ASA News
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There is very efficient and busy email list run by anthropologymatters announcing most of the conferences and jobs that arise in the anthropology field. Announcing the same items here is duplication of effort and slower. Hence if you are interested to receive these announcements, we would suggest clicking here to learn more and join the list. If you want to advertise to that list, first sign up, and then post away...
ASA NEWSASA NEWS
APPLY-Scotland
APPLY-Scotland has renewed interest in running a group that is more accessible to those living in the North of the country. At this point, we'd like to hear from anyone who might be interested in coming along to an event, perhaps in the Spring of 2008. Any suggestions around what they would find useful in terms of the future format, direction or content of meetings would be welcome.
Please email Fiona.Harris(at)ed.ac.uk.
ASA releases new website
As you will see this is a new look for the ASA's website. Not only does it adopt a more modern, clearer look, but the current site (apart from some legacy pages from previous conferences) has been designed to international accessibility standards. Click on the Accessibility link in the cookie trail up top, if you are having problems reading these pages.
It is however more than just a new look: there are also new sections. Take a look under Publications, and you will find ASAonline and ASAfilm, new spaces for papers and short films from anthropologists to be shared online.
We will shortly add an online directory function, so that members can search for contact details of ASA colleagues interested in similar areas of research.
The Anthropology Matters site is temporarily offline as a consequence of this move, but should reappear later this week.
During the AGM in London in April, the ASA passed the following resolutions:
Resolution 1
The meeting notes with concern the formulations of the recent ESRC/AHRC/FCO funding initiatives (Programmes) on ‘New Security Challenges’. While welcoming the withdrawal of the first proposed Programme, it considers that the revised initiative, particularly as set out in section 3.2. (that the research should inform UK Counter Terrorism policy overseas), is prejudicial to the position of all researchers working abroad, including those who have nothing to do with this Programme.
This meeting thus proposes as follows:
- that all anthropologists in the UK, and members of the ASA in particular who might have applied for funding under this Programme, consider carefully the position in which they could place themselves, the people with whom they work in the field, and other colleagues. They should also note that research of this kind may well conflict with the ASA’s Code of Ethics,
- that the office-holders and Committee have the confidence of the ASA membership to discuss these issues with colleagues within this and other disciplines, both through networks and professional associations, and decide on what further actions are appropriate.
Resolution 2
The ASA is committed to conflict resolution through cross-cultural understanding. This meeting views with concern the deteriorating international climate, and in particular the policy of the current British government in relation to Iraq. In particular it notes the increasing difficulties faced by many Iraqi academics, who are forced to flee their country in fear of their lives, yet are often refused asylum by the UK.
It calls upon the government to ease its restrictive policy on Iraqi asylum-seekers coming to this country, until such time as the political situation in Iraq stabilises. It requests the executive of the ASA to convey this resolution to both the Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and to the Minister of State at the Home Office.
ASA Statement on the use of 'primitive' as a descriptor of contemporary human groups
To describe any living group as 'primitive' or 'Stone Age' inevitably implies that they are living representatives of some earlier stage of human development that the majority of humankind has left behind. For some, this could be a positive description, implying, for example, that such groups live in greater harmony with nature, possess knowledge and wisdoms forgotten by the rest of humanity, or practice kinder, more caring and less exploitative ways of living together. For others, who would see the positive view as a romantic myth, 'primitive' is a negative characterisation. For them, 'primitive' denotes irrational use of resources and absence of the intellectual and moral standards of 'civilised' human societies, manifest in 'superstitious' belief systems, in cultural practices that are cruel and degrading to individuals or women or children within the social unit, and in innate tendencies towards warfare or other forms of violence in the absence of state supervision. From the standpoint of anthropological knowledge, both these views are equally one-sided and simplistic.
All anthropologists would agree that the negative use of the terms 'primitive' or 'Stone Age' to describe what Survival International terms 'indigenous and tribal peoples' has serious implications for their welfare. Governments and other social groups that have the means for imposing their domination through violence or control of the legal system have long used these ideas as a pretext for depriving such peoples of land and other resources vital to their economic survival. By treating their adult members as children relative to 'civilised' people, democratic as well as authoritarian states have justified enforced social and cultural change, the removal of young children from their birth families, and a range of other coercive measures that are increasingly seen as a violation of human rights. Religious missions and NGOs have also often intervened in ways that have produced unexpected problems of social dislocation and conflict even where they have brought access to new commodities, medical care and forms of education seen as beneficial by most of the people themselves. Anthropologists have frequently shown that these problems could have been avoided had the interventions not embodied fundamental misunderstandings of the history, culture and social organisation of the groups that experienced them.
