Anthropological Contributions Research Articles

For Heaven-Human Conviviality: Reflections on Some ‘Ontological’ Narratives

This article uses a Chinese narrative of ‘nature-human harmony’ as the main thread to connect the contributions of ontological anthropology. I argue that the best of the critiques of nature-human or nature-culture dualism in social anthropology propose rebuilding a world that ‘pursues harmony while preserving difference’ in the double sense of nature and culture. Given that most social scientific problems are indeed related to utilitarian individualism, I argue that research on ‘ontology’ should re-engage the ancient notion of ‘ ji’, construed as ‘others-comprised self’, which forms the foundation of a perspective of ‘broad human relationship’ between humans and their others (other humans, things, and divinities). Perspectivism inherits many categories of Western cosmology that it critiques and represents a kind of inert ontology. Grounded in the cosmology of life ( sheng), we hope to contribute to a new anthropology of the compatibility between self/others and subject/objects.

Evaluating Skeletal Trauma and Forensic Anthropology for Medicolegal Investigations: A Systematic Review

Background: Skeletal trauma analysis is crucial in the area of forensic anthropology for locating and analyzingwounds in human remains. For the evaluation and recording of bone injuries, a number of techniques and methodshave been developed over the years, including ocular examination and cutting-edge imaging modalities. In orderto determine the approaches used in diagnosing bone trauma, the goal of this systematic review is to criticallystudy the body of current research. The goal of this study is to draw attention to the advantages, disadvantages,and recent technological developments of these techniques.Aim: This study thoroughly examines the examination of skeletal trauma and the function of forensic anthropologyin medicolegal cases, finding knowledge gaps and outlining potential directions for future research.Method: To find relevant studies released within a certain timeframe, a thorough search across the largest scientificdatabases was carried out. Studies on the assessment of skeletal trauma and the use of forensic anthropology inmedicolegal cases were also included. For methodological rigor, quality, and applicability, the chosen papersunderwent careful evaluation. According to the particular approaches and procedures used in assessing skeletaltrauma and the contributions of forensic anthropology to the field, data were retrieved, synthesized, and classified.Conclusion: This systematic study examines several approaches for assessing skeletal injuries in medicolegalinvestigations, stressing their benefits and drawbacks as well as the function of forensic anthropology. For thisdiscipline to improve accuracy and validity, advancements, established standards, and cutting-edge technologyare essential.

The Anthropological Contribution of How University of KwaZulu-Natal (Pietermaritzburg Campus) Students Express Their State of Being Depressed

The paper presents how students from the University of KwaZulu-Natal (Pietermaritzburg campus) (UKZN-PMB) express their state of being depressed. Through theoretical frameworks such as the cognitive theory of depression, narrative theory and social constructivism theory, this interpretive/phenomenological qualitative anthropological study purposively sampled twenty-five UKZN-PMB students to record how they express their state of being depressed. This study revealed that students from different socio-economic backgrounds experience depression, but they use a concealed dialect (slang language) to express their state of being depressed. This study shows social constructs as an expression that university students use as their language to express depression. Depression expressions that were revealed and explored in this study revealed that depression cannot only be understood from the lens of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSMV), but also through emic/explanatory models that convey the impact or the extent of depression on university students. This paper recommends that universities should pay attention to culturally specific/uncommon foreign languages in order to implement programmes that respond to depression.

Treatment success or failure in children and adolescents born with HIV in rural Senegal: An anthropological perspective

Due to the efficacy of antiretrovirals (ARVs), mortality and morbidity related to the AIDS epidemic has declined considerably in recent decades. Nevertheless in Africa, the persistence of new infections and the concerning development of ARV drug resistance reflect the challenges in preventing and treating HIV infection. These problems are especially affecting children and adolescents living with HIV (CALHIV). In 1998, Senegal was the first West African country to implement a government program for access to ARV drugs. However, care for CALHIV remains challenging. A national survey conducted in 2015 showed that 64% of CALHIV (0–19 years) in follow-up in sites outside of Dakar were in treatment failure. The article presents the results of an anthropological study that aims to examine the modalities of medical and social care for CALHIV, identify the various structural and social determinants of treatment failure or success, and ascertain their respective influence. The ethnographic survey was conducted between July 2020 and November 2021 in 11 of the 14 regions of Senegal and in 15 health facilities (11 health centers and 4 regional hospitals). The interviews and observations were conducted with 65 children and adolescents, 63 parents or guardians, and 47 health workers providing their care. The results show that situations of treatment failure or success are the result of favorable or unfavorable configurations that bring into play various actors—children, parents, health care professionals—and their interactions with and in varying sociocultural and structural contexts. This research underscores the contribution of anthropology to the analysis and understanding of care systems. From a public health perspective, our analyses argue for a differentiated approach to strengthening the skills of health facility staff, taking into account the specificity of each site.

