Learning Morality, Inequalities, and Faith: Christian and Muslim Schools in Tanzania (References), 2021
Christian and Muslim schools have become important target points in families and pupils' quests f... more Christian and Muslim schools have become important target points in families and pupils' quests for new study opportunities and securing a 'good life' in Tanzania. These schools combine secular education with the moral (self-)formation of young people, triggering new realignments of the fields of education with interreligious co-existence and class formation in the country's urban centres. Hansjörg Dilger explores the emerging entanglements of faith, morality, and the educational market in Dar es Salaam, thereby shedding light on processes of religious institutionalisation and their individual and collective embodiment. By contextualising these dynamics through analysis of the politics of Christian-Muslim relations in postcolonial Tanzania, this book shows how the field of education has shaped the positions of these highly diverse religious communities in diverging ways. In doing so, Dilger suggests that students and teachers' religious experience and practice in faith-oriented schools are shaped by the search for socio-moral belonging as well as by the power relations and inequalities of an interconnected world.
Christian and Muslim schools have become important target points in families and pupils' quests f... more Christian and Muslim schools have become important target points in families and pupils' quests for new study opportunities and securing a 'good life' in Tanzania. These schools combine secular education with the moral (self-)formation of young people, triggering new realignments of the fields of education with interreligious co-existence and class formation in the country's urban centres. Hansjörg Dilger explores the emerging entanglements of faith, morality, and the educational market in Dar es Salaam, thereby shedding light on processes of religious institutionalisation and their individual and collective embodiment. By contextualising these dynamics through analysis of the politics of Christian-Muslim relations in postcolonial Tanzania, this book shows how the field of education has shaped the positions of these highly diverse religious communities in diverging ways. In doing so, Dilger suggests that students and teachers' religious experience and practice in faith-oriented schools are shaped by the search for socio-moral belonging as well as by the power relations and inequalities of an interconnected world.
Der Begriff der kulturellen Diversität ist umstritten – besonders, wenn es um die Zukunft von Ins... more Der Begriff der kulturellen Diversität ist umstritten – besonders, wenn es um die Zukunft von Institutionen geht. Führen Diversitäts-Politiken zu einem höheren Maß gesellschaftlicher Teilhabe unterrepräsentierter Gruppen? Oder ist »kulturelle Vielfalt« nur ein beschwichtigendes Etikett, das die sozialen Ungleichheiten in Institutionen eher verschleiert als benennt? Dieser Band beleuchtet die affektiven Dynamiken kultureller Diversifizierung in zentralen institutionellen Feldern wie Gesundheit, Bildung, Medien und Kultur. Er zeigt, dass es bei kultureller Diversifizierung nicht nur um die Reform von Institutionen, sondern um eine gesamtgesellschaftliche Neuorientierung in einer stark polarisierten Öffentlichkeit geht. Dieses radikale Potenzial wird nur selten realisiert, aber es erklärt die affektive Aufladung der Kämpfe um Diversität, der dieser Band nachgeht.
The contributors to Affective Trajectories examine the mutual and highly complex entwinements bet... more The contributors to Affective Trajectories examine the mutual and highly complex entwinements between religion and affect in urban Africa in the early twenty-first century. Drawing on ethnographic research throughout the continent and in African diasporic communities abroad, they trace the myriad ways religious ideas, practices, and materialities interact with affect to configure life in urban spaces. Whether examining the affective force of the built urban environment or how religious practices contribute to new forms of attachment, identification, and place-making, they illustrate the force of affect as it is shaped by temporality and spatiality in the religious lives of individuals and communities. Among other topics, they explore Masowe Apostolic Christianity in relation to experiences of displacement in Harare, Zimbabwe; Muslim identity, belonging, and the global ummah in Ghana; crime, emotions, and conversion to neo-Pentecostalism in Cape Town; and spiritual cleansing in a Congolese branch of a Japanese religious movement. In so doing, the contributors demonstrate how the social and material living conditions of African cities generate diverse affective forms of religious experiences in ways that foster both localized and transnational paths of emotional knowledge.
Affective Trajectories: Religion and Emotion in African Cityscapes (Duke University Press), 2020
The contributors to Affective Trajectories examine the mutual and highly complex entwinements bet... more The contributors to Affective Trajectories examine the mutual and highly complex entwinements between religion and affect in urban Africa in the early twenty-first century. Drawing on ethnographic research throughout the continent and in African diasporic communities abroad, they trace the myriad ways religious ideas, practices, and materialities interact with affect to configure life in urban spaces. Whether examining the affective force of the built urban environment or how religious practices contribute to new forms of attachment, identification, and place-making, they illustrate the force of affect as it is shaped by temporality and spatiality in the religious lives of individuals and communities. Among other topics, they explore Masowe Apostolic Christianity in relation to experiences of displacement in Harare, Zimbabwe; Muslim identity, belonging, and the global ummah in Ghana; crime, emotions, and conversion to neo-Pentecostalism in Cape Town; and spiritual cleansing in a Congolese branch of a Japanese religious movement. In so doing, the contributors demonstrate how the social and material living conditions of African cities generate diverse affective forms of religious experiences in ways that foster both localized and transnational paths of emotional knowledge.
Recent political, social, and economic changes in Africa have provoked radical shifts in the land... more Recent political, social, and economic changes in Africa have provoked radical shifts in the landscape of health and healthcare. Medicine, Mobility, and Power in Global Africa captures the multiple dynamics of a globalized world and its impact on medicine, health, and the delivery of healthcare in Africa—and beyond. Essays by an international group of contributors take on intractable problems such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and insufficient access to healthcare, drugs, resources, hospitals, and technologies. The movements of people and resources described here expose the growing challenges of poverty and public health, but they also show how new opportunities have been created for transforming healthcare and promoting care and healing.
This book critically interrogates emerging interconnections between religion and biomedicine in A... more This book critically interrogates emerging interconnections between religion and biomedicine in Africa in the era of antiretroviral treatment for AIDS. Highlighting the complex relationships between religious ideologies, practices and organizations on the one hand, and biomedical treatment programmes and the scientific languages and public health institutions that sustain them on the other, this anthology charts largely uncovered terrain in the social science study of the Aids epidemic.
Spanning different regions of Africa, the authors offer unique access to issues at the interface of religion and medical humanitarianism and the manifold therapeutic traditions, religious practices and moralities as they co-evolve in situations of AIDS treatment. This book also sheds new light on how religious spaces are formed in response to the dilemmas people face with the introduction of life-prolonging treatment programmes.
Recent political, social, and economic changes in Africa have provoked radical shifts in the land... more Recent political, social, and economic changes in Africa have provoked radical shifts in the landscape of health and healthcare. Medicine, Mobility, and Power in Global Africa captures the multiple dynamics of a globalized world and its impact on medicine, health, and the delivery of healthcare in Africa—and beyond. Essays by an international group of contributors take on intractable problems such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and insufficient access to healthcare, drugs, resources, hospitals, and technologies. The movements of people and resources described here expose the growing challenges of poverty and public health, but they also show how new opportunities have been created for transforming healthcare and promoting care and healing.
The HIV/AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa has been addressed and perceived predominantly throug... more The HIV/AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa has been addressed and perceived predominantly through the broad perspectives of social and economic theories as well as public health and development discourses. This volume however, focuses on the micro-politics of illness, treatment and death in order to offer innovative insights into the complex processes that shape individual and community responses to AIDS. The contributions describe the dilemmas that families, communities and health professionals face and shed new light on the transformation of social and moral orders in African societies, which have been increasingly marginalised in the context of global modernity.
Wie gestalten sich medizinisches Wissen und medizinische Praktiken in einer global vernetzten Wel... more Wie gestalten sich medizinisches Wissen und medizinische Praktiken in einer global vernetzten Welt? Welchen Herausforderungen steht die Medizinethnologie angesichts der transnationalen Bewegungen von Menschen, sowie medizinbezogener Ideen und Praktiken gegenüber? Dieser Band verweist auf die Bedeutung eines sozial- und kulturanthropologischen Analyseansatzes, wenn Gesundheit und Krankheit im globalen Kontext adäquat verstanden werden sollen. Er plädiert für eine differenzierte Berücksichtigung der sozialen und kulturellen Dynamiken, die die Politiken des heterogenen und machtbeladenen Felds «Medizin» kennzeichnen. Fallstudien über Europa, Afrika, Asien und Lateinamerika beleuchten folgende Bereiche: Neue Technologien und medizinische Praxis, Migration und Medizin in transnationalen Verflechtungen, «Traditionelle Medizin» als strategische Ressource, Soziale Sicherung und Gesundheitsfinanzierung sowie Urbanisierung – eine Gefahr für die Gesundheit?
Im Jahr 2003 starben in Afrika mehr als zwei Millionen Menschen an Aids.Wie leben die Menschen do... more Im Jahr 2003 starben in Afrika mehr als zwei Millionen Menschen an Aids.Wie leben die Menschen dort mit den Folgen der Epidemie? Wie haben sie die massiven Erfahrungen von Krankheit und Tod in ihren Lebensalltag integriert? Hansjörg Dilger beschreibt am Beispiel Tansanias, wie soziale und kulturelle Beziehungen im Kontext der stigmatisierten Krankheit neu verhandelt werden. Dabei zeigt er, dass die fortdauernde Begegnung mit Krankheit und Tod zu tiefen Brüchen in Familienverbänden führt und häufig eine Ausgrenzung von Aids-Kranken zur Folge hat. Gleichzeitig unternehmen Individuen, Familien und Gemeinden jedoch erhebliche Anstrengungen, um im Umgang mit Aids zu einer Neubestimmung sozialer und kultureller Praxis zu gelangen: Diese erlaubt es ihnen, soziale Risse zu kitten und damit die Kontrolle über die untrennbare Einheit von Leben und Tod wiederherzustellen.
New protocols for scientific integrity and data management issued by universities, journals, and ... more New protocols for scientific integrity and data management issued by universities, journals, and transnational social science funding agencies are often modelled on medical or psychological research, and do not take account of the specific characteristics of the processes of ethnographic research. These guidelines provide ethnographers with some of the most basic principles of doing such research. They show that the primary response of ethnographers to requests to share research materials with third parties should be to remain aware of the fact that these research materials have been co-produced with their research participants; that the collaborative ethnographic research process resists turning these materials into commodified, impersonal ‘data’ that can be owned and shared publicly; and that therefore the primary response of ethnographers should be to retain custody of research materials.
What responsibilities do universities have in conducting research on, as well as together with, r... more What responsibilities do universities have in conducting research on, as well as together with, refugees? Under which conditions do such research initiatives take place, and what lessons can be learnt from their implementation? Social scientists from the Freie Universität Berlin discuss their experiences with seminar-based research projects in the context of BA study programs in social and cultural anthropology and political sciences. They ask how seminar-based research projects can adhere to the ethical standards of social science research, especially with regard to the structural limitations that are imposed on such projects in relation to their time frames and research topics. They also explore the opportunities to involve students actively in the conceptualization and realization of such initiatives. Finally, they reflect on the ideals and limitations of participatory research approaches, as well as the ethical and practical challenges that such research constellations imply.
(Book Abstract from Duke University Press) The contributors to Affective Trajectories examine the... more (Book Abstract from Duke University Press) The contributors to Affective Trajectories examine the mutual and highly complex entwinements between religion and affect in urban Africa in the early twenty-first century. Drawing on ethnographic research throughout the continent and in African diasporic communities abroad, they trace the myriad ways religious ideas, practices, and materialities interact with affect to configure life in urban spaces. Whether examining the affective force of the built urban environment or how religious practices contribute to new forms of attachment, identification, and place-making, they illustrate the force of affect as it is shaped by temporality and spatiality in the religious lives of individuals and communities. Among other topics, they explore Masowe Apostolic Christianity in relation to experiences of displacement in Harare, Zimbabwe; Muslim identity, belonging, and the global ummah in Ghana; crime, emotions, and conversion to neo-Pentecostalism in Cape Town; and spiritual cleansing in a Congolese branch of a Japanese religious movement. In so doing, the contributors demonstrate how the social and material living conditions of African cities generate diverse affective forms of religious experiences in ways that foster both localized and transnational paths of emotional knowledge.
This special issue explores the deep entanglements between medicine, law, politics, morality and ... more This special issue explores the deep entanglements between medicine, law, politics, morality and economy in the contemporary world order and asks how these entwinements shape illness experiences and forms of treatment and care in the varying locations of Egypt, Tanzania, Brazil and India. By introducing the concept of 'transfi guration', we highlight the highly ambiguous, ever-evolving and increasingly transnational character of these processes in the vastly contested and power-ridden fi elds of medicine and wellbeing. We also argue that a moral economy approach can fi gure as a lens to disentangle and disaggregate these diff erent fi elds' values and practices analytically and to account for the need to refl ect systematically on people's struggles for a 'good life' in the context of profi t-driven and often highly exclusionary economies and their impacts on health care systems. Against this background, the contributions to this special issue ask, through a shared theoretical concern, how medicine, illness experience and medical knowledge production coalesce under the condition of 'excessive' economies in relation to subjectivities, materialities and values. In conclusion, we ask which ethical and political demands arise for anthropologists as novel, strongly politicised and morally loaded fi elds of research open up; and how we can respond to the challenges of doing research in the capital-intensive fi elds of medicine and health and act accordingly in our investigations and writings.
Angewandte Ethnologie Perspektiven einer anwendungsorientierten Wissenschaft, 2019
ABSTRACT: In diesem Beitrag zeigen wir, dass eine intervenierende Medizinethnologie, die die
Bezi... more ABSTRACT: In diesem Beitrag zeigen wir, dass eine intervenierende Medizinethnologie, die die Beziehung zwischen Hochschulen und gesellschaftlicher Praxis als Kontinuum und nicht als Gegensatz begreift, sowohl mit Blick auf ihren inhaltlichen Beitrag als auch in Bezug auf ihre strukturellen Rahmenbedingungen betrachtet werden muss. Zunächst geben wir einen Überblick über den Stand der „öffentlichen“ oder „engagierten“ Medizinethnologie und legen dar, in welchen Bereichen Medizinethnolog*innen heute praktisch tätig sind. Der Hauptteil des Beitrags richtet den Fokus sodann auf die Hochschulen selbst und verdeutlicht den Beitrag einer „theorieinformierten Praxis in der Medizinethnologie“ zur gesellschaftlichen Öffentlichkeit mit Blick auf zwei Beispiele: 1. Das „Stadteillabor“ an der Hochschule für Gesundheit in Bochum, das Anwohner*innen, Geflüchtete und Studierende in der Gesundheits förderung zusammenbringt; und 2. den seit 2014 bestehenden „Blog Medizinethnologie“ der Arbeitsgruppe Medical Anthropology in der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie e. V. Der Text eruiert abschließend, welche Impulse diese Beispiele im Hinblick auf die öffentliche Positionierung der (Medizin-)Ethnologie im deutschsprachigen Raum insgesamt setzen können. Insbesondere betrachten wir dabei, welche Rolle die Lehre in diesem Zusammenhang einnimmt und inwiefern durch diese bereits Studierende ethnologischer und interdisziplinär-gesundheitswissenschaftlicher Studiengänge in verschiedene Formen der praktizierenden Medizinethnologie einbezogen werden können.
Blog "What's in a Name? - Wofür steht die Umbenennung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Völkerkunde?", 2018
In diesem Beitrag stelle ich die These auf, dass die bislang von den KritikerInnen der Berliner E... more In diesem Beitrag stelle ich die These auf, dass die bislang von den KritikerInnen der Berliner Entscheidung vorgebrachten Argumente für die Bezeichnung "Ethnologie" (und gegen "Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie") einen zentralen Aspekt vernachlässigen: die Tatsache nämlich, dass der Begriff Ethnologie es in den Augen vieler FachvertreterInnen nicht – und anscheinend noch weniger als "Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie" – vermocht hat, eine überzeugende Kongruenz zwischen den epistemologisch-konzeptuellen Neuorientierungen unseres Fachs der letzten Jahrzehnte einerseits, und der Bezeichnung unserer Fachgesellschaft andererseits, herzustellen. Wie Dieter Haller (2018) schreibt, speist sich Fachidentität "vor allem daraus (…), was man konkret tut"; doch bildet anscheinend genau die Bezeichnung "Ethnologie", anders als Haller es vermutet, eben diese täglichen Praktiken unserer Disziplin in Forschung, Lehre und Lernen nicht mehr hinreichend ab. Insbesondere kreiert die "Begriffsfalle Ethnologie" (Schiffauer 2018) dabei eine kontinuierliche Diskrepanz innerhalb der täglichen Praktiken unserer Disziplin, die die Wahlentscheidungen in Berlin meines Erachtens zentraler motiviert hat als die beharrlich-belehrenden Hinweise auf die 'richtigen' Konsequenzen, die aus der Fachgeschichte zu ziehen gewesen wären. LINK: https://blog.uni-koeln.de/gssc-whatsinaname/2018/05/22/von-menschen-und-ethnischen-gruppen/#more-173
Learning Morality, Inequalities, and Faith: Christian and Muslim Schools in Tanzania (References), 2021
Christian and Muslim schools have become important target points in families and pupils' quests f... more Christian and Muslim schools have become important target points in families and pupils' quests for new study opportunities and securing a 'good life' in Tanzania. These schools combine secular education with the moral (self-)formation of young people, triggering new realignments of the fields of education with interreligious co-existence and class formation in the country's urban centres. Hansjörg Dilger explores the emerging entanglements of faith, morality, and the educational market in Dar es Salaam, thereby shedding light on processes of religious institutionalisation and their individual and collective embodiment. By contextualising these dynamics through analysis of the politics of Christian-Muslim relations in postcolonial Tanzania, this book shows how the field of education has shaped the positions of these highly diverse religious communities in diverging ways. In doing so, Dilger suggests that students and teachers' religious experience and practice in faith-oriented schools are shaped by the search for socio-moral belonging as well as by the power relations and inequalities of an interconnected world.
Christian and Muslim schools have become important target points in families and pupils' quests f... more Christian and Muslim schools have become important target points in families and pupils' quests for new study opportunities and securing a 'good life' in Tanzania. These schools combine secular education with the moral (self-)formation of young people, triggering new realignments of the fields of education with interreligious co-existence and class formation in the country's urban centres. Hansjörg Dilger explores the emerging entanglements of faith, morality, and the educational market in Dar es Salaam, thereby shedding light on processes of religious institutionalisation and their individual and collective embodiment. By contextualising these dynamics through analysis of the politics of Christian-Muslim relations in postcolonial Tanzania, this book shows how the field of education has shaped the positions of these highly diverse religious communities in diverging ways. In doing so, Dilger suggests that students and teachers' religious experience and practice in faith-oriented schools are shaped by the search for socio-moral belonging as well as by the power relations and inequalities of an interconnected world.
Der Begriff der kulturellen Diversität ist umstritten – besonders, wenn es um die Zukunft von Ins... more Der Begriff der kulturellen Diversität ist umstritten – besonders, wenn es um die Zukunft von Institutionen geht. Führen Diversitäts-Politiken zu einem höheren Maß gesellschaftlicher Teilhabe unterrepräsentierter Gruppen? Oder ist »kulturelle Vielfalt« nur ein beschwichtigendes Etikett, das die sozialen Ungleichheiten in Institutionen eher verschleiert als benennt? Dieser Band beleuchtet die affektiven Dynamiken kultureller Diversifizierung in zentralen institutionellen Feldern wie Gesundheit, Bildung, Medien und Kultur. Er zeigt, dass es bei kultureller Diversifizierung nicht nur um die Reform von Institutionen, sondern um eine gesamtgesellschaftliche Neuorientierung in einer stark polarisierten Öffentlichkeit geht. Dieses radikale Potenzial wird nur selten realisiert, aber es erklärt die affektive Aufladung der Kämpfe um Diversität, der dieser Band nachgeht.
The contributors to Affective Trajectories examine the mutual and highly complex entwinements bet... more The contributors to Affective Trajectories examine the mutual and highly complex entwinements between religion and affect in urban Africa in the early twenty-first century. Drawing on ethnographic research throughout the continent and in African diasporic communities abroad, they trace the myriad ways religious ideas, practices, and materialities interact with affect to configure life in urban spaces. Whether examining the affective force of the built urban environment or how religious practices contribute to new forms of attachment, identification, and place-making, they illustrate the force of affect as it is shaped by temporality and spatiality in the religious lives of individuals and communities. Among other topics, they explore Masowe Apostolic Christianity in relation to experiences of displacement in Harare, Zimbabwe; Muslim identity, belonging, and the global ummah in Ghana; crime, emotions, and conversion to neo-Pentecostalism in Cape Town; and spiritual cleansing in a Congolese branch of a Japanese religious movement. In so doing, the contributors demonstrate how the social and material living conditions of African cities generate diverse affective forms of religious experiences in ways that foster both localized and transnational paths of emotional knowledge.
Affective Trajectories: Religion and Emotion in African Cityscapes (Duke University Press), 2020
The contributors to Affective Trajectories examine the mutual and highly complex entwinements bet... more The contributors to Affective Trajectories examine the mutual and highly complex entwinements between religion and affect in urban Africa in the early twenty-first century. Drawing on ethnographic research throughout the continent and in African diasporic communities abroad, they trace the myriad ways religious ideas, practices, and materialities interact with affect to configure life in urban spaces. Whether examining the affective force of the built urban environment or how religious practices contribute to new forms of attachment, identification, and place-making, they illustrate the force of affect as it is shaped by temporality and spatiality in the religious lives of individuals and communities. Among other topics, they explore Masowe Apostolic Christianity in relation to experiences of displacement in Harare, Zimbabwe; Muslim identity, belonging, and the global ummah in Ghana; crime, emotions, and conversion to neo-Pentecostalism in Cape Town; and spiritual cleansing in a Congolese branch of a Japanese religious movement. In so doing, the contributors demonstrate how the social and material living conditions of African cities generate diverse affective forms of religious experiences in ways that foster both localized and transnational paths of emotional knowledge.
Recent political, social, and economic changes in Africa have provoked radical shifts in the land... more Recent political, social, and economic changes in Africa have provoked radical shifts in the landscape of health and healthcare. Medicine, Mobility, and Power in Global Africa captures the multiple dynamics of a globalized world and its impact on medicine, health, and the delivery of healthcare in Africa—and beyond. Essays by an international group of contributors take on intractable problems such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and insufficient access to healthcare, drugs, resources, hospitals, and technologies. The movements of people and resources described here expose the growing challenges of poverty and public health, but they also show how new opportunities have been created for transforming healthcare and promoting care and healing.
This book critically interrogates emerging interconnections between religion and biomedicine in A... more This book critically interrogates emerging interconnections between religion and biomedicine in Africa in the era of antiretroviral treatment for AIDS. Highlighting the complex relationships between religious ideologies, practices and organizations on the one hand, and biomedical treatment programmes and the scientific languages and public health institutions that sustain them on the other, this anthology charts largely uncovered terrain in the social science study of the Aids epidemic.
Spanning different regions of Africa, the authors offer unique access to issues at the interface of religion and medical humanitarianism and the manifold therapeutic traditions, religious practices and moralities as they co-evolve in situations of AIDS treatment. This book also sheds new light on how religious spaces are formed in response to the dilemmas people face with the introduction of life-prolonging treatment programmes.
Recent political, social, and economic changes in Africa have provoked radical shifts in the land... more Recent political, social, and economic changes in Africa have provoked radical shifts in the landscape of health and healthcare. Medicine, Mobility, and Power in Global Africa captures the multiple dynamics of a globalized world and its impact on medicine, health, and the delivery of healthcare in Africa—and beyond. Essays by an international group of contributors take on intractable problems such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and insufficient access to healthcare, drugs, resources, hospitals, and technologies. The movements of people and resources described here expose the growing challenges of poverty and public health, but they also show how new opportunities have been created for transforming healthcare and promoting care and healing.
The HIV/AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa has been addressed and perceived predominantly throug... more The HIV/AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa has been addressed and perceived predominantly through the broad perspectives of social and economic theories as well as public health and development discourses. This volume however, focuses on the micro-politics of illness, treatment and death in order to offer innovative insights into the complex processes that shape individual and community responses to AIDS. The contributions describe the dilemmas that families, communities and health professionals face and shed new light on the transformation of social and moral orders in African societies, which have been increasingly marginalised in the context of global modernity.
Wie gestalten sich medizinisches Wissen und medizinische Praktiken in einer global vernetzten Wel... more Wie gestalten sich medizinisches Wissen und medizinische Praktiken in einer global vernetzten Welt? Welchen Herausforderungen steht die Medizinethnologie angesichts der transnationalen Bewegungen von Menschen, sowie medizinbezogener Ideen und Praktiken gegenüber? Dieser Band verweist auf die Bedeutung eines sozial- und kulturanthropologischen Analyseansatzes, wenn Gesundheit und Krankheit im globalen Kontext adäquat verstanden werden sollen. Er plädiert für eine differenzierte Berücksichtigung der sozialen und kulturellen Dynamiken, die die Politiken des heterogenen und machtbeladenen Felds «Medizin» kennzeichnen. Fallstudien über Europa, Afrika, Asien und Lateinamerika beleuchten folgende Bereiche: Neue Technologien und medizinische Praxis, Migration und Medizin in transnationalen Verflechtungen, «Traditionelle Medizin» als strategische Ressource, Soziale Sicherung und Gesundheitsfinanzierung sowie Urbanisierung – eine Gefahr für die Gesundheit?
Im Jahr 2003 starben in Afrika mehr als zwei Millionen Menschen an Aids.Wie leben die Menschen do... more Im Jahr 2003 starben in Afrika mehr als zwei Millionen Menschen an Aids.Wie leben die Menschen dort mit den Folgen der Epidemie? Wie haben sie die massiven Erfahrungen von Krankheit und Tod in ihren Lebensalltag integriert? Hansjörg Dilger beschreibt am Beispiel Tansanias, wie soziale und kulturelle Beziehungen im Kontext der stigmatisierten Krankheit neu verhandelt werden. Dabei zeigt er, dass die fortdauernde Begegnung mit Krankheit und Tod zu tiefen Brüchen in Familienverbänden führt und häufig eine Ausgrenzung von Aids-Kranken zur Folge hat. Gleichzeitig unternehmen Individuen, Familien und Gemeinden jedoch erhebliche Anstrengungen, um im Umgang mit Aids zu einer Neubestimmung sozialer und kultureller Praxis zu gelangen: Diese erlaubt es ihnen, soziale Risse zu kitten und damit die Kontrolle über die untrennbare Einheit von Leben und Tod wiederherzustellen.
New protocols for scientific integrity and data management issued by universities, journals, and ... more New protocols for scientific integrity and data management issued by universities, journals, and transnational social science funding agencies are often modelled on medical or psychological research, and do not take account of the specific characteristics of the processes of ethnographic research. These guidelines provide ethnographers with some of the most basic principles of doing such research. They show that the primary response of ethnographers to requests to share research materials with third parties should be to remain aware of the fact that these research materials have been co-produced with their research participants; that the collaborative ethnographic research process resists turning these materials into commodified, impersonal ‘data’ that can be owned and shared publicly; and that therefore the primary response of ethnographers should be to retain custody of research materials.
What responsibilities do universities have in conducting research on, as well as together with, r... more What responsibilities do universities have in conducting research on, as well as together with, refugees? Under which conditions do such research initiatives take place, and what lessons can be learnt from their implementation? Social scientists from the Freie Universität Berlin discuss their experiences with seminar-based research projects in the context of BA study programs in social and cultural anthropology and political sciences. They ask how seminar-based research projects can adhere to the ethical standards of social science research, especially with regard to the structural limitations that are imposed on such projects in relation to their time frames and research topics. They also explore the opportunities to involve students actively in the conceptualization and realization of such initiatives. Finally, they reflect on the ideals and limitations of participatory research approaches, as well as the ethical and practical challenges that such research constellations imply.
(Book Abstract from Duke University Press) The contributors to Affective Trajectories examine the... more (Book Abstract from Duke University Press) The contributors to Affective Trajectories examine the mutual and highly complex entwinements between religion and affect in urban Africa in the early twenty-first century. Drawing on ethnographic research throughout the continent and in African diasporic communities abroad, they trace the myriad ways religious ideas, practices, and materialities interact with affect to configure life in urban spaces. Whether examining the affective force of the built urban environment or how religious practices contribute to new forms of attachment, identification, and place-making, they illustrate the force of affect as it is shaped by temporality and spatiality in the religious lives of individuals and communities. Among other topics, they explore Masowe Apostolic Christianity in relation to experiences of displacement in Harare, Zimbabwe; Muslim identity, belonging, and the global ummah in Ghana; crime, emotions, and conversion to neo-Pentecostalism in Cape Town; and spiritual cleansing in a Congolese branch of a Japanese religious movement. In so doing, the contributors demonstrate how the social and material living conditions of African cities generate diverse affective forms of religious experiences in ways that foster both localized and transnational paths of emotional knowledge.
This special issue explores the deep entanglements between medicine, law, politics, morality and ... more This special issue explores the deep entanglements between medicine, law, politics, morality and economy in the contemporary world order and asks how these entwinements shape illness experiences and forms of treatment and care in the varying locations of Egypt, Tanzania, Brazil and India. By introducing the concept of 'transfi guration', we highlight the highly ambiguous, ever-evolving and increasingly transnational character of these processes in the vastly contested and power-ridden fi elds of medicine and wellbeing. We also argue that a moral economy approach can fi gure as a lens to disentangle and disaggregate these diff erent fi elds' values and practices analytically and to account for the need to refl ect systematically on people's struggles for a 'good life' in the context of profi t-driven and often highly exclusionary economies and their impacts on health care systems. Against this background, the contributions to this special issue ask, through a shared theoretical concern, how medicine, illness experience and medical knowledge production coalesce under the condition of 'excessive' economies in relation to subjectivities, materialities and values. In conclusion, we ask which ethical and political demands arise for anthropologists as novel, strongly politicised and morally loaded fi elds of research open up; and how we can respond to the challenges of doing research in the capital-intensive fi elds of medicine and health and act accordingly in our investigations and writings.
Angewandte Ethnologie Perspektiven einer anwendungsorientierten Wissenschaft, 2019
ABSTRACT: In diesem Beitrag zeigen wir, dass eine intervenierende Medizinethnologie, die die
Bezi... more ABSTRACT: In diesem Beitrag zeigen wir, dass eine intervenierende Medizinethnologie, die die Beziehung zwischen Hochschulen und gesellschaftlicher Praxis als Kontinuum und nicht als Gegensatz begreift, sowohl mit Blick auf ihren inhaltlichen Beitrag als auch in Bezug auf ihre strukturellen Rahmenbedingungen betrachtet werden muss. Zunächst geben wir einen Überblick über den Stand der „öffentlichen“ oder „engagierten“ Medizinethnologie und legen dar, in welchen Bereichen Medizinethnolog*innen heute praktisch tätig sind. Der Hauptteil des Beitrags richtet den Fokus sodann auf die Hochschulen selbst und verdeutlicht den Beitrag einer „theorieinformierten Praxis in der Medizinethnologie“ zur gesellschaftlichen Öffentlichkeit mit Blick auf zwei Beispiele: 1. Das „Stadteillabor“ an der Hochschule für Gesundheit in Bochum, das Anwohner*innen, Geflüchtete und Studierende in der Gesundheits förderung zusammenbringt; und 2. den seit 2014 bestehenden „Blog Medizinethnologie“ der Arbeitsgruppe Medical Anthropology in der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie e. V. Der Text eruiert abschließend, welche Impulse diese Beispiele im Hinblick auf die öffentliche Positionierung der (Medizin-)Ethnologie im deutschsprachigen Raum insgesamt setzen können. Insbesondere betrachten wir dabei, welche Rolle die Lehre in diesem Zusammenhang einnimmt und inwiefern durch diese bereits Studierende ethnologischer und interdisziplinär-gesundheitswissenschaftlicher Studiengänge in verschiedene Formen der praktizierenden Medizinethnologie einbezogen werden können.
Blog "What's in a Name? - Wofür steht die Umbenennung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Völkerkunde?", 2018
In diesem Beitrag stelle ich die These auf, dass die bislang von den KritikerInnen der Berliner E... more In diesem Beitrag stelle ich die These auf, dass die bislang von den KritikerInnen der Berliner Entscheidung vorgebrachten Argumente für die Bezeichnung "Ethnologie" (und gegen "Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie") einen zentralen Aspekt vernachlässigen: die Tatsache nämlich, dass der Begriff Ethnologie es in den Augen vieler FachvertreterInnen nicht – und anscheinend noch weniger als "Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie" – vermocht hat, eine überzeugende Kongruenz zwischen den epistemologisch-konzeptuellen Neuorientierungen unseres Fachs der letzten Jahrzehnte einerseits, und der Bezeichnung unserer Fachgesellschaft andererseits, herzustellen. Wie Dieter Haller (2018) schreibt, speist sich Fachidentität "vor allem daraus (…), was man konkret tut"; doch bildet anscheinend genau die Bezeichnung "Ethnologie", anders als Haller es vermutet, eben diese täglichen Praktiken unserer Disziplin in Forschung, Lehre und Lernen nicht mehr hinreichend ab. Insbesondere kreiert die "Begriffsfalle Ethnologie" (Schiffauer 2018) dabei eine kontinuierliche Diskrepanz innerhalb der täglichen Praktiken unserer Disziplin, die die Wahlentscheidungen in Berlin meines Erachtens zentraler motiviert hat als die beharrlich-belehrenden Hinweise auf die 'richtigen' Konsequenzen, die aus der Fachgeschichte zu ziehen gewesen wären. LINK: https://blog.uni-koeln.de/gssc-whatsinaname/2018/05/22/von-menschen-und-ethnischen-gruppen/#more-173
Preface to the book "Hansjörg Dilger and Kristina Dohrn (eds.) in Collaboration with Internationa... more Preface to the book "Hansjörg Dilger and Kristina Dohrn (eds.) in Collaboration with International Women Space: Living in Refugee Camps in Berlin: Women's Perspectives and Experiences". Book abstract: This book provides insights into the various ways in which women* perceive of and experience their living conditions in five different asylum accommodation centers in Berlin. In particular, it explores how women* – who have fled from countries such as Syria, Afghanistan, Eritrea and Albania, and who have diverse socio-economic, linguistic and educational backgrounds – describe their lives in the camps with regard to health and care, administration and registration, social interactions and support, and safety and privacy. The ethnographic research on which this book is based resulted from a collaboration between students and lecturers of the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at Freie Universität Berlin and the Berlin- based group International Women’s Space. In this regard, the book aims to contribute to the improvement of the living conditions of refugee women* in Berlin and simultaneously hopes to provide a model for anthropological engagement in the face of increasingly complex socio-political challenges.
This book critically interrogates emerging interconnections between religion and biomedicine in A... more This book critically interrogates emerging interconnections between religion and biomedicine in Africa in the era of antiretroviral treatment for AIDS. Highlighting the complex relationships between religious ideologies, practices and organizations on the one hand, and biomedical treatment programmes and the scientific languages and public health institutions that sustain them on the other, this anthology charts largely uncovered terrain in the social science study of the Aids epidemic. Spanning different regions of Africa, the authors offer unique access to issues at the interface of religion and medical humanitarianism and the manifold therapeutic traditions, religious practices and moralities as they co-evolve in situations of AIDS treatment. This book also sheds new light on how religious spaces are formed in response to the dilemmas people face with the introduction of life-prolonging treatment programmes.
New Publication: “Medicine in Context: Towards a Social and Cultural Anthropology of Medicine(s)... more New Publication: “Medicine in Context: Towards a Social and Cultural Anthropology of Medicine(s) in an Interconnected World”
teilen twittern
Hansjörg Dilger, Bernhard Hadolt Operating room of the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Lambaréné
Operating room of the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Lambaréné, Gabon | Cover photo of the edited volume „Medicine in Context“ (2010) | 2007 Hansjörg Dilger
What is the role of medical anthropology in a globalized world that is becoming increasingly complex and interconnected? Where does the defining domain of our subdiscipline begin and end with regard to our ‘classical’ objects of study such as ‘medicine’, ‘health system(s)’, and ‘the body’, and how is it possible to decide what constitutes the anthropologically relevant ‘context’ of these (empirically defined) research fields? How can we open the horizons of the subdisciplines of social and cultural anthropology to medical anthropology, and to what extent do the demarcations between medical anthropology and other areas of the discipline that deal with politics, economics, law, science, religion, and urban environments even make sense? Where do the inter- and transdisciplinary junctions emerge that can provide for general reflections about the themes, challenges, and positions of medical anthropology in an interconnected world?
These were the questions occupying our minds as we prepared for the conference ‘Medicine in Context: Illness and Health in an Interconnected World’, organized in 2007 by the Work Group Medical Anthropology within the German Anthropological Association on the occasion of its tenth anniversary. The following text forms the introduction to the anthology of the same name (Dilger and Hadolt 2010), which was published under our oversight as the then chairs of the work group. It recapitulates some of the abovementioned questions based on the contributions to the conference and the ensuing discussions that took place. Read more here: http://www.medanthrotheory.org/read/5734/medicine-in-context
Blog "Medizinethnologie: Körper, Gesundheit und Heilung in einer globalisierten Welt", Sep 16, 2015
In diesem Blogbeitrag denke ich darüber nach, auf welchem Stand sich die Diskussion über ethische... more In diesem Blogbeitrag denke ich darüber nach, auf welchem Stand sich die Diskussion über ethisches Arbeiten in der (Medizin-)Ethnologie in Deutschland befindet und welche Rolle interdisziplinär zusammengesetzte Ethikkommissionen für die Begutachtung ethnographischer Forschungsansätze haben können.
Medical Anthropology: Cross-Cultural Studies in Health and Illness 34 (1): 1-10, Jan 2015
FROM THE INTRODUCTION: Over the last two decades, debates on ethics and reflections on the resear... more FROM THE INTRODUCTION: Over the last two decades, debates on ethics and reflections on the researcher's positionality and responsibility have been established firmly in general anthropology. These topics have received less attention in medical anthropology, however, despite the close relationship of the sub-discipline with physical and mental health and (social) suffering. [...] In this special issue, we wish to incorporate discussions on ethics, engagement, positionality, and epistemology – and the ways in which these issues become intertwined in the everyday work of anthropologists, particularly in the sub-discipline of medical anthropology. We aim to shed light on how discussions on all these aspects are established within and across often strongly nationalized academic cultures. Younger scholars especially face challenges with regard to diverse, often conflicting, expectations in regard to the ethical or moral nature of their research. This urges more 'established' anthropologists to think not only about researchers' different experiences in specific phases of their academic careers and in shifting contexts of fieldwork, but also the responsibilities that transnationally interconnected scholars have toward the training of future generations of medical anthropologists.
Blog "Medizinethnologie: Körper, Gesundheit und Heilung in einer vernetzten Welt", Dec 10, 2014
Ebola-Ausbrüche der letzten 15 Jahre haben gezeigt, wie wichtig das Verständnis lokaler Zusammenh... more Ebola-Ausbrüche der letzten 15 Jahre haben gezeigt, wie wichtig das Verständnis lokaler Zusammenhänge für den Erfolg von Gesundheitsinterventionen ist. Im Sudan, Kongo und in Gabun – sowie gegenwärtig in Guinea, Liberia und Sierra Leone – scheitert(e) die konsequente Umsetzung von Präventions-und Behandlungsanweisungen auch an der hohen Bedeutung, die Menschen vor Ort der Pflege von Kranken und der Bestattung toter Angehöriger beimessen. Gesundheitsteams wurden zudem mit einem starken Misstrauen gegenüber medizinischen Maßnahmen konfrontiert, das sich mit lokalen Diskursen über Krankheitsverursachung wie Hexerei sowie einer teils strikten Verweigerung der Aufnahme von Patienten in Isolierstationen verband (Hewlett & Hewlett 2008; Janzen 2012; Leach 2008).
Obwohl die Bedeutung kultureller Dimensionen jedoch auch aus gesundheitspolitischer Sicht zunehmend erkannt wird, werden diese Aspekte in der gegenwärtigen Ebolakrise in Westafrika kaum berücksichtigt. Die Medienberichterstattung macht "Traditionen" und "Aberglauben" für die fehlende Akzeptanz medizinischer Maßnahmen verantwortlich – ohne zu fragen, warum Menschen vor Ort so wenig Vertrauen in die Arbeit staatlicher und internationaler Gesundheitsteams haben und welche kulturellen Logiken und historischen Zusammenhänge ihr Handeln erklären. Vielmehr wird in der gegenwärtigen Krise eine starke Wahrnehmung von Fremdheit gegenüber Bevölkerungen in Westafrika deutlich, die sich gleichzeitig mit dem Misstrauen medizinischer Teams gegenüber Patienten und ihren Angehörigen verknüpft.
The worldwide implementation of free antiretroviral therapy (ART) raised great hopes among policy... more The worldwide implementation of free antiretroviral therapy (ART) raised great hopes among policy makers and health organisations about the positive changes it would bring about in attitudes and behaviours towards HIV and AIDS, as well as for infected people's lives. A change in illness perception was anticipated, leading to the hypothesis of a possible change in disclosure rates, patterns and the choice of significant others to inform. In the era of free treatment availability in the United Republic of Tanzania, we examined reasons for disclosure and non-disclosure among HIV-seropositive women enrolled on ART and their choice of significant others to inform. In so doing, we contribute to the necessary yet neglected debate about the social impact of ART on the lives of infected women. The study, for which an ethnographic cross-sectional pilot approach was chosen, was conducted at the Care and Treatment Center (CTC) at Bombo Regional Hospital (BRH) in Tanga city, Tanzania. Data presented here derive from participant observation, questionnaires and semi-structured interviews conducted with 59 HIV-seropositive women on ART. Interestingly, and despite treatment availability, the choice of significant others to inform, as well as reasons for disclosure and non-disclosure, mirror findings from previous studies conducted before the introduction of free ART. The main reason for non-disclosure was fear of discrimination. The hope for social, economic or health support was the main motivation for disclosure, followed by the need for a ‘clinic companion’ in order to receive ART, as requested by hospital staff. Nevertheless, healthcare staff were not unanimous in thinking that disclosure is always beneficial, thus the recommended extent of disclosure varied. ART and concomitant factors were raised as an entirely new and significant reason for disclosure by interviewees. Finally, findings confirm that despite ART, disclosure remains a highly stressful event for women.
This introduction outlines the contemporary emergence of new forms of informal crisis-related car... more This introduction outlines the contemporary emergence of new forms of informal crisis-related care, which both complement and contradict classical forms of humanitarian assistance. The introduction traces the spread, blurring, and differentiation of novel forms of non-state assistance and support against the backdrop of increasingly widespread criticism of large-scale international aid. Tackling regimes of care beyond the exceptionality of a crisis notion, the introduction then summarizes how the three contributions and the commentary to this theme section employ the lens of affect for exploring how these highly intersubjective forms of encounter are experienced, performed, and reflected on.
In this article, the authors mobilize the concept of affective ambiguity in order to explore the ... more In this article, the authors mobilize the concept of affective ambiguity in order to explore the epistemological and structural incompatibilities that collaboration implies in the context of the highly asymmetrical relationships of power within and beyond neoliberal academia. They show that collaborations between university-based anthropologists at different stages of their careers and the groups and communities they seek to collaborate with are governed by mutually contradictory value frameworks. These value frameworks are shaped by the structural inequalities of these constellations and by diverging temporalities, socialities, and expectations that tend to make such collaborations unsustainable. Drawing on their own involvement in Kollektiv Polylog, a collective of refugee women, lecturers, former students, and activists in and beyond Berlin that are working together in the context of various publication, teaching, and video projects, the authors highlight the affective, temporal, and material resources that all actors need to invest in order to make collaboration productive.
... In its barest sense, Elsewhere is the not-here. ‘In, at, or to some other place’, it refers t... more ... In its barest sense, Elsewhere is the not-here. ‘In, at, or to some other place’, it refers to the else of here, to what lies beyond the immediate, exists otherwise, and a where in excess to what is present in any given time and place, even instead of it, although never completely removed from it. It follows that the else of here cannot always be described as a there—at least not in the sense that it might indicate or point to a conceptually distinct here, a removed position that has no bearing on that which constitutes a here. Thinking such, as we learn from Amira Mittermaier’s (2011, 2012) work on Sufi communities in Egypt and Annalisa Butticci’s (2016) work on African Pentecostals in Italy, imbricates a greater landscape of imagination and aesthetics (of presence). Paying further attention to the affective ties—in saintly dreams, inspired religious visions, spiritual callings, and bodily sensations, as well as their material afterlives —produces and evidences a dialogue between a here and an imaginal Elsewhere, knotting in its wake reciprocal relations across disparate objects, figures, and realms, whether these are spatially or temporally configured. ...
In post-colonial Tanzania, efforts to govern the relations between Christianity and Islam—the cou... more In post-colonial Tanzania, efforts to govern the relations between Christianity and Islam—the country’s largest religions—have been impacted by the growing potential for conflict between and among diverse strands of the two faiths from the mid-1990s onward. They have also been shaped by the highly unequal relations between various Christian and Muslim actors and the Tanzanian government in the context of globalization. This article describes how the governance of religious multiplicity in Tanzania has affected the domains of transnational development, the registration of new religious bodies, and the regulation of religious instruction in schools. It argues that a comprehensive understanding of ‘lived religion’ needs to focus on the way in which religious multiplicities are molded as socio-cultural realities through a wide range of governing interventions.
Time is moving on: in 2019, the Humboldt Forum, currently the “biggest and financially most ambit... more Time is moving on: in 2019, the Humboldt Forum, currently the “biggest and financially most ambitious project of German federal cultural policy”, will open in the heart of Germany’s capital. In the view of the organizers, it will/should become a site of encounter, in which “cultures engage in dialog as equals”, in order to “acknowledge their diversity“. Since the summer of 2017, at the latest, we know that the Humboldt Forum, as a project of superlatives and a site for understanding the world, still has a long way to go – if this “Berlin insanity”, with its reputed opacity, is ever to reach its goals. With her withdrawal from the Forum’s team of experts, the art historian Bénédicte Savoy kicked off a storm of criticism. Most of the arising critique focused on the provenience of the objects of the ethnological collections: only a radical shift in perspective was said to be able to free the Humboldt Forum from the “leaden blanket” that threatened to bury the future cultural institution in the center of Berlin like the “nuclear waste of Chernobyl”. The historian Jürgen Zimmerer called for a lasting exploration of and debate about the “colonial core” of the collections and accused those responsible for the Humboldt Forum of “colonial amnesia”. So, is it high time for ethnology – as the disciplined is named at most (social and cultural) anthropological institutes in Germany – to position itself in this debate? After all, it is our discipline that threatens to flounder in the storm of indignation when Berlin’s Culture Senator Klaus Lederer calls an “old-school ethnological museum” in the capital a “disaster”. As early as 2016, Chancellor Angela Merkel also judged that an ethnological museum in the middle of Berlin ran counter to her vision of the project as a site “where debates about globalization and its effects can be conducted”. READ MORE HERE: https://blog.uni-koeln.de/gssc-humboldt/en/mehr-ethnologie-ins-humboldt-forum/
Die Zeit läuft: 2019 wird mit dem Humboldt Forum das aktuell "größte und finanziell ehrgeizigste ... more Die Zeit läuft: 2019 wird mit dem Humboldt Forum das aktuell "größte und finanziell ehrgeizigste Projekt der Bundeskulturpolitik" im Herzen der Hauptstadt eröffnet. Ein Ort der Begegnung soll(te) es aus Sicht seiner MacherInnen werden, in dem "Kulturen auf Augenhöhe" miteinander in den Dialog treten, um "deren Vielfalt [zu] würdigen". Spätestens seit dem Sommer 2017 wissen wir, dass das Humboldt Forum als Projekt der Superlative und als Ort des Weltverstehens noch einen weiten Weg zurücklegen muss – sofern dieser "Berliner Irrsinn" mit der ihm nachgesagten Intransparenz denn jemals seine Zielsetzungen erreichen wird. Mit ihrem Austritt aus dem ExpertInnenteam des Forums stieß die Kunsthistorikerin Bénédicte Savoy einen Sturm der Kritik los, der sich vor allem um die Provenienzen der ethnologischen Sammlungsobjekte drehte: Nur ein radikaler Perspektivwechsel könne das Humboldt Forum von der Bleidecke befreien, die die zukünftige Kultureinrichtung in der Mitte Berlins wie der "Atommüll von Tschernobyl" zu begraben drohe. Der Historiker Jürgen Zimmerer forderte eine nachhaltige Auseinandersetzung mit dem "kolonialen Kern" der Sammlungen ein und unterstellte den für das Humboldt Forum Verantwortlichen "koloniale Amnesie". Höchste Zeit also für die Ethnologie, sich in dieser Debatte zu positionieren? Schließlich ist es unsere Disziplin, die im Sturm der Entrüstung ins Taumeln zu geraten droht, wenn Berlins Kultursenator Klaus Lederer ein "Völkerkundemuseum alter Schule" in der Hauptstadt als "Desaster" bezeichnet. Auch Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel befand bereits 2016, dass ein Völkerkundemuseum in Berlins Mitte ihrer Vision des Projekts als einem Ort entgegenlaufe, "an dem Debatten über die Globalisierung und ihre Auswirkungen stattfinden können." MEHR HIER: https://blog.uni-koeln.de/gssc-humboldt/mehr-ethnologie-ins-humboldt-forum/
Over the last years, debates on research ethics – and the way the ethicality of ethnographic rese... more Over the last years, debates on research ethics – and the way the ethicality of ethnographic research is assessed by institutional boards and committees – have flourished in national and international anthropology. This article discusses the state of the debate in Germany where ethical review boards have remained so far largely absent in regard to anthropological research and where the commitment to ‘act ethically’ during fieldwork (and beyond) remains largely voluntary. By drawing on ethnographic fieldwork on HIV / AIDS and social relations in Tanzania, I highlight that medical anthropologists may face particular ethical challenges in their work, due to the often close relationship of their research with human suffering. Furthermore, however, I argue that the sub-discipline can raise important questions concerning the potential institutionalization of ethical review processes in anthropology in Germany and the pitfalls that should be avoided with regard to the ‘fetishization’ of certain ethical doctrines (such as the informed consent process) which have proven incommensurable with the core epistemological assumptions of the discipline. This article does not provide an exhaustive overview of the debates on ethics that have been conducted in Germany or internationally over the last decade(s). It is rather meant as a political intervention that seeks to broaden the discussion about the potential formalization of ethical review processes in Germany and how the discipline can shape such a process proactively by foregrounding some of its inherent strengths: reflexivity, creativity and dialogue.
The interdisciplinary, politically contested field of Global Health has often
been described as a... more The interdisciplinary, politically contested field of Global Health has often been described as a consequence of, and response to, an intensification of the mobilities of, and connectivities between, people, pathogens, ideas, and infrastructure across national borders and large distances. However, such global mobilities and connectivities are not as omnidirectional and unpatterned as the rhetoric of many Global Health actors suggests. Instead, we argue that they are suffused by a plethora of institutional, national, and global political agendas, and substantially shaped by transnational and postcolonial power relations. Furthermore, the configurations that are typically subsumed under the category of Global Health represent only a minor part of the range of im/mobilities and dis/ connectivities that are essential for understanding transformations of epidemiological patterns, health care infrastructures, and the responses to health-related challenges in a globalising world. In order to broaden such a limiting analytical perspective, we propose to expand the analytical focus in studying Global Health phenomena by paying close attention to the myriad ways in which particular im/mobilities and dis/ connectivities constitute medicine and well-being in global and transnational settings. Pursuing a conceptual shift from studies of ‘Global Health’ to studying ‘medical globalization’ may carve out new analytical ground for such an endeavour.
The interdisciplinary, politically contested field of Global Health has often been described as a... more The interdisciplinary, politically contested field of Global Health has often been described as a consequence of, and response to, an intensification of the mobilities of, and connectivities between, people, pathogens, ideas, and infrastructure across national borders and large distances. However, such global mobilities and connectivities are not as omnidirectional and unpatterned as the rhetoric of many Global Health actors suggests. Instead, we argue that they are suffused by a plethora of institutional, national, and global political agendas, and substantially shaped by transnational and postcolonial power relations. Furthermore, the configurations that are typically subsumed under the category of Global Health represent only a minor part of the range of im/mobilities and dis/connectivities that are essential for understanding transformations of epidemiological patterns, health care infrastructures, and the responses to health-related challenges in a globalising world. In order to broaden such a limiting analytical perspective, we propose to expand the analytical focus in studying Global Health phenomena by paying close attention to the myriad ways in which particular im/mobilities and dis/connectivities constitute medicine and well-being in global and transnational settings. Pursuing a conceptual shift from studies of ‘Global Health’ to studying ‘medical globalization’ may carve out new analytical ground for such an endeavour.
Schools are institutionalized spaces of learning where children and young people are trained to b... more Schools are institutionalized spaces of learning where children and young people are trained to become morally and ethically responsible members of society. Cultural ideas and values relating to friendship, social status and the nation, but also regarding one's own body, dress and emotional, verbal or gestural expression, are learned and performed by young people on an everyday basis. In this article, I build on ethnographic research on the ‘new’ generation of Christian and Muslim schools in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (2008–10), and I show that particular ways of learning and performing values can be understood as a form of embodied morality that orients students and teachers in relation to their educational and socio-urban environments. I argue that schools do not represent monolithic ethical or moral frameworks or that the actors in these educational settings learn or embody those frameworks in uniform ways. Rather, the processes of ethical and moral (self-)formation are often highly fragmented due to the diverse (social, religious and economic) backgrounds of students and teachers as well as the logics of class formation in the neoliberal market, which causes a high degree of fluctuation across the (equally fragmented) educational landscape of Dar es Salaam. I therefore define ‘embodied morality’ as a partial and discontinuous practice whose specific forms and experience are inseparably entwined with the specific ideological, social and institutional environments of particular educational settings.
DE: Welche Verantwortung, Rahmenbedingungen und Perspektiven der Durchführung haben Universitäten... more DE: Welche Verantwortung, Rahmenbedingungen und Perspektiven der Durchführung haben Universitäten in Forschungen über und mit Geflüchteten? Inwieweit kann es gelingen, konkrete Lehrforschungsprojekte mit ihren strukturellen zeitlichen und inhaltlichen Limitierungen an forschungsethischen Standards auszurichten und wo gelangt ein derartiges Format an Grenzen? Welche aktive Rolle können Studierende selbst in der Gestaltung solcher Projekte einnehmen? Sozialwissenschaftler_innen der Freien Universität Berlin berichten von ihren Erfahrungen mit Lehrforschungsprojekten im Rahmen von BA-Studiengängen. Sie sprechen über Ideale und Grenzen des partizipativen Forschens sowie über die ethischen und praktischen Herausforderungen, die solche Forschungsmodelle mit sich bringen. EN: What responsibilities do universities have in conducting research on, as well as together with, refugees? Under which conditions do such research initiatives take place, and what lessons can be learnt from their implementation? Social scientists from the Freie Universität Berlin discuss their experiences with seminar-based research projects in the context of BA study programs in social and cultural anthropology and political sciences. They ask how seminar-based research projects can adhere to the ethical standards of social science research, especially with regard to the structural limitations that are imposed on such projects in relation to their time frames and research topics. They also explore the opportunities to involve students actively in the conceptualization and realization of such initiatives. Finally, they reflect on the ideals and limitations of participatory research approaches, as well as the ethical and practical challenges that such research constellations imply.
Introduction to the thematic thread "Medical Technologies and Infrastructure: Exploring Im/Mobili... more Introduction to the thematic thread "Medical Technologies and Infrastructure: Exploring Im/Mobility and Dis/Connectivity in 'Global Health'" that was co-published by Allegra Lab: Anthropology, Art, World, Law and the Collaborative Blog Medizinethnologie: Body, Health and Healing in an Interconnected World. Throughout the week of Jan 23-27, 2017, the authors present different angles of how the dynamics of im/mobility and dis/connectivity shape configurations of medicine, health, technology, and infrastructure in their respective field sites, both with regard to local processes and their global and/or transnational entanglements. With and introduction by Hansjörg Dilger and Dominik Mattes and contributions by Anika König, Claire Beaudevin, Bo Kyeong Seo, and René Umlauf.
In the German social and cultural sciences attention to research ethics is growing, with empirica... more In the German social and cultural sciences attention to research ethics is growing, with empirical researchers increasingly seeking advice and addressing ethical issues in their research practice. In addition, there is an infrastructural debate in this country about whether the use of ethics review boards for research projects should be widened. Researchers who apply for international funding or seek to publish internationally increasingly are expected to gain ethical approval for their empirical projects.
Forschungsethik wird in den deutschsprachigen Sozial- und Kulturwissenschaften zunehmend zum Them... more Forschungsethik wird in den deutschsprachigen Sozial- und Kulturwissenschaften zunehmend zum Thema. Zum einen reflektieren empirisch Forschende vermehrt ethische Fragen, die sich in ihrer Forschungspraxis stellen. Zum anderen wird auf wissenschaftspolitischer Ebene diskutiert, Ethics Reviews, d.h. Begutachtungen von Forschungsvorhaben durch Ethikkommissionen, nun auch in der sozial- und kulturwissenschaftlichen Forschung in Deutschland verstärkt einzuführen. Dies ist unter anderem darauf zurückzuführen, dass Forschende, die in englischsprachigen Journals publizieren oder internationale Fördermittel einwerben möchten, zunehmend aufgefordert sind, eine ethische Unbedenklichkeitsbescheinigung bezüglich ihrer empirischen Forschung vorzulegen. Ethics Reviews sind international insbesondere im angloamerikanischen Sprachraum üblich, werden dort jedoch durch qualitativ Forschende teilweise scharf kritisiert. Im Mittelpunkt der Kritik stehen neben dem hohen bürokratischen Aufwand vor allem die mangelnde Passfähigkeit der Prinzipien und Prüfverfahren für die qualitative Forschung und die negativen Folgen der institutionalisierten Prüfverfahren für die Freiheit, Qualität und methodologische Vielfalt sozial- und kulturwissenschaftlicher Forschung. Wie lassen sich vor diesem Hintergrund die aktuellen Entwicklungen in Deutschland einschätzen? Anlässlich eines interdisziplinären Symposiums zum Thema "Forschungsethik und ethnografische Feldforschung" kommentieren wir die Entwicklungen in Deutschland aus ethnologischer und soziologischer Perspektive. Wir sprechen uns für eine institutionelle Verankerung des Themas aus und unterstützen die Entwicklung von Strukturen der forschungsethischen Begutachtung, sofern diese freiwillig bleiben und die methodische Vielfalt der Sozial- und Kulturwissenschaften sowie die Besonderheiten ethnografischer und explorativer Studien angemessen berücksichtigen. Aus der Perspektive qualitativ Forschender kommt der Förderung methodologischer und forschungsethischer Reflexivität in Forschung und Lehre jedoch grundsätzlich weit höhere Relevanz zu als der Einrichtung von institutionalisierten Begutachtungsverfahren.
Alternative Gesundheitsvorstellungen und praktiken in der deutschen Therapielandschaft: Bericht zur Literaturrecherche "Vielfalt im Gesundheitswesen" im Auftrag der Robert Bosch Stiftung GmbH, 2020
Alternative Gesundheitsvorstellungen und ‐praktiken sowie deren Stellung werden gesundheitspoliti... more Alternative Gesundheitsvorstellungen und ‐praktiken sowie deren Stellung werden gesundheitspolitisch kontrovers diskutiert. Im Auftrag der Robert Bosch Stiftung erstellte dieses Projekt im Jahr 2019 eine Literaturübersicht zur soziokulturellen Vielfalt im Gesundheitswesen in Deutschland. Hierzu wurden sozialwissenschaftliche Studien zu diversen Traditionen und Praktiken (wie z.B. Homöopathie, anthroposophische Medizin, Akupunktur, Ayurveda, schamanistische und christliche Geistheilung) systematisch gesichtet und Erkenntnisse sowohl zu alternativmedizinischen Patienten als auch Praktizierenden präsentiert. Fokussiert wurden zum einen historisch bereits länger existierende Angebote der Alternativ- und Komplementärmedizin sowie deren rechtliche Verankerung in Deutschland. Zum anderen betrachtet die Studie Heilungsverständnisse und praktiken, die in den letzten Jahren bzw. Jahrzehnten über Dynamiken von Migration und Globalisierung in Deutschland an Popularität gewonnen haben. Zudem wurden systematisch Parallelen zu vergleichbaren Phänomenen im europäischen Ausland hergestellt und Studien miteinbezogen, die sich mit kritischen Einstellungen zur Bio- bzw. Schulmedizin befassen. Die Studie kommt zum Ergebnis, dass der Umfang alternativmedizinischer Praktiken aufgrund von uneinheitlichen Begrifflichkeiten und Konzeptualisierungen in der sozialwissenschaftlichen Literatur nur schwer zu bestimmen ist. Nichtsdestoweniger nimmt die Alternativ- und Komplementärmedizin eine zentrale gesellschaftliche Rolle in Deutschland ein. Sowohl in der sozialwissenschaftlichen Forschung als auch bei gesundheitspolitischen Maßnahmen bedarf es deshalb eines integrativen Blicks auf eine historisch verankerte und aktuell sukzessive weiter zunehmende Vielfalt im deutschen Gesundheitswesen.
Collections as Relations - Contestations of Belonging, Cultural Heritage, and Knowledge Infrastructures, 2025
This chapter argues that anthropological and global art collections are an important starting poi... more This chapter argues that anthropological and global art collections are an important starting point for understanding different kinds of relationships between objects and media, and the multiple actors and institutions who have engaged with them over time. It shows how the focus on collections as relations opens up new perspectives on (1) the micropolitics and dynamics of belonging, (2) the constructions of cultural heritage and property disputes, and (3) the emergence of new kinds of knowledge infrastructures within and beyond institutional environments. In all these regards, the chapter argues that the ongoing contestations in all of these areas can lead to new ways of thinking of and managing evolving relationships, but that there is also an inertia and a resistance to change in institutional contexts. Consequently, while the focus on collections as relations may offer new perspectives on how collecting institutions and those who interact with and are responsible for them can reposition themselves in the face of current contestations, the actual outcomes of these dynamics are still uncertain.
Ideologies and Infrastructures of Religious Urbanization in Africa: Remaking the City, edited by David Garbin, Simon Coleman and Gareth Millington, 2023
In this chapter, we focus on education, which is commonly regarded as the sine qua non of social ... more In this chapter, we focus on education, which is commonly regarded as the sine qua non of social change and economic development in Africa (e.g. Fichtner 2012; Stambach 2006), and which has opened up new opportunities for moral as well as political and market engagement by Christian and Muslim actors at all educational levels against the backdrop of liberalization and privatization since the 1990s (Dilger and Schulz 2013: 370). By means of a comparative ethnographic study of the missions of a range of Christian and Muslim educational institutions in urban Tanzania and Nigeria, we argue that in the context of compromised state education and inadequate infrastructure, religiously motivated initiatives provide youths with the tools and material spaces to negotiate the socio-moral unpredictability of urban living and to convert themselves into moral citizens according to the values of the religiously motivated organizations that run these institutions, as well as civic virtues.
Affective Trajectories: Religion and Emotion in African Cityscapes , 2020
The contributors to Affective Trajectories examine the mutual and highly complex entwinements bet... more The contributors to Affective Trajectories examine the mutual and highly complex entwinements between religion and affect in urban Africa in the early twenty-first century. Drawing on ethnographic research throughout the continent and in African diasporic communities abroad, they trace the myriad ways religious ideas, practices, and materialities interact with affect to configure life in urban spaces. Whether examining the affective force of the built urban environment or how religious practices contribute to new forms of attachment, identification, and place-making, they illustrate the force of affect as it is shaped by temporality and spatiality in the religious lives of individuals and communities. Among other topics, they explore Masowe Apostolic Christianity in relation to experiences of displacement in Harare, Zimbabwe; Muslim identity, belonging, and the global ummah in Ghana; crime, emotions, and conversion to neo-Pentecostalism in Cape Town; and spiritual cleansing in a Congolese branch of a Japanese religious movement. In so doing, the contributors demonstrate how the social and material living conditions of African cities generate diverse affective forms of religious experiences in ways that foster both localized and transnational paths of emotional knowledge.
This special issue explores the deep entanglements between medicine, law, politics, morality and ... more This special issue explores the deep entanglements between medicine, law, politics, morality and economy in the contemporary world order and asks how these entwinements shape illness experiences and forms of treatment and care in varying locations and contexts of Egypt, Tanzania, Brazil, India, and Italy. By introducing the concept of “transfiguration” we highlight the highly ambiguous, ever-evolving, and increasingly transnational character of these processes in the vastly contested and power-ridden fields of medicine and well-being. Furthermore, we argue that a moral economy approach can figure as a lens to disentangle and disaggregate these different fields’ values and practices analytically and to account for the need to reflect systematically on people’s continuous struggles for a “good life” in the context of profit-driven and often highly exclusionary economies. Against this background, the contributions to this special issue ask through a shared theoretical concern how medicine, illness experience and medical knowledge production coalesce in our shared times of “excessive” economies in relation to subjectivities, materialities and values. In conclusion, we ask which ethical and political demands arise for anthropologists as novel, strongly politicized and morally loaded fields of research open up; and how we can respond to the challenges of doing research in the capital-intensive fields of medicine and health and act accordingly in our investigations and writings.
Elsewhere Affects and the Politics of Engagement across Religious Life-Worlds, 2020
This special section proposes that Elsewhere be discussed neither merely as a synonym for the not... more This special section proposes that Elsewhere be discussed neither merely as a synonym for the not-here nor only as an analytical frame to gesture at the here-after in religious lifeworlds. Instead, as a polyvalent figure, Elsewhere in this collection of essays lays out and examines the critical, medial, and agentive ways in which interlocutors in the field affect—and are affected by—attendant notions of the unknown, the uncanny, the imaginal, the other-worldly, the more-than-living, the ghostly, and the invisible. At the heart of such engaged worlding for us—especially when it comes to the study of religion and its multiplicitous affairs with notions of the divine—is the question of affect. This is an introduction to the volume; contributions include: "Learning the Elsewhere of ‘Inner Space’" by Nasima Selim; "An Ethics of Response" by Ingie Hovland; "From the Throes of Anguished Mourning" by Fouad G. Marei; "Dream-Realities" by Sana Chavoshian; "Politicizing Elsewhere(s)" by Dominik Mattes; plus a wonderfully co-crafted afterword, "The Elsewhere beyond Religious Concerns" by Annalisa Butticci and Amira Mittermaier.
Uploads
Books by Hansjörg Dilger
Spanning different regions of Africa, the authors offer unique access to issues at the interface of religion and medical humanitarianism and the manifold therapeutic traditions, religious practices and moralities as they co-evolve in situations of AIDS treatment. This book also sheds new light on how religious spaces are formed in response to the dilemmas people face with the introduction of life-prolonging treatment programmes.
Papers by Hansjörg Dilger
Beziehung zwischen Hochschulen und gesellschaftlicher Praxis als Kontinuum und nicht als Gegensatz
begreift, sowohl mit Blick auf ihren inhaltlichen Beitrag als auch in Bezug auf ihre strukturellen
Rahmenbedingungen betrachtet werden muss. Zunächst geben wir einen Überblick über
den Stand der „öffentlichen“ oder „engagierten“ Medizinethnologie und legen dar, in welchen
Bereichen Medizinethnolog*innen heute praktisch tätig sind. Der Hauptteil des Beitrags richtet
den Fokus sodann auf die Hochschulen selbst und verdeutlicht den Beitrag einer „theorieinformierten
Praxis in der Medizinethnologie“ zur gesellschaftlichen Öffentlichkeit mit Blick auf zwei
Beispiele: 1. Das „Stadteillabor“ an der Hochschule für Gesundheit in Bochum, das Anwohner*innen,
Geflüchtete und Studierende in der Gesundheits förderung zusammenbringt; und 2. den seit
2014 bestehenden „Blog Medizinethnologie“ der Arbeitsgruppe Medical Anthropology in der Deutschen
Gesellschaft für Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie e. V. Der Text eruiert abschließend, welche
Impulse diese Beispiele im Hinblick auf die öffentliche Positionierung der (Medizin-)Ethnologie im
deutschsprachigen Raum insgesamt setzen können. Insbesondere betrachten wir dabei, welche
Rolle die Lehre in diesem Zusammenhang einnimmt und inwiefern durch diese bereits Studierende
ethnologischer und interdisziplinär-gesundheitswissenschaftlicher Studiengänge in verschiedene
Formen der praktizierenden Medizinethnologie einbezogen werden können.
