warauduati

Einführung in die Ethnologie Südamerikas:
der Süden

Seminar closed!

Accompanying page for students participating in the above course at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München …

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Africa in the Americas
Einführung in die Afroamerikanistik

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Accompanying page for students participating in the above course at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München …

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– aktualisiert 25.11.2008, 08:45 Uhr –

Contrary to the previous two posts here is some Garífuna Hip Hop directly from Brooklyn, New York City, USA, by Don Pakko featuring Big Mama & Negg, who I met some weeks ago. Here their video produced by AWP Productions and R-Daniels Films.
It’s all about cultural adaptation and the hybrid mix of Garífuna rhythms and language … and US gangsta rappin‘.

Vive le bricolage!

„Baba“ by Adrian Martínez at the Paranda Festival on Why-Not Island, Dangriga, Belize as part of the Garífuna Settlement Day celebrations, November 17th, 2007. Just to enjoy!

„World music enthusiasts around the globe are mourning the unexpected death of Andy Palacio, Belizean musician and leader of the international movement to preserve Garifuna language and culture. The Garifuna are a hybrid culture descended from African and indigenous Caribbean ancestors. Palacio’s latest album Wátina (‚I called out‘) released in 2007, propelled him to the international stage and sparked a cultural revival in his home nation of Belize.“ (Susanne Hackett at YouTube)

Maximilian Forte’s new experimental course, Cyberspace Ethnography, at Concordia University in Montreal might not be that experimental after all to the students of zephyrin_xirdal at the University of Munich, but for everyone else interested in the subject, I can only recommend to take a look at ANTH 498C, because although we might not be able to attend, Max has made an effort in providing tons of introductory material and resources. A rather complex bibliography for the initiated you can explore because of zephyrin_xirdal’s long standing work.

„New media, such as those contained in the World Wide Web, are unlike mass media. With new media the consumers are often also the producers. The previous recipients of messages mediated by broadcasters is a reality that has been significantly eroded by a new generation of persons who produce messages, the narrow casters, engaged in customized production and consumption. We have moved from a communicative media world of one-to-many to one that is many-to-many.“ (A PRELIMINARY MANIFESTO by M. F.)

Good luck with your project!

Andy Palacio, an iconic musician and activist of Garifuna culture crowned with success last year with his album „Wátina“, one of the most critically acclaimed recordings of the year in any genre, tragically passed away two nights ago.

A national hero in his homeland Belize already, he was named a UNESCO Artist for Peace in 2007 and won the prestigious WOMEX Award. Palacio was known for blending traditional elements and popular music advocating Garifuna language and culture. „That Palacio has been struck down at a moment of such international acclaim only increases the sense of shock and tragedy felt at his sudden and untimely death“ (official press release of Stonetree Records via CAC Review).

In memory of Andy Palacio please visit his MySpace page and the blog of his latest record label Cumbancha.

Here is an earlier featured video of Andy behind the scenes of Wátina:

Just a little reminder for everyone interested. The International Conference „Americanisms“ at the Bayreuth Institute for American Studies (BIAS) is going to take place the 31st of January to the 1st of February 2008.

Abstract:
„The idea of an American singularity has not only been one of the founding pillars of national self-perception but has also worked as a keystone of identifications, adaptations, and dissociations within and without the boundaries of the United States. Many of the twentieth-century cross-Atlantic discourses on politics, religion, and culture have thus been influenced by a perceived or real dichotomy between American and European concepts and ways of life, between Americanisms and Anti-Americanisms. However, any static and homogenous view on the very concept of Americanism can only be misleading. The plural form of this singularity is therefore intentional, as it invites a long-overdue reflection on regional and ethnic forms of such identification patterns. Furthermore, demographic shifts and a growing influence of immigrant groups from outside the traditional European settler groups have made the boundaries of the United States as well as of Canada fuzzier than a look at the world map suggests. Perhaps most importantly, the trauma of the 9/11 attacks has led to a deep uncertainty in the way the United States is to perceive and position itself, and as a consequence it would appear to invite acts of inward renewal. Such a period of transformation presents an ideal time to take stock of the various consequences of the idea of an American singularity, as well as of old and new forms of Americanism(s) on both sides of the Atlantic.“

My presentation „Africa in America: An Ethnological Perspective on Black Identity in the Americas“ is one of the very few anthropological viewpoints during the conference. I will speak about an African American perspective on identification with the Americas locating exemplary phenomena of African American culture, such as the Garínagu
in Honduras, Maroons in Jamaica, or the „Natural Rebels“ of Haiti. Perspectives on slavery as well as on the northward migration to the metropolises hopefully serve as starting points for a theoretical reflection and a diversified discussion on „Blackness“ in the United States of our time. Remember The End of Blackness.

For further individual abstracts and information please visit the conference’s website. For a quick view on the two days‘ program simply click on the two pictures above.

Zephyrin_xirdal, currently assistant professor at the Department of Anthro- pology in Munich, provided his audience with a definite abstract of his project – an ethnography of cyberculture. Highly interesting and relevant, and not only for anthropologists, why I am also featuring his long standing work here…

Abstract
„The project is based upon longlasting and sustainable anthropological fieldwork, which essentially happens within conceptual spaces of interaction spanned by the infrastructure of the Internet. Central concepts of the methodological access are thick participation (Spittler) and multisited ethnography (Marcus). For being able to grasp the sociocultural phenomena empirically observable online, genuine anthropological research methods are evaluated and then transposed to the new fields. Building upon this, and upon the fieldwork results, a systematic basis for the establishment of a new subarea of anthropology—’cyberanthropology’—is created. Within the framework of the thus designed subarea, and starting from existing models (Escobar), ‚cyberculture‘ is newly conceptualised as consisting of the four elements technology, cybernetics, sociocultural appropriation, and cyberpunk. From those the principle of appropriation (Beck) is the central research paradigm of the whole project. The reach of the developed concept of culture enables us to recognize online mediated interaction as embedded into a larger whole—as an aspect of certain ‚Lebenswelten,‘ which are of crucial importance for contemporary politics, economy, and society. The project renders the culture of this ‚Lebenswelten‘ understandable, and it is shown that transnational technoludic online communities of practice, which are in the focus of the fieldwork, not only constitute a technological, but also a sociocultural avant-garde of present time.“

Good luck with the writing process !!!

„A bit belated“, just like zephyrin wrote, but with the same congratulations for our friend and colleague Matthias Eberl for publishing his audio slideshow „Drei Jahre nach dem Tsunami“ (in German) at Spiegel Online, asking what happened to the donations to a small fishing village in the South of India – the Prana Project iniciated by anthropologists Matthias Laubscher and Hilde Link.

My entry is not supposed to talk about the project itself or this report three years after (there is an interesting „making of“ at his blog Rufposten), but rather just to give the shout-outs to Matthias and promote once more his unique and personally developed „multimedia report„. In July 2006 I reviewed and promoted his first public audio slideshow „Das Finale der Passanten„, a new type of journalistic (and anthropological) presentation indeed. Zephyrin seems to be convinced as well that his „developing of true multimedia formats is of tremendous interest for representing anthropological knowledge“.

There is a text-based tutorial of Matthias‘ multimedia report format about Munich’s Central Station (in German) as well as an essay on „multimedia as instrument for ethnological representation“ (in German), if you are interested any further. Matthias is currently also teaching „Multimedia ethnography online“ at the University of Bayreuth.

Congrats!