Suomen Antropologi Volume 34, 4/2009
Articles
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Editor's note
Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society Volume 34(4) 2009: 3-4
Abstract
This issue of Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society (in cooperation with Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Helsinki) is primarily devoted to the re-presentation of discursive exchange between its contributors, and between contributors and a larger public—a project which is an integral part of editorial policy. Thus we are honoured to begin with the annual Westermarck Memorial Lecture which was delivered by Professor Marilyn Strathern in Helsinki, 9th December 2009—an event which all who attended found memorable. Her lecture, entitled Comparing Concerns: Some issues in organ and other donations, explores the problem of information overload in contemporary society via the example of organ and tissue donation and the debates to which current practices give rise. Throughout the paper, Strathern follows her hunch that anthropology’s comparative method offers a path through “the fraught and infinitely expandable nexus of public concerns” to some kind of reasonable account that meanwhile conserves the complexity of the issues involved—not only in this specific field but in areas of public (and anthropological) concern more generally.
This is followed by an article written by Anu Lounela (Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Helsinki)—Sovereignty and Violence: Contested forest landscapes in Central Java—which is drawn from her recently completed doctoral research into land rights in the district of Wonosobo, Central Java, which she situates within the framework of state formation and sovereignty. While an analytical distinction between modern and traditional forms of power in Java is explored during the course of her discussion, ultimately Lounela argues against their polarisation, suggesting that conflation occurs in local struggles for sovereignty, creating hybrid forms of power.
Lounela publicly defended her dissertation at the University of Helsinki on 26th September 2009, and was privileged to be facing as opponent Professor Anna Tsing of the University of California, Santa Cruz. Appended to the article, therefore, are the comments Professor Tsing made about Lounela’s doctoral research and dissertation as a whole on that occasion. Here Tsing notes that two kinds of scholarship are relevant to Lounela’s focus: firstly, the thesis suggested by political scientists and anthropologists to the effect that contours of power in Java, and Indonesia more broadly, are not universally fixed but, rather, created within cultural systems of meaning; and secondly, the questions raised by political ecologists concerning the perspectives of rural populations who live with the resources which states and corporations want to use. Tsing goes on say that Lounela has creatively addressed some inherent contradictions between these two approaches by incorporating two further concepts into her analysis: plural law and dispute settlement.
The second article in this issue is authored by another ‘young’ scholar at the University of Helsinki (Development Studies)—Henri Onodera—with the title, The Kifaya Generation: Politics of change among youth in Egypt. Basing his discussion on data drawn from his recent fieldwork in Cairo, Onodera examines the emergence of youth-based action groups in Egypt since the beginning of the 21st century, arguing that their grievances are connected with the wider predicaments and uncertainties that Egyptian youth face in their everyday lives.
Finally, it has been a real pleasure to work with four extraordinary scholars on the expanded ‘Forum’ section of this issue. In September 2009, John Liep, who received his magister degree (equivalent to a British Master of Letters, Finnish lisensiaatti) in anthropology in Denmark four decades ago, defended his doctoral production at Aarhus University in Copenhagen. Liep and his controversial monograph, entitled A Papuan Plutocracy: Ranked Exchange on Rossel Island (2009: Aarhus University Press), faced a powerful trinity of opponents: Joel Robbins (University of California, San Diego), Chris Gregory (Australian National University, University of Manchester) and Ton Otto (University of Aarhus). The issues raised by the book and critically explored in the subsequent debate are of a wideranging and substantial nature, and the resultant Forum is an exciting one.
Finally we would like to remind subscribers and readers that the annual Finnish Anthropology Conference (conducted in English/Finnish/Swedish) is being held in Helsinki, 11–12th May; proposals for sessions will be considered until 30th February, for individual presentations until 30th March. The event promises to be entertaining both scholastically and socially, and a selection of papers will be published in a future issue of Suomen Antropologi.
