The Economist has a nice article on immigration in Germany. If you can recall, Angela Merkel recently said that multiculturalism has utterly failed in Germany. This was following the furore that was raised by the publication of a book that claimed that immigrants and muslims were causing the downfall of Germany. The book was written… Read More »
In a beautifully written piece over at the New York Review of Books blog, Tony Judt discusses what identity means in a cosmopolitan world. H/T Aleksandra Gadzala For a further discussion/problematisation of the concept see ‘Beyond “Identity”‘, by Rogers Brubaker and Frederick Cooper. Ungated pdf version available here.
Yesterday I read a journal article on the hypersexualisation of blacks and the redefinition of citizenship in Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall. In plain English, German women saw black men as exotic consumables – blacks here meaning both Africans and African American GIs. But the experiences in both cases are radically different.… Read More »
The rapid development of global communications today contains within its movement a far-reaching transformation of world society. ‘Anthropology’ in some form is one of the intellectual traditions best suited to make sense of it. The academic seclusion of the discipline, its passive acquiescence to bureaucracy, is the chief obstacle preventing us from grasping this historical… Read More »
Not long after I got to Germany – close to three years ago – someone called me and, among other things, we talked a bit about what I was doing in Germany. This is a rough presentation of an interesting part of the conversation. The Other Person aka TOP: So, what exactly are you studying?… Read More »
Image via Wikipedia One of the most notable things about Buchenwald is its relative seclusion. Although it is right in the vicinity of Weimar, the native home of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, it still manages to remain a part of nowhere. Another notable thing is that the place manages to give off the feeling that… Read More »
I was in Amsterdam over the weekend, and my friends persuaded me to see Wouter Hamel – not like I needed a lot of convincing though. I went with them to Paradiso to see the concert. Really nice stuff… tuneful, soulful and unassuming. I got home this evening, got on Youtube, and found that there… Read More »
I have been in London for a week now, busy working… at least most of the time. I got off the train at the Victoria station yesterday evening and decided to do something touristey. I started on Victoria street and walked towards the Westminster Abbey, then to the Palace of Westminster, took some picture of… Read More »
I bought a netbook, Samsung NC10, cos I thought it would be nice to have something small to take around to conferences and field trips, instead of lugging my laptop around. Well, for the sake of full disclosure, I actually have a Nokia E61i, a smartphone that is of course way smaller than a netbook,… Read More »
This Sunday morning, I am sitting on my bed listening to Iyawo Olele, by Dr Orlando Owoh. I remember listening to Orlando’s music on LP in our sitting room when I was growing up. It was one of those old record players that had to constantly have its pin changed… if you remember those. I… Read More »