Presença Karajá and the Fritz Krause collection

This article describes the current cooperation between Presença Karajá, aninterdisciplinary research project that maps and analyzes collections of Karajá dolls(ritxoko) in museum collections, and the GRASSI Museum for Ethnology in Leipzig,Germany, part of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (SKD). Together, theworking group analyzed the collection of ritxoko embedded in other Iny-Karajámaterials, gathered and documented by Dr. Fritz Krause (1881-1963) in 1908. Basedon Krause’s published works from his expedition, Iny-Karajá anthropological contributions, insights from Iny-Karajá representatives, and the ritxoko themselves, the working group investigated the provenance, ethnography, and anthropological data together, gathering valuable research results for the collection history as well asfor the Iny-Karajá themselves. Presença Karajá offered the Museum an opportunity to enhance the history of its collections as well as to support the goals of what the Museum calls “immaterial restitution”: strengthening Indigenous cultures and granting them greater sovereignty over their heritage.

Homing social housing in Brussels: engagements in architectural anthropology through three visualisations

Architectural anthropology offers a way to critically analyse spaces through the social life that happens around them. It is a qualitative approach that relies on ethnography to connect larger systems and subjective dimensions, self-reflexivity, and the use of visualisations as a key analytical tool. This paper reflects on the possible contribution of architectural anthropology to housing studies. More specifically, it looks at homing processes in social housing, interrogating how non-domestic spaces perform through tenants’ inhabitation practices. It tests ways to visualise ethnographic data gathered during immersive fieldwork that involved participant observation and informal interactions in a high-rise estate in Brussels. Three types of visualisations (subjective map, annotated photograph, lived-in axonometry) are presented to articulate the paper’s discussion of homing, un-homing and de-homing processes at the level of a district, urban interstices, and beyond social housing. Ultimately, the paper concludes that architectural anthropology may contribute further to housing studies by exploring the relationship between home(making) and urban contexts.

The Sustainability Framework in Anthropology: Applications to Accounting Ethics

The anthropology literature has examined sustainability within the broader context of ecological environment, and business and society. Anthropology has addressed how cultural and social forces have evolved in ecological and land ethics in accounting education and practice. The research contribution of anthropology in accounting education is that anthropology has been concerned for a long time with sustainability, ecology, environmental management, and conservation of natural resources. The purpose is to integrate ecological and land ethics to study the integration of sustainability into the accounting curriculum. When anthropology is integrated with accounting ethics, it broadens the attitudes of students and accounting professionals.

"What Is Enosh?" The Anthropological Contributions of Job 7: 17–18 through Allusion and Intertextuality

In this article, I treat an oft-discussed parody of Ps 8:5 in Job 7:17–18. I answer objections and make the case for its identification as parodic based on the texts' objective relationship to each other and on patterns of allusion that the poet habitually employs, including reference to another biblical passage (Job 42:2 and Gen 11:6) and the establishment of motifs within Job (Job 1:10; 3:23; 38:8). This pattern has hermeneutical implications for understanding the meaning of Job 7:17–18. While scholars often identify the poet's position with Job-the-character's position, I argue that this identification is undermined by the poet's parody of Job's words in the whirlwind speech. A hermeneutical crisis confronts the reader: affirm Job's critique of Hebrew Scripture or submit to divine rhetoric. Job's rhetoric is suited to this submission as—contrary to his friends—his language can be spoken piously, indicating an elevated anthropology particularly in terms of its broader literary context.

Introduction

AbstractThis special issue takes its point of departure in political philosopher Jane Bennett’s concept of enchantment and her discussion of how moods of enchantment may inform an ethics of care. The contributions aim to rethink the concept of enchantment and unfold what an ethic of care may look like in times of ecological crises. The introduction outlines Bennett’s conceptual groundwork and its reception and discusses its continued analytical purchase for understanding the unsettling moods and contradictory affects produced by colonialism and ecological change. Building on recent anthropological contributions to the ethics of care, the authors propose to broaden the way in which we think about ethical doings so they also come to involve unsettling affects, various subjectivities, and more dynamic ecological relations.

