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Preface
In hindsight, 2005 looked like a harvesting year for the Department of Social
and Cultural Anthropology in terms of education and of research. Our first batch
of Bachelors graduated successfully, and in the first year that we ran our Masters
Program in Social and Cultural Anthropology, an unlikely 90% of the students
completed the one-year program within 12 months a year that includes
coursework, field research and thesis writing. We are proud of that feat, the more
so because an external evaluation committee (Visitatiecommissie) lauded the
quality of our program and of the theses that students produced in its verbal
feedback. With that tentative assessment, the Department is fully confident that
the future accreditation of its teaching programs will not be in doubt.
In terms of research output, 2005 seemed like a harvesting year as well. We had
an unusually number of more than 60 international refereed publications the
usual benchmark of academic achievement these days. This is more than ever
before, and will be hard to match in the future, for successes in the past are no
guarantee for the future. Not only the quantity and quality of scientific
publications increased, they also became increasingly guided by and
contributive of the Departments research program Constructing Human
Security in a Globalizing World. We organized a conference on the
anthropology of human security, we are working on publications, and our staff
members are invited to participate in human security projects around the world.
This is expected to lead to a growing number of publications around Human
Security.
Hopefully 2006 will be an even better harvesting year.
Oscar Salemink,
Head of Department
Contents
1. Introduction
12
3. Staff
3.1 Staff members
3.2 Individual research projects undertaken by staff in 2005
3.3 PhD candidates
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16
17
24
4. Educational activities
27
29
30
31
32
34
37
41
42
42
43
43
46
46
7.0 Epilogue
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49
58
63
65
66
67
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1
Every known form of energy is the expression of difference and not the result of levelling
Mihai Nadin
Introduction
Globalization means that people now share their dissimilarities. The year 2005
continued to bring to light the many contradictions that accompany the
intensified insertion of the world into the globalized arena. The world as a whole
is affected by such events as the G8 meeting at Gleneagles, the tsunami disaster,
the dramas taking place in the Republic of Congo, the severe hurricanes in the
Caribbean, increasing worldwide migration, and the laborious processes of
democracy construction in Iraq, Afghanistan and many other regions throughout
the world. For anthropologists, these are reasons for concern, intensified
research efforts or (preferably interdisciplinary) reflection on backgrounds,
vicissitudes and possible contributions to mitigating the humanitarian tragedy
that often accompanies such events.
Social and cultural anthropology might be one of the best equipped of the
social sciences to help us to understand peoples different, often contradictory
perceptions and evaluations of these events, their causes and perpetrators, the
values and strategies needed to find solutions and, of course, the cultural
embeddedness of all these viewpoints. These perceptions and evaluations often
are the decisive triggers for human actions and responses. In this light,
understanding these perceptions might be just as important as understanding the
facts. As the band Talking Heads put it: [F]acts are lazy and facts are late
().. facts are useless in emergencies.1 There is no doubt that we need to know
the facts. What is more important, however, is to know what people make of the
facts.
Research at the Social and Cultural Anthropology (SCA) Department of the
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam focuses on peoples attempts to cope with the
chances, risks, opportunities, dangers, options and uncertainties that accompany
globalization. But human security the core concept of our scholarly work is
not conceived of as a steadfast and perennial standard or unswerving inclination
of human endeavour, but as a dynamic, situationally embedded and culturally
saturated aspect of peoples agency. Understanding its logic might help us to
understand the key differences and similarities between people, and the
subsequent clashes and potential meeting grounds.
The year 2005 was a busy year. We had more PhD students in our midst
than ever before. The department welcomed three new ones. Regien Smit joined
us on 1 July and is now working on the comparison between two migrant
1
Talking Heads, in Cross-eyed and Painless, of the album Remain in Light, 1980.
Pentecostal churches in the Netherlands. She was followed two months later by
Hanneke Minkjan, who is working on the theme of neo-paganism and its
position in the Dutch religious field. Our third new PhD candidate Joo Rickli
came all the way from Brazil to join our ranks on 1 November. His theme is
the link between the Dutch and the Brazilian players in the activities of Kerk in
Actie (Church in Action). His project is financed by Brazil, but the SCA will
be his working location for the coming four years. Professor Andr Droogers is
supervising all three projects.
Demands regarding research output remained high in 2005. Fortunately,
the department once again substantially increased the number of peer-refereed
publications.
The department had to say goodbye to one of its most senior and most respected
staff members, Bernhard Venema, who retired after over 30 years at the
department. During the ceremony, his praises were sounded in various speeches
that highlighted both his scientific contributions and robustness, and his pleasant
collegiality.
In September, Andr Droogers stepped down from his position as Head of
Department. This senior, experienced and highly appreciated colleague will
remain with the department for another year. The position of Head of
Department was assumed by Oscar Salemink, who was appointed full professor
on 1 September. Since that date, the departments Management Team (MT) has
consisted of Oscar Salemink (Head of Department), Ina Keuper (Education
Coordinator) and Ton Salman (Research Coordinator, since 1 September).
Regrettably, we were not able to welcome back Donna Winslow. We hope
that she will fully recover from her illness and return to the department in 2006.
An important event was the departmental conference on Human Security (29-30
August 2005), at which various Dutch and international scholars commented on
the papers presented by members of our staff. The aim of the conference was to
reflect on and deepen our insights into the reach, limitations and polyphony of
the notion of human security, and to explore its potential as a meeting ground
concept for the multifarious research projects our department hosts. A more
detailed report is provided in section 2.
Unfortunately, the department was not able to welcome substantially more
new BSc students at the start of the academic year. Once again, the total
enrolment was less than 30 students. To improve our enrolment figures, the
department has established the LEF committee, which comprises Ellen Bal,
Lenie Brouwer and Freek Colombijn. A whole series of measures have been
suggested, ranging from offering a more differentiated Bachelors programme
with various minors, to making the departmental websites clearer and improving
their findability. Many of these measures are now being implemented.
The MSc programme is thriving. In the academic year 2004/2005, almost
90% of our students graduated. Virtually all of the students in the current batch
10
are now halfway through the programme. They are expected to do as well as, or
even better than, their predecessors.
All our staff members continued to set high standards for their courses and
supervision, resulting once again in student evaluation scores that are above the
facultys average.
Towards the end of the year, the departments education programme
received its five-yearly audit. Both the Bachelors and especially the Masters
programme were positively evaluated in the audits committees first
impression statement; the final report will be issued in the course of 2006.
However, the committee questioned the present structure under which both the
SCA and the COM department at our faculty offer their Bachelors programme
under the heading of anthropology. The future of this collaboration will be
thoroughly re-evaluated in the course of 2006.
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2
The SCA research programme:
Constructing Human Security in a Globalizing World (CONSEC)
Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing
Werner von Braun
The programme
The Constructing Human Security in a Globalizing World (CONSEC)
programme is based on the observation that in todays globalizing world and
kaleidoscoping societies, the circulation of people, goods, capital and
information across borders and boundaries is occurring at increasing speed. This
process of globalization is seen to undermine traditional forms of physical and
existential security, as experienced by many groups and communities around the
world, but it simultaneously multiplies the pools of resources and meaning from
which people can draw in their quest for such security. Although the scope of
anthropological research is often localized in nature, both the challenges to
human security and the repertoires of resources and meaning on which people
draw are increasingly transnational in nature. The aim of the research carried out
within the framework of this programme is to capture the paradoxes inherent in
this quest for human security in the context of and on the basis of fast-changing,
increasingly transnational repertoires of resources and meanings, by looking at
the localized quest for physical and existential security at the same time. The
central question of the research programme is: how do people construct and use
varying social and cultural repertoires in a globalizing world to create human
security, both physical and existential?
The programme emphasizes the multiple dimensions of physical and existential
security in their mutual entanglement. Physical security is associated with the
UN definition of human security as freedom from want and freedom from fear,
which entails aspects of economic, ecological, social and physical well-being.
