The Unfamiliar (E-Journal)

Foushee, Nina

The Unfamiliar26
ES
SA
Y
S
MADUMO
THE EXPERIENCE OF WITCHCRAFT
BY NINA FOUSHEE
Anthropology, with its implied relativity and subjectivity, is rife with uncertainty.  The 
anthropological literature surrounding witch-
craft reflects the difficulty with which anthro-
pology as a discipline arrives at agreed upon 
characterizations of cultural phenomena.  Mary 
Douglas argues that witchcraft accusations are 
a means of solidifying social relations and en-
couraging some types of behavior over others 
(Douglas 1970: xvii).  Alternatively, Peter Ge-
schiere frames witchcraft in an African context 
as a response to the dislocations of modernity 
and urbanization (Geschiere1997: 2-3).  Adam 
Ashforth’s book, Madumo, presents another 
analysis of witchcraft through the story of a 
young South African man who feels that he has 
been bewitched (Ashforth 2000). Ashforth’s 
depiction of Madumo’s experience may sup-
port the idea of witchcraft as a manifestation of 
mental illness. 
At the start of the book, the main charac-
ter, Madumo, grieves the death of his moth-
er.  However, Madumo’s grief codified into an 
all-encompassing problem when his family was 
told by a prophet in their church that Madumo 
had used witchcraft to kill her.  Madumo’s situ-
ational descent seems to stem from feeling a 
loss of autonomy upon internalizing the idea 
that he is bewitched.  
Madumo’s situation arises in South Africa, 
a country with the null hypothesis that witch-
craft exists and  is active in the world.  Post-
apartheid, the fight for freedom disappeared as 
a unifying force in black African communities, 
leaving a void that allowed the belief in witch-
craft to reemerge as a more potent, ubiquitous 
cultural force (Ashforth, 2000). During Apart-
heid, there existed an extended kinship network 
in South Africa to which people would turn in 
times of misfortune.  Accordingly, a person like 
Madumo could react with an acute bout of dys-
function to an emotionally traumatizing accusa-
tion of witchcraft and still be met with support 
instead of rejection and isolation.  Madumo’s 
experience of being accused of witchcraft is 
depicted as emotionally traumatizing given 
his intermittent bouts of anxiety, paranoia and 
hyper-arousal.  Unfortunately, Madumo suf-
fers at the hand of a culture that would give 
immense weight to a claim of witchcraft, but, 
post-apartheid, would provide none of the pre-
existing support mechanisms by which a person 
would recover from such a claim. 
 
Madumo’s recovery from witchcraft does 
not match  the trajectory of recovering from a 
death.  While his behavior and emotions follow-
ing his mother’s death are characteristic of be-
reavement, his subsequent experience of witch-
craft seems to provide the means by which these 
manifestations of bereavement are fertilized and 
preserved into something more enduring and 
serious.  His situation appears to house some 
forces of depression.  An understanding of the 
aptness of a depression diagnosis would be best 
achieved by ascertaining that the year following 
the accusation of witchcraft was permeated by 
the feelings of worthlessness, diminished inter-
est in activities, and suicidal ideation that the 
book insinuates may have been present. 
If not adequately suited to a depression diag-
nosis, Madumo’s experience of witchcraft could 
be better characterized by what Nigerian psy-
chiatrist Adeoye Lambo notes as transient psy-
choses without a biomedical cause but generated 
by socio-cultural factors (Lambo 1965: 62-83). 
Madumo’s forms of hallucination and delusion 
don’t seem to be pathological symptoms of a 
lasting, cohesive psychosis.  Cultural belief in 
witchcraft facilitates a different attribution of 
the origin of stimuli then what is deemed ac-
ceptable in Western thought.   Accepting Rosen-
ham’s notion that the capacity to hallucinate is 
The Unfamiliar 27
N
IN
A
 FO
U
SH
EE
directly correlated to the capacity to believe, it 
can be inferred that Madumo’s hallucinations, 
which arose in the context of his fervent be-
lief in witchcraft, were neither unusual nor in-
dicative of actually being psychotic.   What the 
Western world would call Madumo’s delusions, 
or fixed false beliefs, are based on being cultur-
ally primed to interpret and assign a witchcraft 
origin to stimulus, such as bodily sensations. 
Accordingly, in Madumo’s case, what could 
be deemed delusions have a cultural basis that 
make them incompatible with the definition of 
a psychotic as someone with an impaired ability 
to judge what is and is not real.
The modes of treatment for depression and 
psychoses in the United States share some ba-
sic characteristics with the modes of treatment 
for victims of witchcraft in South Africa.   The 
patient and psychiatrist relationship in the U.S 
loosely parallels that of traditional healer and 
witchcraft victim in South Africa with the ideas 
of prescription and trust.  In both contexts, a 
substance and  set of activities are proscribed 
with the understanding that the trust and ethos 
transferal existing between the two entities 
works in synergy with the placebo effect of the 
substance proscribed, regardless of any actual 
biomedical or physical changes that take place 
because of the substance.  The psychiatrist ad-
vises therapy or pharmaceuticals, the traditional 
healer proscribes herbs for vomiting, ritualistic 
cutting, and feasts for the ancestors.
One major difference, ultimately, is that while 
the psychiatrist views his role as treating men-
tal illness, inyangas purport to battle a kind of 
corporeal attack on their patient.  One facet of 
witchcraft that Madumo experiences, the isi-
dliso, is described as a “small creature lodged 
in the gullet”(Ashforth 2000:187).   The expres-
sion of physical pain caused by the isidliso is 
reminiscent of the neurasthenia model in China, 
in which one legitimizes an emotion or convic-
tion based on a physically experienced symp-
tom.  This kind of bodily experience coupled 
with a propensity to define life events as tan-
gible signs of witchcraft shapes a cognitive 
model of witchcraft that necessitates the kind 
of physical treatments and practices of an in-
yanga.   The inyanga upholds the body’s role 
as vessel for witchcraft by practicing a mode of 
treatment that includes vomiting, as well as ab-
sorbing  herbs.  
After two years of experiencing witchcraft 
and seeking help from an inyanga, Madumo 
has a traditional feast for his ancestors and 
feels that he is cured.  But Ashforth is left un-
settled.  In addition to ethically rejecting the 
presumption that a culture’s belief system can 
be utterly invalid, Ashforth recognizes that the 
same dramatic, dogmatic culture that generated 
witchcraft also produced Madumo, thus provid-
ing  the context for his and Madumo’s  fraternal 
bond.    Even after identifying an ingrained, per-
vasive cultural belief as source of distress, one 
cannot remove its victim or strip them of culture 
as a means of “treatment.” Culture itself lacks 
a cure, and none are immune to its isolating ef-
fects on our perception of what makes some-
one ill or well.  Given that it is inseparable from 
culture, good anthropology seems to require a 
measure of comfort with ambiguity. Ashforth 
is a product of a culture that cannot fathom the 
faith required of succumbing to and emerging 
from witchcraft. Ultimately, Ashforth cannot 
respond to Madumo’s quandary with a defini-
tive or guaranteed solution. 
 1 Ashforth, Adam.  2000 Madumo: A Man Be-
witcheD.  Chicago: University of Chicago Press
2 Douglas, Mary, ed. Witchcraft Confessions and 
Accusations.  London: Tavistock Publications
3 Geschiere, Peter. 1997 The Modernity of Witch-
craft. Charlottesville and London: University Press 
of Virginia
4 Lambo, T. Adeoye (1965). Schizophrenic and 
borderline states. In: DeReuck, A. V.S.;   Porter, R. 
(eds). Transcultural Psychietry (Ciba Foundation 
Symposium). Churchill: London, pp.62-83.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
uf