Most modern anthropology does not accept a view of these societies as living fossils of an earlier stage of human evolution, but sees them as societies that represent different choices about ways of living together and using the environment. Some of them are the result of efforts by human beings to maintain a different way of life in areas that remained more distant from the advancing 'frontiers' of 'civilisation' and 'economic modernisation', with migration away from those advancing frontiers often the process that brought contemporary groups to their present locations and shaped their modern culture and social organization. Others have developed in much closer symbiosis with groups practising alternative lifestyles and modes of livelihood, often in comparatively recent history. None can be seen as forms of human organisation frozen in space and time by simple geographical isolation, let alone innate intellectual and moral incapacities, and archaeology often reveals striking evidence for fundamental differences between the societies that exist today in a given region and those that existed in the pre-colonial past.
Anthropologists do not agree on the desirability of prioritising the rights of 'indigenous peoples' over other groups in contemporary societies and some use the same historical arguments used to reject the evolutionary labels 'primitive' and 'Stone Age' to question the scientific coherence of the notion of 'indigeneity' itself. The use of the term 'tribal' is also potentially problematic, as evidenced, for example, by the frequent use of 'tribalism' to 'explain' conflict situations that have complex and modern causes as the inevitable result of the 'survival' of 'backward' forms of social and cultural organization that impede a desirable political and economic 'modernization' on Western lines. Although some groups today are, of course, perfectly happy to define themselves as 'tribes', there are longstanding academic debates about whether the idea of 'tribal societies' is analytically useful and coherent.
Nevertheless, (almost) all anthropologists do oppose the coercive enforcement of social and cultural change by states and other external forces without regard to the wishes of the people affected, and we also oppose expropriation of, or environmental damage to, their existing resource base in the name of 'the national interest', too often no more than a thin disguise for the interests of dominant, ethnically distinct, classes and transnational corporations. These are the issues that concern Survival International in their campaign, and they are real and burning issues. That the rights that minorities should possess in these respects have been seriously violated in the past is now widely accepted by the multilateral development agencies and within the international public sphere, although some governments remain outside this consensus and the response of private corporations remains uneven in practice. The pejorative use of the labels 'primitive' and 'Stone Age' has frequently been used to justify such rights violations. They should be abandoned by journalists and other opinion formers and be replaced by the identity terms that the groups in question use to distinguish themselves from other groups in society.
It is also important to appreciate that concepts of 'primitiveness' are also often used in a racialist way to stigmatise citizens of contemporary urban societies, particularly poorer citizens whose identities are 'racialised' through the attribution of innate characteristics to whole populations on the basis of phenotypic appearances, whether these are considered to indicate 'pure' or 'mixed' descent in terms of socially constructed categories of 'racial difference'. For example, Afro-descendents are sometimes denigrated in multi-ethnic societies for lacking 'emotional control' through invocation of the idea that they represent a 'more primitive' human type that is less easily 'educated' to adopt 'civilised' standards of behaviour. This link between racism and evolutionary models of contemporary human difference underscores the need to avoid using a language that has no scientific validity. This is not a matter of 'political correctness' but an important contribution to eliminating ideas that cause suffering to real human beings, as groups and as individuals.
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Survival International’s Director, Stephen Corry, said ‘It is a great boost to our campaign that the ASA has come on board. Journalists and editors need to understand that the use of these kinds of terms directly contributes to the suffering of tribal and indigenous peoples all around the world.’
Find out more about Survival’s Stamp it Out campaign here.
For further press related info check here.
CONFERENCES, SEMINARS, ETC
Conference of the European Society for Oceanists: Putting People First: Intercultural Dialogue and Imagining the Future in Oceania; Verona, Italy, 10-12th July 2008; Dipartimento di Psicologia e Antropologia Culturale Università degli Studi di Verona
The theme for the seventh ESfO conference in Verona 2008 emphasises the pivotal role of intersubjective relations, at all levels of sociality, for contemporary islanders in their daily efforts to imagine desirable futures and ways to achieve them.
The first part of the title, “Putting People First” is inspired by the motto adopted in 1993 by the Pacific Forum in the “Suva Declaration” on Sustainable Development. It reflects Pacific Islanders’ own perception of a fundamental cultural value shared within the region: that of considering the people who form a community as its primary resource. The motto thus implies the articulation of an engaged process of responding to the challenges of our time, with Pacific Islanders’ desire to insist on this cultural prerogative.
The second part of the title, “Intercultural Dialogue and Imagining the Future in Oceania”, links this fundamental theme to those of previous ESfO conferences. We propose to build upon the debate on rethinking the past and on conflicts by turning our gaze to the present challenges facing Oceanian peoples who are striving to imagine their futures.
See website for more information and the call for papers.
Call for papers: SALSA Fifth Sesquiannual Conference, June 17-21, 2008, Oxford and Paris
To reflect the international character of our growing society, our next sesquiannual meeting will be in Europe (we hope to have a future meeting in South America). The main conference will take place in Oxford, followed by a special event in Paris.