These aspects are generally associated with the fields of development and
governance, which traditionally are the domain of social anthropology.
However, this research programme stretches the meaning of human security to
cover cultural, cognitive, emotional, religious and symbolic dimensions, which
here are subsumed under the concept of existential and are connected to
processes of signification. Existential security is the human attempt to make
sense of this world and of the human beings place in it, in relation to family,
community, society and the wider cosmos, through processes of signification in
connection with belief, trust, belonging, and mental and spiritual fulfilment.
12
In our exploration of the potential of the concept, our attempt to test its
possible usefulness in the various research projects taking place in the
department, and our effort to anthropologize the debate on human security
(HS), we continuously come across its contradictory manifestations. For
instance, it is a truism that in specific circumstances, some people are willing to
risk their own or others physical or economic security for religious or ethnic
reasons. These and similar paradoxical articulations of the quest for human
security confirm the fact that when cultural and religious dimensions are left out
of the equation, an HS analysis is bound to be incomplete, theoretically barren
and politically irrelevant.
However, while the material and existential dimensions of HS can
tentatively be distinguished, they also seem intertwined in complex and
sometimes unexpected ways. For instance, in cases where peoples security is
threatened because of their gender, people in the affected category are
sometimes willing to challenge traditional societal arrangements that condone
these threats. The males right to violence towards his family, for instance, is
often challenged by women. These arrangements, however, often also give
predictability to gendered roles, entitlements and obligations. Ironically, gender
certainty is then given up in order to obtain gendered security.
Likewise, where globalization and transnationalization seem to contribute
to widespread feelings of insecurity and uncertainty, opponents of these
developments sometimes paradoxically draw on precisely some of the new
resources provided by globalization processes to defend and revitalize traditions.
Here, some external (modern) influences are rejected and others are put to use.
Another example is that millions of migrants are prepared to leave behind
the steady but frugal security of a precarious livelihood and migrate to another
area or country, setting out on a highly risky quest to obtain a higher, albeit more
insecure income. The subsequent attempts among both migrants and host
communities to create cultural and group certainty along ethnic and/or religious
lines often, wryly enough, contribute to a sense of loss of peoples security.
This is not to say that all human endeavour can be interpreted in terms of a quest
for security. The antonym of security is not necessarily and exclusively
insecurity: it can be freedom or risk. As suggested by the classic social science
dispute between moral economists and rational choice theorists, people may also
want to avoid or escape forms of community and security that they experience
as stifling or oppressive. Much individual and group action can be interpreted as
conscious risk-taking rather than as a quest for security, as evidenced by many
contemporary forms of migration. It is this creative tension between security and
risk (or freedom) that the CONSEC programme attempts to explore
productively.
These examples serve to illustrate that diverse dimensions of human
security and insecurity are entangled in sometimes contradictory ways. They
13
also reveal that peoples attempts to achieve material, physical and existential
security either collectively or individually may clash, creating new arenas of
contestation in those sectors that combine material interests with cultural
content, such as in the new (often transnational) media. Therefore, in our
department we tentatively define HS not as a field of inquiry, but as a
multidimensional and dynamic conceptual lens that allows us to link these
various dimensions superficially classified as physical and existential security
with one another in order to achieve a richer, more complex and more
compelling analysis.
In the research programme, then, we both explore the usefulness of HS for
opening new vistas in the respective participants research fields, and
continuously question and revise the concept. Such ongoing revisions and
contextualizations are indispensable if we want to move beyond detecting
factual degrees of risks and dangers, to include, as a crucial dimension, different
agents perceptions thereof. These perceptions, more than the quantifiable risk
calculations, are the stuff peoples agency is made of.
The 2005 conference
To deepen our insights into the potentials and limitations of the concept of HS,
the department organized an internal conference (29-30 August 2005). All staff
members were asked to present a paper at the conference relating their current
research project to HS. Dutch and international discussants were invited to
comment on our presentations.
One of the things we did during the conference was explore the strategies
of religions in the Netherlands, in the context of searches for certainties to
overcome disembedded identities and dislocated authority. We also found out
that although community is in many cases one of the vehicles of peoples
search for security in an increasingly porous world, these communities (of
ethnic, religious, regional or other character) trigger just as many insecurities.
They may arouse hostility in the surrounding society, they may be settings in
which security plays a zero sum game with the different individuals lot, and
communities quests to assure their futures may well suffer from sudden plot
twists when unintended consequences emerge. Additionally, an individuals
willingness to try his or her luck outside the community may either foster or
jeopardize (or both) that persons prospects of achieving security.
Finally, to reiterate, we found out that anthropologists try to do two things
at the same time: to explore the usefulness of HS for opening new vistas in their
own research field, and to contribute to the revision of the concept. Focusing on
and registering quantifiable degrees of risks and dangers is only half the job. We
first and foremost need to focus on different agents perceptions of security and
insecurity. HS always needs to be radically contextualized if it is to be of any
value to anthropological searches for its contents.
14
With such and similar insights, the department will continue to delve into
the concept of HS. In the meantime, the contributions to the conference are in
the process of being reworked to meet the prerequisites for publication in peerrefereed forums.
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3
Staff
3.1 Department staff
Abbink, Prof. Jan
Bal, Dr Ellen
Bartels, Dr Edien
Brouwer, Dr Lenie
Bscher, drs. Bram
Cil, drs. Aysegul (until 15/12/05)
Colombijn, Dr Freek
Droogers, Prof. Andr
Evers, Dr Sandra
Grassiani, drs. Erella
Griffioen, Prof. Sander
Harskamp, Prof. Anton van
Hummel, drs. Rhea
Kamp, drs. Linda van de
Keuper, drs. Ina
Klaver, drs. Miranda
Knibbe, drs. Kim (until 1/3/05)
Kooiman, Dr Dick
Minkjan. drs. Hanneke (since 1/9/05)
Nguyen, Mr. Tuan Ahn
Noguchi, Mr. Ikuya
Rickli, Joo (since 1/11/05)
Roeland, drs. Johan
Salemink, Prof. Dr Oscar
Salman, Dr Ton
Salverda, drs. Tijo
Schwerzl, drs. Jeffrey
Smit, drs. Regien (since 1/7/05)
Stokhof, drs. Malte
Sutherland, Prof. Heather
Theije, Dr Marjo de
Uyl, Dr Marion den
Venema, Dr Ir. Bernhard (until 1/12/05)
Versteeg, Dr Peter
Winslow, Prof. Donna (absent on sick leave throughout 2005)
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expressions of identity can be seen on Moroccan websites set up by secondgeneration migrants, as well as in the way migrant youth appropriates
technology in computer centres in multi-ethnic urban areas, by for example
composing rap songs on a computer. The project includes online and offline
research.
Colombijn, Freek
Project title: The politics of housing in Indonesian cities during the long
decolonization (1930-1960).
This research project deals with the social effects of decolonization in Indonesia.
The main focus is on housing in a number of cities, because shelter is a basic need,
as has been underscored at two UN Habitat Conferences. Adequate housing, or
shelter, gives people a degree of physical security; however, the feeling of being
secure is just as important. The existential importance of housing is expressed in
such sayings as Home is where the heart is and An Englishmans home is his
castle. On the ground, feelings of security and insecurity become visible in ethnic
residential segregation, gated communities and symbolic markers of territory. The
changes in housing shed light on the social dynamics, namely processes of
ethnicity and class formation, and the emergence of the state bureaucracy and the
army as interest groups.
Droogers, Andr
Droogers spends most of his research time coordinating two research
programmes: Between Secularization and Religionization and Conversion
Careers and Culture Politics in Pentecostalism: a Comparative Study in Four
Continents.
The first is a four-year programme comprising five projects (both PhD and
postdoc), in which qualitative methods are used to study changes in world-views
in the Netherlands. The programme is intended to complement quantitative
studies that have been done by sociologists and government offices. It is fully
financed by the Vrije Universiteit. This programme has advanced to the stage
where reports are being written or have already been published. One new project
was started in 2005.