English

MADUMO

Ziberna, Lovro

The Unfamiliar58
PA
R
A
LL
EL
 E
SS
A
Y
S
DRUG (RE) DISCOVERY
FROM BENCH TO SPORT SIDE
BY LOVRO ZIBERNA
Drug discovery makes our lives different. We can live longer and healthier lives, 
and moreover enhance normal physiology to 
perform better. But on the other hand, we are 
also exposed to adverse and toxic effects of 
drug compounds. Therefore, modern clinical 
pharmacology puts enormous emphasis on the 
risk versus benefit debate. The dilemma is well-
defined when dealing with patients, as benefits 
in treating the disease usually overcome the risk 
of employing pharmacological treatment; how-
ever, when top athletes are involved, the benefit 
of going into a supra-physiological state endan-
gers health and is morally wrong. At the same 
time, some might argue that allowing doping 
would induce an equal playing field. This idea 
is not only absurd, but plainly irresponsible if 
risks to health are considered. 
In the age of fame and fortune, pharmacologi-
cal compounds play an important role in pro-
fessional sports. But – and this must be some-
thing common to human nature – athletes are 
not the only ones using performance enhanc-
ing substances: i) movie actors, singers, show 
business people, and college students use drug 
compounds to help them sculpt their bodies in a 
relatively short time; ii) classic musicians, who 
can use beta-blockers to improve their on-stage 
performance; iii) medical and law students, who 
use nootropics and amphetamines to enhance 
cognitive performance before important exams; 
iv) army soldiers, who are given special doping 
treatments to increase their endurance before 
engaging in battles; v) other professionals, who 
must meet tight deadlines and need to work be-
yond exhaustion. However, regulations – also 
called anti-doping rules – exist only in profes-
sional sports. One can look at these as specif-
ic rules of the game, and breaking those rules 
makes you a cheat. If caught, you are eliminated. 
The other doping-spoiled disciplines in modern 
society don’t have such rules. For instance, it’s 
hard to imagine a college student undergoing a 
doping test before taking a written exam, even 
though if he has doped, he would have gained 
an unfair advantage over his peers. Top scores 
achieved in exams have an impact on future 
career opportunities of the students; similarly, 
winning sports competitions influences the fu-
ture of top athletes. 
DRUG DISCOVERY: HOPE FOR PATIENTS, BURDEN 
FOR ATHLETES
The role of scientists is to identify new molecu-
lar targets for existing pathologies, and to pro-
vide novel pharmacological solutions. Howev-
er, such noble work can be misused for cheating 
purposes since the same drug therapy, used to 
treat diseases, can also have a performance-en-
hancing effect when used by healthy individu-
als. For example, gene therapy that effectively 
alleviates symptoms of patients with muscular 
dystrophy could also be used as gene doping for 
increasing the muscle strength of athletes. But, 
it is not the concern of scientists involved in the 
drug discovery process whether the athletes will 
abuse their findings. Research work must remain 
disease-oriented, and nothing should inhibit the 
time needed for a drug to reach the patients. 
FROM DRUG DISCOVERY TO DOPING
On the other side, within the so-called doping 
society, one can only follow latest research de-
velopments and try to implement them before 
the anti-doping scientific community identify 
the risk and develop appropriate analytical 
methods to detect performance-enhancing com-
pounds. By doing this, they remain undetected 
while training and competing in an enhanced 
state. This is the most crucial time window for 
doped athletes. As an example, erythropoietin 
The Unfamiliar 59
LO
V
R
O
 Z
IB
ER
N
A
(EPO) was first introduced to the market in 
1989, but the first analytical method appeared 
only as late as in the year 2000. An even more 
dramatic story is related to recombinant human 
growth hormone (hGH), which was developed 
in 1981, but its detection was introduced in 2004. 
However, further analytical improvements were 
needed, thus the first completed case involving 
an analytical finding for hGH happened only in 
2010. Similarly, certain performance-enhancing 
compounds are currently either in clinical test-
ing or on the market, but without proper analyti-
cal tests developed to detect them. 
To try to bypass this time window, all collect-
ed samples are currently being stored for the pe-
riod of 10 years, and can be re-tested later upon 
the discovery of new performance-enhancing 
compounds, or upon advances of analytical ap-
proaches. 
Why is anti-doping one step behind the dop-
ing society? It can be speculated that informa-
tion leaks out of pharmaceutical industry labo-
ratories as early as drugs enter into pre-clinical 
testing. But even this is not necessarily true, 
since many ideas can be found using patent 
searching, reading research posters during sci-
entific conferences, reading scientific papers, 
or by browsing through on-going worldwide 
clinical trials which are freely accessible online 
(at clinicaltrials.gov). It can be hypothesized, 
as shown by Figure 2, that the numbers of po-
tential dopers increase as the clinical studies 
advance into Phase II or Phase III. It is worth 
noticing that during the Phase III, tested drugs 
are sent to many clinical institutes worldwide. 
Tracking the drugs is difficult, and the poten-
tial abuse of athletes easier. Medical knowledge 
within the doping society is the key factor that 
enables athletic enhancement; thus, of course, 
considerable human resources are needed to 
run this efficiently. History has taught us that 
top-level athletes using performance-enhancing 
drugs usually have a strong interdisciplinary 
team around them, consisting of different pro-
fessionals, such as medical doctors, pharma-
cists, nurses, endurance physiologists, coaches, 
team managers, and many others. 
WHAT CAN ANTI-DOPING SOCIETY DO: IF YOU 
CAN’T BEAT THEM, JOIN THEM?
There are many approaches that can be em-
ployed in improving the fight against doping. 
The most obvious is to improve the analytical 
methods: faster analysis, higher sensitivity and 
stronger proof. In the same manner, tight col-
laboration with the pharmaceutical industry can 
help scientists develop early detection methods 
for drugs with performance-enhancing poten-
tial in sports. This has recently been put into 
practice as the drug company GlaxoSmithKline 
has signed a deal with the World Anti-Doping 
Agency (WADA) in July 2011. The company 
agreed to supply confidential information about 
medicines in early stages of development that 
may be abused by athletes once licensed. We 
Figure 1. Scheme showing the parties involved in the drug discovery process. From the doping 
perspective, there are two options: a) Therapeutic pathway – from bench to bedside; b) Doping 
pathway – from bench to sport side. 
The Unfamiliar60
PA
R
A
LL
EL
 E
SS
A
Y
S
can expect that WADA will try to sign similar 
deals with other big companies. 
In addition, we must create a strong scientific 
team, as part of WADA’s department or even as 
an independent non-governmental organization, 
that would screen all the latest research in the 
pre-clinical and clinical spheres – similarly to 
how doping society is screening for new ideas. 
This approach – scientific guard watching – can 
identify so-called “hot spots”. Any new drugs 
found to have performance-enhancing potential 
would then be highlighted to WADA, which 
could coordinate the research activities of an-
ti-doping research groups. Even more, such a 
scientific team could speculate on molecular 
mechanisms involved in athletic enhancement 
before the actual drug discovery – this could be 
a revolutionary transformation from “one step 
behind” to “one step ahead”. 
Furthermore, intelligence gathered from ev-
eryone involved in sports, and elsewhere, can 
help anti-doping authorities to target drug test-
ing of the athletes. It is important to get state-
of-the-art knowledge from banned athletes, and 
others involved in the doping business. Similar 
approaches have been successfully employed in 
drug trafficking, as well as in gathering intel-
ligence used by the military.  
Lastly, much more emphasis must be put on 
education of young athletes. Many recently 
started educational programs have successfully 
raised doping awareness by highlighting nega-
tive health consequences, the cheating aspect, 
and the possibility of getting caught.
CONCLUSION
Nowadays, athletes believe that medically su-
pervised doping is protecting them against seri-
ous adverse/toxic effects of drugs. But there is 
a catch: not all toxic effects appear acutely, and 
many serious ones must be considered in the 
mid- and long-term. Furthermore, participation 
of medical doctors in doping is against the ba-
sic principles of medicine, morally and legally. 
Pharmacology should be used to treat patients, 
and not to transform athletic competition into 
a competition between research teams, pharma-
ceutical companies, or even medical doctors. 
Figure 2. This hypothetical diagram shows the appearance of a novel compound, with perfor-
mance-enhancing properties, from a drug discovery process into sports. Please note that this 
figure represents the author’s personal predictions, and therefore does not reflect the actual situ-
ation, since there is no data available for the exact evaluation. 
uf