Humanising Through Conjecture: Recognition and Social Critique among Houseless People

ABSTRACT There are aspects of fieldwork which elude our ethnographic toolkit. How can we, for instance, theorise on mental illness and addiction among the houseless without pathologising or medicalising? Based on 3½ years of fieldwork this article argues for a speculative approach that interweaves critical phenomenology, compassionate storytelling and analytical autoethnography. It reflects on a rough sleeper who kept asking me ‘Are you laughing at me?’ thereby revealing a process of mutual de-individualisation and re-individualisation. By producing moments of confrontation where subconscious presumptions no longer work, people issue critique of the routinised violence they are subject to, negotiate their fears and desires and seek recognition. Using micro-moments to investigate larger structural processes and questions of power, identity and belonging, the contribution of speculative anthropology lies in humanising. Combining deep ethnographic insights with projection and conjuncture offers avenues for decentring and for doing and interpreting anthropology compassionately, critically, and equivocally.

Anti-sedentarism and the anthropology of forced migration

Anthropologists of forced migration have advanced unique perspectives exploring identity and community as they relate to space. With its critique of naturalized conceptions of rootedness, boundedness, and territorialization, anti-sedentarism stands as an important conceptual development emanating from this work. And while expressions such as ‘sedentary bias’ and ‘sedentarist thinking’ are found throughout this body of literature, anti-sedentarism per se has not received a proper treatment of its disciplinary underpinnings and intellectual horizons. This article identifies some of the genealogical traces of anti-sedentarism, discussing it through anthropological contributions in both the cultural and mobility turns. Informed by the work of anthropologists of forced migration, a working definition of anti-sedentarism is provided, followed by a critical discussion on key debates related to this concept. A selection of migrant and refugee ethnographies produced during the mobility turn (1990s onward) is then used to explore the extent which anti-sedentarism has translated to the empirical work of anthropologists and ethnographers engaging with displacement, dispossession, and deterritorialization.

Spectator Violence in Stadiums

The study revisits the work of the Leicester School, highlighting the prominent figure of Eric Dunning, disciple of Norbert Elias and systematizer of the ideas of the German sociologist in England, leader in the process of constituting a sociology of modern sports in that country. In the poorly drawn lines that the freedom of the essayistic genre entails, we suggest that Dunning's position as Elias' apprentice soon becomes even and turns into a fruitful partnership. More: as a partner, he rises to the status of master himself, able to train new scholars and organize a series of collections together with his disciples. The broad theme provided by the focus of sports studies is restricted here to a specific agenda for analysis, namely the so-called phenomenon of hooliganism, to which Eric Dunning and his team devoted much of the analytical efforts of interpretation, reviewing assumptions of the first authors dedicated to the theme and carrying out a range of institutional collective research. These, in turn, led to the creation of theoretical and empirical references throughout the 1970s to 2000, with international repercussions among researchers focused on understanding not only British hooligans, but European ultras, Latin American barras, and Brazilian torcidas organizadas. If Dunning's theory and empiricism are not immune to criticism – as in the limit no scientific paradigm is –, in this text, the sociological, anthropological and historiographic contributions made by this admirable English intellectual are reiterated.

Reply to “The Imperative for Social Foundations Revisited: A Technical Comment on Warren and Venzant Chambers (2020)"

Our 2020 Educational Researcher article, “The Imperative of Social Foundations to (Urban) Education Research and Practice,” emphasizes three particular social foundations of education (SFE) subdisciplines (sociology of education, history of education, and philosophy of education) to demonstrate the strength and necessity of SFE as a multi-perspectival approach to resolving persistent education justice dilemmas. In their technical comment, Aydarova et al. (2022) insist that our article potentially facilitates “erasure of SFE’s complexity and interdisciplinarity” (p. 289). They, like us, care deeply that SFE be understood as indispensable to advancing racial justice in and beyond education research, policy, and practice. These scholars foreground the invaluable contributions of anthropology of education to oppose racism and accentuate justice-oriented education alternatives. This essay responds to the technical comment by clarifying what we find to be a fundamental misinterpretation of our argument and, ultimately, its scholarly purpose. Not only do we contend with our colleagues’ concern that our work is reductionist, we demonstrate how Aydarova et al.’s urgent call to foreground SFE’s interdisciplinary nature further underscores the central argument made in our 2020 paper.