The second programme is connected to the Hollenweger Center for the
Interdisciplinary Study of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, of which
Andr Droogers is director. The Center is a joint venture of the faculties of
Theology and Social Sciences. It is part of the European Research Network on
Global Pentecostalism (GloPent), together with the universities of Birmingham
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and Heidelberg. The programme comprises four PhD projects and one postdoc
project. The five case studies concern Nicaragua, Mozambique, Korea/Japan and
the Netherlands (two studies). Two of the projects are financed by the VU, the
other three by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). The
programme started in November 2003 and will finish in 2010.
Additionally, research on such themes as Pentecostalism, globalization,
syncretism, ritual, play, and religion and power is ongoing.
Evers, Sandra
Project titles: Cognition and Memory in Post-Slavery Societies of the Southwest Indian Ocean and Poverty and Natural Resource Management in
Madagascar.
When human security is viewed as an analytic concept containing both material
components (e.g. food security or economic security) and existential
components (e.g. social integration, the sense of belonging or freedom of
expression), one better understands the utility of the concept as a tool to
comprehend human relations and their ontology.
The research addresses post-slavery societies in the southwest Indian Ocean. In
Madagascar, for example, people of slave descent still have trouble dealing with
their memory of slavery. Their past constitutes a threat to their view of
themselves as worthy members of society, and this hinders their economic and
social integration into society. They are deprived of land ownership. They
consequently have no right to build tombs and thus no avenue to the hereafter
and no claim to status or recognition in society. They refer to themselves as the
olona very (lost people). Others suspect them of originating from slaves, as
slaves were not allowed to build tombs.
Griffioen, Sander
Project title: Tradition and Uncertainty.
In his Moed tot cultuur (Amsterdam, 2003), Sander Griffioen approached
culture as a path, a road to be travelled, rather than an entity, thus focusing on
the cultural rather than culture. This shift has important implications for the
notion of tradition. Whereas tradition in the social sciences is mostly
understood as a house and a haven, the emphasis is now placed on being
underway, implying both leaving home and anticipating arrival at a destination.
However, the possibility of non-arrival can never be discarded. Thus, such
notions as hope and fulfilment come into play, as do desolation and
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Meijer, Birgit
Project title: Modern Mass Media, Religion and the Imagination of
Communities.
This is a NWO/PIONEER research programme at ASSR/UvA. In 2005, Birgit
Meijer had only a 0.1 FTE appointment at SCA. As from September 2006, she
will be working full time.
This multidisciplinary research programme addresses the role of electronic mass
media in the shift from the nation-state as the privileged space for the
imagination of community to the articulation of alternative, religious
imaginations. Special emphasis is put on the question how the rise of religious
organizations and their outspoken manifestation in the public sphere are related
to the legitimacy crisis of the post-colonial state and the increasing global
accessibility of electronic mass media at the dawn of the information age.
Salemink, Oscar
Project title: Human security and religious certainty in Southeast Asia.
Southeast Asia is undergoing rapid economic growth, and is also extremely rich
in religious repertoires. Throughout the region there is a proliferation of novel
forms of devotion linked to movements of religious change that might evolve
towards religious purity or towards syncretistic recombinations and bricolage. In
a glocalizing and eclectic religious market, these religious transformations draw
from both local and transnational religious and ritual repertoires to imagine
and/or enact alternative modernities in line with globalizing lifestyles. The
region offers a plethora of religious networks and movements that cross national
borders and religious and ethnic boundaries, and that are characterized by a
renewed emphasis on ritual, using both old and new forms and pervading other
fields (e.g. state ritual). By looking at ways in which boundaries are
symbolically and ritually constructed and/or transgressed / transcended, this
research project seeks to establish how religious leaders and their followers use
a variety of religious and ritual repertoires to construct religious certainty and
human security often through religious purity or syncretistic recombination
against the backdrop of increased individual choice, flux and national and
transnational reconfigurations.
Salman, Ton
Project title: Citizenship in Latin America.
The research addresses the question how people, particularly poor people, in
Latin America perceive their rights, and how they approach the institutions that
22
are supposed to deliver these rights, taking into account the varying political
cultures and states attitudes with regard to these civil, political and social (and
ethnic/collective) rights. The central issues are such dimensions as the
internalizations of existing deficiencies in the warranting/realizing of rights,
and learning processes in the present era of demands for deepening democracy
accompanied by struggles over the meaning of rights and citizenship
triggered by the neo-liberal onslaught.
Theije, Marjo de
Project title: Little Belem in Paramaribo.
In the past few years, a large number of Brazilians have migrated to Suriname.
According to journalistic sources, as many as 40,000 Brazilians have found a
home in Suriname since 1995, many of them as gold prospectors in the woods,
but increasingly also in Paramaribo, where a neighbourhood is called after one
of the hometowns of these new migrants, namely Belem, the capital of the state
of Par (northern Brazil).
Little is known about the backgrounds of the Brazilians migrants, their reasons
for migrating or the manner in which they acquired the connecting links with
Suriname. It is not yet clear to what degree they preserve links with Brazil,
perhaps in a constant process of coming and going, maintaining dominant
sociocultural end economic ties and thus engaging in a transnational network.
The research deals with these questions, connecting them with the issue of
community construction once they have been uprooted.
Uyl, Marion den
Project title: Urban Renewal and identities.
This project is taking place in the Bijlmer, a multicultural neighbourhood in
Amsterdam. The research is focused on urban renewal and on the identity
formation of migrant girls and mothers, in the context of the availability of
different, sometimes contrasting cultural messages.
Versteeg, Peter
Project title: Changing ritual praxis: A comparative research of two Protestant
churches in Houten, the Netherlands.
In this research, two Dutch Protestant churches are compared by looking at their
changing ritual praxis in relation to processes of secularization and
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As mentioned in the introduction, three new PhDs Joo Rickli, Regien Smit
and Hanneke Minkjan joined the department in 2005. Joo is studying the
relation between the Dutch and the Brazilian partners in the Kerk in Aktie
development cooperation; Regien is focusing on Een vergelijkende studie van
twee migranten-Pinksterkerken in Nederland; and Hanneke will dedicate her
time to the project Religieuze producenten en consumenten op de neopaganistische markt: een antropologisch onderzoek naar individuele religiositeit
in Nederland.
The six PhDs who started in 2004 (namely Linda van de Kamp, Miranda Klaver,
Nguyen Tuan Anh, Ikuya Noguchi, Inge Ruigrok and Tijo Salverda) made
substantial progress in 2005. Their projects are:
Linda: Brazilian Pentecostalism in Mozambique: exploring the transnational
dimensions of Pentecostal conversion in Maputo.
Miranda: Conversion and commitment in the Netherlands: a seeker church and
a charismatic church compared.
Nguyen Tuan Anh: The role of kinship in village community a case study in
Quynh doi village, Quynh luu district, Nghe an province, Vietnam.
Ikuya: The Culture Politics of Pentecostalism in East Asia: A Comparative
Study of the Yoido Full Gospel Church in Korea and Japan.
Inge: Negotiating governance: politics, decentralization and cultural ideology in
post-war Angola.
Tijo: Transnational networks linking Mauritius, South Africa and France: an
anthropological study of Franco-Mauritian trading networks.
Alex Claver (externally financed) has finished his thesis (supervisor: Prof.
Sutherland) and will graduate in 2006. The same goes for Agustus Suypriyono.
Supervisor: Prof. Sutherland.
In 2005, we had 20 PhDs working at SCA. The eight not previously mentioned
are: Erella Grassiani, Jeffrey Schwerzel, Kim Knibbe, Aysegl Cil, Rhea
Hummel, Johan Roeland, Bram Bscher and Malte Stokhof. Their projects are:
Erella: Reasoning on Moral Issues in Non-conventional Conflict: Israeli
Soldiers Views on Moral Dilemmas.