Spanning different regions of Africa, the authors offer unique access to issues at the interface of religion and medical humanitarianism and the manifold therapeutic traditions, religious practices and moralities as they co-evolve in situations of AIDS treatment. This book also sheds new light on how religious spaces are formed in response to the dilemmas people face with the introduction of life-prolonging treatment programmes.
Beziehung zwischen Hochschulen und gesellschaftlicher Praxis als Kontinuum und nicht als Gegensatz
begreift, sowohl mit Blick auf ihren inhaltlichen Beitrag als auch in Bezug auf ihre strukturellen
Rahmenbedingungen betrachtet werden muss. Zunächst geben wir einen Überblick über
den Stand der „öffentlichen“ oder „engagierten“ Medizinethnologie und legen dar, in welchen
Bereichen Medizinethnolog*innen heute praktisch tätig sind. Der Hauptteil des Beitrags richtet
den Fokus sodann auf die Hochschulen selbst und verdeutlicht den Beitrag einer „theorieinformierten
Praxis in der Medizinethnologie“ zur gesellschaftlichen Öffentlichkeit mit Blick auf zwei
Beispiele: 1. Das „Stadteillabor“ an der Hochschule für Gesundheit in Bochum, das Anwohner*innen,
Geflüchtete und Studierende in der Gesundheits förderung zusammenbringt; und 2. den seit
2014 bestehenden „Blog Medizinethnologie“ der Arbeitsgruppe Medical Anthropology in der Deutschen
Gesellschaft für Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie e. V. Der Text eruiert abschließend, welche
Impulse diese Beispiele im Hinblick auf die öffentliche Positionierung der (Medizin-)Ethnologie im
deutschsprachigen Raum insgesamt setzen können. Insbesondere betrachten wir dabei, welche
Rolle die Lehre in diesem Zusammenhang einnimmt und inwiefern durch diese bereits Studierende
ethnologischer und interdisziplinär-gesundheitswissenschaftlicher Studiengänge in verschiedene
Formen der praktizierenden Medizinethnologie einbezogen werden können.
Book abstract: This book provides insights into the various ways in which women* perceive of and experience their living conditions in five different asylum accommodation centers in Berlin. In particular, it explores how women* – who have fled from countries such as Syria, Afghanistan, Eritrea and Albania, and who have diverse socio-economic, linguistic and educational backgrounds – describe their lives in the camps with regard to health and care, administration and registration, social interactions and support, and safety and privacy. The ethnographic research on which this book is based resulted from a collaboration between students and lecturers of the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at Freie Universität Berlin and the Berlin- based group International Women’s Space. In this regard, the book aims to contribute to the improvement of the living conditions of refugee women* in Berlin and simultaneously hopes to provide a model for anthropological engagement in the face of increasingly complex socio-political challenges.
teilen
twittern
Hansjörg Dilger, Bernhard Hadolt
Operating room of the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Lambaréné
Operating room of the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Lambaréné, Gabon | Cover photo of the edited volume „Medicine in Context“ (2010) | 2007 Hansjörg Dilger
What is the role of medical anthropology in a globalized world that is becoming increasingly complex and interconnected? Where does the defining domain of our subdiscipline begin and end with regard to our ‘classical’ objects of study such as ‘medicine’, ‘health system(s)’, and ‘the body’, and how is it possible to decide what constitutes the anthropologically relevant ‘context’ of these (empirically defined) research fields? How can we open the horizons of the subdisciplines of social and cultural anthropology to medical anthropology, and to what extent do the demarcations between medical anthropology and other areas of the discipline that deal with politics, economics, law, science, religion, and urban environments even make sense? Where do the inter- and transdisciplinary junctions emerge that can provide for general reflections about the themes, challenges, and positions of medical anthropology in an interconnected world?
These were the questions occupying our minds as we prepared for the conference ‘Medicine in Context: Illness and Health in an Interconnected World’, organized in 2007 by the Work Group Medical Anthropology within the German Anthropological Association on the occasion of its tenth anniversary. The following text forms the introduction to the anthology of the same name (Dilger and Hadolt 2010), which was published under our oversight as the then chairs of the work group. It recapitulates some of the abovementioned questions based on the contributions to the conference and the ensuing discussions that took place. Read more here: http://www.medanthrotheory.org/read/5734/medicine-in-context
Obwohl die Bedeutung kultureller Dimensionen jedoch auch aus gesundheitspolitischer Sicht zunehmend erkannt wird, werden diese Aspekte in der gegenwärtigen Ebolakrise in Westafrika kaum berücksichtigt. Die Medienberichterstattung macht "Traditionen" und "Aberglauben" für die fehlende Akzeptanz medizinischer Maßnahmen verantwortlich – ohne zu fragen, warum Menschen vor Ort so wenig Vertrauen in die Arbeit staatlicher und internationaler Gesundheitsteams haben und welche kulturellen Logiken und historischen Zusammenhänge ihr Handeln erklären. Vielmehr wird in der gegenwärtigen Krise eine starke Wahrnehmung von Fremdheit gegenüber Bevölkerungen in Westafrika deutlich, die sich gleichzeitig mit dem Misstrauen medizinischer Teams gegenüber Patienten und ihren Angehörigen verknüpft.
(2011, 2012) work on Sufi communities in Egypt and Annalisa Butticci’s (2016) work on African Pentecostals in Italy, imbricates a greater landscape of imagination and aesthetics (of presence). Paying further attention to the affective ties—in saintly dreams, inspired religious visions, spiritual callings, and bodily sensations, as well as their material afterlives —produces and evidences a dialogue between a here and an imaginal Elsewhere, knotting in its wake reciprocal relations across disparate objects, figures, and realms, whether these are spatially or temporally configured. ...
Since the summer of 2017, at the latest, we know that the Humboldt Forum, as a project of superlatives and a site for understanding the world, still has a long way to go – if this “Berlin insanity”, with its reputed opacity, is ever to reach its goals. With her withdrawal from the Forum’s team of experts, the art historian Bénédicte Savoy kicked off a storm of criticism. Most of the arising critique focused on the provenience of the objects of the ethnological collections: only a radical shift in perspective was said to be able to free the Humboldt Forum from the “leaden blanket” that threatened to bury the future cultural institution in the center of Berlin like the “nuclear waste of Chernobyl”. The historian Jürgen Zimmerer called for a lasting exploration of and debate about the “colonial core” of the collections and accused those responsible for the Humboldt Forum of “colonial amnesia”.
So, is it high time for ethnology – as the disciplined is named at most (social and cultural) anthropological institutes in Germany – to position itself in this debate? After all, it is our discipline that threatens to flounder in the storm of indignation when Berlin’s Culture Senator Klaus Lederer calls an “old-school ethnological museum” in the capital a “disaster”. As early as 2016, Chancellor Angela Merkel also judged that an ethnological museum in the middle of Berlin ran counter to her vision of the project as a site “where debates about globalization and its effects can be conducted”. READ MORE HERE: https://blog.uni-koeln.de/gssc-humboldt/en/mehr-ethnologie-ins-humboldt-forum/
Spätestens seit dem Sommer 2017 wissen wir, dass das Humboldt Forum als Projekt der Superlative und als Ort des Weltverstehens noch einen weiten Weg zurücklegen muss – sofern dieser "Berliner Irrsinn" mit der ihm nachgesagten Intransparenz denn jemals seine Zielsetzungen erreichen wird. Mit ihrem Austritt aus dem ExpertInnenteam des Forums stieß die Kunsthistorikerin Bénédicte Savoy einen Sturm der Kritik los, der sich vor allem um die Provenienzen der ethnologischen Sammlungsobjekte drehte: Nur ein radikaler Perspektivwechsel könne das Humboldt Forum von der Bleidecke befreien, die die zukünftige Kultureinrichtung in der Mitte Berlins wie der "Atommüll von Tschernobyl" zu begraben drohe. Der Historiker Jürgen Zimmerer forderte eine nachhaltige Auseinandersetzung mit dem "kolonialen Kern" der Sammlungen ein und unterstellte den für das Humboldt Forum Verantwortlichen "koloniale Amnesie".
Höchste Zeit also für die Ethnologie, sich in dieser Debatte zu positionieren? Schließlich ist es unsere Disziplin, die im Sturm der Entrüstung ins Taumeln zu geraten droht, wenn Berlins Kultursenator Klaus Lederer ein "Völkerkundemuseum alter Schule" in der Hauptstadt als "Desaster" bezeichnet. Auch Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel befand bereits 2016, dass ein Völkerkundemuseum in Berlins Mitte ihrer Vision des Projekts als einem Ort entgegenlaufe, "an dem Debatten über die Globalisierung und ihre Auswirkungen stattfinden können." MEHR HIER: https://blog.uni-koeln.de/gssc-humboldt/mehr-ethnologie-ins-humboldt-forum/
Read More: http://ejournals.duncker-humblot.de/doi/abs/10.3790/soc.67.2.191
been described as a consequence of, and response to, an intensification of
the mobilities of, and connectivities between, people, pathogens, ideas,
and infrastructure across national borders and large distances. However,
such global mobilities and connectivities are not as omnidirectional and
unpatterned as the rhetoric of many Global Health actors suggests.
Instead, we argue that they are suffused by a plethora of institutional,
national, and global political agendas, and substantially shaped by
transnational and postcolonial power relations. Furthermore, the
configurations that are typically subsumed under the category of Global
Health represent only a minor part of the range of im/mobilities and dis/
connectivities that are essential for understanding transformations of
epidemiological patterns, health care infrastructures, and the responses
to health-related challenges in a globalising world. In order to broaden
such a limiting analytical perspective, we propose to expand the
analytical focus in studying Global Health phenomena by paying close
attention to the myriad ways in which particular im/mobilities and dis/
connectivities constitute medicine and well-being in global and
transnational settings. Pursuing a conceptual shift from studies of
‘Global Health’ to studying ‘medical globalization’ may carve out new
analytical ground for such an endeavour.