MARIE-LOUISE KARTTUNEN
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
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Comparing Concerns: Some issues in organ and other donations
Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society Volume 34(4) 2009: 5-21
Abstract
EDVARD WESTERMARCK MEMORIAL LECTURE
In an information society, where overload has become a problem, might anthropology’s comparative method find a new lease of life? This Lecture sets out to test the hunch that it might. A field ever more densely populated with information is that of organ and tissue donation, and the debates to which current practices give rise. Donation is only one of several modes of procurement, organs only one kind of body part that can be donated, and people offer comparisons just as commentators do. Perhaps here is an answer to the question of how to make a reasonable account out of a fraught and infinitely expandable nexus of public concerns. Is it possible to conserve the complexity of the issues while not letting the sheer quantity of information run away with itself? Would following through the comparisons do the trick? -
Sovereignty and Violence: Contested forest landscapes in Central Java
Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society Volume 34(4) 2009: 22-39
Abstract
The article explores the ongoing dispute connected with land rights in the district of Wonosobo, Central Java, within the framework of state formation and sovereignty. It is argued that in many places in Indonesia and Central Java, local landscapes have become sites of violent struggles for sovereignty more broadly. An analytical distinction between modern and traditional forms of power is made and ethnographically explored, but it is argued that, rather than being separate entities, both forms become conflated in the struggle for sovereignty in various spheres, creating hybrid forms of power.
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Politics, History, and Culture: Comments on Anu Lounela’s “Sovereignty and Violence”
Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society Volume 34(4) 2009: 40-43
Abstract
Comments delivered during Anu Lounela’s public defense of her Ph.D. Dissertation, ‘Contesting Forests and Power: Dispute, Violence, and Negotiations in Central Java’, September 26, 2009
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The Kifaya Generation: Politics of change among youth in Egypt
Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society Volume 34(4) 2009: 44-64
Abstract
In this paper, I aim to shed light on the lived experiences of young opposition activists in today’s Egypt. I discuss the emergence of youth-based action groups, such as Youth for Change, since the beginning of 2000s and argue that much of their grievances have to do with wider predicaments and uncertainties that Egyptian youth face in their everyday lives. The activists’ main political assets, however, pertain to a simultaneous engagement on the street—as the physical realm for public dissidence—and the internet—as the primary means and compensation for political communication in authoritarian settings. I suggest, although with reservations, that the activists’ collective actions are better viewed as ‘submerged networks’ rather than through the conventional analytical prisms of civil society and social movement. Furthermore, I argue that while the young activists assume a degree of autonomous political action from the various structures of the existing political establishment, they operate on the margins of larger processes of contentious politics and, at the same time, their social interactions continue to be structured by the prevailing social norms.
Other Material
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FORUM: A Discussion of John Liep's Recent Book, A Papuan Plutocracy: Ranked Exchange on Rossel Island (2009)
Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society Volume 34(4) 2009: 65-112
Abstract
John Liep: An Overview of Rossel Island Exchange (65)
Joel Robbins: Equality, Inequality, and Exchange (71)
Chris Gregory: On the Ranking of Shells and People (91)
Ton Otto: Exchange and Inequality, Time and Personhood (99)
John Liep: Response to Comments -
BOOK REVIEWS AND CRITICAL ESSAYS
Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society Volume 34(4) 2009: 113-129
Abstract
Mwenda Ntarangwi, David Mills and Mustafa Babiker (eds). African Anthropologies: History, Critique and Practice (Timo Kallinen)
Pamela L. Geller and Miranda K. Stockett (eds). Feminist Anthropology: Past, Present, and Future (Tuulikki Pietilä)
Walker, Anthony R. (ed.). Pika-Pika: The Flashing Firefly. Essays to Honour and Celebrate the Life of Pauline Hetland Walker (1938–2005) (Clifford Sather)
Edson, Gary. Shamanism: A Cross-Cultural Study of Beliefs and Practices (Jan Svanberg)
Kirby, Peter Wynn (ed.). Boundless Worlds: An Anthropological Approach to Movement (Annika Teppo)
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NEWS: Finnish Africanist’s Work Gets International Recognition: Tuulikki Pietilä receives the 2009 Aidoo-Snyder Book Prize
Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society Volume 34(4) 2009: 130-131