Jeffrey: NATO security culture: an anthropological analysis of institutional
(dis)trust
Kim: Changing religious repertoires and moral practices in the southern part of
Limburg, the Netherlands.
Aysegl: Entitlements, Conflicts and Negotiated Co-management: Urban
Development and Sustainable Resource Management in the Coastal Region of
the Bodrum Peninsula, Turkey.
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4
Educational activities
The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem
those who think alike than those who think differently
Nietzsche
SCA offers both a Bachelors (BSc) and a Masters (MSc) programme in social
and cultural anthropology. The Bachelors programme offers a broad
introduction to the field, emphasizing the interconnections between cultural
dimensions (existential, symbolic, meaning-focused) and social dimensions
(social and economic relations, stratifications and transformations, policies and
politics). Students learn to apply their awareness of social and cultural
differences and varieties in current societal and global problematiques. This
provides them with the knowledge, skills and attitudes that are crucial in
contemporary societies, and prepares them for the departments Masters
programme.
The Bachelors programme provides introductions to the social sciences
in general, methodological courses, global history, and writing and presentation
skills. Additionally, courses are offered on development questions, political
anthropology, ethnicity and identity, symbols and rituals, history and theories of
anthropology, gender and sexuality, and ICT. Finally, various research training
courses are provided.
In 2005, some courses such as the massively attended general
introduction to anthropology were evaluated as satisfactory, while most
received a good or very good, and some received an excellent
(Bachelorwerkgroep SCA, Mondiale geschiedenis).
In total, 12 students were awarded their BSc in 2005.
In the English-language Masters programme in Social and Cultural
Anthropology, the quest for human security our main research topic takes
central stage. As in the Bachelors, the intertwinedness of social and cultural
dimensions plays an important role. Thus, as in the departmental research, both
physical and existential dimensions are included. Physical security concerns
aspects of economic, ecological, social and physical well-being, which are
generally associated with the fields of development, livelihood and governance
the traditional domain of social anthropology.
Here, the cultural, cognitive, emotional, religious and symbolic
dimensions of HS are subsumed under the concept of existential security. They
refer to processes of signification, which are traditionally the realm of cultural
anthropology.
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5
Publications by staff and PhD candidates
Beware the man of one book
St Thomas Aquinas
Publish or perish is the jingle of current academic life. The SCA department
takes a critical stand towards the often monomaniac, quantity-obsessed and
English-language-biased criteria for measuring peoples success as a researcher.
Often, in such cases, the results of research are reduced to statistics. In particular
towards anthropology, exclusively quantity-focused criteria are often
inequitable; they misjudge the desire of and need for anthropologists to be in
dialogue with their field, and to publish in non-English, often local languages.
They also misapprehend the particular value and importance of monographs and
thematic edited volumes. They misjudge the importance of peer review or
perhaps have forgotten about its literal meaning: to be read, evaluated and
responded to by local colleagues and scholars, and if possible by the
communities one studies. These are the people that, besides the Anglo-Saxon
scholars peer group, should be enabled to judge ones contributions. This is
even more pressing in cases where current events are still evolving and
controversies are strong.
But there is no use in engaging in quixotic battles: apart from seeking exchange
with our local research domains and looking for alternative ways to disseminate
our research outcomes and ensuring that they have an impact, we also publish in
international, often English peer-reviewed journals and with international
publishers, and in almost all cases meet the publication criteria we look upon so
critically. But lets remember Erasmuss wise (and fool-ish!) words in his
unsurpassed Praise of Folly:
Come now then as many of you as challenge the respect of being
accounted wise, ingenuously confess how many insurrections of rebellious
thoughts, and pangs of a labouring mind, ye are perpetually thrown and
tortured with; reckon up all those inconveniences that you are
unavoidably subject to, and then tell me whether fools, by being exempted
from all these embroilments, are not infinitely more free and happy than
yourselves?
Below is a list of the publications by the SCA staff members and PhD
candidates. The titles are divided into refereed and non-refereed books/edited
books, refereed and non-refereed articles, refereed and non-refereed book
29
30
31
32
33
34
Miranda Klaver
Netwerken die de kerk veranderen, in: IDEA (Nederlandse Evangelische
Alliantie), 26(3) pp. 3-5.
Dick Kooiman
Werkelijkheid en Verbeelding in David Copperfield, in: The Dutch Dickensian
25(52) pp. 17-22.
Martijn de Koning
De Hirsi Ali Diss nader belicht, in: ZemZem 1(1), pp. 36-41.
Martijn de Koning (with Edien Bartels)
Voor Allah en mijzelf Jonge Marokkanen op zoek naar de 'echte' islam, in: S &
D. Maandblad van de Wiardi Beckman Stichting, wetenschappelijk bureau van
de Partij van de Arbeid 62(1-2) pp. 19-27.
Birgit Meyer (with Ria Reis)
Interview with M. Schoffeleers: Anthropologist and Priest, in: Etnofoor 19(2).
Johan Roeland
Het zelf in christelijke religiositeit. Discoursen van het zelf in hedendaagse
vormen van religiositeit, in: In de Marge 14(1) pp. 22-30.
Johan Roeland
You are the song inside my heart. Over reli-pop en christelijke kunst, in: In de
Marge 14(4) pp. 22-32.
Inge Ruigrok
Angola werkt met Chinees geld aan herstel, in: Dagblad Trouw 2005 (15 Nov.).
Inge Ruigrok
MPLA houdt stevige grip op Angolees vredesproces, in: Dagblad Trouw 2005
(11 Nov.).
Inge Ruigrok
Soaps bevorderen verzoening in Angola, in: De Kracht van Cultuur
(http://www.krachtvancultuur.nl) 2005 (Nov.) pp. 2.
Inge Ruigrok
Wapens nog wijdverspreid onder Angolese bevolking, in: Internationale
Samenwerking 10 2005 (Dec.).
35
Jeffrey Schwerzel
Transforming Attitudes, in: NATO Review, at
http://www.nato.int/docu/review/2005/issue2/english/art3.html 2005(2) pp. Web
publication, pp. 3.
Jeffrey Schwerzel
Transforming Attitudes, in: NATO Special issue: Examining NATO's
Transformation, at:
http://www.nato.int/docu/review/2005/issue2/english/art3.html 2005 (spring) pp.
45-47.
Jeffrey Schwerzel (with Shanti Tuinstra)
De Vrome Moslima als Gesluierde Heldin, in: Begrip Moslims Christenen 31(1)
pp. 23-32.
Jeffrey Schwerzel
The Aftermath of the Van Gogh Assassination, in: International Policy Institute
for Counter Terrorism website, at
www.ict.org.il/articles/articledet.cfm?articleid=533 2005. Web publication, pp. 5.
Jeffrey Schwerzel
London Bombings: In Search of Answers, in: Centre for Defense Information
website, at
www.cdi.org/friendlyversion/printversion.cfm?documentID=3056 2005, Web
publication, pp. 4.
Marjo de Theije
A Caminhada do Louvor: como carismticos e grupos catlicos da base vem se
relacionando na prtica, in: Religio e Sociedade 24(2) pp. 37-45.
Marion den Uyl (with Ina Keuper)
Whatever happened to patriarchy? Gesprek met Sherry Ortner, in: Lova.
Tijdschrift voor Feministische Antropologie 26(1) pp. 86-94.
Peter Versteeg (with Paul N. van der Laan)
Bibliography Walter J. Hollenweger, in: PentecoStudies 4(1) pp. 1-47.
Peter Versteeg
Op zoek naar christelijke spiritualiteit, in: Kennislink.nl - Vakpagina
Maatschappijwetenschappen, at http://www.kennislink.nl/web/show?
id=138181&vensterid=811&cat=60360 2005, pp. 5.
