Anthropology of space

The Earth Still Trembles: On Landscape Views in Contemporary Italian Cinema

by Giorgio Bertellini

italian culture, Vol. xxx No. 1, March, 2012, 38–50

The essay discusses contemporary Italian fi lmmakers’ sustained interest in
the representation of national... more The essay discusses contemporary Italian fi lmmakers’ sustained interest in
the representation of national landscapes and physical environments as
revelatory settings of defacement of the nation’s geo-cultural patrimony.
Whether historical costume dramas, documentaries, or high-class melodramas,
Martone’s Noi credevamo, Guzzanti’s Draquila, and even Guadagnino’s
Io sono l’amore, among others, have exposed comparable forms of spatial
and anthropological degrado. In so doing they resonate with articulations
of environmental literacy and ethics emerged in the writings of Roberto
Saviano and Salvatore Settis.

Mapping indigenous Siberia: Spatial changes and ethnic realities, 1900–2010

by Ivan Sablin

co-authored with Maria Savelyeva, published in Settler Colonial Studies, vol. 1, no. 1, 2011, pp. 77–110.

This article discusses spatial changes in the ethnic territories of Native Siberians from the late nineteenth century... more This article discusses spatial changes in the ethnic territories of Native Siberians from the late nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century. A Geographic Information System (GIS) was developed to model and observe these changes. The GIS also features resource-oriented economic activities, major waterways and railroads. Analysis of the model, textual sources and statistical data made it possible to determine what factors constituted Siberia’s ethnographical pattern of the early twentieth century and led to its changes in the ensuing decades and what impact on the indigenous peoples these changes had. Four special maps showing Siberia in the 1900s–10s, 1930s–40s, 1970s–80s and 2000s–10s were produced from the GIS and are included in the article. The current legal status of the indigenous peoples’ territories was also examined. This article presents an interdisciplinary macroscale case study.

Power and Landscape in Atlantic West Africa

by J. Cameron Monroe

With Akin Ogundiran. In Power and Landscape in Atlantic West Africa: Archaeological Perspectives, edited by J. Cameron Monroe and Akin Ogundiran (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 1-46.

After December: Spatial Legacies of the 2008 Athens Uprising. In Upping the Anti vol 10.

by Dimitris Dalakoglou

See: http://uppingtheanti.org/journal/article/10-after-december-spatial-legacies-of-the-2008-athens-uprising/

The cold-blooded police killing of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos in the Athens neighbourhood of Exarcheia on... more The cold-blooded police killing of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos in the Athens neighbourhood of Exarcheia on December 6, 2008 sparked an unprecedented wave of protests and rioting. These protests quickly spread not only throughout Athens and the majority of Greek cities but also beyond the country’s borders. Around the world, more than 200 solidarity actions took place in December alone. During the riots and clashes that followed Grigoropoulos’ death, police departments, banks, government ministries, and other public buildings in Athens came under near-daily attack, while universities, high schools, town halls, and other buildings were occupied by demonstrators across the country. This episode ­– a major insurrection sparked by a single incident of police brutality – has attracted considerable attention from global social justice movements. The question of the uprising’s aftermath remains on many people’s minds. Before considering the legacies of the uprising, however, it’s useful to look at how the events of December 2008 became possible in the first place.

Touristic Paradises: A Critical Rendering of Modern Vacationscapes

by Chaim Noy

Chapter in Rachel Elior (ed.), A Garden Eastward in Eden Traditions of Paradise. Jerusalem: The Hebrew University Magnes Press. Pp. 395-409. (2010). (Hebrew)

In this chapter I argue that in late-modernity, the industry of mass-tourism has re-produced, monopolized and mediated... more In this chapter I argue that in late-modernity, the industry of mass-tourism has re-produced, monopolized and mediated both symbolic paradisal images and concrete paradisal spaces. Tourism industry has accomplished the institutionalization and commercialization of contemporary paradises, via the uncanny and immensely profitable combination of mass-communication (mainly commercials), and mass-transportation, both of which are typical of the late-modern epoch. After I delineate several dichotomies due to which the tourism industry blossoms, regarding the differentiations between ‘home’ and ‘away,’ and between alienated and mundane living, and authentic paradisal existence, I adopt a feminist neo-Marxist perspective on one of the world’s greatest exploitative industries. I conclude by suggesting a few alternatives, and a brief neo-Marxist re-reading of the biblical story of the creation of Eden

The Said and the Unsaid: Performative Guiding In a Jerusalem Neighborhood

by Chaim Noy

Brin, E., and Noy, C. (2010). Tourist Studies, 10(1): 19-33.

