Suomen Antropologi Volume 35, 4/2010
Articles
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Editor’s Note
Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society Volume 35(4) 2010: 3-4.
Abstract
This issue of Suomen Antropologi is themed loosely around phenomena connected with tensions between local and global in the twenty-first century. The first contribution, by Irja Seurujärvi-Kari (University of Helsinki), is titled, ‘We are no longer prepared to be silent’: The making of Sámi indigenous identity in an international context’. In this article, the author, herself a Sámi, reviews the events and initiatives of recent decades which have contributed to the formulation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, finally adopted in 2007. Drawing on her own long involvement with international indigenous rights and interviews with key indigenous players in the movement, Seurujärvi-Kari also explores the emergence of indigenous identity as ‘a valued status with material and spiritual significance’.
From indigenes on an international stage to the migration of peoples from birthplace to new homelands—both examples of the extension of human movement and social activity across geo-political boundaries currently referred to as transnationalism. Two research reports set the stage for our ‘Extended Forum’ on issues connected with transnational kinship which follows them. The first, by Carlo Cubero (University of Tallinn), titled ‘Picturing Transnationalism: Towards a cinematic logic of transnationalism’, addresses an issue long faced by all anthropologists engaged in ethnographic fieldwork, that of how to explore concepts that is social scientific rather than local in origin. This problem is greatly compounded, as Cubero describes, by his choice of film as the medium of engagement with the audio-visual dimensions of transnationalism. This thoughtfully reflexive paper is followed by a brief essay by Mara Mabilia (University of Padua)—‘Contrasting Tanzanian and Italian Perspectives on Motherhood and Mothering’—in which she reminds readers of variations in approach to a central concept in any kinship system, that of maternity. In drawing comparisons between her fieldwork among the Magogo and her own Italian society, Mabilia notes the fundamental disparity in almost every aspect of maternity, from the social preparation of young girls for future motherhood to child-care arrangements.
Mabilia’s paper raises just one example of a multiplicity of divergences in understandings that dog the efforts of ‘host’ nations and incoming ‘other’ nationals to reach agreement on transnational connections that fall under the rubric of kinship. The Extended Forum—‘Transnational Connections and the Idiom of Kinship’—explores a range of issues emerging from different ways bureaucracies and immigrants understand who is and who is not a family member. The Forum begins with a paper by Petri Hautaniemi (University of Helsinki) which compares the relatively uniform Finnish kinship trope of ‘household’ with much broader and more fluid understandings of kin-relatedness among Somali immigrants. He notes that the increasing use of biotechnology in the form of DNA testing has not served to clarify family relations for purposes of reunification— and nor has it helped reduce the bureaucratic backlog. Claudia Fonseca and Denise Jardim (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul) expand upon and generalize the Finland-specific issues raised by Hautaniemi, paying particular attention to the waythat rigid state definitions of family may divert family reunification from its original humanitarian intentions, producing a form of symbolic violence that separates rather than unites kin. Esben Leifsen (Norwegian University of Life Sciences) and Alexander Tymczuk (University of Oslo) continue the discussion by suggesting that a solution to what seems an intractable problem might be found if the connection between kinship and localization were reconsidered; kinship should be reconceptualized in terms of process, with priority given to the ways care constitutes relatedness and connectivity structures care. Anna-Maria Tapaninen (University of Helsinki) likewise notes the underlying dissonance in conceptions of family which are not appropriately addressed by prioritizing the biological over the social with DNA testing and adds her view that anthropologists, who might be expected to greatly contribute towards solving these dilemmas, do not help the situation by their frequent ‘refusal to engage with what they see as reductive views of social relations that are claimed to be universal-cum-natural’. Finally, Barbara Yngvesson (Hampshire College) ties the various perspectives together with her analysis of transnational adoption over recent decades in which she focuses on both the practices of adopting nations/families and also on the selective ‘production of adoptability’ in nations which have traditionally been ‘senders’ of adoptees. Echoing the concerns of other Forum contributors with the bureaucratic inflexibility of notions of ‘family’, Yngvesson records—in what may be an optimistic note for the future—an increasing grass-roots tendency among adopting families in the transnational process to insist on more open approaches to the adopted child’s ‘past’, thereby forging links with its pre-adoptive kin, flexibly defined, and concurrently extending bounded Western notions of ‘true’ family.
I would like to conclude by mentioning that Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society is currently looking for two sub-editors to assist in generating material, arranging for its review, assisting and liaising with writers, language editing and so on. This does not have to be a Helsinki-based position; if you are interested, please contact the editor-in-chief.
MARIE-LOUISE KARTTUNEN
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF -
‘We are no longer prepared to be silent’: The making of Sámi indigenous identity in an international context
Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society Volume 35(4): 5-25.
