Multiculturalism,Latin Americans and ‘Indigeneity’ in Australia

What are the relations between the discourse of ‘multiculturalism’ and that of ‘indigeneity’ in Australia? In problematising these relations this paper explores the affiliations that Latin American migrants and political refugees living in Adelaide have with the notion of indigeneity. For some Latin Americans affiliations with the struggle of Aboriginal people and indigeneity is a product of strong political identification with the political left and the struggle for human rights in their countries of origin. At the same time references to Latin Americans' indigeneity are often evoked within Australian multicultural settings and performances that promote ‘cultural diversity’ and are consumed by White Australians for their exotic otherness and as forms of cultural enrichment. Such representations work to marginalise further the migrants (and the ‘indigenous’) into a cultural sphere which marks them as the tolerated ethnic ‘Other’.     

British Serbs and long distance nationalism

This article explores long distance nationalism within the British Serbian community. Specifically, it focuses on the experience and identity of the children of the nationalist Serbs who fled Tito's Yugoslavia in 1945 and settled in Britain. The British Serbian community is a small one and the article does not make any great claims about its transnational political impact. But it does argue that the high level of national consciousness is best understood by reference to the term 'long distance nationalism'. The article looks at how a sense of being Serbian was acquired during childhood, a countervailing Yugoslav influence and the response to the nationalism and war of the last twelve years. The general finding is that a sense of the historic suffering but fortitude of the Serbs has given rise to strong support for the national cause. However, this response has been cut cross by a sense of loss of a society they had generally liked.     

Nationalism and the ‘idiocy’ of the countryside: The case of Serbia

The mobilization of the countryside has direct consequences for political discourse about national values and in times of social crisis, the ‘conservatism’ of the countryside has the potential to assume an aggressive, offensive posture. When rural mobilization is accompanied by religious revival, group loyalty and so‐called ‘traditional’ values are sacralized. When rural mobilization, ethnic mobilization, and religious revival occur simultaneously, it signifies that the society is undergoing profound destabilization. Examining the case of Serbia, this article argues that while Serbia is, in cultural and social terms, predominantly rural in character, Titoist Communism imposed the values of the city on that culture, while the 1987 coup by Slobodan Milosevic represented, among other things, the triumph of the countryside over the city in Serbia.

This article begins by characterizing the countryside in cultural terms, provides documentation of the importance of rural traditions in Serbian society, documents the rural character of the Serbian national movement, connecting its ideology and behaviour with populist appeals, and examines the contribution made by the Serbian Orthodox Church to the mobilization of the Serbian countryside.     

Fungibility: Florida Seminole Casino Dividends and the Fiscal Politics of Indigeneity

ABSTRACT   In this article, I examine Florida Seminoles' governmental distributions of tribal-gaming revenues that take the form of per capita dividends. Dividends reveal the political and cultural stakes of money's fungibility—its ability to substitute for itself. From tribal policy debates over children's dividends to the legitimization of political leadership through monetary redistribution, Seminoles selectively exploit the fungibility of money to break or make ties with one another and with non-Seminoles. They do so in ways that reinforce indigenous political authority and autonomy, and they thereby challenge structural expectations in U.S. public culture and policy that would oppose indigenous distinctiveness to the embrace of money. [Keywords: money, tribal gaming, American Indians, Florida Seminoles]     

Hope and Sorrow: Uncivil Religion,Tibetan Music Videos,and YouTube

Tibetan activists and their supporters are interpreting the lyrical and visual symbolism of contemporary Tibetan music videos from China as a call for Tibetans to return to a shared Tibetan identity, centered around religious piety and implied civil disobedience, in order to counter fears of cultural assimilation. As the popularity of some videos on social-networking sites dovetailed with the 2008 protests in Tibet, viewers employed a progressive hermeneutical strategy which demanded a sectarian political interpretation of the lyrics and imagery of the most popular videos out of Tibet. Within China, Tibetans have begun to add these videos to the growing canon of an emerging uncivil religion, which emphasizes Tibetan cultural, linguistic, and religious autonomy within China. Through comparing online and offline ethnography, this article explores the relationship between offline and online worlds and the connections between Tibetans in China and their supporters.     

Ethnic cohesion and division among American Jews: The role of mass‐level and organizational politics

Mass‐level and organizational politics contribute both to ethnic cohesion and division among American Jews. Political cohesion at the mass level, measured by location on the liberal side of the mass political structure, serves as a structural source of ethnic cohesion for many American Jews who are not characterized by alternative structural and cultural sources of ethnic cohesion, as measured by embeddedness in structural and cultural networks of interaction. However, political divisions among American jews converge with religious divisions and with variations in structural and cultural cohesion and assimilation; consequently, politics provides one of several reinforcing cleavages in the American Jewish community. Individual‐level data from the 1990 National Jewish Population Survey are used to support these claims. A strong linkage exists between patterns of ethnic cohesion and division and the role of politics at the mass and organizational levels. Jewish organizations involved in politics share consensus across a wide range of political issues, contributing to political cohesion. However, political conflicts emerge among organizations representing different Jewish denominations, leading again to reinforcing religious and political divisions. These claims are supported by data collected from the published reports of an umbrella agency which seeks to coordinate political positions among American Jewish organizations     