To ensure that the maximum number of papers may be accommodated within the three-day programme, while securing discussion time after each paper (a long and cherished tradition), we have decided to structure the Oxford conference around five broad themes: Indigenous societies of the Guiana shield; Peoples visual and material worlds; Symbolic ecology, plant knowledge and rights; Market and non-market exchanges; Encounters between communities and the indigenous rights advocacy movement.
There will also be a general Amazonian anthropology panel for papers which do not fit neatly within any of the five broad themes mentioned above. Finally, and to follow a well-established tradition, a distinguished guest speaker, Joanna Overing, will address us after the conference dinner.
For more info see the website
The BioSocial Society student bursaries
The BioSocial Soc are offering substantive financial grants (two awards per annum of up to a maximum of 500, in addition to ten awards per annum of 50 to short-listed applications) to support the presentation of student research at academic and professional conferences.
Who can apply?
Applications are open to members of the Society who are currently enrolled as students or who completed their studies during the 12 months preceding their application. Bursary applicants who are not members of the Society are permitted to apply for membership at the same time they submit their Conference Bursary application. Membership application forms can be found at the back of any recent issue of the Society's Journal: Society, Biology and Human Affairs.
What does the Bursary cover?
The Bursary is intended to cover registration, accommodation and travelling expenses to an academic or professional conference at which the applicant has delivered (or will be delivering) a first-authored oral paper or poster presentation based on their own research studies. Applications can be made for conferences attended during the past 12 months, or for conferences that take place up to 12 months in the future. For conferences already attended, applications must be accompanied by a copy of the conference programme, as well as registration, accommodation and travel receipts. For future conferences, applications must be accompanied by a letter of invitation from the conference organisers (confirming that the applicant's paper/poster has been accepted for inclusion in the conference programme), as well as documented evidence of the expenses required for registration, accommodation and travel. If these projected expenses exceed the maximum limit of the Conference Bursary Scheme (500), the applicant must also include a letter from their academic supervisor confirming that any outstanding balance will be met from other sources.
Further details
Contact Rachel Casiday, Secretary, Biosocial Society, Department of Anthropology, 43 Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HN, r.e.casiday@durham.ac.uk
OTHER
Six 3-year postgraduate studentships for doctoral research in Chinese studies
Six 3-year postgraduate studentships for doctoral research in Chinese studies will be available through the British Inter-University China Centre (BICC) to students starting postgraduate study in Oxford, Bristol or Manchester. The studentships will pay full Home/EU fees and maintenance for the duration of the studentship (fees only for EU students unless they meet residency requirements as laid down in the ESRC’s guidelines).
Funded through the Language-Based Area Studies initiative, BICC is a cross-institutional research and teaching centre, which joins together the expertise of the Universities of Oxford, Bristol and Manchester in Chinese studies. These studentships are open to Home/EU students only (and eligibility for the awards follows research council residency rules). Both students who already have an offer of a place in hand or who still intend to apply for admission in 2008 will be eligible for funding. Awards will be made across the social science and humanities disciplines in issues relating to China that can be supervised by BICC-related staff at the Universities of Bristol, Manchester or Oxford.
Studentships will be available from Sept/Oct 2008 for postgraduate study at Manchester (2 studentships), Oxford (2 studentship) and at Bristol (2 studentships). There is a mix of open studentships, for research in any area related to Chinese Studies, and broadly defined studentships. For full details on the make up of the studentships, please go to www.bicc.ac.uk
Specialist language training will be available to students, but we would expect students to reach a certain level of proficiency by the time they begin independent research. Full details are on our website. Research proposals will be expected to include a significant element of research to be carried out in Chinese.
For further information on the studentship and on how to apply please email daniel.holloway@area.ox.ac.uk.
Application forms and guidance notes are available online on www.bicc.ox.ac.uk
Applications must be received by 12.00 noon (BST, or GMT + 1.00) on 28th February 2008
What do people do with a PhD in Anthropology?
How do they feel about
their research 'training'?
Two years of research by Jonathan Spencer (Edinburgh) and David Mills (Birmingham) reveals a picture of a period of major growth in PhD training in anthropology in the UK, with nearly all who complete finding employment that they feel relates to their research. Individual experiences of life during and after the PhD are however complex and ambivalent, and the research questions a notion of a 'career path' based on individual 'choices'.
The research points to the increasingly cosmopolitan character of UK anthropology, and its diversity in terms of age and gender, but also early signs of a trend back towards male advantage in mainstream academic employment. Issues to do with families and relationships emerged as extremely important in the course of the research, and their impact on career choices often gets overlooked.
These are all issues on which they invite comments and reactions - we see this research opening up a conversation about the role and purpose of research training in Anthropology. You can download a first analysis of our findings here.