1,721,170 research outputs found
Lives in Motion, indeed. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Social Change in Honour of Danielle de Lame
No full textIn her work, Danielle de Lame has always favoured an approach disentangling the contradiction and fragmentation of the day-to-day, relationships between 'top' and 'bottom', representations of the Self, ties between the Self and objects, and creation and management of differences and hierarchy - everything that compromises the production of social change. This interdisciplinary volume takes different spatio-temporal trajectories to reflect these themes and explores recurring fundamental points in human and social sciences: 'in-disciplinarity' and comparison of political and historical 'truth'. It pays tribute to the intellectual integrity of Danielle de Lame and her scientific rigour and trailblazing endeavours
Worlds of Debts. Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Gold Mining in West Africa
No full textWest Africa has a long and infamous history of gold mining. Over the last fifteen years, soaring gold prices and neoliberal politics have pushed gold mining, both artisanal and industrial, to the centre stage of land use in West Africa. The organization of mining in countries such as Mali and Burkina Faso has made a shift from dominant state intervention - both on the level of production and the selling of gold - to a sector giving ample room to private companies. This process of liberalization, and the increase of African peasants being involved in artisanal mining have triggered heated debates on the pro's and con's of gold mining for Africa's future; should gold be seen as a curse or blessing? This volume seeks to move beyond the dichotomy of winners versus losers, beyond rigid monolithic models, and beyond rhetoric on gold mining and development, and proposes instead a critical theoretical analysis with in-depth case studies. New insights and assessments are based on an interdisciplinary collaboration from anthropology, history and geology investigating broader articulations of mining with other forms of land use as part of long term, dynamic processes of co-habitation
Introduction. Central Peripheries and Contexts on the Verge. Absence and Marginality as spaces of Emergence
No full textBamako's Woodcarvers as Pariahs of Cultural Heritage: Between Marginalization and State Representation
No full textIn this article, I propose to view the acts of production behind tourist art as indicators of adaptation strategies paramount to innovation and cultural reprocessing. From this perspective, I examine the principle of materiality associated with UNESCO selection criteria, including a spatial-temporal conception that rejects the contemporaneity between objects and their acts of production. The Malian state's "heritage foundation" excludes tourist art carvers on the basis of their economic survival strategies and marks of identity. In an opposite perspective, the principle of corporality includes a social perspective on cultural heritage in which the human body is viewed as a receptacle of the capital of "social relations of work," conveying a social aesthetic in which iconographic innovation is the outcome of economic precariousness and hierarchical relations
Ethics, evaluation, and economies of value amidst illegal practices
No full textThis special issue focuses on illegal practices and the forms of value produced as people engage in them. Embracing a methodological orientation that attends to criminalized networks and the values they structure from the inside, the contributions included here highlight micro processes of exchange and evaluation. By linking the study of local worlds to the apprehension of wider structural and cultural dynamics and processes, the collection develops a critical perspective on formal law s legitimizing and delegitimizing effects with respect to the ethical and economic values illegal activities produce
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