5.5 Book contributions, refereed
36
Jan Abbink
Local leadership and state governance in southern Ethiopia: from charisma to
bureaucracy, in: O. Vaughan (ed.): Tradition and Politics: Indigenous Political Structures
in Africa, Trenton, NJ:
Africa World Press, pp. 159-184.
Jan Abbink
Ethiopia, in: A. Mehler, H. Melber & K. van Walraven (eds.): Africa Yearbook.
Politics, Economy and Society South of the Sahara, Leiden Boston: Brill
Academic Publishers, pp. 287-299.
Jan Abbink
Of snakes and cattle: the dialectics of group esteem between Suri and Dizi in
Southwest Ethiopia, in: I. Strecker & J. Weinerth (eds): Ethiopian Images of
Self and Other. Essays on Cultural Contact, Respect and Self-esteem in Southern
Ethiopia, Mnster Hamburg Berlin Vienna London: Lit Verlag, pp. 158177.
Jan Abbink
Tigre, in: C. Skutsch (ed.): Encyclopedia of the Worlds Minorities, vol.3,
London New York: Routledge, pp. 1200-1202.
Jan Abbink
Somali, in: C. Skutsch (ed.): Encyclopedia of the Worlds Minorities, vol. 3,
London New York: Routledge, pp. 1125-1127.
Jan Abbink
Ethiopia, in: C. Skutsch (ed.): Encyclopedia of the Worlds Minorities, vol. 1,
London New York: Routledge, pp. 438-440.
Jan Abbink
Eritrea, in: C. Skutsch (ed.): Encyclopedia of the Worlds Minorities, vol. 1,
London New York: Routledge, pp. 434-436.
Jan Abbink
Djibouti, in: C. Skutsch (ed.): Encyclopedia of the Worlds Minorities, vol. 1,
London New York: Routledge, pp. 401-402.
Jan Abbink
Congo Republic, in C. Skutsch (ed.): Encyclopedia of the Worlds Minorities,
vol. 1, London New York: Routledge, pp. 328-330.
Jan Abbink
37
Enjoying an Emerging Alternative World: Ritual in Its Own Ludic Right, in:
Don Handelman and Galina Lindquist (eds.): Ritual in Its Own Right: Exploring
the Dynamics of
Transformation, Berghahn Books: New York and Oxford, pp. 138-154.
Thomas Hylland Eriksen
Economies of ethnicity, in: James Carrier (ed.): A Handbook of Economic
Anthropology, Edward Elgar: Cheltenham, pp. 353-369.
Thomas Hylland Eriksen
How can the global be local?, in: Thomas Tufte and Oscar Hemer (eds.):
Media & Glocal Change: Rethinking Communication for Development,
CLACSO + Nordicom: Buenos Aires, pp. 25-40.
Sandra Evers (with Marja Spierenburg and Harry Wels)
Introduction Competing Jurisdictions: Settling Land Claims in Africa, including
Madagascar, in: S. Evers, M. Spierenburg & H. Wels (eds.): Competing
Jurisdictions: Settling Land Claims in Africa, Leiden: Brill, pp. 1-19.
Sandra Evers
Trumping the ancestors: the challenges of implementing a land registration
system in Madagascar, in: Sandra J.T.M. Evers, M.J. Spierenburg, H. Wels
(eds.): Competing Jurisdictions: Settling Land Claims in Africa, Leiden: Brill
Academic Publishers, pp. 223-242.
Sander Griffioen
Multiple Religious Participation as Ideology and Fact. Exploring the Eastern
Mind, in: Alexei Chernyakov (ed.): Science and Faith, Science and Faith, St
Petersburg School of Religion and Philosophy: St. Petersburg, pp. 192-198.
Sander Griffioen
Homo culturalis. Waarom wij cultuur hebben, in: G.J. Buijs, P. Blokhuis, S.
Griffioen, R. Kuiper: Homo respondens. Verkenningen rond het mens-zijn,
Buijten en Schipperheijn: Amsterdam, pp. 84-91.
Sander Griffioen
Hegel, Hegelianisme, Linkshegelianen, in: G. Harinck (ed.): Christelijke
Encyclopedie, Kok: Kampen, pp. 748-750, 1118-1120.
39
Birgit Meyer
Mediating Tradition: Pentecostal Pastors, African Priests, and Chiefs in
Ghanaian Popular Films, in: Toyin Falola (ed.): Christianity and Social Change
in Africa. Essays in Honor of J.D.Y. Peel, Carolina University Press: Durham
NC, pp. 275-306.
Philip Quarles van Ufford (with Rob D. van den Berg)
Disjuncture and Marginality; towards a New Approach to
Development Practice, in: David Mosse and David Lewis (eds.)
The Aid Effect; Giving and Governing in International
Development, Pluto: London, Ann Arbor, pp. 196-213.
Oscar Salemink
Vietnam, in: Carl O. Skutsch (ed.): Encyclopedia of the Worlds Minorities vol.
3, Routledge: New York London, pp. 1293-1295.
Ton Salman
Grassroots Activism, in: Tim Forsyth (ed.) Encyclopedia of International
Development, Routledge: London, New York, pp. 295-296.
Ton Salman
Citizenship between Polymorphy and Universality: the Globalocal Features of a
Phenomenon in Turmoil, in: Willem Assies, Marco Caldern & Ton Salman
(eds): Citizenship, Political Culture and State Transformation in Latin America,
Dutch University Press / El Colegio de Michoacn: Amsterdam / Zamora,
Michoacn, Mexico, pp. 79-91.
Ton Salman (with Willem Assies & Marco Caldern)
Citizenship, Political Culture and State Transformation in Latin America, in:
Willem Assies, Marco Caldern & Ton Salman (eds): Citizenship, Political
Culture and State Transformation in Latin America, Dutch University Press / El
Colegio de Michoacn: Amsterdam / Zamora, Michoacn, Mexico, pp. 3-26.
Heather Sutherland
Trade, court and company: Makassar in the later seventeenth and early
eighteenth centuries, in: E. Locher-Scholten and P. Rietbergen (eds): Hof en
Handel: Aziatische vorsten en de VOC 1620-1720, KITLV Press: Leiden, pp. 85112.
Marion den Uyl
Dowry in India: Respected Tradition and Modern Monstrosity, in: Tine Davids
and Francien van Driel (eds): The Gender Question in Globalization. Changing
Perspectives and Practices, Ashgate: Williston VT, USA, pp. 143-159.
40
Bernhard Venema
State formation, access to the commons and autochthony among the Berbers of
the Middle Atlas, Morocco, in: S. Evers, M. Spierenburg and H. Wels (eds):
Competing Jurisdictions. Settling land claims in Africa, Brill: Leiden, pp. 181201.
Donna Winslow
Strange Bedfellows in Humanitarian Crises: NGOs and the Military, in:
Natalie Mychajlyszyn and Timothy M. Shaw (eds.): Twisting arms and flexing
muscles : humanitarian intervention and peacebuilding in perspective, Ashgate:
Aldershot [etc.], pp. 113-129.
5.6 Book contributions, non-refereed
Jan Abbink
Transformaties van staat en geweld in Afrika: de teloorgang van de
postkoloniale orde, in: T. Zwaan (ed.): Politiek en Geweld. Etnisch Conflict,
Oorlog en Genocide in de 20e Eeuw, De Walburg Pers en Nederlands Instituut
Oorlogsdocumentatie: Zutphen Amsterdam, pp. 161-180.
Edien Bartels
Ritueel en religieuze beleving, in: Dick Douwes, Martijn de Koning, Welmoet
Boender (eds.): Nederlandse moslims. Van migrant tot burger, Amsterdam
University Press Salom: Amsterdam, pp. 55-69.
