The Never Ending Dance: Islamism,Kemalism and the Power of Self‐institution in Turkey

Kemalism in Turkey is often presented as an exemplary case of paternalistic and authoritarian modernisation from above, and lauded or condemned for that very reason. Represented in these terms, certain analytic and political binaries are also activated: state versus society; world‐view versus life‐world; universality versus particularity; inauthenticity versus indigeneity; homogeneity versus heterogeneity/resistance. By contrast, in this paper I seek to sidestep these organising categories to focus on Kemalism and Islamism as rival forms of the same social imaginary signification, and not as shorthand for these polarities. Using a number of representative texts, I argue that the extravagance of Islamist resistance in Turkey post‐1980 brings to light the fantastical power of Kemalism itself, exposed as a project of the triumph of the will. This being the case, what has been written in anthropology about acts of ‘self‐institution’? The work of Nigel Rapport and Cornelius Castoriadis emphasises, in different ways, the arbitrariness and gratuity of social creation out of nothing or self‐institution. Pierre Bourdieu's work, on the other hand, is radically contrary to Rapport's in its structuralist elaboration of agency as guided action. My analysis of processes of change within both the Islamist and Republican social movements in Turkey from the early 1990s to the present seeks a temporary rapprochement, at least in this case, between Rapport's methodological individualism and Bourdieu's methodological holism.     

The Four Subfields: Anthropologists as Mythmakers

A survey of articles published in the American Anthropologist over a 100-year period indicates that substantive collaboration across anthropological subfields is largely a myth—amounting toonly 311 of 3,264 articles surveyed (or 9.5 percent of the total). Working with the anthropological insights of Bronislaw Malinowski, Edward Tylor, and Claude Levi-Strauss, this article considers why a myth of subf ield collaboration nonetheless exists within anthropology. This article concludes by calling for new forms of holism. [Keywords: American Anthropologist, subf ield collaboration, holism, public anthropology]     

The fundamental processes in ecology: a thought experiment on extraterrestrial biospheres

Ecological science is often organised as a hierarchical series of entities: genes, individuals, populations, species, communities, ecosystems and biosphere. Here, I consider an alternative process‐based approach to ecology, and analyse the nature of the fundamental processes in ecology. These fundamental processes are discussed in the context of the following question:‘for any planet with carbon‐based life, which persists over geological time scales, what are the minimum set of ecological processes that must be present?‘I suggest that the following processes would be present on any such planet: energy flow, multiple guilds, ecological tradeo ffs leading to within‐guild biodiversity, ecological hypercycles, merging of organismal and ecological physiology, carbon sequestration and possibly photosynthesis. Nutrient cycling is described as an emergent property of these fundamental processes. I discuss reasons why a biosphere based on a single species with no nutrient cycling is very unlikely to exist. I also describe the concept of ‘Gaian effect’. This suggests that some processes will always tend to extend the lifespan of a biosphere in which they develop (positive Gaian effect) while others could either increase or decrease (negative Gaian effect) such a lifespan. These ideas are discussed in the context of astrobiology, ecosystem services, conservation biology and Gaia theory.     

Introduction Halal Pizza: Food and Culture in a Busy World1

This article introduces a collection of seven papers that offer anthropological examinations of contemporary food‐related practices in the Australasian‐Pacific region. The collection is based on those presented in the panel ‘Eat me! An anthropological examination of food’ at the Australian Anthropological Society Annual Conference, La Trobe University, Melbourne, 2001. I set out the ethnographic terrain of food in processes of contemporary Australian cultural production, introduce the articles and then briefly discuss the three key themes of the collection. These are the trajectory of grand processes, such as colonialism, in the intimate movements of daily life; the reproduction of social forms via socialities relating to food and commensality; and the (sensory) manifestation and embodiment of epistemes (such as gender) in food‐ and consumption‐related values and practices.     