Abstract
In April 2008, at the annual session of the Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues in New York, indigenous peoples celebrated the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007). The approval of the UN Declaration was seen as a symbol of the beginning of the end of marginalization and an opportunity for indigenous peoples to govern issues related to their lives. However, the UN Declaration does not define who indigenous peoples are, instead providing them with the right to identify themselves as indigenous peoples according to their own traditions and customs without it leading to discrimination, with the result that the concept has raised considerable debate in research. This article traces the history of the international indigenous movement and the emergence of indigenous identity as a valued status with material and spiritual significance, with a particular focus on the Sámi, using as data the experiences of key indigenous players in the struggle for international recognition.
Research Reports
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Contrasting Tanzanian and Italian Perspectives on Motherhood and Mothering
Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society Volume 35(4) 2010: 35-41.
Abstract
This report reflects on, and contrasts, gender in Italy and among the Wagogo of Tanzania with regard to two distinct concepts: motherhood and mothering. In both realities women are under scrutiny: particularly, their bodies are seen as the vessels of their reproductive capacity and the locus of their sexual activity. Among the Wagogo as well as in Italy women’s sexuality and reproductive potential are subjected to social control which seems to ignore a fundamental consideration—and its implications: a woman is first of all a person.
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Picturing Transnationalism: Towards a cinematic logic of transnationalism
Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society Volume 35(4) 2010: 26-34.
Abstract
This research report addresses epistemological issues confronted in the ongoing process of making an ethnographic documentary about transnationalism. It begins by considering the use of cinematic vocabulary as an analogy to narrativise the complexities of transnationalism. It then contextualises a specific documentary project within methodological debates in the ethnographic filmmaking community.
Other Material
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EXTENDED FORUM: Transnational Connections and the Idiom of Kinship
Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society Volume 35(4) 2010: 42-62.
Abstract
Petri Hautaniemi: Transnational Kinship Ties and Welfare State Resistance (42)
Claudia Fonseca and Denise F. Jardim: Kinship, Migrations and the State (45)
Esben Leifsen and Alexander Tymczuk: Care and Connectivity in Labour Migration (49)
Anna-Maria Tapaninen: Complications in Family Reunification (53)
Barbara Yngvesson: Transnational Adoption, Technologies of Exclusion, and the Promise of ‘Home’ (56) -
Book Reviews
Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society Volume 35(4) 2010: 63-72.
Abstract
Eeva Berglund: Maarit Grahn and Maunu Hayrynen (eds). Kulttuurituotanto: Kehykset, käytäntö ja prosessit (63)
Anne Holappa: Johanna Sumiala. Median rituaalit: Johdatus media-antropologiaan (65)
Joel Robbins: Jean-Philippe Deranty. Beyond Communication: A Critical Study of Axel Honneth’s Social Philosop (67)
Jukka Siikala: Paul Rabinow, George E. Marcus, James D. Faubion and Tobias Rees. Designs for an Anthropology of the Contemporary (70) -
Interesting New Publications
Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society Volume 35(4) 2010: 72-73.
Abstract
Dahlgren, Susanne 2010. Contesting Realities: The Public Sphere and Morality in Southern Yemen. University of Syracuse Press.
Fader, Ayala 2009. Mitzvah Girls: Bringing Up the Next Generation of Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Goody, Jack 2010. Myth, Ritual and the Oral. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Granberg, Leo, Juha Kantanen and Katriina Soini (eds) 2009. Yakha Ynaga: Cattle of the Yakuts. Helsinki: Finnish Academy of Science and Letters.
Guille-Escuret, Georges 2010. Sociologie comparée du cannibalisme: Proies et captifs en Afrique (Vol. 1). Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
Harding, Rosie 2010. Regulating Sexuality: Legal Consciousness in Lesbian and Gay Lives. Abingdon: Routledge.
Laviolette, Patrick 2011. Extreme Landscapes of Leisure: Not a Hap-Hazardous Sport. Farnham: Ashgate.
Lutkehaus, Nancy C. 2010. Margaret Mead: Making of an American Icon. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Mayblin, Maya 2010. Gender, Catholicism, and Morality in Brazil: Virtuous Husbands, Powerful Wives. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Piasere, Leonardo 2010. L’ethnographe imparfait: Expérience et cognition en anthropologie. Paris: Éditions de l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales.
Pitarch, Pedro 2010. The Jaguar and the Priest: An Ethnography of Tzeltal Souls. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Ruusuvuori, Johanna, Pirjo Nikander and Matti Hyvärinen (eds) 2010. Haastattelun analyysi.Tampere: Vastapaino.
Saarikoski, Helena 2009. Nuoren naisellisuuden koreografioita: Spice Girlsin fanit tyttöyden tekijöinä. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura.
Tenhunen, Sirpa 2009. Gender, Politics and Practice in Rural India. Kolkata: Stree.
Tudge, Jonathan 2010. The Everyday Lives of Young Children: Culture, Class, and Child Rearing in Diverse Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tuori, Salla 2009. The Politics of Multicultural Encounters: Feminist Postcolonial Perspectives. Åbo: Åbo Akademi University Press.
Zelizer, Viviana A. 2010. Economic Lives: How Culture Shapes the Economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Vuola, Elina 2010. Jumalainen nainen: Neitsyt Mariaa etsimässä. Helsinki: Otava.