This paper describes a guided walking tour of a formerly Palestinian neighborhood in Jerusalem and an important... more This paper describes a guided walking tour of a formerly Palestinian neighborhood in Jerusalem and an important battlefield in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The paper assumes a critical performance approach to guided tours in examining how through performative guiding, identities, histories and places are (re)constituted. We conceive of performative guiding as a situated event which both takes place in and simultaneously signifies and reconstructs the environment wherein it transpires. The tour we analyze was given by a Jewish-Israeli guide to a Jewish-Israeli audience, and was attended by the first author. The guide’s apparent inclination towards the Israeli and Zionist narrative regarding the story of the neighborhood is highlighted through an analysis of the commentary given. Through an examination of things said and unsaid, we highlight the dual role of performative guiding: relaying historical information and reaffirming partisan narratives.

Illegal evictions? Overwriting possession and orality with law’s violence in Cambodia

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. Forthcoming. Illegal evictions? Overwriting possession and orality with law’s violence in Cambodia. Journal of Agrarian Change.

The unfolding of a juridico-cadastral system in present-day Cambodia is at odds with local understandings of... more The unfolding of a juridico-cadastral system in present-day Cambodia is at odds with local understandings of landholding, which are entrenched in notions of community consensus and existing occupation. The discrepancy between such orally recognized antecedents and the written word of law have been at the heart of the recent wave of dispossessions that have swept across the country. Contra the standard critique that corruption has set the tone, this paper argues that evictions in Cambodia are often literally underwritten by the articles of law. Whereas ‘possession’ is a well-understood and accepted concept in Cambodia, a cultural basis rooted in what James C. Scott refers to as ‘orality’, coupled with a long history of subsistence agriculture, semi-nomadic lifestyles, barter economies, and–until recently–widespread land availability have all ensured that notions of ‘property’ are vague among the country’s majority rural poor. In drawing a firm distinction between possessions and property, where the former is premised upon actual use and the latter is embedded in exploitation, this article examines how proprietorship is inextricably bound to the violence of law.

Migrating - Remitting -‘Building’- Dwelling: House-making as proxy presence in postsocialist Albania. in JRAI vol.16

by Dimitris Dalakoglou

This article examines the material culture of migration, focusing on migrants’ house-making projects in their... more This article examines the material culture of migration, focusing on migrants’ house-making projects in their countries of birth. In particular, it examines the houses built or refurbished by Albanians in their home-country, which is no longer their place of permanent residence. This is a widespread phenomenon in Albania, but it is also a frequently appearing practice amongst other international migrants. Why do migrants living outside their home-countries build houses there even though they do not plan to return? I seek to answer this question in the case of Albania by focusing empirically on the process of constructing these houses, rather than merely on the material entity of the house
as such. I propose that such ‘house-making’ by Albanian migrants is not only a simple house-building process; it also ensures a constant dwelling and dynamic ‘proxy’ presence for
migrants in their community of origin. These ethnographic observations have further significance for the anthropological study of both houses and international migration.

The road: An ethnography of the Albanian-Greek cross-border motorway. In American Ethnologist vol 37

by Dimitris Dalakoglou

This article is an ethnographic study of a 29-kilometer stretch of cross-border highway located in South Albania and... more This article is an ethnographic study of a 29-kilometer stretch of cross-border highway located in South Albania and linking the city of Gjirokaster with the main checkpoint on the Albanian–Greek border. The road, its politics, and its poetics
constitute an ideal point of entry for an anthropological analysis of contemporary South Albania. The physical and social construction, uses, and perceptions of this road uniquely encapsulate three phenomena that dominate social life in postsocialist South Albania: the transition to a market economy, new nationalisms, and massive emigration (mainly to Greece). Taking this cross-border road section as my main ethnographic
point of reference, I suggest the fruitfulness of further discussion of the relationship between roads, narratives, and anthropology.