The Ideological Bases of Lévi-Strauss's Structuralism

It is clear that Lévi-Strauss combines in his writings, and often inextricably, the roles of anthropologist (read scientist) and philosopher (read ideologist). This rather unusual combination of anthropological and philosophical dimensions of Lévi-Strauss's thought is the result of two tendencies that often seem to be pulling in different directions: his scientific conception of socio-cultural phenomena (or the delineation of a scientific method for harnessing human behavior under the rubric of sociological laws), on the one hand, and his conception of what society should be (or the ideological statement of what constitutes a "good sociological life"), on the other. In order to understand the nature of structuralism and Lévi-Strauss's contributions to anthropological theory and practice, these two aspects of his thought must be clearly distinguished. This is what I hope to accomplish in this article.     

The mongolian game Norobo or Cindi

Current debates over the concept of culture are examined, especially with regard to the relationship of culture to bounded collectivities, human nature, and individuality; present‐day views are seen against the background of back‐and‐forth swings in the history of anthropological thought. Recent theorizing about cultural acquisition is also considered.     

Species pools in cultural landscapes – niche construction,ecological opportunity and niche shifts

This paper discusses the ecology of species that were favoured by the development of the cultural landscape in central and NW Europe beginning in the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, with a focus on mechanisms behind species responses to this landscape transformation. A fraction of species may have maintained their realized niches from the pre‐ agricultural landscape and utilized similar niches created by the landscape transformation. However, I suggest that many species responded by altering their niche relationships, and a conceptual model is proposed for this response, based on niche construction, ecological opportunity and niche shifts. Human‐mediated niche construction, associated with clearing of forests and creation of pastures and fields promoted niche shifts towards open habitats, and species exploited the ecological opportunity provided by these created environments. This process was initially purely ecological, i.e. the new habitats must have been included in the original fundamental niche of the species. Two other features of human‐mediated niche construction, increased interconnectivity and increased spatial stability of open habitats, resulted in species accumulating in the habitats of the constructed landscape. As a consequence, selection processes were initiated favouring traits promoting fitness in the constructed landscape. This process implied a feed‐back to niche shifts, but now also including evolutionary changes in fundamental niches. I briefly discuss whether this model can be applied also to present‐day anthropogenic impact on landscapes. A general conclusion is that ecological and evolutionary changes in species niches should be more explicitly considered in modeling and predictions of species response to present‐day landscape and land‐use changes.     

Obscurantist Holism Versus Clear-Cut Analysis: Will Anthropology Obviate the Biology-Culture Divide?

Although holism has long been a central theme in anthropology, current perception is that anthropological discourse is being pulled apart along its biology-culture seams. Despite reservations among sociocultural theorists, Darwinism remains the only body of theory that purports to link sub-disciplines of anthropology. The importance of holism in anthropology is reconciled here with disciplinary fragmentation and evolutionary theory. While Darwinism appears to provide interdisciplinary theoretical ties, it cannot successfully relate sub-disciplines of anthropology because this theory itself relies on a preformationist divide between inherited and acquired characteristics. Increasingly subtle language of genetic information and constraints does not ameliorate this problem. Research potential for the ecological constraints model in biological anthropology is discussed. Developmental systems theory (DST) is advocated as a tool for working toward a holistic anthropology [Susan Oyama, Paul Griffiths, and Russell Gray, ``Introduction: What is Developmental Systems Theory?,'' in Susan Oyama, Paul Griffiths, and Russell Gray, eds., Cycles of Contingency: Developmental Systems and Evolution (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001), 1–11].     

