Author Archives: guestanthropologist
Citizen aid – and why ordinary people are founding their own development projects
By Anne-Meike Fechter At the height of the European refugee crisis, volunteers delivered goods to makeshift camps in Calais, set up soup kitchens, and helped recent arrivals on the Greek island of Lesvos. But such grassroots humanitarianism does not always play out on Europe’s doorstep. “Citizen aid” – whereby driven individuals set up their own, […]
Review: The Anthropology of Corporate Social Responsibility
By Deniz Seebacher **Originally published on Anthropology Matters, 17(2)** Corporations, an omnipresent form of organisation in today’s society, are increasingly called to participate in tackling environmental and social issues such as climate change or refugee crises by ‘taking responsibility’ and supporting governments and civil society. The corporate social responsibility (CSR) movement can be seen as […]
Review: The Darjeeling Distinction
By Peter Luetchford ** Reprinted from Review of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Studies Sarah Besky’s informative monograph on tea plantations in the northern Indian district of Darjeeling fills a gap in the literature on Fair Trade commodities, and so complements ethnographic studies such as those on coffee, bananas, and chocolate . It plays a key […]
Shadow over Burma: the Rohingya crisis in context
By Elisa Sandri In late August, alarming reports and harrowing images started to surface from Myanmar. It soon became clear that Rohingya people—a Muslim minority living in a remote region of Rakhine State, bordering Bangladesh—were being killed, tortured, and their villages burnt down. Official Myanmar state outlets reported that Rohingyas had attacked local communities and […]
From the Field: Havana, Cuba
by Evie Browne In the annual International Worker’s Day (Primero de Mayo) march past the Jose Martí statue in the centre of Havana’s Plaza de la Revolucion, the traditional signs and slogans of the Cuban Revolution were present, with added acknowledgements and recognition of Fidel. I took part in this year’s march as I am […]
‘Ungoverned Spaces’?
by Magnus Marsden **Previously published at Hurst’s blog.** In the aftermath of the terrorist attack on Manchester, the term ‘ungoverned spaces’ has returned to the forefront of public debate about the significance of countries ranging from Syria to Afghanistan for so-called ‘Islamist’ terrorist networks. By instigating regime change in Muslim-majority states without making rigorous plans for their […]
Festival Culture: the Romanticisation of Informal Settlements?
by Tim Perkin The show ‘Borderline’, a PSYCHEdelight production, recently took part to an arts festival in the UK. The show portrayed a satirical account of the Calais Jungle, the informal refugee camp in France that hosted up to ten-thousand people. What made the political drama particularly poignant was that many of the members of […]