[roads, globalization, transnationalism, development, postsocialism, materiality, Albania]

Last Call for Papers "Raumwissen und Wissensräume"; Deadline 25-04-12

by Stefan Schreiber

Call for Papers: "Raumwissen und Wissensräume. Interdisziplinärer Theorie-Workshop für NachwuchswissenschaftlerInnen" des Lesezirkels der Cross Sectional Group V „Space and Collective Identities“ des Exzellenzclusters „Topoi. The Formation and Transformation of Space and Knowledge in Ancient Civilizations” vom 7.–9. August 2012 in Berlin

more info at: http://www.topoi.org/event/raumwissen-und-wissensraume/

Switched Landscapes - Postcards, memories and gazes on the flatlands of the Tagus River

by Carlos Robalo

ROBALO, Carlos – Paisagens Trocadas: Postais, memórias e olhares sobre a lezíria do Tejo [Em linha]. Lisboa: ISCTE, 2009. Disponível em www:<http://hdl.handle.net/10071/1473&gt;.

With the fall of the rural world, landscapes regain a remarkable expression in the framing of the memory and in the... more With the fall of the rural world, landscapes regain a remarkable expression in the framing of the memory and in the construction of the imaginary of a society that redesigns its image and projects itself in time, past and future, and is forced to question its present.

In the demand of the Tagus Valley landscape representations, picture postcards were elected as primordial research source. To find them required a long and persisting course, identifying local collectors and getting their assent to study their collections, what has revealed new perspectives of inquiry, multiplying the odds of looking the site and its sought objects.

Defying us to examine the perspectives on the place, both in past and present, postcards are the axis of a research where we outlook the modulations of the gaze: the people’s gaze on their space and about themselves, on how they intend to be looked at by the others, how they see the others and how they are seen by them.

This way, it was intended to contribute to the identification of processes that determine the construction of a place, the delimitation of a territory, the recognition of a landscape, and hence, the production of a sense of belonging, where a situated identity is discoursed and represented.

Switched Landscapes - Postcards, memories and gazes on the flatlands of the Tagus River

by Carlos Robalo

ROBALO, Carlos – Paisagens Trocadas: Postais, memórias e olhares sobre a lezíria do Tejo [Em linha]. Lisboa: ISCTE, 2009. Disponível em www:<http://hdl.handle.net/10071/1473&gt;.

With the fall of the rural world, landscapes regain a remarkable expression in the framing of the memory and in the... more With the fall of the rural world, landscapes regain a remarkable expression in the framing of the memory and in the construction of the imaginary of a society that redesigns its image and projects itself in time, past and future, and is forced to question its present.

In the demand of the Tagus Valley landscape representations, picture postcards were elected as primordial research source. To find them required a long and persisting course, identifying local collectors and getting their assent to study their collections, what has revealed new perspectives of inquiry, multiplying the odds of looking the site and its sought objects.

Defying us to examine the perspectives on the place, both in past and present, postcards are the axis of a research where we outlook the modulations of the gaze: the people’s gaze on their space and about themselves, on how they intend to be looked at by the others, how they see the others and how they are seen by them.

This way, it was intended to contribute to the identification of processes that determine the construction of a place, the delimitation of a territory, the recognition of a landscape, and hence, the production of a sense of belonging, where a situated identity is discoursed and represented.

‘Incendiary Central: The Spatial Politics of the May 2010 Street Demonstrations in Bangkok’. Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity Working Paper Series, WP 12-04.

by Sophorntavy Vorng

MPI-MMG Working Paper

In May 2010, anti-government demonstrators created a flaming inferno of Central-World Plaza – Thailand’s biggest, and... more In May 2010, anti-government demonstrators created a flaming inferno of Central-World Plaza – Thailand’s biggest, and Asia’s second largest shopping mall. It was the climactic close to the latest major chapter of the Thai political conflict, during which thousands of protestors swarmed Ratchaprasong, the commercial centre of Bangkok, in an ultimately failed attempt to oust Abhisit Vejjajiva’s regime from power. In this paper, I examine how downtown Bangkok and exclusive malls like Central-World represent physical and cultural spaces from which the marginalized working classes have been strikingly excluded. It is a configuration of space that maps onto the contours of a heavily uneven distribution of power, and articulates a vernacular of prestige, wherein which class relations are inscribed in urban space. The significance of the red-shirted movement’s occupation of Ratchaprasong lies in the subversion of this spatialisation of power and draws attention to the symbolic deployment of space in struggles for political supremacy.