Anthropological poetics: Reflections on a new perspective

Conclusion Given that the poetic dimension in anthropology is real, a code for understanding, a metaphor for truth, a myth about anthropology-as-practised, revealing the paradoxes of that discipline, where then does Reflections lead us? What are the implications of realizing that there are whole areas of anthropological field experience that have never been communicated in monographs and journal articles? Does a resolution of paradox, of the myths created by anthropologists, require the leaving of anthropology and university departments and an active engagement in praxis rather than an armchair documentation of consciousness raising? Is there to be an inversion between a practical endeavor that is non-praxis in outlook?It is true that a reflexive self-aware anthropology and the radicalness of poetic expression puts anthropology into question, but therein lies the basis of evolution to a different kind of anthropology. This is important as it becomes more and more difficult to justify fieldwork, particularly for professionals alienated from their own society and discipline.There is, however, a more important consideration. If the field lies to a great extent within us, then the question arises as to just what is anthropology doing in other people's cultures? Rarely are anthropologists invited to a particular field locale by the cultural groups living there. Their own presuppositions and career dictates lead to a global selection which is then rationalized and justified to university departments and funding bodies. It is an obvious but often overlooked fact that the discipline and culture of the anthropologist is located firmly within the social and ideological context of which it is a part. Anthropologists, therefore require a critical awareness of their relationship to the ideology of their own society and must take care that they do not unthinkingly aid in the reproduction of those conditions that in fact frame their object of study. The major part of anthropological practise has dealt with traditional and modernizing societies and anthropologists are often identified with the ideological dimension of a dependency that has already been defined in economic and political terms.Much of the reaction to and ambivalence towards anthropologists on the part of native groups is in terms of their implicit awareness that the anthropologist is part of the process that defines their present situation. Furthermore, they more often than not realize that the anthropologist needs them far more than they need the anthropologist! Without a critical awareness it is unfortunately the case that despite the best intentions of the anthropologist his presence in another culture is often part of an ongoing process that weakens and eventually destroys the culture chosen. Lévi-Strauss is exceedingly bitter about the role of anthropology as the harbinger of destruction [] because an anthropology geared to the exigencies of professionalism is the vanguard of a destructive process that seems unrelenting. I want a different kind of anthropology, one that will engage dialectically with the cultural other and express it in a way that is ultimately useful for the other culture and my own society.Edmund Carpenter's introduction to Stephen Williams' The Inuit Today speaks eloquently to this issue of destruction. He describes how the newcomers could not see the patterns of Inuit life; they smashed into them almost as innocently as men walk through cobwebs []. Professionalism, whether by anthropologists, explorers, or art experts resulted in a devastation that Carpenter alludes to as a faith being lost, an art replaced. We emptied graves, moved sacred objects from secret caves to public vaults, transferred songs to tapes, stored myths on dustry shelves. Reverential became referential; private, became public, theirs became ours []. And later — When Inuit history got classified as loot, the past was rewritten to justify the present. We re-invented the Inuit, then hired them to act out this action on film. We even re-invented their art, the taught them how to make it []. Carpenter's anger is directed at the way in which scholars use their tribe for self promotion, for movement along a professional career trajectory that bears little relation to those communities that hosted their initial intrusion. A double and devastating alienation. It must be pointed out, however, that anthropologists have increasingly moved into new venues —large urban areas of their own and other cultures, hospitals, factories, ghettoes and unemployment lines. The potential for unwitting damage is less obvious but one wonders if the ideological component of a hierarchical methodology is just as dangerous in these situations.Does all this necessarily lead us into the streets, missions and revolutions of this world or is it possible for anthropology to find an additional documentation of observation that will heighten perception about cultural others then diffuse to the civilization surrounding us? Both options are readily open, just as are the different methods of dealing with alienation for self and society — praxis or a gathering of the forces that may overcome alienation.This is where I wish to root my argument about anthropological poetics. My contention is that there is something crucial that is missing from fieldwork reporting. The collision of cultural assumptions that is the raw material of the discipline is usually expressed in emic/etic distinctions whereas I am proposing that a dialectic which subsumes both emic and etic considerations and moves both to a new language of experience is the missing component in anthropology. It can be expressed in various ways — art, narrative, theatre — anthropological poetics is simply the medium I have chosen to write about. What I am referring to is a process of incorporation that is coded in a symbolic way that then alters the professional perception of self/cultural other which then makes a different kind of impact on the professional's own society. The experience of other cultures by anthropologists should have diffused a greater humanism into Western consciousness. By and large this has not happened because as professionals we have not found the means to accurately represent the dialectic engaged with in the field. It is my conviction that anthropological poetics is one way of completing the anthropological endeavor, and thereby changing it. This is one of the major challenges facing the discipline in the closing era of the twentieth century. This latter theme has been elucidated in a highly instructive form in Stanley Diamond's poetry volume Totems [], which brings me to a final statement.Stanley Diamond, in an interview with Dan Rose, charted his evolution as a poet with the attendant circumstances that led to the latency of his poetic expression in favor of anthropological work. He emerged with a marvellous line to the effect that he chose anthropology because it was the next best thing to poetry []. I appreciate and admire Diamond's insight and humor but neither he nor I think anthropology is the next best thing to poetry. Diamond's original contribution to anthropological poetics demonstrates how the sensibilities of self and the cultural other can be fused []. Poetry in its own right is a powerful and moving mosaic of experience, but for anthropology in its present state of evolution it is so much more. It is a vital spark, a new signifying process for a discipline that is rethinking its own foundations and methodology.By methodology I refer specifically to the context of observer effects and follow Rose in treating poetry as poetic observation []. His comments are a critique, particular to Stanley Diamond's Totems. Diamond achieves the interiority I have referred to earlier, more strikingly than any other anthropologist-poet I have read. It is not so crucial for me or Dan Rose that he is a superb poet, it is that he has taken ethnography into a new domain, beyond the emic/etic distinction that shackles the discipline to methodological stasis. Diamond's ethnographic accounts in his poetics mirrors that which is not yet communicated within the discipline but it speaks directly to his own society rather than simply reporting on the state of the cultural other or Diamond himself. This is why I wish to take Rose's particular comments and move to the general as his observations about Diamond provide possible guidelines for the further development of anthropological poetics.Rose has described poetic observation as a vantage point where the poet resides in relation to his experience and to the poem, where the subjects of the poem exist in relation to the poet and where the reader stands in relation to subjects, author (observer) and text []. This set of connections succinctly exposes the dilemmas of interpretation and communication found in every field situation. The argument is that anthropological poetics as methodology permits another culture and comprehension of it to be expressed and interpreted in a way that moves beyond it. In this way one refers not just to interpretation but to a different way of relating to meanings inherent in another cultural system. Rose argues further that The accepted fieldwork device of plunging from the global to the local and rising from the local to the global preserves an older hierarchical methodology — a legacy of our anthropological forebears []. He invites us to compare this hierarchical legacy with the establishment of a new dimension between the anthropologist and native that involves different ways of perceiving the relation between cultural others and ourselves.Anthropological poetics — poetry as observations — thus has a crucial transforming role that should not be confined to the literary outlets of the day, but placed within the mainstream of anthropology as an evocation of a new consciousness for the discipline and the society of which it is but a part. It is an ethnographic statement that is presently missing from the discipline, wherein the anthropologist uses a rich linguistic code and different structures to express certain crucial areas of field experience that have not been communicated in professional monographs and articles. In addition the evocation of a critical self awareness within the discipline underlines the argument that a significant part of the field for anthropology lies within its professional practitioners. Fieldwork therefore belongs to us and our own civilization, the cultural other is a crucial part of our developing self-awareness. The anthropologist-as-poet using field experience as part of his raw material has chosen a form to convey the experience of the cultural other which then has the power to alter the listener, the reader, the unconvinced, irreversibly in a direction at once more human and humane []. It also may change the manner in which anthropology is justified and perhaps practiced.J. Iain Prattis is a Professor in the Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Carleton University, Ottawa.

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An Update to Returning Genetic Research Results to Individuals: Perspectives of the Industry Pharmacogenomics Working Group

The ease with which genotyping technologies generate tremendous amounts of data on research participants has been well chronicled, a feat that continues to become both faster and cheaper to perform. In parallel to these advances come additional ethical considerations and debates, one of which centers on providing individual research results and incidental findings back to research participants taking part in genetic research efforts. In 2006 the Industry Pharmacogenomics Working Group (I‐PWG) offered some ‘Points‐to‐Consider’ on this topic within the context of the drug development process from those who are affiliated to pharmaceutical companies. Today many of these points remain applicable to the discussion but will be expanded upon in this updated viewpoint from the I‐PWG. The exploratory nature of pharmacogenomic work in the pharmaceutical industry is discussed to provide context for why these results typically are not best suited for return. Operational challenges unique to this industry which cause barriers to returning this information are also explained.     

Inferring speciation rates from phylogenies

Abstract It is possible to estimate the rate of diversification of clades from phylogenies with a temporal dimension. First, I present several methods for constructing confidence intervals for the speciation rate under the simple assumption of a pure birth process. I discuss the relationships among these methods in the hope of clarifying some fundamental theory in this area. Their performances are compared in a simulation study and one is recommended for use as a result. A variety of other questions that may, in fact, be the questions of primary interest (e.g., Has the rate of cladogenesis been declining?) are then recast as biological variants of the purely statistical question—Is the birth process model appropriate for my data? Seen in this way, a preexisting arsenal of statistical techniques is opened up for use in this area: in particular, techniques developed for the analysis of Poisson processes and the analysis of survival data. These two approaches start from different representations of the data—the branch lengths in the tree—and I explicitly relate the two. Aiming for a synoptic account of useful theory in this area, I briefly discuss some important results from the analysis of two distinct birth‐death processes: the one introduced into this area by Hey (1992) is refitted with some powerful statistical tools.     

The kin of the gene: the medicalization of family and kinship in American Society

In the past several decades there has been an explosion of research in genetics and on genetic inheritance. This new genetics is part of contemporary biomedicine and forecasts great advances in alleviating disease and prolonging human life. It also encompasses notions about biological family and kinship relations. I propose that with the advent of the new genetics, family and kinship are being medicalized. I explore the ways in which explanations of the inheritance of genetic disease influence people's understandings of family and kin and both reflect and conflict with broader current sociocultural processes. The discussion includes a brief overview of the anthropological study of kinship, the meaning of family and kinship in contemporary society, the concept of medicalization and its implications for people's lives as seen through narratives and concludes with an analysis the significance of the medicalization of family and kinship in present-day society.     

Troubled landscapes,troubling anthropology: co‐presence,necessity, and the making of ethnographic knowledge

If ‘co‐presence is a condition of [anthropological] inquiry’ (Fabian), what sort of knowledge does it produce? I explore this question through an ethnography of a ‘troubled landscape’ in Malaysian Borneo: a lush, hilly region that has been the site of a dam construction and resettlement project since the late 2000s. My article uses the notion of co‐presence as both a lens through which to explore the predicaments of the four small communities affected by the scheme and a reflexive device that underscores the embeddedness of the ethnographic encounter in a larger relational field – one characterized as much by chance and necessity as it is by anthropologists’ intellectual agendas. In the process, I seek to trouble some of the methodological and ethical issues posed by anthropology's recent ‘ontological turn’, notably the long‐standing questions of what it means to ‘take seriously’ and how ethnography and the ethnographer are implicated in this project.     

Masterful words: musicianship and ethics in learning the ney

Unlike in some recent anthropological writings that show the insignificance of verbal or overt instruction in the process of skill acquisition, talk is, in vital ways, constitutive of the practice of ney (reed flute) learning that I discuss here. What is it about masterful speech that makes it such a compelling vehicle for musical education? To address this question, the article presents a number of key processes that sohbet (or conversation) is designed to facilitate in learners: new skills of hearing and musical understanding; extra‐musical sensibilities germane to becoming a skilled ney‐player; and communal affections between those participating in the listening act. It is argued that when all of these combine, certain ethical dispositions are fostered in learners’ moral selves, enabling new ways of relating to others and to the city.     

Journeying Between Desire and Anthropology: A Story in Suspense

Anthropology is a discipline based on the motif of the journey and ‘the myth of the eternal return’. This is the journey out to the ‘other’in order to return to constitute ‘self, and this movement is a movement of desire. The desire is for wholeness, for self‐presence, for a unified self. It is a desire for origins. And this desire is evident in anthropological practices as it is in myths and fairytales—all tell stories that speak of the desire for a separate, an original, self. Yet ‘the myth of the eternal return’reveals that the enactment of the story is itself originating. The origin is not a thing to be hunted down and appropriated—it is no thing. Like the archetypes which flow through stories, it is alive in the telling. The story I tell in this paper is about my own desires. It speaks of the desire to undergo the rite of passage of anthropology, and of how this journey was interrupted by the anthropologist who always journeys before me. And yet. it is through the inextricable relations with the writings of the “other‘ anthropologist that alluring moments of different desiring are fleetingly revealed. In the end. my relations with anthropology tell of a paradox: of the desire for a transcendental journey in order to constitute self and the seductive desire for immersion—to lose self, the story remains in suspense.     

