length, clearly annoyed: ‘We told you not to go alone! There’s nothing great about Morocco! It is a dangerous place! Unlike yourselves we have learnt to walk ( hemos aprendido a andar ) in Morocco since we were kids!’ Questioning Stereotypes Our
Search Results
The Gods of the Hunt
Stereotypes, Risk and National Identity in a Spanish Enclave in North Africa
Brian Campbell
In Anthropological Journal of European Cultures
- Published (Print):
- 01 Sep 2017
- Article Type:
- Introduction
- Pages:
- 127–151
Ethnicity without labels?
Ambiguity and excess in “postethnic” Rwanda
Laura Eramian
Following the 1994 genocide, the government of Rwanda embarked on a “deethnicization” campaign to outlaw Tutsi, Hutu, and Twa labels and replace them with a pan-Rwandan national identity. Since then, to use ethnic labels means risking accusations of “divisionism” or perpetuating ethnic schisms. Based on one year of ethnographic fieldwork in the university town of Butare, I argue that the absence of ethnic labels produces practical interpretive problems for Rwandans because of the excess of possible ways of interpreting what people mean when they evaluate each other's conduct in everyday talk. I trace the historical entanglement of ethnicity with class, rural/urban, occupational, and moral distinctions such that the content of ethnic stereotypes can be evoked even without ethnic labels. In so doing, I aim to enrich understandings of both the power and danger inherent in the ambiguous place of ethnicity in Rwanda's “postethnic” moment.
Making Sense of the Remote Areas
Films and Stories from a Tundra Village
Petia Mankova
different ways. Having done anthropological fieldwork in the village, I watched the documentaries with mixed feelings; I could feel the atmosphere of the village, I knew the people, and so I became annoyed with the implicit stereotypes that transformed
Drawing Stereotypes
Europe and East Asia in Russian Political Caricature, 1900–1905
Zachary Hoffman
pages or weekly supplements. 6 At the turn of the century, Russian political caricature flourished. 7 Working in the medium of stereotype and hyperbole, caricaturists both poked fun at international politics and crafted visual identities for Russia
With or Without Gringos
When Panamanians Talk about the United States and Its Citizens
Dimitrios Theodossopoulos
In local and informal contexts, Panamanians talk about the power of the United States and describe its citizens in multifaceted and complex terms. In this article I examine those views as they are articulated in informal urban settings in Panama City and in conversations with middle-class Panamanians. My respondents evaluate the US-Panama relationship and discuss individual North Americans with realism, reflecting a graceful but critical spirit of forgiveness toward their more powerful ally. A broader awareness of US colonialism in the past is combined with a pragmatic acknowledgement of opportunities in the present and the desire for a more equal relationship in the future. I argue that the opportunity to voice unreserved opinions about powerful Others can potentially empower local actors.
Abin Chakraborty
remarkable evidence of cultural mobility during the Renaissance that often contradicts orientalist stereotypes of a latter era by creating fluid spaces of self-fashioning. Despite Coryat’s occasional assertions about the greatness of England and the
Ka-Kin Cheuk
despite the Indians’ image of untrustworthiness, and the perception that dealing with them requires a great investment of time and effort, there are many Chinese suppliers willing to do business with them. Negative stereotypes of traders who do business in
In The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology
- Published (Print):
- 01 Sep 2016
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 42–58
A geography of debauchery
State-building and the mobilization of labor versus leisure on a European Union border
Gustav Peebles
By comparing the spatial organization of Swedish labor and leisure practices today with the movements and stereotypes tied to previous generations of Sweden's sizeable population of so-called "vagrants," this article studies the impact of state policy on the spatial imagination of both citizens and other sojourners within its bounds. Because the ethnographic research for the article took place in a new transnational city that is being created by the European Union and various local proponents, the article then considers the same issue at the EU level, to pursue the question of the EU's "state-ness" and the status of migrant laborers within that emerging polity.
Revived nationalism versus European democracy
Class and "identity dilemmas" in contemporary Serbia
Theodora Vetta
Following the Belgrade riots after Kosovo's proclamation of independence in February 2008 and the rise of the nationalist Serbian Radical Party in elections since 2001, several analysts have portrayed Serbia as a highly divided and confused nation unable to choose between a European, urban, and cosmopolitan democrat identity and a patriarchal, peasant, and collectivists nationalist one. This article historicizes this widespread culture-talk by ethnographically grounding it in particular processes that constitute Serbia's trajectory toward free market economy and liberal democracy. The concept of class as an analytical tool appears accurate in trying to understand people's biographies and political choices. By deconstructing popular cultural stereotypes of Radikali, the article argues that nationalism provides a framework that resonates most with the material and symbolic needs of a wide range of population. In the absence of a strong institutionalized left, the political choices of "nationalism's supporters" are based more on rational choice than on identity quests and strategies of manipulation.
Aguinda v. Texaco Inc.
Expanding Indigenous “Expertise” Beyond Ecoprimitivism
Veronica Davidov
This article analyzes a series of litigations that began with the Aguinda v. Texaco Inc. case as a site of production of new legal subjectivities for indigenous communities in the region of the Ecuadorian Amazon polluted by oil extraction activities. They engage in the transnational and local legal structures, contribute to and generate legal and scientific knowledge and expertise, and articulate multiple legal subjectivities that position them not only as homogenous plaintiffs in a highly publicized lawsuit, but also as legal actors in complex relation to each other, and to the state. Through such engagements with this legal process, indigenous actors are recrafting their collective representations in ways that challenge the ‘ecoprimitive’ stereotypes of indigeneity, historically associated with the ‘paradox of primitivism.’
In Journal of Legal Anthropology
- Published (Print):
- 01 Sep 2010
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 147–164