Ethnicity clusters individuals with shared characteristics and is a common variable in epidemiology. Often it is not specified what is meant by a given ethnicity or what characteristics ethnicity ...entails in the different contexts. In public health research, ethnicity can be viewed as a non-modifiable risk factor of disease because modifying the ethnic composition in a population is not meaningful, nor ethical, public health policy. Importantly, ethnicity is typically associated with modifiable risk factors that are possible to intervene on for improvement of public health, and hence viewed as a risk marker, not a risk factor. In the SAMINOR 1 Survey (2003–2004) from Northern and Mid Norway, Sami people were on average 6 cm lower than non-Sami people that lived in the same rural area. Low height has been associated with a higher risk of coronary heart disease, stroke, and diabetes, lower risk of some cancer types, and lower socioeconomic status. This article aims to discuss the use and interpretation of ethnicity and height in epidemiologic research when comparing Sami to non-Sami populations. Body height is a highly heritable trait in individuals, whereas, at a population level, the average height may be a marker of long-term exposure to health and living conditions, and hence, a non-modifiable variable for interventions at present. We argue that height may be both an important risk factor for chronic lifestyle disease and an explanatory variable in studies of chronic lifestyle diseases in Sami vs non-Sami populations. For better interpretability of study results, we encourage researchers to express what components or characteristics are assumed to comprise Sami ethnicity and height and clarify which variables may provide interventions. Furthermore, we urge researchers to be aware of the potential for bias when studying health measures influenced by height, such as the popular body mass index.
Friction Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt; Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt
2005., 20111023, 2011, 2004, 2004-12-10, 20050101
eBook
A wheel turns because of its encounter with the surface of the road; spinning in the air it goes nowhere. Rubbing two sticks together produces heat and light; one stick alone is just a stick. In both ...cases, it is friction that produces movement, action, effect. Challenging the widespread view that globalization invariably signifies a "clash" of cultures, anthropologist Anna Tsing here develops friction in its place as a metaphor for the diverse and conflicting social interactions that make up our contemporary world.
Through coming alongside a Sami family, we open spaces to contemplate multiple forms of silence. We argue that rather than the antithesis to narrative, silence is an integral part of narrative ...inquiry. As narrative inquirers we need to be wakeful to what is told and also untold, often simultaneously. We believe that narrative inquiry is not necessarily about breaking silences, but it is also about honoring silences, as well as the practice of silence. By calling forward one author’s intergenerational experiences, we explore different aspects of silence such as silence as text, silence as context for living and telling, and silences following silencing. We explore how we live with, and within, silences, and how our told and untold stories are shaped by silences and, in turn, also shape silences.
This article argues for an approach to the seasons as rhythms that emerge in the articulation of human and non-human processes. First, it contrasts two anthropological conceptions of the seasons, as ...temporal blocks and as rhythmic dynamics, and subsequently indicates how life on the Kemi River conforms more to the latter approach. It goes on to show that the seasons exist in the context of many other rhythms, for instance those of discharge and water level in the river. Finally, it explains how river dwellers not only adapt to the rhythms of river and landscape, but in practising their activities they also shape these rhythms. Therefore, the seasons and the plethora of longer and shorter rhythms of which they form part are simultaneously 'social' and 'natural'.
•Territory extends onto and out from the body as a site of spatial subjugation and resistance.•In colonial space bodies become public sites on which the construction and contestation of the settler ...state take place.•Counter-colonial bodies engage in alternative practices of territorialization in ways that trouble colonial regimes.•Race and gender emerge in the context of people’s efforts to move out of relations of spatial violence.•The body is a lively and contested site of both colonial appropriation and anticolonial struggle.
