Search Results

*Full article is in French

English abstract: The Western Bug is one of the major border rivers in Central and Eastern Europe. It is the border between Poland and Ukraine and between Poland and Belarus, but at the same time it is one of the European Union's external borders. Despite this particular position and a certain number of political, legal, economic and human barriers, cross-border cooperation is improving in order to preserve water resources and promote better management. This article illustrates the main steps that lead to this cooperation and seeks to analyze whether it will be possible to set up common management of the Bug river basin.

Spanish abstract: El Bug occidental es uno de los ríos más importante en Europa central y oriental ya que sirve como límite entre Polonia y Ucrania, Polonia y Bielorusia, y como frontera externa a la Unión Europea. A pesar de esta situación particular y de los numerosos obstáculos que superar (políticos, jurídicos, económicos y humanos), la cooperación transfronteriza avanza para preservar el recurso agua y gestionar mejor la cuenca hidrográfica del Bug. El artículo presenta las principales etapas de esta cooperación, las medidas implementadas y, analizando los principales obstáculos al establecimiento de una política común, se interroga sobre la posibilidad de una gestión conjunta en la cuenca del Bug.

French abstract: Le Bug occidental est une des principales rivières frontières en Europe centrale et orientale. Elle sert non seulement de limite entre la Pologne et l'Ukraine, la Pologne et la Biélorussie, mais aussi de frontière externe à l'Union européenne. Malgré cette position particulière et les nombreux obstacles à surmonter (politique, juridique, économique et humain), la coopération transfrontalière progresse en vue de préserver la ressource en eau et de mieux gérer le bassin hydrographique du Bug. L'article présente les principales étapes de cette coopération, les moyens mis en œuvre et s'interroge sur la possibilité de gérer en commun le bassin du Bug en analysant les principaux obstacles à la mise en place d'une politique commune.

This article traces ideological constructions of communication that enable powerful actors to determine what counts as silences, lies and surpluses in efficacious narratives about violence (Briggs 2007) in order to elucidate occlusions regarding legacies of the Civil War in the Irish Free State. It does so through a precise triangulation of multiple competing and overlapping narratives from unpublished fieldnotes, interviews, published ethnographies and other first-person accounts. The inquiry highlights social memories of the Irish Civil War that have been 'assumed, distorted, misunderstood, manipulated, underestimated, but most of all, ignored' (Dolan 2003: 2). The article argues that the excesses of the anthropological archive make the recuperation of a multiplicity of collective memories possible through a linguistic anthropological perspective that enumerates the kind of erasures at play in contentious memory-making moments, highlights polyvocality in metapragmatic discourse and tracks the gaps in entextualisation processes of historical narratives about political turmoil.

The right of Muslim schoolgirls in France to wear the veil (hijab) raises questions concerning the meaning of the veil for Muslim women. The debate about Muslim dress codes and whether Islam belongs in Europe has become a critical issue. The debate that began about the veil in Islam has evolved into a large discussion about Islam itself: as a religion, the Islamic movement in France and the relationship between Islam and fundamentalism. The purpose of this article is to examine some definitions of the hijab and its meaning in the context of the Qur’an, and to analyse some of the understandings of the hijab, as articulated in the late twentieth century by Muslim and non-Muslim scholars. It also explores the nature of Muslim reactions in France as well as their tensions with the surrounding society, as a result of the French ban on wearing the veil in public schools.

What is anthropology in France about, what is its image, its impact? Where do we come from? Where are we going? Finding answers to these questions would require a whole book. However, in a more modest way, I would like to make a number of observations related to the recent history of the discipline – history that, as we shall see, is inseparable from the general socio-political context and the place that the discipline occupies today in the French intellectual landscape.

In this article we present the ongoing theoretical discussions concerning the relations between anthropology and literature in France. We recall the historical relationship of a part of French anthropology and the world of literature. We then try to show how the anthropology of literature began by using the model of the anthropology of art, mainly concentrating on literary works as individual creations specific to the style or the cosmology of a given writer. We explore a new perspective on the analysis of the social and symbolic meanings of literary worlds, putting the emphasis on what is called ‘ethnocriticism’ in France. In order to understand better the influence of literature and literary motives on contemporary cultural practices, and to grasp the relation of literary works with the outside world and with everyday life, we propose to build up a comparative approach of literary works and rituals. Through different novels or other literary works, we address possible developments of contemporary anthropologies of literature in France.

PUBLICATIONS

Nadjmabadi, Shahnaz R. (ed.) (2009), Conceptualizing Iranian Anthropology: Past and Present Perspectives (Oxford and New York: Berghahn Books). viii + 278 pp. ISBN 978-1-84545-626-9.

FILMS

Kamal, Mariam Nabil (2009), Le Bruit des pas, Afghanistan, vidéo couleur, 24 minutes, Ateliers Varan, avec le soutien des Service culturel de l’Ambassade de France, du Centre culturel français, du Goethe Institut et la Direction des Relations Internationales d’Arte France, en partenariat avec Afghan films, la Faculté des Beaux Arts, Kabul University, Radio Television Afghanistan, the Foundation for Culture and Civil Society.

CONFERENCES

‘Central Eurasia: Islam, Culture and Conflict’, May 2010, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands