HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory
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Amazonia by steam: Vicissitudes of a geometric revolution
No full textIn the 1890s, at the height of the rubber boom, steamboats dominate the rivers of Bolivian Amazonia. The technophile discourse of the period presents the steamer as a revolution that changes everything: it allows social progress and economic development, it frees transport from the constraints of the geography, it reinforces national sovereignty and, at the same time, it overcomes interethnic conflict. Nevertheless, a careful reading of the historical sources allows us to question whether it is reasonable to reduce the rubber-transporting steamer to an icon of progress and the nationalist agenda. A historical anthropology of the steamer helps to understand what happens with the vessel itself beyond political economy, nation-building processes, and the Amazonian landscape, while also aiming to reconstruct the biographies, histories, and imaginaries of the steamboat itself and its people, and in turn an integral fluvial experience that embodies novel perceptions of alterity of the river and the Bolivian jungle
Witnessing, refusal, and the conditions of investigation: Negotiating promises and pitfalls in interwoven projects of judicial truth-telling and documentary filmmaking
No full textThe contested evidentiary status and supposed ambiguity of a survivor’s video points to a central challenge in the making of our film, Big Mouth, which addresses a broader context of risks to journalists reporting on sexual violence. We believe and support the survivor. How then, as filmmakers, can we use sounds and images in our own process of making claims, without either dismissing or overdetermining the evidentiary notion assumed by the courts? In this article, I consider how the survivor’s efforts offer a critical lens on the notion of “ambiguous” or “false” or “defamatory” claims, and argue that by moving away from a focus on evidence as object and toward a notion of evidentiary expression, we might exceed the bounded political and temporal space of the courts in order to explore the very conditions of evidentiary claims-making and investigation—with implications for ethnographers, advocates, journalists, and filmmakers alike
Living in a world of others: A politics of grace and favors in a Romanian mahala
No full textThe phrase “Roma politics” has come to designate several topics, such as the movement for Roma rights, relations between Roma and non-Roma, or the maintenance of social order in a given group, but these have rarely been addressed together. This is what the present article sets out to do, through the case study of a Roma politician from a southern Romanian town who finds himself in a liminal position between local non-Roma party politics, transnational Romani activism, and the values of his community. He and his fellow Rom negotiate their social relations through an ideology of “help” and “charity,” which I compare to Pitt-Rivers’s notion of “grace,” showing that the decidedly hierarchical political imaginary that suffuses the real-life politics of the Rom is far removed from the abstract apolitical egalitarianism through which transnational institutions and activists frame “Roma politics.
From “limited sovereignty” to decolonization in Ukraine
No full textThis article takes up the loaded topic of “Russia in the world of Ukraine.” Now an object of official Russia’s aggressive attention, contemporary Ukraine presents a pressing case for reconsidering colonialism which, I propose, requires reconceptualizing sovereignty. I compare descriptions of sovereignty resting on two different genealogies, “limited sovereignty” as described by Russian expert Igor Gretskiy and “creative sovereignty” from Ukrainian scholar Oleksandr Merezhko, and bring them into conversation with Ukrainian Semyon Gluzman’s argument that thinking about colonialism in Ukraine implicates temporality, reflexivity, and subjectivity. Beyond “center” and “periphery,” beyond mapping control, suffering, production, and exploitation onto topographies of sovereign power and rural subjectivity, can we imagine sovereignty beyond territoriality? Can we decolonize the present from the past? The essay concludes with a suggestion to expand consideration of colonialism from a spatial to a temporal frame, the lexicon of colonialism beyond spatial deictics, and the project of decolonization to ourselves
Surreal events, “TV zombies,” and social media in postsocialist Kazakhstan: Reflecting on violence in Russia’s sphere of influence
No full textRussia’s invasion of Ukraine, which came on the heels of violent domestic protests in January 2022, elicited powerful reactions in postsocialist Kazakhstan. For the past thirty years Kazakhstan has been a close economic and political ally of Russia but in the aftermath of the invasion, the relations between the two countries are fragile. Kazakhstanis are split over the war in Ukraine along ethnic and generational lines. The pro-Russia camp is anxious about Kazakhstan moving away from Russia while Ukraine supporters are concerned about Kazakhstan’s territorial integrity and their future in Russia’s “sphere of influence.” While outside observers have focused on Russian TV broadcasting as the main means of Kremlin propaganda in Kazakhstan, ethnographic data suggests that it is but one of many tools of information warfare. Social media emerged as a powerful means for pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian supporters to exchange information, communicate with like-minded people, and filter out opposing views
From a museum of Others to a museum of Selves: Repatriation, affective relations, and social values of archaeological human remains
No full textThe mummy of the Altaian Princess is one of the best-known cases of repatriation of human remains in Russia. Drawing on a comparative ethnography of two Siberian museums that conserved her body before and after the return, this article approaches the museums as arenas of affective relations to heritage and as key sites of the enactment of heritage social values. It unpacks the museums’ politics in the Princess’s display to show how and why some affective relations are transformed into “front values” available to audiences, while others remain on the back stage of museum life. It also argues for a more symmetrical approach to sending and receiving museums, which provides important nuances to the analyses of repatriation in terms of power structures and colonial legacies
The re-starting of history: Life in changing Russian spheres of influence
No full textThe essays in this collection look into daily life in changing Russian spheres of influence, including Ukraine, Latvia, Kazakhstan, the Central African Republic, and within Russia itself. They explore how the markers of sovereignty, nationalism, autonomy, and dependence change in the midst of this flux. They also delve into the features of ethnographic storytelling and knowledge generation in contexts of violence, upheaval, and other forms of invasion