'Bangkok's Two Centers: Status, Space, and Consumption in a Millennial Southeast Asian City'. City and Society (23)S1: 66-85.

by Sophorntavy Vorng

Journal Article

Despite Bangkok's current incarnation as a globalized city of shopping malls and skyscrapers, indigenous concepts of... more Despite Bangkok's current incarnation as a globalized city of shopping malls and skyscrapers, indigenous concepts of power and space emphasizing center and hierarchy continue to pervade status differentiation in everyday social life. This is evident in tensions in the spatial-symbolic relations between Bangkok's politico-religious “old city” in Rattanakosin and the newer downtown consumption hub which emerged around the locales of Siam and Ratchaprasong, and highlights how urban and social transformations engendered by neoliberal market forces and embodied in downtown Bangkok's modern, consumerist milieu have mapped onto and exacerbated cultural logics of hierarchy drawn from much older notions of urban power and privilege in Southeast Asia. This produced modes of inscribing socio-economic inequality into space and a striking culture of status display uniquely shaped by the intersection of modern capitalism and Bangkok's distinctive culture and history of indigenous urbanism and suggests that understandings of space, power, and consumption in today's cities may benefit from a less Western-centric and more regionally sensitive conceptual framework.

‘Buddhism and Postmodern Imaginings in Thailand: The Religiosity of Urban Space’. By James L. Taylor. Farnham, England; Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (17)2: 429-430.

by Sophorntavy Vorng

Book Review

Immer wieder sonntags: Die Schaffung sozialer, politischer und transnationaler Räume durch migrantische Hausangestellte in Hongkong

by Stefan Rother

Rother, Stefan. 2012. "Immer wieder sonntags: Die Schaffung sozialer, politischer und transnationaler Räume durch migrantische Hausangestellte in Hongkong." In Urbanisierung und internationale Migration. Migrantenökonomien und Migrationspolitik in Städten, eds. Frauke Kraas, and Tabea Bork. Baden-Baden: Nomos Verl.-Ges., 167–80.

In einer „global city“ wie Hongkong, die zudem Zeit ihres Bestehens von Migranten
geprägt wurde, sind Migration... more In einer „global city“ wie Hongkong, die zudem Zeit ihres Bestehens von Migranten
geprägt wurde, sind Migration und Urbanisierung auf besonders enge
Weise verknüpft. Für Saskia Sassen (2002, 17f.) eröffnet sich in diesen globalen
Städten eine neue Geographie von Politik und Zivilgesellschaft, die Räume auf
der subnationalen Ebene schafft und verbindet.
Im folgenden Beitrag sollen einige dieser neuen Räume, in denen sich die Migrantinnen
bewegen und die sie geschaffen haben, dargestellt werden. Der Begriff
„Raum“ findet dabei sowohl für konkrete als auch abstrakte Räume Verwendung.
Eine tiefergehende Diskussion des Raumbegriffs würde Rahmen und Ausrichtung
dieses Beitrags sprengen; somit beschränke ich mich in einem ersten
Teil auf eine knappe Skizze der Verwendung des Raumbegriffs in der Migrationsforschung.
Als weiteren Hintergrund schildere ich Anlass und Entwicklung
des massiven „Imports“ von Hausangestellten nach Hongkong. Darauf stelle ich
den schutzlosen Raum, in dem sich der Alltag der Hausangestellten weitgehend
abspielt, dem öffentlichen Raum gegenüber, den die Migrantinnen sozial und
politisch nutzen. Gleichzeitig entsteht hier ein in mehrerer Hinsicht transnationaler
Raum; mit dem Konzept des transnationalen Politikraums und einer zusammenfassenden
Betrachtung wird der Beitrag abgeschlossen.
3

David Wiles, A Short History of Western Performance Space; William N. West, Theatres and Encyclopedias in Early Modern Europe

by Rebecca Nesvet

Identity Formation, Space and Social Centrality

by Kevin Hetherington

Il muro (invisibile) di Mostar.

by Francesco Mazzucchelli

(2012) "I Martedì", n. 298.

Work notes on the Tavola Eugubine, Script Q (IIB), Script Q1-Q273, update 4.25.12

by Mel Copeland

The Tavola Eugubine is a series of bronze tablets found near the city of Gubbio. There are seven tablets, some of which are written on both sides. The tablets are said to be written in the Umbrian language and in Latin. The texts of the group tend to follow a common theme, that of an oration. This text is a half-page entry apparently on the back of a bronze plate (similar to that seen in the Tavola Cortonensis).