The Privatisation of Home and Hope: Return, Reforms and the Foreign Intervention in Bosnia-Herzegovina

Contextualising the foreign-imposed return policies in early post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina, this article argues that the return of the displaced – however important it was to many Bosnians – ultimately functioned as the self-perpetuating lynchpin of an externally generated framework for post-war reconstruction, often out of tune with the hopes of its intended beneficiaries. Rather than following conventional anthropological cultural relativist arguments, I propose a critique of the foreign intervention that places it in its social, political and economic context, drawing attention to patterns of longing and belonging in Bosnia-Herzegovina. I contrast the groundings and implications of intervention policies with the experiences and yearnings of displaced Bosnians and show that, while it was legitimised as the implementation of an ostensibly ideologically neutral human rights discourse, the foreign emphasis on property and safety rights over other concerns channelled the reconstruction of Bosnia-Herzegovina into a peculiar, normative trajectory of postsocialist neoliberalisation.     

Focus: Vaccines: Distorted Human Decision-Making as a Critical Aspect of Pandemic Planning and Preparedness

The United States continues to experience lower than expected vaccination rates against COVID-19 due to a variety of barriers such as lack of trust, lack of planning, cultural perspectives and issues, suboptimal communication, and political/economic conflicts of interest. In this paper issues of human behavior and decision-making are highlighted as integral to understanding the generally poor US response to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. In particular, the US pandemic response was significantly distorted through a combination of cultural and human behavior issues related to conflicting leadership, cultural individualism, the prevalent idea of the democratization of expertise, and a false epistemological lens for decision-making. Including experts from multiple disciplines reveals how to address the human behavioral side of pandemic planning and operations to increase vaccine coverage rates. Including content experts from psychology and the social sciences allows the explicit recognition and preparation for distorted human behavior in planning for future pandemic response.     

Exposing Silence as Cultural Censorship: A Brazilian Case

In this article I assert that in focusing on salient discourses, contested cultural domains, and public forms of conflict and power, cultural and linguistic anthropologists, and other social scientists, have overlooked the significance of communal forms of silence in shaping the social and political landscape. I argue that such customary silences constitute "cultural censorship," which, unlike state-sponsored censorship, is practiced in the absence of explicit coercion or enforcement. Although practiced by different and opposed groups, cultural censorship tends to be constituted through, and circumscribed by. the political interests of dominant groups. In this article, which is based on ethnographic research in Rio de Janeiro. I analyze a case of cultural censorship by examining the customary silence surrounding the subject of racism in Brazil. By emphasizing the phenomenology of cultural censorship among poor Brazilians of African descent. 1 argue that silence must not be conflated with, and does not preclude the existence of. non-hegemonic consciousness, [silence, cultural censorship, consciousness, Brazil, racism]     

Radical memories: an interview with John H. Moore and documents from a communist anthropologist’s past

Dialectical Anthropology - Though American anthropologists have long engaged in radical political activities, there remains a poorly documented history of American Marxist anthropologists’...     

Biocultural linkages--cultural consensus, cultural consonance, and human biological research

Cultural consensus analysis tests for shared models of behavior in various cultural dimensions. Cultural consonance is used to assess the degree to which individuals behave in a way that is consistent with these cultural models. Results are presented from two studies using cultural consensus and consonance analysis (CCCA) on health risk in an African American population and on diet in a mixed sample from West Alabama. In the African American case study, cultural consonance in lifestyle and social support are demonstrated to have a significant effect on blood pressure. In the diet study, significant differences in cultural consonance on the health dimension of diet between groups espousing different dietary preferences were demonstrated in spite of all groups sharing the same model of healthy foods. These studies are used to argue that more sophisticated measures of culture in human biological research are readily available and accessible for most studies.     

Identities in Context: Politicized Racial Group Consciousness Among Asian American and Latino Youth

This article examines the role of context on the mobilization of politicized racial group consciousness among Asian American and Latino youth. We investigate group membership by analyzing face-to-face interview data with Latino and Asian American youth in New York and California on their responses to questions about the meaning of their race and ethnicity to politics. Next, we use survey data from a nationally representative sample of Asian American and Latino youth taken during the 2004 election. We also analyze the extent to which the contextual circumstances of systematic exposure to an experimental frame prompting racial and ethnic group pride influence racial group consciousness. The data help to illuminate the extent to which racial and ethnic identities of Asian American and Latino youth are manifest in their unique political contexts.     

Geoelectromagnetic Field and Consciousness Quantum

A physically grounded model of a consciousness quantum associated with free radical spins biomembranes is proposed. In essence, is the consciousness quantum physically valid as a fundamental constant of 10⁴⁰ spins? According to our concept, consciousness quantum transduction is possible in a geoelectromagnetic field of 0.5 Oe by a 1.4 MHz electromagnetic wave under conditions of magnetic resonance. At the same time, the rationale presented requires further consideration.     