Freek Colombijn
A cultural practice of violence in Indonesia: Lessons from history, in: Dewi
Fortuna Anwar, Hlne Bouvier, Glenn Smith, Roger Tol (eds.) Violent internal
conflicts in Asia Pacific: Histories, political economies and policies, Yayasan
Obor Indonesia, LIPI, LASEMA-CNRS, KITLV Jakarta: Jakarta, pp. 245-268.
Freek Colombijn
Budaya praktik kekerasan di Indonesia: Pelajaran dari sejarah, in: Dewi
Fortuna Anwar, Hlne Bouvier, Glenn Smith, Roger Tol (eds.): Konflik
kekerasan internal: Tinjauan sejarah, ekonomi-politik, dan kebijakan di Asia
Pasifik, Yayasan Obor Indonesia, LIPI, LASEMA-CNRS, KITLV Jakarta:
Jakarta, pp. 281-308.
Andr Droogers
Knowledge of Religion and Religious Knowledge: The Cultural Anthropology
of Religion and a Religious Anthropology, in: John H. Kok (ed.): Ways of
Knowing in Concert, Dordt College Press: Sioux Center, Iowa, pp. 203-226.
41
Sander Griffioen
Recht in overvloed. Gerechtigheid en professionaliteit in de ontmoeting tussen
arm en rijk, in: Gerard Verbeek (Series editors S. Griffioen, B. Goudzwaard,
G.J. Buijs): Voorwoord, Best: Damon, pp. 5-6.
Anton van Harskamp
Simply Astounding: Ongoing Secularization in the Netherlands, in: Sengers,
Erik (ed.): The Dutch and Their Gods: Secularization and Transformation of
Religion in the Netherlands Since 1950, Verloren: Hilversum, pp. 43-57.
5.7 Dissertations
Valli Kanapathipillai graduated on 7 October. Her dissertation was Repatriation
or Deportation? Nation Building, Citizenship and the Indian Tamil Estate
Workers in Sri Lanka after Independence (pp. 243). She started the project with
the late Prof. Peter Kloos as supervisor. Prof. Joke Schrijvers became her
supervisor after the death of Prof. Kloos. Co-supervisor: Dr Dick Kooiman.
5.8 Internal and external Reports
Edien Bartels
Onderzoeksnotitie over migrantenvrouwen en kinderen die gedwongen zijn
achtergelaten in landen van herkomst, Den Haag, Adviescommissie
Vreemdelingenzaken, pp. 78.
Edien Bartels (with Martijn de Koning)
Over het huwelijk gesproken. Partnerkeuze en gedwongen huwelijken onder
Marokkaanse, Turkse en Hindostaanse Nederlanders, Den Haag,
Adviescommissie Vreemdelingenzaken, pp. 58.
Bram Bscher (with D. Atkinson)
Emergent Farmers, Local Knowledge and the Implication for Land Reform: A
Profile of Commonage Users in Philippolis, Free State, Free State, South Africa:
Karoo Institute, Philippolis, pp. 59.
Martijn de Koning (with Edien Bartels)
Over het huwelijk gesproken. Partnerkeuze en gedwongen huwelijken onder
Marokkaanse, Turkse en Hindostaanse Nederlanders, Den Haag,
Adviescommissie Vreemdelingenzaken, pp. 58.
42
44
Oscar Salemink
Localizing globalization? Review of Globalization in Southeast Asia: Local,
national and transnational perspectives, Shinji Yamashita and J.S. Eades (eds.),
in: Focaal 45: 176-178.
Heather Sutherland
Review of Howard Dick, Vincent J.H. Houben, J. Thomas Lindblad and Thee
Kian Wie (eds.) The Emergence of a National Economy: An economic history
of Indonesia, 1800-2000, KITLV Press: Leiden, 2002, in: Bijdragen tot de
Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 16(1/2), pp. 389-391.
Heather Sutherland
Review of Roderich Ptaks China, the Portuguese and the Nanyang: Oceans and
routes, regions and trade (c.1000-1600), Ashgate/Variorum: Aldershot, 2004, in:
Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 16(1/2), pp. 392-393.
Peter Versteeg
Review for the Journal of Contemporary Religion (20(1), pp. 124-125) of
Anderson, Allan (2004) An Introduction to Pentecostalism: Global Charismatic
Christianity, Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press.
45
6
Other research-related activities
According to the latest official figures, 43% of all statistics are totally worthless
Ashleigh Brilliant
Being a valuable and good researcher depends not only on ones publications
(whether or not refereed): ones professional performance also comprises being
involved in and committed to the communities that one researches or the peer
group to which one relates in writing and analysis. This involvement and
commitment comprehends such activities as organizing or attending (also local)
conferences, presenting papers, being involved in PhD thesis committees and
PhD projects, media coverage, etc. The following is a selection of these and
similar activities performed by our staff and PhD candidates. However, we
should bear in mind that:
It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what
they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always
assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had
achieved so much the wheel, New York, wars and so on whilst all
the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a
good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they
were far more intelligent than man for precisely the same reasons.
(Douglas Adams: The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy)
6.1
One of the activities performed by the SCA staff in order to foster research is the
organization or co-organization of national and international congresses,
conferences, seminars and workshops, both within and outside our faculty and
our department. In 2005, various staff members were involved in such activities.
The following is an overview.
Jan Abbink was the chief organizer and panel convener of the second biannual
Conference of the NVAS (Netherlands Association for African Studies), Leiden,
28 October 2005.
Jan Abbink also convened and chaired the Horn of Africa conference of the
DRPN (Development Policy Review Network, linked to CERES) on
Challenges and Prospects of Democratization in a Zone of Conflict: Rethinking
46
the role of non-state actors and international development partners in the 21st
century Horn of Africa, Leiden, 14 December 2005.
Edien Bartels participated in organizing the conference Tradition and
Modernity: Morocco and the Netherlands, Amsterdam, 30-31 May 2005. She
co-organized the workshop Youth between traditionalism and modernity.
Edien Bartels also participated in organizing the meeting of the Kennis Kring
Amsterdam, Vrije Universiteit, 20 April 2005. She organized the workshop
Zelforganisaties: brug of nest.
Andr Droogers co-organized a study day for cluster 7 of the CERES
Research School, with the Future teams of the Radboud Universiteit in
Nijmegen (on pilgrimage) and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (on
Pentecostalism), Nijmegen, 28 January 2005.
Andr Droogers also co-organized a conference under the auspices of the NWO
programme The Future of the Religious Past, at the Beurs van Berlage in
Amsterdam, 2-4 June 2005. His team working within this programme
contributed in the form of a panel on Pentecostalism projects.
On 28 June, Andr Droogers co-organized the presentation by the team working
on Tussen Secularisatie en Religionisatie at the CERES Summer school at the
ISS, in The Hague. On 16 June, he organized a one-day workshop for the
programme Tussen Secularisatie en Religionisering at the VU, Amsterdam.
Sandra Evers, with Oscar Salemink, Ton Salman and Bernhard Venema (all
SCA), organized the SCA departmental conference The Anthropology of
Human Security (Amsterdam, 29-30 August). International discussants
participated in the event.
Sandra Evers organized two panels on Madagascar in collaboration with Dr
Eva Keller (University of Zurich) and Professor Maurice Bloch (VU and LSE),
namely Memory and Retrieval of the Past in Contemporary Social
Configurations and Negotiating the Foreign. AEGIS (European Association
for African Studies) conference, London, 29 June - 3 July.
Sandra Evers also initiated and organized the Madagascar conference Applied
perspectives on poverty and natural resource management in Madagascar, VU,
Amsterdam, 4-5 September.
47
6.2
Another activity performed by staff members was the presentation of papers or
lectures / guest lectures at national or international conferences, congresses
or workshops, or participation in academic courses. Presentations at
conferences and workshops are crucial to share with others the results or
provisional results of ongoing research, and to obtain comments and suggestions
to improve the presentation of these outcomes.
Jan Abbink participated in the 2nd biannual NVAS (Netherlands Association of
African Studies) conference (Leiden, 28 October) by presenting his paper
Discomfiture of democracy? Tension and controversy in Ethiopias 2005
elections.