DRUG (RE) DISCOVERY

Panagiotopoulos, Anastasios

The Unfamiliar16
E
X
PE
R
IE
N
C
ES
 O
F 
FI
EL
D
W
O
R
K
This thesis focuses on the significance and articulation of divinatory practices in Cu-
ba―a place where a number of different reli-
gious traditions (mainly of African and Europe-
an origins) have come to coexist. Reflecting on 
the particularities of my ethnography, I concen-
trate on three such traditions: Ocha/Ifá, Palo 
Monte and Espiritismo. However, rather than 
engaging with them as different ‘traditions’ or 
assuming their syncretic character, I attempt to 
explore the way in which they constitute distinct 
but related perspectives on human destiny or, 
as my friends and informants put it, on people’s 
‘path’ (camino). I try to illustrate the nature of 
BY ANASTASIOS PANAGIOTOPOULOS
these perspectives by bringing to the fore the 
ways in which different divinatory practices in-
stantiate and embody the efficacy or ‘point of 
view’ of different ‘other-than-human’ beings-
be they deities or the dead. Treating these rela-
tions as an exchange of perspectives between 
‘humans’ and ‘other-than-human’ entities, I 
argue for the need to focus on ‘ontology’ and 
the indigenous understanding of these entities’ 
‘nature’ in order to avoid both ‘reductionist’ 
and ‘constructivist’ renderings of divination; in 
other words, to avoid the theoretical limits of 
‘syncretic’ or ‘purist’ readings of the (Afro-)Cu-
ban spirit world and its efficacy. 
THE ISLAND OF CROSSED DESTINIES
HUMAN & AND OTHER-THAN-HUMAN 
PERSPECTIVES IN AFRO-CUBAN DIVINATION
uf
The Unfamiliar 17
A
N
A
ST
A
SIO
S PA
N
A
G
IO
T
O
P
O
U
LO
S
CONTRAST I 
In the Afro-Cuban religions, offerings to various 
deities and spirits of the dead are very frequent. 
Here is one, at the foot of a tree, in central Ha-
vana. The ‘contrast’ (contrast for whom, is the 
immediate question, of course) here is the ‘Fes-
tival of French cinema’ at the background. 
CONTRAST II
Here is a second ‘contrast’. Another kind of of-
fering to an Afro-Cuban entity, the offering be-
ing a goat. The image of the sacrificed animal 
and the crucifix demolishes decades of efforts to 
preserve religious and, for that matter, any other 
kind of ‘cultural’ purity. 
CONTRAST III
The Afro-Cuban religions are also part of artis-
tic/folkloric performances extracted from their 
‘everyday’ ritual context. Music and dance oc-
curs in order to incite the Afro-Cuban deities to 
‘come down’ and take possession of certain in-
dividuals. But what of the folkloric performanc-
es? Where do the deities go?
CONTRAST IV
As with the ‘Contrast 3’, this photo also depicts 
an artistic/folkloric performance of Afro-Cuban 
religions. An audience of locals, tourists, people 
initiated in these religions, as well as a statue 
of neoclassical style are all watching the Afro-
Cuban drums beating.  


THE ISLAND OF CROSSED DESTINIES

Kompatsiaris, Panos

The Unfamiliar34
ENVIRONMENTS OF 
AESTHETIC DECAY
BY PANOS KOMPATSIARIS 
Notes on a visual 
ethnographic approach
Photographic images exist as material objects that travel, mediate affect, change hands, hard drives 
and online hosts, are used as forensic evidence, ob-
jects of symbolic exchange, generators of meaning. 
I am concerned here with the ways in which ethno-
graphic research can engender questions of meaning 
while delving into the familiarities and unfamiliarities 
that riddle visual representations. More specifically, 
with how respective images that bear some formal 
and contextual resemblance could be used as a start-
ing point for working with an ethnographic project. 
I do not intend to address the ways that the images 
themselves have been created – availability of techni-
cal equipment, means of transportation, the econom-
ic and social background of the producer and so on 
(although this would definitely tell us a lot about the 
particular contexts in which they appear). Rather, I 
intend to map a possible ethnographic reading that 
can emerge from the formal and contextual encoun-
ters between the two images presented in the text. 
On what grounds can an ‘ethnographic account’ start 
from these particular visual objects, ‘follow’ them 
and proceed in an investigation of their workings?
The Unfamiliar 35
Both images have been taken by me in two different contemporary art bienni-
als - the Venice Biennale and the Athens Biennale. The Venice Biennale is and 
has been one of the most established and well-funded institutions for showcasing 
contemporary art; it takes place in one of the most touristic cities in the world. The 
Athens Biennale, on the other hand, is an emerging and still poorly funded institu-
tion, that takes place in a city in crisis. The first image represents an artwork that 
appeared in the 54th Venice Biennale; the second one is an image of a random, 
but very characteristic part of the venue where the 3rd Athens Biennale was held.
Photos (from top to bottom):
54th Venice Biennale, 2011; 3rd Athens Biennale, 2011
All photos by Panos Kompatsiaris
The Unfamiliar36
V
IS
U
A
L 
A
N
T
H
R
O
P
O
LO
G
Y
Let us briefly look at the images. We know that they are both taken at art bien-
nales, that is to say, in sites where contemporary art is commonly showcased. They 
both show ‘environments’ that intend to acquire their meaning within a framed 
aesthetic regime of art-display. They bear, then, a contextual resemblance.  If we 
look at their formal characteristics more closely, we will notice that a sense of 
ruin, destruction, squalor, abdication, dirt, dust, abandonment and discomfort runs 
through them. They, therefore, both seem to share a common aesthetic, a formal 
resemblance of decay.
A process of defamiliarizing these commonalities may begin by posing a ran-
dom question, say the question of ‘authorship’ vis-à-vis these two staged ‘environ-
ments’. This question is posed not from some methodological necessity, but from 
the standpoint of the contingent character of methodological processes, of any 
performed method of analysis. 
If we proceed in our research by asking who is the ‘author’ of these ‘environ-
ments’, we may initially find out that the first picture depicts an ‘environment’ 
made by Mike Nelson, artist representing Great Britain in the Venice Biennale 
2011. Nelson has transformed the British pavilion into an uncanny maze of dark 
corridors and dusty chambers, where hidden memories and traces could possibly 
manifest themselves. This was a creative process that lasted for three months, and 
where the ‘creative gesture’ is univocally attributed to the artist (as demonstrated 
by the general use of his name alongside the title of the work). 
Later, we may also discover, that the second picture depicts not a carefully 
‘made’ environment but an environment which has gradually ‘decomposed’ due 
to a ‘socio-natural’ process - the abandonment of a building and its gradual de-
cay. Within the long-time sealed off building of central Athens Diplareios School, 
where the low-budget 3rd Athens Biennale was held, this environment comes to 
be with little or no ‘creative’ human intervention. In the case of Venice, authorship 
is unquestionably attributed to the artist, while in the case of Athens, authorship 
is attributed to the curators, who ‘chose’ to display art in the particular venue. The 
qualities of practice appear different: a physical creation of a temporary space to 
be demolished after the exhibition, and an appropriation of an already existing 
space in order to experience and possibly revitalize it after an ephemeral art event
After this brief encounter with the question of authorship, an art theorist could 
pose questions such as: What do these differences and similarities have to say 
about the sites where art is displayed? What do questions of aesthetic decay, cul-
tural context, and economic viability have to say about the cities of Athens and 
Venice, their art audiences, their social composition, their ‘global’ character? Why 
does an artist choose to create ruins for aesthetic display? On the other hand, why 
does a curator choose to appropriate and aestheticize pre-existing ruin? The art 
theorist would then proceed in examining these questions through an experiential 
lens, attached to particular social and theoretical readings.
The Unfamiliar 37
PA
N
O
S K
O
M
PA
T
SIA
R
IS
In what ways can ethnographic research generate storylines, different from that 
of the art theorist? The ethnographer follows the images. She or he physically 
visits the cities and looks for arbitrary connections between them, examines the 
two different exhibitions. Who participated, how did the selection process pro-
ceed and why? How were these two sites produced? Why ruins, why destruction? 
The ethnographer then asks the organizers, the artists, the curators. Why all this 
decadence? What meaning do they put in the process of aestheticizing ruins? In 
what degree was this ‘choice’ dictated from material constraints? What does this 
have to say about agency, intellectual property and authorship in relation to the 
particular socio-economic contexts? What does it mean to turn a decayed environ-
ment into an object of aesthetic appreciation? In what other art venues has ‘decay’ 
been consciously or unconsciously put on display? The ethnographer visits them 
and observes them. What cultural codes need to be performed in order for them to 
plead for aesthetic appreciation? She or he then goes on to physically spend time 
in other squalid environments, say old abandoned buildings. In what ways is this 
experience different from experiencing ruins in an art exhibition? A first research 
question then can vaguely start to emerge: Under what conditions do decayed 
‘environments’ enter the realm of art and what social processes determine their 
performance in relation to aesthetic appreciation? 
The sites explored and studied will necessarily be multiple: decayed environ-
ments, art exhibitions, cityscapes. The ethnographer will then follow the abstract 
connections, concepts, threads and flows of such processes. In this sense, the ‘vi-
sual’ can be the starting point of an ethnographic project, rather than its mere il-
lustrative material or final outcome. uf


ENVIRONMENTS OF AESTHETIC DECAY

Team, Editorial

INTRODUCTION & SECTIONS

Epstein, Ben

The Unfamiliar 61
B
EN
 EP
ST
EIN
DRUGS ‘R’  US
A RESPONSE TO ‘DRUG (RE) DISCOVERY:
FROM BENCH TO SPORT SIDE’
BY BEN EPSTEIN
When it said that over a third of the world’s population has little or no access to es-
sential drugs one must wonder what role the 
debate concerning a relatively small popula-
tion (consisting of professional athletes) and 
the global trend towards the commodification 
of drugs, drug-using identities and subjec-
tivities might be. I think if we start to question 
what kind of autonomous self is imagined for 
the athletes using performance-enhancing drugs 
in Ziberna’s article, and the ways in which these 
nascent drug-borne identities intersect, or are a 
confluence of, drug discovery and drug mar-
keting, we might usefully profit from an anthro-
pological and ethnographic take on the problem 
of doping in sports. I argue that the institution-
alization, management and hierarchization of 
information flows surrounding the moral panic 
of doping and pharmacology may also carry un-
wanted side effects. 
In the paper we are told that drugs, whatever 
we may think about their moral qualities, make 
our lives different. People today, presumably in 
the developed world, live longer and healthier 
lives thanks to the almost unimaginable capa-
bilities of drugs to affect almost every aspect of 
our now extended lives. Everyone from law stu-
dents to professionals can enjoy the benefits of 
‘enhanced’ mind-bodies. Only athletes are co-
opted by team managers and sponsors to break 
the rules and cheat. By enhancing their so-called 
‘normal’ physiology they can remain competi-
tive and stay on top of their game. Non-athletes 
too, it would seem, are provided with the means 
necessary to not only be healthy, but better than 
well. However, it is not just the health risk of 
doping that is at issue; it is the morally hazard-
ous body of the doped athlete that I think is also 
at stake in Ziberna’s paper. 
Participation of doctors in doping is both mor-
ally and legally against the basic principles of 
medicine, certainly, but the role of the pharma-
ceutical industry in directing what drugs should 
be prescribed in clinical settings means that 
the kind of doping which is occurring in non-
athletes is perhaps not always fair (as in cases 
involving doping students during exams using 
drugs usually marketed at people suffering from 
ADHD1 or narcolepsy). The legality of chang-
ing people’s chemistry so that they might func-
tion at their ‘fullest capacity’ is not questioned 
either, particularly in countries where over the 
counter medications are of an increased mag-
nitude in strength, or when patients can easily 
obtain such powerful medications over the In-
ternet. The difference between drugs as specific 
molecules and drugs as heavily commercialised 
items is also lacking in the discussion Ziberna 
proposes. Off-label applications of certain drugs 
can often single-handedly drive sales, and the 
extent to which drug-companies are aware of 
this is still controversial. Pharmaceutical com-
panies now market not only drugs, but also dis-
orders2.  
For drugs developed as treatments to target 
specific conditions, there may be times when 
the side effects far outweigh the benefits, but 
side effects are not always so easily identified 
as such, and may even at times be a desirable 
property of a drug. 
What’s more, it’s not that most drugs may 
cause side effects, but rather that they all inter-
act with a wide variety of body systems. The 
anti-psychotics for example may be used as 
anxiolytics, antipsychotics, antidepressants, an-
tipruritic agents, antihypertensives or antiemet-
ics. As noted psychiatrist David Healy says: ‘the 
The Unfamiliar62
PA
R
A
LL
EL
 E
SS
A
Y
S
marketing by modern drug companies, how-
ever, actively attempts to obscure this state of 
affairs’.3 Drugs may also be ‘discovered’ long 
before any application for them has been found. 
The examples of hypertension and Viagra are 
cases in point.  
Ziberna claims that in sports the risks of dop-
ing far outweigh the benefits, but the same is 
true for many other areas where drugs are ap-
plied as magic bullets to deal with a stagger-
ing variety of conditions, not always visible as 
pathologies. Anti-depressants, for example, as 
Stefan Ecks claims in India, ‘more than other 
medicines, […] hold the promise of a quick and 
effective demarginalization’ from poverty and 
that such medicines promote the ‘message that 
seems to be: “Take this medicine and you will 
not only be happy, but married with children, 
rich, and live a Western life-style.”’4 
Medicines live social lives and this fact is 
somewhat lacking in Ziberna’s paper where 
