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<center><title>Political Anthropology - 5th MASN CONFERENCE</title>
<p><p><font size="+1"><b>5th MASN CONFERENCE<br></font>
<b>Siena, Italy - May 04. - 09. 2008</b><p>
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<font color="navy" size="+3" face="Book Antiqua"><b>EMPOWERING ANTHROPOLOGY</b></font><br>
-<i>Between Power & Research</i>- </b><p>
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- Political Anthropology -<br></font>
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<b>THE DREAMLINE Dreams and Agency among the Zulu Zionists<br></b>
Alex Giuliano Vailati, University of Turin, Italy<p>
The role of dreams among Zionist Churches attenders of the Republic of South Africa is usually prominent and intimately related with the religious life. The oneiric activity is as well as one of the primary medium for revelation and of divinity contact, also an active objects for the traditional healing. The dream, in its various apparitions in the social life, is an expression of subjectivity, but also it is an experience with strong objective connotation, because its last legitimation depend from the subject who propose it. In the everyday life the dreams are instruments used commonly to negotiate the social role and to obtain or to increase power. The relevance both social and political of dreams is based on its powerful and propulsive symbolic force, that can transform visibly a social context. The political reflection that regard the African society, through the consideration of the oneiric activity, its elaboration and communication, can be a possible way to think at the political action forms. Elsewhere, particularly in Europe, this forms was expelled from the political action realm and constricted to another, called realm of irrationality and of religion. The genesis of the main occidental political think is, in fact, traceable historically in the Enlightenment when the determinism removed all possible anomaly for the affirmed theory. This historical process of removals, that appear especially in many political struggle theory, is considerable as an emblematic cause of the difficulties to perceive an Occidental alternative political praxis. The South African Zionist Churches are being object of debate for what concern their political influence to the society. The implicit broadmindedness and the embodied knowledge produced in the Zionists Churches are character that allow us to considerate this religious form as a realm of active reflection about society. The dream and its social role is also a prove of the broad horizon of action's possibility for the individuals. If the proposals of an agent are legitimate thought a dream, usually they became a propulsive force to change the society. Rather then a struggle between social groups that practices political hegemony, among the Zionists we can found an implicit criticism to the political praxis, based on Occidental action modality. In this way, the oppositional value of the Zionists Church is findable in the continuable proposal of alternative social structures and in an active production of knowledge.
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<b>RWUANDAN GENOCIDE An Anthropological perspective</b><br>
Anuša Pisanec, University of Ljubljana ,Slovenia<p>
I would like to present a paper about genocide in Rwanda. I would like to give a more anthropological perspective on the known facts about genocide in Rwanda. This view includes a brief history of Rwanda, and a bit more detailed history of the time before and after the genocide had taken place. My anthropological view consists of anthropological theory of culture, racism, violence and especially genocide. The questions that come from this paper are, why one group of human beings set out to eradicate another group? Where are the origins of this kind of actions? Why has anthropology kept so quiet when it comes to genocide in the 21st century? I will try to show local and sociocultural dimensions of genocide and its connection to historical, political, structural and economic factors and last but not least it's connection with modernity. A very important thing about this paper is also genocide and its connection with cultural relativism
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<b>BETWIXT AND BETWEEN Dutch Female Converts to Islam</b><br>
Barbara Pieta, Jagiellonian University, <p>
This paper focuses on the phenomenon of conversion to Islam and by so doing aims to add to the on-going discussion on the Dutch identity. Given that in Western countries Islam is usually reified in the field of gender and sexuality, it is usually considered to be contrary to Dutch values, which are referred as progressive in contrast to the backwardness of Islam. By interviewing Dutch female converts I aimed to examine how a feeling of belonging to Dutch culture changed after the conversion to Islam. As gender and sexuality and emancipation of women are considered to be representative not only for Dutch culture but for Western culture in general, this paper also aims to add to the on-going discussion on compatibility of Western values with Islam.