Voice pitch predicts electability,but does not signal leadership ability

Voice pitch, the perceived “highness” or “lowness” of a voice, influences how humans perceive and treat each other in various ways. One example is the selection of leaders. A growing number of studies, both experimental and observational, show that individuals with lower-pitched voices are more likely to win elected office. This leads to the yet untested question of whether individuals with lower voices are actually better leaders. That is, is voice pitch a reliable signal of leadership ability? Here we address this question with an observational study of the vocal pitch and leadership ability of elected officials, and an experiment where subjects were asked to respond to persuasive political policy statements made by speakers with different pitched voices. Both studies lead to the same conclusion: voice pitch does not correlate with leadership ability.     

Child Soldiers, International Humanitarian Law, and the Globalization of Childhood

This article reviews the development of the laws and treaties regulating the use of child soldiers and the political, social, and cultural context in which these developments are grounded. Humanitarian and human rights groups have undertaken a major initiative to end the use of young combatants. These efforts are part of a larger children's human rights project designed to create a universal definition of "childhood." Casting the proposed ban on child soldiers in the language of human rights deflects attention from the enormity of the social and cultural changes involved in the proposed transnational restructuring of age categories. Treaty-making efforts reflect an emerging "politics of age" that shapes the concept of "childhood" in international law, and in which different international, regional, and local actors make use of age categories to advance particular political and ideological positions.     

Commercial biotechnology in Hungary: beyond small potatoes

Despite a number of unfavourable conditions, Hungary is striving to develop its biotechnology industry. This article examines the cultural, infrastructural, scientific and economic factors that may influence this development. Recent changes in Hungary's political leadership may accelerate the development of the country's biotechnology industry.     

Unsettling Power: Domestic Violence,Gender Politics,and Struggles over Sovereignty in Ghana

This article provides a new lens for analyzing power formations in human rights practices by examining Ghanaian struggles over a Domestic Violence Bill. While the hegemonic character of human rights advocacy is well-established, we know less about exercises of power in discourses and practices that oppose rights. I analyze how the Ghanaian government constructed the discourse of cultural sovereignty and deployed it against women's rights. The government legitimated this discourse by appropriating the voice of ‘the people’ and superimposing notions of ‘foreignness’ onto both the Bill and Ghanaian women's rights activists. Drawing on the historiography of colonialism and ethnography of political performance, I argue that this case illustrates how the discourse of cultural sovereignty is mobilized in a struggle over shifting configurations of gender, political activism, and state sovereignty.     

Health status among prehistoric Eskimos from Point Hope,Alaska

Using the protocol outlined in The Backbone of History: Health and Nutrition in the Western Hemisphere (BBH) (Steckel and Rose. 2002a. The backbone of history: health and nutrition in the Western Hemisphere. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), this project compares the Mark I Health Index (MIHI) scores of the Ipiutak (n = 76; 100BCE–500CE) and Tigara (n = 298; 1200–1700CE), two samples of North American Arctic Eskimos excavated from Point Hope, Alaska. Macroscopic examination of skeletal remains for evidence of anemia, linear enamel hypoplasias (LEH), infection, trauma, dental health, and degenerative joint disease (DJD) was conducted to assess differences in health status resulting from a major economic shift at Point Hope. These data demonstrate that despite differences in settlement pattern, economic system, and dietary composition, the MIHI scores for the Ipiutak (82.1) and Tigara (84.6) are essentially equal. However, their component scores differ considerably. The Ipiutak component scores are suggestive of increased prevalence of chronic metabolic and biomechanical stresses, represented by high prevalence of nonspecific infection and high frequencies of DJD in the hip/knee, thoracic vertebrae, and wrists. The Tigara experienced more acute stress, evidenced by higher prevalence of LEH and trauma. Comparison of overall health index scores with those published in BBH shows the MIHI score for the Ipiutak and Tigara falling just above the average for sites in the Western Hemisphere, adding support to the argument that the human capacity for cultural amelioration of environmental hardships is quite significant. Am J Phys Anthropol, 2011. © 2011 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Body mass index in Serbian Roma

Stature and body mass were measured in 346 individuals belonging to three Roma groups from metropolitan Belgrade western Serbia. As with the majority of Serbian Roma, the participants in this study have been historically disadvantaged and their situation was further aggravated during the recent political crises. Surprisingly, the body mass index (BMI) of Serbian Roma is relatively high compared with western Europeans and is inconsistent with the view that Serbian Roma are predisposed to high rates of chronic energy deficiency (∼4%). While the majority of individual Roma display BMI values within the normal range (WHO, 1995), certain groups have a moderate to high proportion of individuals (∼35%) who could be classified as overweight and some who approach at-risk levels for clinical obesity.     

Human genetic technologies,European governance and the politics of bioethics

With human genetic technologies now an important area of European research and development, bioethics is becoming increasingly important in its regulation and future. As regulatory decisions are also statements about who should get what, bioethics cannot avoid political controversy. Can bioethics sustain its claimed role as authoritative adviser to decision makers, or will its attempts to reach a consensus on human genetic technologies be perceived as the actions of an ambitious interest group? What, in short, is its political future in Europe and elsewhere?