Suomen Antropologi Volume 34, 3/2009
Articles
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Editorial note
Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society Volume 34(3) 2009: 3-5
Abstract
The first contribution in this autumn issue of Suomen Antropologi is the work of Diana Espirito Santo (Instituto de Ciencias Sociais, University of Lisbon). Entitled ‘Making Dreams: Spirits, vision and the ontological effects of dream knowledge in Cuban espiritismo’, the article explores the status of dream knowledge among practitioners of Afro-Cuban religious cults in Havana, especially the spirit mediums (espiristas). Santo notes that in Cuba, both in religious and secular fields, local cosmology is crystallized in dreams and rendered visible, providing a valued source of information and prophecy which is often discussed in detail with friends and family. Meanwhile, amongst the espiristas, dreams allow access to an extra domain of knowledge in which “the potentialities of the real” are revealed to the spiritually developed, and may be conceptualized as special states of “receptivity”. Her ethnographic project is directed at understanding the implications and effects of this receptivity. Simultaneously, however, Santo is trying to conceptualize how knowing may have deeper effects than merely cognitive ones, and how the communicative act in a post-dreaming context is also a transformative act, not just an expressive one. This is not a ground-breaking idea in itself, but she moves beyond conventional constructivism to explore ideas presented in A. Henare, M. Holbraad and S. Wastell’s recently edited volume—Thinking Through Things (2007)—in order to propose that the anthropology of Cuban dreams may require a relational approach that “allows dreams, spirits, people and words to fully be subjects of their relations, rather than just objects on the one hand and subjects on the other”. This, she suggests, shifts the task of anthropology from a fundamentally epistemological one to an ontological project that requires the recognition of what is real for different groups of people, rather than what they think exists—“which is a matter of ‘belief ’ and thus representation”.
In a potentially similar vein but with a rather different focus is the second article in this issue: ‘Narrating Religious Realities: Conversion and testimonies in Chilean Pentecostalism’ by Martin Lindhardt (Institute of Ethnology, University of Copenhagen). In his article, Lindhardt examines narrative strategies of born-again converts to Pentecostal religions in Chile but, unlike most of the literature on the subject, he is interested in not why people convert but how. This has led to the centrality in his study of the role played by narrative practice in the constitution and—importantly—the maintenance of Pentecostal identities and shared realities. He postulates that Pentecostal narrative practice provides converts with “symbolic structure and a temporal schema for present and future action”, thereby empowering them with tools to interpret their lives over time. Furthermore, he suggests that the narrating and re-narrating of the conversion experience should also be seen as a specific kind of social interaction in which religious realities are created and shared by narrator and listener alike. He pursues this argument by examining various rhetoric and non-linguistic strategies whereby those who are listening to testimonies are invited to inhabit the world of the story and live out its plots themselves.
Of the two research reports presented here, one visits the warrior tombs of Sindh in Pakistan and the second is the result of recent fieldwork in Maluku in Indonesia. Both conform to the policy of Suomen Antropologi of presenting reports on the work-in-progress of scholars at any academic level in anthropology and associated disciplines, and offering readers the chance of vicariously enjoying the huge variety of projects on which contemporary anthropologists are engaged. We warmly welcome submissions of this nature which, while they receive editorial advice and feedback from peers working in similar fields, do not undergo the rigour of review procedure accorded research articles, and are guaranteed swift appearance if they present work of quality.
In the first report—‘Tombs of Fallen Heroes’—Zulfiqar Ali Kalhoro (Staff Anthropologist at the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics and Ph.D. Scholar at the Taxila Institute of Asian Civilizations, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad) provides a description and discussion of the figurative and other depictions found on tombstones in the graveyards at Oongar and Saidpur Takkar located in the province of Sindh in Southern Pakistan. He also discuss the role of the tribes associated with these graveyards in the tribal history of Sindh and the battles in which they displayed the heroism which gave rise to the images of weaponry in the reliefs which decorate their tombs.
In the following report, Timo Kaartinen (Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Helsinki) discusses the regional urban diaspora of Bandanese-speakers from two villages in the Kei Islands to the broader island society of Maluku. ‘Urban Diaspora and the Question of Community’ explores the extent to which the dispersing community’s ethnic relations are informed by its previous history of travel, migration and displacement and affected by the Bandanese niche in enterprises connected with fishing and trade—the backbone of the provincial economy. Kaartinen extends his empirical discussion of the specific economic, political and kinship relations of the diaspora with local land-owning groups in the new locales by suggesting that the emerging status quo gives new meaning to the classifications of immigrant and autochthonous people.
Our interview in this issue is a conversation between Maia Green (Global Poverty Research Group and Department of Social Anthropology, University of Manchester) and Marja-Liisa Swantz, a celebrated Finnish anthropologist whose career and work in Africa spans over half a century. Professor Green was in Helsinki in June as opponent to Reea Hinkanen’s dissertation on women’s infertility in West Central Tanzania (see the Forum in this issue), and was eager to meet with this pioneer in the field of the participatory research approach in Tanzania, an approach which is now an integral part of development planning initiatives there and elsewhere. Space has meant that much of the conversation—which roamed through Professor Emerita Swantz’s extraordinary life and achievements—has been truncated in order to focus on the principal theme under discussion, but Swantz is currently working on a volume of essays which will review her life’s work and provide considerable, previously unpublished material whereby the omissions may be rectified.