drugs are reified as techno-scientific objects; 
amoral, apolitical, mere things; whilst the play-
ers are seen to be at ‘moral risk’ from unscru-
pulous sports agents. The drugs in and of them-
selves apparently have no moral lives to speak 
of; it is their use and misuse that ultimately 
becomes the target of the critique. But in what 
way are drugs themselves complicit in configur-
ing the moral world in which athletes find them-
selves? How do drugs come to shape the experi-
ence of doping for athletes when there are little 
alternatives to remain competitive?  And what 
degree of choice do they have caught between 
the ‘bench to sport side’ dyad as they may be?
The problem, it would seem, is that drugs 
intended for therapeutic purposes fall into the 
hands of the wrong people and eventually trick-
le down to the nebulous world of professional 
sports agents, somehow always one step ahead 
of the anti doping regulations. This, according to 
Ziberna, is because scientists are not concerned 
with the potential misapplications of drugs in 
sports, and such an oversight on the part of the 
drug companies to properly regulate the kinds 
of drugs that may have such applications, may 
have terrible consequences for the athletes who 
consume them.
The solution Ziberna proposes seems to fall 
short of the idea of doping as a health risk and a 
moral failing. To make a change to this nefari-
ous situation, raising awareness and education 
about risks associated with such drugs is per-
ceived to be encouraging but insufficient. Nip-
ping the problem in the bud by creating ‘faster 
analysis, higher sensitivity and stronger proof’ 
of drugs and their potential application to sports 
before they have been released for clinical tri-
als or in their early phases seems like a promis-
ing but costly solution. However, tackling the 
problem of situating the athletes themselves as 
agents who have to keep up with the latest per-
formance enhancing drugs by actively seeking 
them out is another matter. And the potential 
profits for drug companies to surreptitiously 
market performance enhancing drugs at athletes 
may also usefully bear reflection.  
What kind of agency and rationality we as-
cribe to the athlete’s pharmaceutical self has se-
rious implications for the way in which we can 
depict the interactions they may have with drug 
discovery.  Stereotyping athletes as either crimi-
nals/cheaters or addicts seems to downplay what 
we might call the excessive potentiality of drugs 
as socially embedded and their ability to engen-
der social consequences. Considering pharma-
cological compounds as ‘discovered’ is in some 
sense also slightly naive. Drugs are boundary 
objects and have ‘different meanings in differ-
ent social worlds but their structure is common 
enough to more than one world to make them 
recognisable’.5  Through standards, ‘abstracta-
bility and movement across diverse social and 
cultural situations, [drugs] gain a legibility and 
functionality in heterogeneous domains.’6 
The way drugs are depicted as being bounded 
but mobile objects flowing in neatly unilateral 
ways as represented in handy diagrams and typ-
ified in translational medicine simplifies what is 
in fact a very complex and messy arrangement. 
The athletes’ brain chemistry, individual histo-
ry, pharmacological action and social dynamics 
The Unfamiliar 63
B
EN
 EP
ST
EIN
are difficult if not impossible to disaggregate.7 
Gene-doping, for example to treat pain, may not 
immediately be considered as enhancement or 
therapeutic, but could have unintended enhanc-
ing potential when athletes can later submit to 
more intense pain for longer.8 The availability of 
drugs and their coalescence in wealthier, more 
urbane parts of the world compared to the lack 
of drugs in others, may have a serious impact on 
top athletes training in less economically pros-
perous countries. Drugs in one place, may not 
be the same drugs in another. Their ability to re-
configure our moral worlds, and engender such 
debates, highlights the importance of continued 
research in this direction. uf
1 Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
2 Jenkins, Pharmaceutical Self, Sar Press. 2009.
3 Healy, Psychiatric Drugs Explained 6th Edition. 
2011, 288.
4 Ecks, ‘Pharmaceutical Citizenship: Antidepres-
sant Marketing and the Promise of Demarginaliza-
tion in India’, Anthropology & Medicine, 12: 3, 239 
— 254. 2005, 242
5 Bowker and Star, Sorting things out: classification 
and its consequences. 1999.
6 Collier and Ong, Global Assemblages, Technol-
ogy, Politics, and Ethics as Anthropological Prob-
lems. Blackwell, Oxford. 2006, 400.
7  Jenkins, Globalization and Psychopharmacology, 
Paper presented at the annual AAA 2005.
NOTES


