gives meaning, direction and collective identities to us. The conference might be seen as an important foundational step to establishing closer collaboration and integration among different disciplinary and methodological strands within the discipline of anthropology. The conference will broadly focus on theory, methods and practices in anthropology and will address the following questions:
 - Can we still say that anthropology is the most scientific of humanities and most humanistic of social sciences?- What does a scientific approach to the study of culture imply theoretically and methodologically?- Should ethnography still hold a central place in anthropology?- How can the results of the study of human evolution, cultural evolution and language evolution contribute insights into the current human condition?- What are the consequences the current rapid technological change is having on culture?- What can anthropology contribute to the important questions of today’s world such as pandemics, growing economic inequality, fascism, second demographic transition, climate change, etc.?

Lélia Gonzalez and her place in Brazilian Anthropology: “cumé que fica?”

Resumo Este é um estudo bibliográfico inserido numa pesquisa mais ampla com a intelectualidade negra dos anos 1970 e 1980, na qual expresso também minha experiência pessoal e coletiva. O foco é a obra e a trajetória de Lélia Gonzalez (1935-1994) e sua relação com a antropologia, com falas e escritas insurgentes, retomada como disputa epistemológica, no contexto das ações afirmativas. A matéria-prima está constituída por um acervo de textos originais e republicados - ensaios, artigos, entrevistas, discursos - e algumas imagens publicadas de arquivos pessoais da autora ativista.

Trend of Migration Studies in Sociocultural Anthropology: A Critical Analysis

Migration studies have always found their unique place in anthropology since the birth of anthropology in India under colonial rule. From the formative phase, anthropology of migration has grown multifold. In the present time when the Indian diaspora is the largest in the whole world, the process of migration has affected the lives of all individuals and has become an important area of research. The present article examines the growth of this field in sociocultural anthropology in India and is based on secondary data. Work of renowned Indian anthropologists like M. N. Srinivas, Moni Nag, L. P. Vidyarthi, Amitav Ghosh and others like R. K. Jain, Ashish Bose, etc. on migration has been discussed in the present article. Migration studies in India have found and sustained a key place in the anthropology curriculum report since the first time of its release by the University Grants Commission, New Delhi. Migration studies have grown from studying mobility among the tribals to the movement of people from rural to urban areas and then to international migration. New areas like displacement and refugee movements, literature and art, diaspora studies, urbanism, labour migration and many more are emerging as important topics in the landscape of migration studies.

Race, Racism and Anthropology: Decolonising Health Inequality in a Time of Covid-19

In the United Kingdom, the government’s failure to consistently record the race and ethnicity of those who have died from COVID-19 and the disproportionate mortality impact of the virus on Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities speaks to a systemic failure to account for the interplay between the social construction of race and the lived experience of racism, itself presented biologically as ‘poor health’. This failure has run for far longer and far deeper than many would care to admit. In this article, I use my own positionality as a ‘Mixed-Race Black’ woman to argue that the unique place of medical anthropology to sit at the intersection of the social, political, biological, and ecological means it can provide alternative approaches to understanding the disproportionate impacts of the pandemic and lay some foundations for repair strategies that encompass the patterns, processes, and constructs of health inequality.

Diferentes concepciones en los estudios de antropología urbana

A synthesis of the contributions and changes that have taken place in Urban Anthropology in this century is offered. In the 1960's reserches have expanded and become more complex in the question asked and the theorethical employed, reflecting both new insights and the changes that have ocurred in this discipline. Such research has now developed in many areas using various paradigms that we consider complementary, through we also note that changes are occurring in emphases.Our purpose in this paper is to illustrate, more than the past of the discipline, the worry for the future and the way to go ahead.

On the Commons: A Conversation with Julie Livingston

What follows are excerpts from a conversation between Lucas Bessire and Julie Livingston about the place of anthropology in our current moment. Our conversation was wide ranging and then edited for...

Nacional'naya muzyka v kontekste bytiya kitajskogo naroda: etnomuzykologicheskij i antropologicheskij analiz

The article is devoted to the study of the anthropology of Chinese national music. The history of the development of musical art and musical culture in China, role and place of musical anthropology in Chinese scientific thought is revealed. The research is based on ethnomusicological and anthropological approaches. The analysis of the practice of conducting ethnomusicological research in China, as well as the history of the development of ethnomusicology, as a separate scientific direction, is performed.

Place and role of medical anthropology in medical education. The so-called Szeged model

It is a necessary part of modern medical education that medical students should learn about the binary nature of human beings - biological and cultural - since both have an impact on our behavior. The subject of medical anthropology helps with understanding the mechanisms and lay concepts behind patients' decisions which is particularly important in our globalized world. The major goal of this course is to help medical students with acquiring cultural competence through theoretical bases and empirical examples that may help them later in their work when they meet patients with different cultural backgrounds. In the present study, we introduce the course of Medical Anthropology as it happens at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Szeged: the so-called Szeged model - its aims, syllabus, strengths, opportunities and possible difficulties. During the development of the subject, we greatly focused on its links to other subjects of behavioral and medical sciences and on its practice-oriented nature. Thus, the course partly contains of lectures and seminars which display cultural variability in relation to biological reality through practical examples. As a result, the topics of medical anthropology prepare the students to use the knowledge as well as skills and attitudes in clinical practice. Orv Hetil. 2019; 160(39): 1527-1532.

Tensión en el terreno etnográfico

Jorge Prelorán fue un cineasta argentino que realizó más de sesenta films entre las décadas de 1960 y 1990. Pero también difundió su pensamiento sobre el cine etnográfico mediante ensayos y entrevistas durante toda su carrera. Sus encuentros con los investigadores y realizadores más destacados fueron la base sobre la cual fue construyendo sus reflexiones críticas sobre el lugar de la antropología, la política y los métodos más apropiados para la realización de films “al servicio” de los otros. El objetivo de este artículo es analizar el pensamiento de Prelorán por medio de sus artículos y entrevistas.