Povos indígenas e o poder judiciário no Brasil: um chamado ao olhar da antropologia jurídica

Abstract The lack of understanding between the Judiciary and Indigenous Peoples in Brazil stems in large part from the state's refusal to recognize the sovereignty of the latter, while asserts its own sovereignty over them. There is little interest from judges and legal operators in knowing and recognizing the specific rights brought by indigenous alterity, recognized by the Federal Constitution of 1988. Academic interest in Indigenous Peoples in Law schools is still low and, in most cases when it occurs, is without the methodological tools of empirical research and the ethical concerns of anthropological fieldwork. I intend to analyze the difference between the typical approach of anthropologists and jurists on this subject, while defending the relevance and contribution of Legal Anthropology to all sides involved: Indigenous Peoples, Judiciary and Academia.

Crisis, Alterity, and Tradition: An Anthropological Contribution to Critical Phenomenology

One does not just live in a crisis: a crisis calls for action. Etymologically, from the Greek krisis, it is a turning point or a moment of decision. It not only alters perception; it alters the demands for living. It stands out from the everyday. If we follow Gail Weiss (2008), we could say that a crisis is a moment when the ground called “ordinary life” is interrupted in such a way that it no longer functions as an out-of-awareness backdrop but itself becomes the visible figure. But what happens when the ground is already permeated by crises, large and small? How should we think about crisis when we cannot call upon a simple binary—times of crisis and somehow livable normal times? How to think, conceptually, about those communities who live with what is variously termed “slow death” (Berlant 2011), “slow violence,” (Nixon 2011) or “chronic crisis” (Vigh 2008) that make the everyday a source of such continual threat that crisis and non-crisis shade into one another? I ask these questions in the context of my twenty-year history of research in African American communities in which families are caring for children with disabilities and chronic illnesses.

Sailing and insight reproduction of Geo-Socio-Cultural unity of Nusantara/Indonesia Maritime: A study focus of Maritime Anthropology

This paper aims to explain how Indonesia was conceptualized as the Indonesian Maritime Continent. From a geo-social perspective, maritime culture can be viewed in, three major dimensions. First, Indonesia is one of the largest archipelagic countries in the world with all the geographical potential, invaluable marine, and maritime resources; second, the potential for socio-cultural, socio-demographic, socio-economic, and long maritime cultural history within the framework of the unity of the Republic of Indonesia; and third, the existence of academic core and the maritime vision of Unhas, the idea of the Indonesian Maritime Continental Development which was launched by the government in 1995/1996, and the vision of maritime national development by President Joko Widodo marked the role of academics and governments in the dynamic process of development to the phase of maritime civilization in the future. In the context of developing maritime ethnographic studies and anthropological contributions to the development of maritime civilization in the future, ideas and academic commitment are needed to make the Indonesian Archipelagic State a large and unique area of maritime socio-cultural research development in the world and Southeast Asia in particular. Thus, interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, comparative, and multidisciplinary research is needed to carry out broadly and intensively. For this reason, through my inauguration speech for Professor of Anthropology in Hasanuddin University, I introduced a focus of maritime anthropology studies on sailing experiences and the reproduction of Nusantara/Indonesian maritime geo-socio-cultural insights. Through the application of the concept of experience and reproduction of maritime geo-socio-cultural insights which were developed from the concept of maritime ethos disposition theory of reproduction from A.H.J. Prins as a mode of description and analysis, I found the categories of maritime cultural insights and attitudes of Indonesian sailors. They understand most of the territorial waters of the Nusantara (archipelago) and the resources within as common property, a space for interaction between groups of sailors who are diverse in their maritime ethnicity and culture, which in turn strengthens awareness and recognition of the unity of the homeland, culture, and nation that is Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (unity in diversity).