Finally, mention must be made of the annual anthropology convention in Finland 7th–8th May 2009, titled ‘Continuity through Change: Anthropological perspectives in the contemporary world’, which was a cooperative effort between the Finnish Anthropological Society and the Department of Social Research at the University of Tampere, in which the latter were unarguably the movers and shakers. Keynote speakers were Signe Howell (University of Oslo), Ulla Vuorela (University of Tampere) and Stef Jansen (University of Manchester), all of whom approached, in various ways, phenomena that come under the rubric of contemporary globalization: Howell discussed social process through the lens of her multi-temporal fieldwork among the Chewong in Malaysia; Vuorela postulated the anthropologist of any era as a transnational subject; and Jansen’s lecture was based on ethnographic research in a post-Yugoslav Sarajevo suburb where he has investigated the materialization of ‘the state’ through local grids of provision and organization. Over seventy participants took part in nine workshops which reflected the themes of continuity and change at global and disciplinary levels and discussion was animated, informal and very productive. The organizers in Tampere did a wonderful job and we in Helsinki look forward to returning the hospitality in May 2010, when the Convention’s theme will be “Ideas of Value: Inquiries in Anthropology.” Calls for workshops and presentations are on their way.
MARIE-LOUISE KARTTUNEN
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF -
Making Dreams: Spirits, vision and the ontological effects of dream knowledge
Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society Volume 34(3) 2009: 6-24
Abstract
In this paper the significance of dreaming and dream communication in Cuba is explored, principally from the point of view of mediums in the Afro-Cuban religious practice of espiritismo in Havana. I suggest that dreams are both continuous with, and epitomize, the experience of mediumship and prophecy, where ‘vision’ is a fundamental trope, and are thus important sources of insight and extended spiritual perspective. In a cosmos where knowledge is both indicative and generative of a spiritual flow, and where its retention on the part of mediums has physical consequences, salient images and information received through dreams act as catalysts for the development of spirit mediumship, signaling the inherent porosity of the body as well as the potential mobility of an individual’s spirit. I also propose that dream knowledge be conceptualized ontologically; specifically, as possessing the agency to produce certain effects once it is formulated into language. This perspective undercuts purely representationalist views of language, as well as placing the communicative act in an essential cosmological light.
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Narrating Religious Realities: Conversion and testimonies in Chilean Pentecostalism
Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society Volume 34(3) 2009: 25-43
Abstract
In this paper I explore the complex and constitutive role of narrative practice in Chilean Pentecostalism. I argue that it is in large part through different kinds of storytelling that Pentecostal self identities are produced, nourished and modified. Particular attention is focused on testimonies of salvation, and life stories as narrative practices through which converts engage in ongoing construction of biographic identities and provide themselves with symbolic schemes for present and future action. I further argue that Pentecostal story telling should be seen as a specific kind of social interaction, creating and unfolding religious realities to be inhabited by narrator and listener alike. I pursue this argument by examining different linguistic as well as non-linguistic strategies through which the listener is invited to project him or herself into the world of the story.
Keywords Chile, conversion, identity, narratives, Pentecostalism
Research Reports
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Tombstones of Fallen Heroes
Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society Volume 34(3) 2009: 44-55
Abstract
This paper is based on fieldwork which I carried out in Sindh, Pakistan, from December 2007 to February 2008. The main objective of the study was to document and delineate two graveyards and their contents which are located in two different districts of Sindh, one in Thatta and the other in Tando Muhammad Khan. After discussing the origin of the term ‘chaukhandi’ as applied to a type of tombs present in the area I present the two graveyards, discussing the meanings of motifs that decorate the tombstones in both places. I also discuss the role of the tribes associated with these graveyards in the tribal history of Sindh and the battles in which they displayed their heroism.
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Urban Diaspora and the Question of Community
Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society Volume 34(3) 2009: 56-67
Abstract
The Bandanese are a community with a distinct language and tradition which point to their origin in Banda, an early base of Dutch colonization in Indonesia. Presently focused in two villages in the Kei Islands, the community has been transforming into a regional, urban diaspora since the 1960s. Field research from March until August 2009 focused on the question of how this community distributes itself regionally and to what extent its ethnic relations are informed by its previous history of travel, migration and displacement. The study reveals that urbanized Bandanese occupy political and economic niches marked by a privileged access to fishing and trade, the backbones of the provincial economy. At the same time, their shared ancestry with local land-owning groups legitimizes their presence in new locations. Differential access to maritime wealth and land give new meaning to the classification of immigrant and autochthonous people, ubiquitous in each island society of Maluku, in which the Bandanese are placed in a mediating position.
Other Material
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“Bureaucracy Kills So Many Things”. Interview with M. Swantz
Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society Volume 34(3) 2009: 68-76
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FORUM: Health, Healing And Kinship in Africa
Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society Volume 34(3) 2009: 77-83
Abstract
Reea Hinkkanen - Women’s Infertility at the Crossroads of Modernity and Tradition Maia Green - The Impact of Institutions: Participatory action and forms of healing Perpetual Crentsil - Caring for Aids Orphans in Ghana
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BOOK REVIEWS
Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society Volume 34(3) 2009: 84-95