It is most interesting, since the closing remarks of the text appear to state that their ancestor Atijerius came from Ionia or Penes (Peonia?). The Ionian connection would corroborate Herodotus who recorded that the Etruscan tradition said their ancestor, Tyrsenus, son of the Lydian king Atys, came from Lydia. The archeological context of the tables (this document refers to itself as a 'table') is of interest, whether the seven bronze tablets were found in situ as one collection. If so they may apply as a record kept by a particular knight of the Etruscans who, in this case, Table IIB claims that he 'created' the town or castle which he addresses. Both KASTRV (castrum-i) and VPETV (L. oppidum-i) are used in the text.

This is an update of our work on the Tavola Eugubine, (IIB) - http://www.maravot.com/Translation_EugubineQ.html. Changes produced on this page will be added to our Etruscan GlossaryA.pdf. All of the words in the glossary follow a grammar similar to Latin. One can easily discover that the several hundred texts on Etruscan Phrases all share a common language and grammar. This controverts the prevailing theory that the Etruscan language is not an Indo-European language. It also warrants further examination of the prevailing conclusion that the Tavola Eugubine is written in the Umbrian language.

Etruscan GlossaryA.xls/pdf. is an index to about 2,300 Etruscan words that are similar to Latin, French, Italian and Romanian. Declension patterns follow those in Latin. The 2,500 words = the repeated words in 6,000 words of the major extant texts. The texts have been frozen in time, covering ~700-400 B.C., representing a lens to understanding the early formation of Indo-European languages, particularly the early Italic-Latin-Celtic languages, such as Italian, French & Romanian / Dacian. (By 45 BC. the language was a dead language - no one understood or could write Etruscan)

This GlossaryA works together with Indo-European Table 1 which refutes theories by the Pallottino school of thought that the Etruscan language is not Indo-European and an isolate, unlike any other language. It is very close to Latin and, curiously, Romanian, Italian and French. The Latin suffix, "us" shifts to "o" as in Italian (Titus vs Tito); first person conjugation patterns are similar to French and Romanian. This GlossaryA provides a quick look at the grammatical structure of the Etruscan language, how closely it coincides with Latin. A more detailed Declension Table can be seen on the Etruscan Phrases website. These PDF documents facilitate independent confirmation of the words in GlossaryA.xls , the Grammar and Declension Table. All words can be examined from actual images of texts on the Etruscan Phrases website. Over 150 texts, with about 6,000 words can be examined at Etruscan Phrases.

The Etruscans surfaced in Italy about 1,000 B.C., reputed to have arrived from Lydia / Phrygia. The Phrygians originated near Macedonia in Thrace, according to Herodotus. One may therefore inquire whether the ancient Thracians (Dacians, Gettae, modern Romanians), spoke a language common to the Phrygians, at the time of the Trojan War and after (~1180 B.C.). The Thracians, Phrygians and Lydians (also dead languages) were allies of the Trojans, according to the Iliad. Etruscan Phrases finds a common vocabulary among Latin, Italian, French, Romanian, Etruscan and Phrygian. While French, Spanish, Italian and Romanian are considered Romance languages, showing a similar Latin heritage, Etruscan is not, of course, a Romance language, as it preceded Latin, at least in the written form (giving Rome its alphabet).

Resolution of the Etruscan Mystery may be likened to Michael Ventris' decipherment of Linear B and Jean-François Champollion's decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics using the Rosetta Stone - written in Egyptian hieroglyphics, Demotic and Greek. The decipherment of Etruscan is a bit more challenging; since we have no multilingual Rosetta stone, but we do have enough vocabulary and grammar to establish that Etruscan is similar to Latin, French, Italian and Romanian. (Certainly far more vocabulary and a more extensive grammar are provided in Etruscan Phrases than that used by Ventris to claim translation of Linear B as an old form of Greek.)

We look forward to the time when a peer review of these Work Notes will warrant corrections to the prevailing record, showing that the Etruscan language was similar to Latin and decry the theory that the "Etruscan language is unlike any other and not an Indo-European language." The theory of a non-Indo-European Etruscan language is absolutely false.

There is a far richer record to be written of an Indo-European branch, dead as of ~400 B.C., that can shed light on the movements of the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age Italic peoples, perhaps out of southeastern Europe to Anatolia and then to Italy by sea. Herodotus, who recorded the Etruscan tradition, that they came from Lydia as a result of a long drought after the Trojan War, may be right. We mention this because there is more to be gained in sorting out the grammar at Etruscan Phrases - and possible confirmation of Herodotus - than can ever be hoped for in the bogus theory that "the Etruscan language is unlike any other language known to man." Wikipedia et al. should be corrected.