DRUGS \u27R\u27 US

Mattei, Marlena Ann

TECHNOLOGY AS CULTURAL CAPITAL, PARTICULARLY IN COLLEGE ACCESS

Heneise, Michael

The Unfamiliar42
UNCERTAIN LABOUR
BY MICHAEL HENEISE
Migrant workers in 
karbi anglong, assam
The Unfamiliar 43
The Unfamiliar44
The Unfamiliar 45
M
IC
H
A
EL H
EN
EISE
Diphu, Karbi Anglong, December, 2005. As I walk down the road with my old Nikon SLR camera in-hand, a middle-aged Bihari migrant worker summons 
me and then waits patiently on his thela gari as I search my pockets for a spare roll 
of Ilford XP2 film. Communication is limited – managed through a series of hand 
gestures, some limited Hindi, and laughter. But I surmise that his main objective is 
the supply and transport of heavy bamboo to building sites where it is employed 
in scaffolding and in the setting of concrete in multi-level home construction. Like 
bamboo, red brick is readily available and produced locally – mostly by workers 
from Bihar. Small plots are leased from local Karbi landowners, kilns are built, and 
their surnames are proudly baked into each end product. 
Though situated deep in the jungles of Eastern Assam, Diphu is linked by railway 
to Guwahati, and thus to the rest of India. The Jan Shatabdi Express only stops for 
two minutes in Diphu. Getting off is a matter of timing and aiming precision. Fol-
lowing the sound of squealing brakes, dozens of passengers shove to the exit as the 
train slows to a halt. Holding one’s luggage firmly in one hand, one must aim for a 
small wooden platform using the luggage as a counter-balance – or plummet nearly 
six feet into red clay. 
Since its inauguration in 1970 as the district seat, Diphu has grown from a large 
village to a proper city of nearly 60,000. Most of the construction related with this 
growth has been in the hands of Bangladeshi migrant workers skilled in masonry, 
carpentry, plumbing and electrical work.
 
