Under 2010- och 2020-talen har intresset för den form av subkulturella krisberedskap som kallas prepping etablerat sig i Sverige. Dess kulturella rötter återfinns i en nordamerikansk kontext, men ...numera finns en uppsjö inhemska handböcker, bloggar, poddar och forum i sociala medier. Centralt inom preppingen är förberedelsen inför potentiella framtida kriser genom lagrandet av mat och materiel, övandet av färdigheter samt etablerandet av sociala nätverk. Utifrån etnografiska intervjuer med personer som preppar diskuteras spänningsfältet mellan den föreställda och faktiska krisen. Vilka specifika förberedelser som bedöms som nödvändiga är avhängigt förståelsen av samtid och framtid samt de potentiella kriser som hägrar där, vilket kan vara allt från kortvariga störningar i samhällelig infrastruktur till mer dystopiska utsikter. I och med covid-19 har såväl föreställningar som faktiska förberedelser bland dem som preppar både utmanats och bekräftats. Även om pandemin inte motsvarade den föreställda krisen, erbjöd de faktiska förberedelserna ändå en form av trygghet.
The number of islands in the world is overwhelming. In contrast, the representation of islands is all but different. This brings up fundamental questions about the relations between the discourses ...about islands and islands as physical spaces, between islands as metaphors and as lived realities. When representations of islands are the focus of study, what about island as locus? In essence, the underlying problem is a variation of the 'hylomorphic problem', the relationship between substance, form and matter. In this paper, I start by addressing the role of islands in my own academic branch, ethnology, and then by discussing some implications of the 'cognitive turn' in ethnology for what is considered as its primary object of study. After a brief discussion of a variation of the problem known among anthropologists as the 'locus-focus debate', I turn to a discussion of the 'real versus metaphoric employment of islands' in island studies. In the last section I return to the key issue of my own studies of islands: how to grapple with the homogeneity of 'the island' and the immense diversity of islands.
This article presents an analysis of football supporters as magicians based on the theory of magic developed by Marcel Mauss. The research was conducted in co-operation with a local football club ...from Sweden called Malmö FF. Taking into consideration how the supporters see their position in the club and their contribution, it is possible to explain their behaviour and involvement in terms of a collective phenomenon that requires a clearly stated objective and is achieved through technical elements. The extensive usage of props, language and symbols is supposed to influence the reality according to the wishes of the user. This article follows previous research of modern phenomena in terms of magic as presented by Thomas O'Dell (O'Dell, Spas and the Cultural Economy) and Peter Pels (Pels, Magic and Modernity, 183-99). Such approach can explain how the engagement and the unique relationship are still possible in a highly commercialized and commoditized world of modern football.
What are the limits of cultural critique? What are the horizons? What are the political implications? John Pemberton explores these questions in this far-reaching ethnographic and historical ...interpretation of cultural discourse in Indonesia since 1965. Pemberton considers in particular how the appearance of order under Soeharto's repressive New Order regime is an effect of an enigmatic politics founded upon routine appeals to cultural values. Through a richly textured ethnographic account of events ranging from national elections to weddings, Pemberton simultaneously elucidates and disturbs the contours of the New Order cultural imaginary. He pursues the fugitive signs of circumstances that might resist the powers of New Order rule through unexpected village practices, among graveyard spirits, and within ascetic refuges. Key to this study is a reexamination of the historical conditions under which a discourse of culture emerges. Providing a close reading of a number of Central Javanese manuscripts from the late eighteenth century on, Pemberton outlines the conditions of knowledge formation in Indonesia since the beginning of Dutch colonial control. As he overturns common assumptions concerning colonial encounters, he discloses the gradual emergence in these texts of a discursive figure inscribed in contrast to the increasingly invasive presence of the Dutch: a figuration of difference that came to be called Java.
In recent years the concept of urban atmosphere has seemed to appear everywhere, discussed as a marketing strategy, part of an eventscape, a crucial element in place marketing or a key feature in the ...production of brandscapes. An attractive city should contain settings with attractive atmosphere or ambiance. This article discusses what we can learn from this rapid expansion. What happens when the elusive phenomenon of atmospheres becomes part of planning and performance in both new and old cities? Atmospheres are difficult to prefabricate, to sustain or control. Drawing on an ongoing research project on the making and unmaking of urban atmospheres, I will discuss different approaches to the study of such sensory landscapes. I explore the travels of the concept of atmosphere in both academic research and among practitioners in city planning and branding. Two cases of intensive branding in Denmark and Sweden are followed as they are transformed over a decade of city development.
In the first of two essays in this Journal, I seek to unify the historical geography of early modern ‘European expansion’ (Iberia and Latin America) with the environmental history of the ‘transition ...to capitalism’ (northwestern Europe). The expansion of Europe's overseas empires and the transitions to capitalism within Europe were differentiated moments within the geographical expansion of commodity production and exchange – what I call the commodity frontier. This essay is developed in two movements. Beginning with a conceptual and methodological recasting of the historical geography of the rise of capitalism, I offer an analytical narrative that follows the early modern diaspora of silver. This account follows the political ecology of silver production and trade from the Andes to Spain in Braudel's ‘second’ sixteenth century (c. 1545–1648). In highlighting the Ibero‐American moment of this process in the present essay, I contend that the spectacular reorganization of Andean space and the progressive dilapidation of Spain's real economy not only signified the rise and demise of a trans‐Atlantic, Iberian ecological regime, but also generated the historically necessary conditions for the unprecedented concentration of accumulation and commodity production in the capitalist North Atlantic in the centuries that followed.
David Romano's 2006 book focuses on the Kurdish case to try and make sense of ethnic nationalist resurgence generally. In a world rent by a growing number of such conflicts, the questions posed about ...why, how and when such challenges to the state are mounted are becoming increasingly urgent. Throughout the author analyses these questions through the lens of social movement theory, considering in particular politico-social structures, resource mobilization strategies and cultural identity. His conclusions offer some thought-provoking insights into Kurdish nationalism, as well as into the strengths and weaknesses of various social movement theories. While the book offers a rigorous conceptual approach, the empirical material - the result of the author's personal experiences - makes it a compelling read. It will find a readership amongst students of the Middle East, and also amongst those interested in ethnic relations, minority rights, terrorism, state repression, social movement theories and many other related issues.
Theorising media and practice Bräuchler, Birgit; Postill, John
2010., 20101115, 2010, 2010-09-30, 20100101, Letnik:
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Although practice theory has been a mainstay of social theory for nearly three decades, so far it has had very limited impact on media studies. This book draws on the work of practice theorists such ...as Wittgenstein, Foucault, Bourdieu, Barth and Schatzki and rethinks the study of media from the perspective of practice theory. Drawing on ethnographic case studies from places such as Zambia, India, Hong Kong, the United States, Britain, Norway and Denmark, the contributors address a number of important themes: media as practice; the interlinkage between media, culture and practice; the contextual study of media practices; and new practices of digital production. Collectively, these chapters make a strong case for the importance of theorising the relationship between media and practice and thereby adding practice theory as a new strand to the study of anthropology of media.
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