The spatial architecture of settler colonialism in Africa has been subject to ample research, in geography and beyond. This paper offers an alternative reading of colonial settler territory at the scale of the body, showing how myriad colonial boundaries were displaced onto people’s bodies, and naturalized, negated and negotiated through bodily practice, performance and movement. Using Northern Rhodesia/Zambia as a case, my argument is organized around three sites of colonial spatial power: the ‘proper village’, the tribal ‘homeland’ and the colonial township. The analysis builds on historical literatures, archival research and ethnographic work to show how the construction of each of these spaces (territories) was contingent upon the making of African bodies as objects and subjects of colonial imaginary. Bodies – chiefs’ bodies, ‘ghost-like’ bodies, dirty bodies, unmanly bodies, malnourished bodies, reproductive bodies – became important bearers of symbolic value, subjected to racial and sexual regimes and power relations, all of which became sites of territorial inscription through which the construction and contestations of the colonial state and its territorial boundaries took place. The analysis makes visible the political work performed by these bodies, how their movement engendered administrative anxiety and became critical sites around which race, gender and territory were constructed and contested in intimate relation to each other. Through this conceptualization, the paper moves forward debates in geography on territory, showing how territory is not external to the body, not simply bodily experienced, but extend onto and out from the body as a critical site of subjugation and anticolonial resistance.
The history of anthropology has been written from multiple viewpoints, often from perspectives of gender, nationality, theory, or politics.Before Boasdelves deeper into issues concerning ...anthropology's academic origins to present a groundbreaking study that reveals how ethnology and ethnography originated during the eighteenth rather than the nineteenth century, developing parallel to anthropology, or the "natural history of man."
Han F. Vermeulen explores primary and secondary sources from Russia, Germany, Austria, the United States, the Netherlands, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, France, and Great Britain in tracing how "ethnography" was begun as field research by German-speaking historians and naturalists in Siberia (Russia) during the 1730s and 1740s, was generalized as "ethnology" by scholars in Göttingen (Germany) and Vienna (Austria) during the 1770s and 1780s, and was subsequently adopted by researchers in other countries.
Before Boasargues that anthropology and ethnology were separate sciences during the Age of Reason, studying racial and ethnic diversity, respectively. Ethnography and ethnology focused not on "other" cultures but on all peoples of all eras. Following G. W. Leibniz, researchers in these fields categorized peoples primarily according to their languages. Franz Boas professionalized the holistic study of anthropology from the 1880s into the twentieth century.
Hvordan indsamles en etnografisk genstand i dag? Nærværende artikel er en feltberetning om, hvordan idéen til at indsamle en gravpæl på Madagaskar opstod og gennem en lang række forhandlinger lod sig ...realisere. Med afsæt i et gravpælsritual i en sihanakansk dødeby ved landsbyen Anororo, tages læseren med til undfangelsen af idéen om det tilsyneladende uladsiggørlige projekt. Vi følger forhandlingerne med landsbyboerne, udvælgelsen og fældningen af et gaffelformet træ, fremstillingsprocessen og endelig den lange rejse op gennem højlandet, ud til en havneby og med skib tusindvis af kilometer nordpå til Aarhus.
Ethnography and Virtual Worldsis the only book of its kind--a concise, comprehensive, and practical guide for students, teachers, designers, and scholars interested in using ethnographic methods to ...study online virtual worlds, including both game and nongame environments. Written by leading ethnographers of virtual worlds, and focusing on the key method of participant observation, the book provides invaluable advice, tips, guidelines, and principles to aid researchers through every stage of a project, from choosing an online fieldsite to writing and publishing the results.
Provides practical and detailed techniques for ethnographic research customized to reflect the specific issues of online virtual worlds, both game and nongame Draws on research in a range of virtual worlds, including Everquest, Second Life, There.com, and World of Warcraft Provides suggestions for dealing with institutional review boards, human subjects protocols, and ethical issues Guides the reader through the full trajectory of ethnographic research, from research design to data collection, data analysis, and writing up and publishing research results Addresses myths and misunderstandings about ethnographic research, and argues for the scientific value of ethnography
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