In order to get a sense of how connected Diphu is to other regions, I entered 
the local market place. Though much of what is available can be produced locally, 
vegetables grown cheaply elsewhere are easily shipped in and sold for a profit. To 
my surprise, the ample supply of silver carp on sale was shipped in from Andhra 
Pradesh! Local fisheries, I am told, are seasonal and insufficient to meet demand.
(Continued on page 47)
The Unfamiliar46
All photos by Michael Heneise
The Unfamiliar 47
M
IC
H
A
EL H
EN
EISE
The cheerful exchanges I had with construction material transporters, shop own-
ers, barbers, carpenters, and Bollywood video-disc sellers that day belied the unease 
and anxiety one could sense beneath the surface of genuine cordiality. Two months 
before I arrived, the underground militant groups Dima Halom Daoga (DHD) and 
United Democratic People’s Solidarity (UDPS) had engaged in a series of tit-for-tat 
attacks and counter-attacks against villages of the opposing ethnic group. The DHD 
on behalf of the Dimasas, and UDPS on behalf of the Karbis had been responsible 
for ninety-one deaths, dozens of burned down villages, and over forty thousand 
refugees. Though the Indian Army’s involvement was unclear, I could sense the 
general unease at their presence in and around Diphu.   
Xenophobia, racial prejudice and violence against migrant workers – particularly 
Biharis - had also been a growing problem in Karbi Anglong over the past five years 
or so. The killing of Bihari workers at the hands of the United Liberation Front of 
Asom (ULFA), in particular, had become an expected news item in the daily papers 
and on local radio stations. The recent violence between the DHD and UDPS cre-
ated a deep sense of unease and uncertainty for the migrant workers. Their ability 
to work was contingent upon peaceful relations with local patrons and customers. 
When tensions ran high, ‘scapegoat’ was an unenviable position to be in.
Despite the lack of security, sluggish economic growth and lack of work opportu-
nities in their places of origin - Bihar, West Bengal or Bangladesh – have dissuaded 
many migrant workers from returning. There is also a great deal of hope that state 
and central government-sponsored development projects would materialize giving 
a boost to the construction and services industry.
As my short two-week stay in Diphu came to a close, I stuffed the side-pockets 
of my cargo pants with cartridges of black and white film, and braced myself for 
the moving Jan Shatabdi Express to Guwahati. Diphu disappeared from view in an 
instant, though the images and voices of those I met still remain fresh in my mind. 
Indeed migrant workers in this hidden jungle-city wrestle day-to-day with isolation, 
uncertainty, and sometimes violence. But they will likely stay and continue to stamp 
their names into the bricks of small edifices, and brave the Northeast monsoon. uf


UNCERTAIN LABOUR

Matulyte, Julija

The Unfamiliar52
PROFILES IN VISUAL ANTHROPOLOGY
CURATED BY JULIJA MATULYTE
The Unfamiliar 53
JU
LIJA
 M
A
T
U
LY
T
E
Isaak Serbov (1871 - 1943) - ethnographer, first Belorussian visual anthropologist. In 1911-1913, funded by the Imperial Russian Geographical Society, Serbov has 
set out to the Polesia region to seek and document remains of the ancient tribal union 
of Dregovichs, who, according to rumours in Minsk, maintained their archaic life-
style until the beginning of the 20 C.
Serbov was calling his field research photo excursions or photo expeditions, as the 
main purpose of his trips was to photograph the population and environment of Pole-
sia - villagers, their costume, biological features, mundane activities, arts and crafts, 
utensils, buildings, and transportation. 
During his fieldwork, Serbov experienced a collapse of the stereotypes about the 
polessians; though some of the archaic customs still remained. The modern life was 
affecting Polesia and its inhabitants (ploughs, threshers and bridles were already in 
use, jackets and scarfs were worn by the youth). According to his accounts, he was 
depicting life in Polesia as it was, nonetheless; as his Kodak camera was an unseen 
object in the region, people were always attracted to it. Reactions varied from curi-
osity to surprise and fear; thus, even the situations that were not simulated (Serbov 
used method of reconstruction to depict decaying costumes and customs) appear to 
be enacted.
Despite being a slight idealisation of rural life of the region, the archive of Isaak 
Serbov, 435 items of which are stored in the Manuscript Department at Vilnius Uni-
versity Library, is an invaluable document on life in Eastern Europe of the beginning 
of the 20 century.
Based on Labacheuskaya V. (2012). ‘Photography Collection of Belorussian Ethnog-
rapher Isaak Serbov at the Manuscript Department of Vilnius University Library: On 
Question of History of Creation, Attribution and Dating’, Vilnius University Library 
Yearbook, 2012: 90-121. 
ISAAK SERBOV
(1871 - 1943) 
ETHNOGRAPHER;
FIRST BELORUSSIAN VISUAL ANTHROPOLOGIST
uf
The Unfamiliar54
The Unfamiliar 55
All photos courtesy of the Manuscript Department of Vilnius University Library


ISAAK SERBOV

This essay attempts to move the definition of capital beyond its usual economic context and explore its meaning in two different but related senses of the word: the seat of government and an entity that is recognised as valuable. I refer to how capital is transformed within the Malaysian government’s Vision 2020 development initiative, specifically the Putrajaya project. Plans for the future sought to implement the ultimate objective of a ‘fully developed’ Malaysia by building a technologically equipped city that houses the Prime Minister and federal bureaucracy. This essay reviews the government’s perceptions of the future and wonders how the not yet is made known. I argue that despite plans, visions and ideas of imminence and glory, the future remains unfamiliar. As such, capital will continue to transform

Not a member yet