He also participated in the conference The Anthropology of Human Security,
Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam,
29-30 August, by presenting his paper Violence, social tensions and personal
drama in Suri society.
Additionally, Jan Abbink presented his paper Transformations of Islam and
communal relations in Wallo, Ethiopia, 1991-2004 at the International
conference on Islam, Globalization and the State in Africa, which was
sponsored by the ministries of Foreign Affairs of France and the Netherlands
and organized by ASC, Leiden and CEAN, Bordeaux, 1-3 May 2005.
At Rhetoric in Social Relations and Religion an international conference held
at the Institute of Ethnology and African Studies, J.W. Gutenberg-Universitt,
Mainz, Germany, 13 February Jan Abbink presented his paper Culture, power
and rhetoric.
Jan Abbink gave the lecture The Darfur Tragedy: a creeping genocide? at
Universiteit Groningen, 23 February.
He also gave a guest lecture titled On Rhetoric in Anthropological Writing: an
Introduction at the SCA graduate seminar, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 11
April.
Ellen Bal presented her paper Bharat-wasie or Surinamie? Hindustani notions
of belonging at the conference The Anthropology of Human Security,
Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam,
29-30 August.
49
With Kathinka Sinha-Kerkhoff, Ellen Bal also presented the paper When
Muslims Leave their Homeland: Muslims of British Indian Descent in Suriname
and Mauritius at the international conference The South Asian Diasporas: the
creation of unfinished identities in the modern world, Erasmus University
Rotterdam, 23-24 June.
Also with Kathinka Sinha-Kerkhoff, Ellen Bal presented Borders of the Mind.
Geographical partitions and their mental Impact on People in India and
Bangladesh after the Partition of 1947, at the International Conference
Memory and the Partition Motif in Contemporary Conflicts, Martin Luther
University, Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle, Germany, 14-17 July.
She also presented Processes of in- and exclusion: The Garos of Bangladesh at
the Department of Sociology, Dhaka University, 23 December, and Youth and
Human Security, for the UN Youth and Students Organization in Bangladesh,
Dhaka, 19 December.
Edien Bartels presented the following papers:
Evil comes from outside, at the conference on Religion and Evil, Amsterdam,
17-19 March.
For Allah and myself, at the conference on Safety without Borders,
Amsterdam, 13-14 April.
Religion and Moroccan youth in the Netherlands, at the conference Tradition
and Modernity: Morocco and the Netherlands, Amsterdam, 30-31 May.
Human security: a concept to achieve better, sharper and richer analysis?, at
the conference on The Anthropology of Human Security, Department of Social
and Cultural Anthropology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 29-30 August.
Les abandons forcs au Maroc: les femmes abandonnes et des enfants au pays
d origine, at the Colloque international: Migration maghrbine: Enjeux actuels
et Contentieux of the Centre dtude des Mouvemants Migratoires Maghrbins,
Universit Mohammed I, Oujda, Morocco, 24-25 November.
Edien Bartels participated in the workshop Eigen organisaties: brug of nest? at
the Kennis Kring Amsterdam, Sociale Innovatie, Amsterdam, 20 April.
She gave the lecture Empowerment in breder perspectief at KennisNetwerk,
Amsterdam, 17 November.
50
52
53
54
55
57
Marjo de Theije gave the lecture Insegurana prspera: as vidas dos migrantes
brasileiros no Suriname at the Departamento de cincias sociais, Instituto de
Filosofia e Cincias Humanas, Universidade Federal de Rio Grande do Sul,
Porto Alegre, 3 October.
She gave the same lecture at LAH/UFRJ, Laboratrio de Antropologia e
Histria, Rio de Janeiro, 11 October, and at FAGES, Departamento de Cincias
Sociais, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Recife, 18 October.
Marion den Uyl presented her paper Building and rebuilding the Bijlmer:
creating safety and security in a multicultural area at the SCA departmental
conference The Anthropology of Human Security, Amsterdam, 29-30 August.
She presented two papers Many-faced Dowry in Modern India and
Contradictions in urban renewal in the Bijlmer, Amsterdam at the conference
on Autochtonen, burgers en vreemdelingen. Kwesties van in- en uitsluiting,
Arnhem (NL), 3-4 November.
Bernhard Venema presented his paper State Formation, Imposition of a Land
Market and Resilient Pathways among the Berbers of the Middle Atlas at the
conference on The Anthropology of Human Security, Department of Social
and Cultural Anthropology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 29-30 August.
Peter Versteeg presented his paper Renewing Time: Charismatic Renewal in a
Conservative Reformed Church at the NWO The Future of the Religious Past
conference on What is Religion? Vocabularies, Temporalities and
Comparabilities, Beurs van Berlage, Amsterdam, 3 June.
6.3
Another activity of staff members was their involvement as supervisor / cosupervisor of PhD projects, either in or outside the SCA department.
Jan Abbink was involved in the following projects as supervisor:
(Supervisor since 2003) Bayleyegn Tasew, MA, Addis Ababa University
(WOTRO funded): Metaphors of Peace and Violence in the Folklore Discourse
of Southwest Ethiopian Peoples: a Comparative Study. Graduation expected in:
2007.
(Since March 2000) Ms Hnok Courte: The Social Organization of Begging: A
Study of Street Life in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Graduation expected in: 2006.
58
59
60
61
(together with Willem van Schendel) Lotte Hoek: Islam and Popular Film in
Bangladesh, to be completed in 2007. Graduation at the UvA.
(together with Peter Geschiere) Nienke Muurling: Het transnationale Mande
Huwelijk, to be completed in 2006, graduation at the UvA.
Oscar Salemink is supervising Malte Stokhof: Transforming Local Identities
in a Transnational Muslim Context: Descendants of Javanese Immigrants in
Communist Vietnam (WOTRO).
He is also supervising Nguyen Tuan Anh: The role of kinship in a village
community: A case study in Quynh Doi village, Quynh Luu district, Nghe An
province, Vietnam (Vietnam government fellowship).
He is also supervisor of Joan van Wijk: Violence in a Mexican Tourist Area
(Vrije Universiteit).
He is involved as co-supervisor or fellow-supervisor of John ter Horst: Khmer
Diaspora Ties and Processes of Ethnicization in Cross-Border Silk Trade in the
Greater Mekong Region. Supervisor: Prof. Dahles.
He is co-supervisor of:
Nguyen Thi Thu Huong (University of Amsterdam): Rape and Gender in the
Transitional Context of Vietnam. Supervisors: Prof. Gouda and Dr de Vries.
Nguyen Tran Lam (Universiteit van Amsterdam): Rural Change and Emerging
Epidemics in Vietnams Northern Mountain Region. Supervisor: Prof.
Streefland.
Tran Sy Hai (Wageningen Agricultural University): Adapting Participatory
Monitoring and Evaluation (PM&E) method to Farmer Field Schools (FFS) in
soil-plant management at field and landscape levels. Supervisors: profs.
Almekinders and Richards.
Luis Matias Cruz: Alternatives to Rebellions: A Cry from Chiapas and the
Political Economy of Dignity. Supervisors: profs. Goudswaard and de Gaay
Fortman).
Ton Salman is co-supervisor of Lorena Nuez: Illness and Health:
Peruvian Migrants in Chile (working title). Supervisor: Prof.
Annemiek Richters, RUL. Graduation expected in: early 2007.
He also is co-supervisor of Joan van Wijk: Violence in a Mexican
Tourist Area. Graduation expected in: 2008.
62
Freek Colombijn will be a member of the Board of Examiners for the PhD
thesis by Subrata Sankar Bagchi: 'Social dynamics of the marginalisation of
population and child labour in Calcutta, Department of Anthropology,
University of Calcutta. Graduation expected in: 2006.