Masculinity

To know what men are, anthropologists look beyond dictionary definitions, personal experience, and opinions and study societies across the globe and throughout history. They study not only people who call themselves men, but also people who call themselves men only some of the time, people who have testicles but know they’re not men, people with ovaries who know they are men, and many more. Until the early 1980s, anthropology’s contribution to the understanding of men, maleness, and masculinities was more talk than actual empirical study of men as having gender. Among the major anthropological contributions to the study of gender and society in general are grounded ethnographies of men as gendered human beings (i.e. ‘men-as-men’), as well as synthetic work across subdisciplines, linking cultural and biological, contemporary and historical approaches to issues like reproductive health, aggression, and fatherhood. Anthropologists pay special attention to the language used in reference to men and masculinities, including terms such as ‘toxic’, ‘dominant’, ‘traditional’, ‘alpha’, etc. They try to understand not only what, if anything, biology tells us about maleness, but also what people may believe biology says about men and masculinities. This entry provides an overview of this work and examines whether anyone is indeed better served by labels like ‘alternative’, ‘emerging’, and ‘new’ masculinities, and whether it may be more useful to avoid sweeping categories like ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ in the first place.

The need for a multi-pollutant approach to model the movement of pollutants in surfacewater: A review of status and future challenges

Significant research on surface water pollution modelling has been carried out over diverse landscapes has sought to explain the sources, transport, and surface water pollution. To date, surface water pollution studies have focused on nutrients, plastics, and chemicals. Consequently, the current review aims to identify and synthesise peer-reviewed literature about integrated contaminants modelling in surface water. Thus, highlighting that modelling potentially multiple sources of a pollutant from the surface water has remained a thought-provoking topic. Studies differed significantly in terms of the type of model application and procedures for reporting findings, making it challenging to separate clear trends and patterns. Accordingly, most studies agree that pollutants such as plastics and agrochemicals can have adverse consequences on surface water quality; these coincide with difficulties in modelling pollutant transport. Consequently, no regional or global estimates are available for the water pollution burden of flood-related pollution, considering the demonstrable modelling techniques, the significance of the concurrent impacts of surface water pollution by contaminants. Multi-pollutant approaches to modelling the potential sources of pollution and encourage protective behaviour are essential. Mainstreaming freshwater pollution concerns into planning strategies will also be needed to lessen anthropological contribution to surface water pollution. While the implementation of these models is constrained by lack of adequate field data, the model output must be analysed within the model inputs' uncertainty, data limitations and methodologically established surface water modelling principles from the literature.

Animal Real-Unreal in Traditional Conceptions of the World in Croatian Areas

Trying to interpret oneself and the other in the world, the traditional Man has established a real world and an otherworld. Specific herbal and animal attributes were ascribed to particular people who allegedly had the power to communicate between worldliness and transcendence. Also some human characteristics were linked with herbal and animal mediators. These attributes were folklorized as miraculous powers. Such supernatural beings from South Slavic traditional conceptionsof the world have been largely associated with the pre-Christian deities and their degradations, based on the observed real attributes of the vegetal and animal species. The interdisciplinary comparative way of treating South Slavic folklore real-unreal motifs through time and space in this article is its ethnological, animalistic and anthropological contribution.

The need for a multi-pollutant approach to model the movement of pollutants in surface-water: A review of status and future challenges

Significant research on surface water pollution modelling has been carried out over diverse landscapes has sought to explain the sources, transport, and surface water pollution. To date, surface water pollution studies have focused on nutrients, plastics, and chemicals. Consequently, the current review aims to identify and synthesise peer-reviewed literature about integrated contaminants modelling in surface water. Thus, highlighting that modelling potentially multiple sources of a pollutant from the surface water has remained a thought-provoking topic. Studies differed significantly in terms of the type of model application and procedures for reporting findings, making it challenging to separate clear trends and patterns. Accordingly, most studies agree that pollutants such as plastics and agrochemicals can have adverse consequences on surface water quality; these coincide with difficulties in modelling pollutant transport. Consequently, no regional or global estimates are available for the water pollution burden of flood-related pollution, considering the demonstrable modelling techniques, the significance of the concurrent impacts of surface water pollution by contaminants. Multi-pollutant approaches to modelling the potential sources of pollution and encourage protective behaviour are essential. Mainstreaming freshwater pollution concerns into planning strategies will also be needed to lessen anthropological contribution to surface water pollution. While the implementation of these models is constrained by lack of adequate field data, the model output must be analysed within the model inputs' uncertainty, data limitations and methodologically established surface water modelling principles from the literature.