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<b>THE ART OF RESISTENCE: Empowerement and Hyperbole</b><br>David Henig and Maria Kastrinou Theodoropoulou, Durham University , UK<br><br>Resistance, the postmodernising currency of empowerment, often considered as a "minefield of conceptual problems" (Keesing 1992, in Gledhill 2000), is one of those trendy words anthropologists have launched on recently. While the concept is in itself an enduring one in epistemes of political economy, politics and social sciences in general, there seems to exist a cloud of ambiguity, vagueness and even confusion over its current uses. The current textual and theoretical anthropological formations of resistance, following a fashion of postmodernism(s), arise within the discourses of power relations, empowerment, and a reflexive, critical methodological positionality of our research. Between and betwixt research and power, a search for an "empowering anthropology" as both verb and adjective, is brought under investigation through the paradigmatic investigation of the concept of resistance in our proposed workshop.<br>The workshop is organised into three stages: firstly, it will begin with an introduction and a short historiography of the concept of resistance within the discipline of anthropology. This will give historical perspective into the different ways, contexts and meanings the concept has traveled through. Secondly, it will proceed with an exploration of some ethnographic case examples, ranging from 'classic' studies of power and resistance to current postmodern appropriations (Worsley 1957, Asad 1973, Scott 1985, Comaroff 1985, Ortner 1995, Salamandra 2004). In light of resistance as both theory and action, we will sketch lines of discrepancies, ambiguities, and imprecision that make 'resistance' a conceptual minefield, a word in danger of meaninglessness under its hyperbolic overuse. Thirdly, we will open the discussion to the floor for a constructive debate, a combination of ideas and fieldwork experiences, in search of new questions and new direction in the study of power, research, resistance and empowerment. Some of the questions we will be asking include: what constitutes resistance and what reaction? how has the concept been used in postmodern literature? what are some of the problems of an abusive, hyperbolic use of the concept? is 'resistance' still a useful analytical tool or has it become void of meaning? how should we study empowerment and disempowerment?<br><br><b>THE FLOW OF DISCOURSES,GOODS AND KNOWLEDGE. Evidence from two case studies.</b><br>Paride Bolletin Alexander Koensler and Andrea Ravenda, <br>University of Perugia, Italy<br><br>This paper wants to investigate the process of construction of the Other through a comparative approach. We want to discuss the flow of knowledge between specific local communities and its global connections. For this purpose, we examine two different cases, in which we try to understand how the global is recaptured and reinterpreted by the local.The first case is dealing with the way how the Mebengokré community of Bakajá River of Brazilian Amazon elaborates the encounter with non-indigenous realities. This process is mediated<br>particularly through the acquisition of goods, national education and services, and a reformulation of mythology and rituality. In this case we assist an incorporation of the Other into the local symbolic production of difference and status.The second case focuses on the relation between Human Rights activists and indigenous Bedouin communities in the Israeli Negev desert. The study takes demolitions of Bedouin homes as a "prism" to analyze the encounter between local discourses and global Human Rights discourses. The case emphases how systematic misunderstandings between the actors involved can produce solidarity through the crossing of symbolic borders. In both cases we can observe how external flows of discourses, knowledge, and goods are de-objectified and are subject of a process of re-elaboration according to local circumstances. These insights can be connected to the ongoing anthropological debate about the construction of the Other, but in our cases from the community point of view. Our idea is that we can encounter similar highly structured processes of reinterpretation of the Other that permits us to analyse existing categorization schemes and foregrounding a more complex understanding of diversity<br><br><b>NATION- WHAT DOES IT MEAN? Differences and Similarities among National Identities of Young-Europeans</b><br>Izabela Bukalska, University of Cardinal Wyszy?ski, Poland<br><br>The purpose of this roundtable is to present and discuss the issue of visible qualitative differences in national identity observed among young citizens of EU countries. Author's thesis will be supported and commented both by conceptions of sociologists and by the results of her own qualitative research conducted in Universities in Porto and Warsaw. The research showed evident differences between attitudes to a nation. It can be said that the structure of identity in both groups is built up from different elements.</center> 1. Introduction: Short analysis of the term "national identity". <br>Different attitudes towards nationalism and predictions concerning it's future. <br>Hobsbawm and Gellner vs Huntington and Edensor<br>2. Justification: <br>a) Results of research in Portugal and Poland<br>- attachment to different elements associated with nation and comprising national identity: football, climat, lifestyle - ("catchy" for media and mass culture) among Portuguese vs. religion (authority of John Paul II) and history among Polish<br>- dissimilar environments pointed as influential during the process of forming national identity: group of friends, sport club in Portugal; school, family and Church in Poland<br>b) Pawe? Lewicki's research of German students' national identity: respondents focused on political functions of a nation and showed attachment to symbols of a state<br>3. Conclusions<br><center>All findings will be commented in the context of:- Cooley's theory of "looking- glass self" - national elements "catchy" for mass culture possibly make people more recognizable among foreigners. Positive reactions of others increase self-evaluation as members of a nation - Giddens' theory on forming modern identity - rising importance of a lifestyle - Practical usefulness of findings. The findings might be inspiring for research made among migrating groups and national minorities and changes occurring in their identity <br><br><b>"EUROSODOMY": Polish Radio Maria and the European Integration<br></b>Julia Zabowska, Warsaw University, Poland <br><br><br>In the years of 2005-2006 I conveyed a BA fieldwork among the group of receivers of RADIO MARIA and associated media (In Poland we call them father Rydzyk's media, due to a name of a charismatic priest - theirleader). My fieldwork was localized in the smalltown of Nidzica inthe north-east of Poland. The aim was to investigate RM receivers' discourse on the European Union and Poland's integration with it. In Poland in general the group of RM receivers is probably the most euro-skeptical group one can presently find. I analyzed my data from Nidzica from the point of view of economic anthropology. The findings are: RM receivers conceptualize Poland's entering of the EU structures in terms of an unequal, and hence, dangerous and forcibly imposed gift-like exchange (here I'm using M. Mausse's exchange theory). As every 'gift' carries the bond within it, they do not want to accept 'gifts' (monetary and 'civilizational') from the part of the UE, because it would bring into being a kind of relationship they do not want. Their major frame of reference is the nation-state, that has not-so-long-ago been 'regained' from the Soviet Union. According to RM receivers, supposed supremacy of the UE was fully homological to the former supremacy of the Soviet Union over Poland. I also investigate the 'positive' project that they try to put forward through their consumption ('production of truth). Last but not least, I would like to propose a discussion about the anthropological 'complicity' (G. Marcus's term): how to study social formations representing ideas contradictory to our own, and at the same time vote in the same elections as the ones we study (be it UE referendum, or otherwise) - ?<br><br><br>
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