He was a member of the graduation committee for Bart Barendregt: From the
realm of many rivers: memory, places and notions of home in the Southern
Sumatran highlands. Graduated at Leiden University, 7 September 2005.
Andr Droogers was a member of the graduation committee for Nicole
Stuckenberger: Community at Play: Social and religious dynamics in the
modern Inuit community of Qikiqtarjuaq, Universiteit Utrecht, 11 May 2005.
Thomas Hylland Eriksen was a member of the graduation committee for
Alexandra Hall, Queens University, Belfast, in May. The thesis was on the
British asylum system.
In August he was a member of the graduation committee for
Mark Vacher on Migrants in Marseille, at the University of
Copenhagen.
Anton van Harskamp was a member of the graduation committee for Annelies
van Leest-Borst: Fundamentalistische opvoeding vanuit liberaal-democratisch
perspectief: Grenzen van de onderwijsvrijheid, VU, Amsterdam, 24 February
2005.
He was also member of the graduation committee for R.J.J.M Plum, at the
Radboud Universiteit in Nijmegen: Spreken over God: een symboolbenadering
in de lijn van Paul Ricoeur en Ernst Bloch (published by Kok, at Kampen), 9
May 2005.
Birgit Meijer was a member of the graduation committee for Anouk de Koning:
Global Dreams, Space, Class and Gender in Middle-Class Cairo, University of
Amsterdam, 21 September 2005.
She also was a member of the graduation committee for Anke Hoffmann: Since
the Germans came it rains less. Landscape and Identity of Herero Communities
in Namia, University of Amsterdam, 15 December 2005.
Finally, she will be member of the graduation committee for Esther Peperkamp:
Being a Christian Being the Same Everywhere. The Making of Religious
Selves in Post-Socialist Poland, University of Amsterdam, to be defended 7
February 2006.
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Ton Salman was a member of the reading and graduation committee for Valli
Kanapathipillai, who graduated at the VU on 7 October 2005. Supervisor: Prof.
Joke Schrijvers; co-supervisor: Dr Dick Kooiman. Thesis title: Repatriation or
Deportation? Nation Building, Citizenship and the Tamil Estate Workers in Sri
Lanka after Independence.
Saskia Sassen was a member of 27 such committees worldwide.
6.5
One recurring activity of anthropologists is fieldwork.
Jan Abbink had planned fieldwork in 2005 but had to cancel it
due to serious violence and insecurity in the fieldwork area
(Ethiopia) in November - December 2005.
Ellen Bal left on 10 December 2005 to do fieldwork until 21 January 2006. This
is a research visit to India and Bangladesh, where she will visit Guwahati,
Shillong, Tura, Calcutta, Rajshahi, Mymensingh and Dhaka. The project is titled
South Asian Youth Research.
Edien Bartels did fieldwork in the Netherlands in January and February for the
research project Women who have been left behind in their country of origin.
In March and April, she did fieldwork in the Netherlands for the research project
Forced marriages.
In June, she did fieldwork in Morocco for the research project Women who
have been left behind in their country of origin.
In July, she did fieldwork in the United States for the research project Forced
marriages.
Throughout the year, she did fieldwork in the Netherlands for the research
project Constructing Islam.
Freek Colombijn was in Indonesia in the period 8-30 January for the project
The politics of housing during the long decolonization of the Indonesian city.
He also spent the period 31 July - 19 August in Indonesia, working on the same
project.
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Anton van Harskamp is on the board of the Tijdschrift voor Theologie (Faculty
of Theology, Nijmegen University).
Birgit Meijer is co-editor of Etnofoor (since 1987, published by the University
of Amsterdam). She is a member of the board of the series Modernity and
Belonging (with Peter Geschiere), published by Lit Verlag. She is a member of
the editorial advisory board of The Journal of Religion in Africa (since 1999),
published by Brill. And she is a member of the editorial board of the electronic
journal Pentecostudies.
Ton Salman is member of the Editorial Board of Critique of Anthropology
(Sage).
Saskia Sassen is member of seven of such boards.
Marjo de Theije is member of the editorial commission of AntHropolgicas, a
peer-reviewed anthropological journal produced in Recife, Brazil (UFPE
University Press).
Peter Versteeg is managing editor of PentecoStudies.
6.7
Staff members also engage as members of advisory boards, grant-advising
juries, or on the management or board of professional organizations
Jan Abbink was chairman of the Netherlands Association for African Studies.
Ellen Bal was a board member of the Indo-Dutch Programme
on Alternatives in Development (IDPAD, The Hague), and a
member of the Academic Committee of the International
Institute Asian Studies (IIAS, Leiden).
Andr Droogers was (on 5 September) an external member of the appointment
committee of the Bijzondere leerstoel Religieuze en Historische Antropologie of
the RijksUniversiteit in Groningen.
He chaired the number 7 cluster of Research School CERES on Religion,
Culture, Identity.
In December, he was a member of the jury of the Johannes van der Zouwen
Thesis Award.
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He attended the GLOPENT meeting (Europees Netwerk voor Pentecostalismeonderzoek), Heidelberg, 4 April.
Sandra Evers initiated the Madagascar Project in January 2005. This is a
research project on natural resource management and poverty in Madagascar. It
is a collaboration between the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology
of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam; the Institut de Civilisations/Muse dArt et
dArchologie, Universit dAntananarivo (ICMAA); and the Inter-church
Organization for Development Cooperation (ICCO). In 2005, nine VU Masters
students and nine Malagasy students participated in this project. The project
resulted in papers, research reports, MSc theses and the Madagasca conference
mentioned above.
Thomas Hylland Eriksen, with Oscar Salemink, gave the PhD course Human
Security at the Oslo Summer School of Comparative Social Sciences.
Dick Kooiman gave radio interviews on the earthquake in Azad Kashmir (BNN
20-10-2005) and on Christian-Muslim dialogue (Radio de Branding, 8
November).
Birgit Meijer was chair of the ASSR research cluster Religion, Politics and
Identity. She was also a member of the ASSR programmaraad.
She was a peer reviewer of articles submitted to American Ethnologist, Cultural
Anthropology, Current Anthropology, Africa, African Studies Review, Journal of
Religion in Africa, and JRAI.
From 2005 onwards, she will be one of the editors of Material Religion (Berg
publishers).
Oscar Salemink succeeded Prof. Andr Droogers as chair of the SCA
Department.
On 31 December 2005, he stepped down as chairman of the NWO-WOTRO
Capacity Development Programme committee, but was invited to be a member
of a WOTRO drafting committee for a new funding programme in line with
WOTROs new mission.
Oscar Salemink continued as member of the executive committee of the
Vietnam Studies Group of the Association for Asian Studies, and as advisor to
the Renovation of Vietnams ethnological discipline in the context of
industrialization, modernization and international integration programme. This
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Epilogue
There are no errors in this book, except this one
Today, at the beginning of the 21st century, anthropology finds itself a bit in a
quandary. The criticisms and dog-eat-dog self-investigations that started in the
1970s and are continuing today will not fade away. The discipline can no longer
simply do its thing without asking critical questions about our works
epistemological bases, the political legitimacy of the intrusion in the worlds of
others, the accuracy of its concepts and methods in the current network society
era, and the changing nature of the very thing we are looking for: culture. We
need this ongoing self-critique if we do not want to shift from looking at
knowledge of traditional people to looking at traditional knowledge about
peoples. At the same time, the need for insights into the impacts of cultural
encounters and into cultural changes, mutual influences and images, and
reactions to new chances and threats offered by globalization, seems more
urgent than ever. Combined with questions about the applicability of our
research outcomes and about the measurement of our publications, we face
challenges of unprecedented depth and scope. The only way, therefore, to
explain that most of us do not in the least regret having ended up as an academic
anthropologist, is that it continues to be one of the most fascinating mtiers. In
that spirit, we will go on working hard to meet our own and others high
standards with regard to both education and research outcomes. And we will
keep trying to get better at what we do.
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