The Practice of an Expert: Anthropology in Native Title

This paper provides a perspective on the practice of anthropology as a discipline in the context of providing expert evidence in court cases. I consider the nature of anthropological expertise in relation to method, knowledge and theory. I evaluate the contribution that anthropological expertise can make, taking into account such factors as time pressures and the extent of the anthropologist's prior knowledge of a particular society—factors that often act as a constraint on what it is possible to know or find out in a given situation.     

Encountering nature through fieldwork: expert knowledge,modes of reasoning,and local creativity

The concept of ‘relation’ has been central to the anthropological reworking of the nature/culture and nature/society dichotomies. However, ecology is relational in a way that has often been ignored or dismissed in contemporary socio‐cultural anthropology. This article shows that there is more to ethnoecology than an ethnocentric form of analysis representing other people's understandings of the natural world through the prejudiced lens of Western scientific classifications. Three ‘fieldwork on fieldwork’ experiments involving encounters between natural scientists and indigenous communities in Amazonian Ecuador and Southern Guyana are discussed to illustrate the heterogeneity of human knowledge, the role of expert knowledge in intercultural communication, and the need to differentiate ecological reasoning from moral reasoning.     

Western Desert and Native Title: How Models Become Myths

A number of litigated Australian native title cases concern lands located within the area of Australia known as the Western Desert. In these cases, legal arguments concerning the nature of the land‐owning group and the ‘society’ at the time of colonisation have inevitably drawn on anthropological writings about Western Desert local and social organisation. The impetus for this paper was provided by the Yulara case, a compensation claim over the township of Yulara near Uluru, in which the trial judge concluded that land tenure systems in the Western Desert are based on patrilineal principles. One of the significant factors in the Court's decision was an apparently uncritical acceptance of early anthropological models and data, which had reported supposedly patrilineal socio‐territorial organisation in the Western Desert. Researchers currently working in this region and Indigenous peoples themselves, however, reject this model. In this paper, we question the validity of some of the earlier investigations, and propose an alternative understanding of Western Desert territorial organisation based on data gathered from one of the Pitjantjatjara‐speaking people's neighbouring dialectal groups, which is also consistent with most of the other recent and extensive work done in this cultural bloc.     

In the shadow of industry: a study of culturization in Papua New Guinea

The activities of extractive industry have recently been framed by a language of corporate social responsibility that relies on a system of legibility and objectification. This process reifies ‘cultural units’, abstracting them from the rules of kinship, migration, and exchange that ensure social and economic security. I refer to this process and the ideology of ‘development’ that accompanies it as culturization and examine it in the context of oil extraction in Papua New Guinea's Kutubu region. Drawing on debates on the indigenization and politicization of ‘culture’, I present culturization as a process that relies on rules of inheritance and property to impose a structure of difference in contexts of extractive industry that ignores the intricacies of sociality that ultimately give life meaning. The aim of the paper is to both illustrate the consequences of this process and consider cognate ideas of ‘culture’ vis‐à‐vis ‘sociality’ to emphasize their mutual theoretical importance to contemporary anthropological inquiry.     

‘It was all about independence’: loss,division and rejuvenation amongst the East Timorese in Melbourne

In this article I explore some of the changes that have occurred in the East‐Timorese community in Melbourne following independence. The focus of the paper is on the process of identification and how there has been a move from a collective identity towards social identity. Through contemporary anthropological conceptualisations of (collective) identity and Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of habitus and social field, I explore how divergence in pre‐independence activism has led to parallel experiences of lost community and renewed feelings of belonging, and how the community is gradually moving from a focus on the homeland towards an emphasis on the community in exile.