Interview with Thomas Hylland Eriken: On the EASA and Anthropology in Europe Today

The abstract is included in the text

Interview with Arthur Kleinman: A Passion for Anthropology

I met with professor Arthur Kleinman a day after his keynote speech at the 2016 AAI conference in Maynooth. The talk he delivered was a moving account of the politics and morality of care and suffering. But the power of his speech came not only from the insightful theoretical approach, but first and foremost from sharing a very personal experience of care-giving to his wife of 45 years, Joan, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2003, and whom Kleinman was taking care until her death in 2011. So when we met for this interview, I somehow expected a conversation which would continue in a similar vein, and would follow up on the topics raised the day before. But paradoxically, in this small Maynooth cafe, the intimate atmosphere of the yesterday’s lecture hall was nowhere to be found. But even though our talk had a very different ambience, it revealed a great dedication of Professor Kleinman to anthropology. Without much of ado he directed our interview to the most current issues in academia. Echoing the conversations that are happening in most universities in the world, including Maynooth, where curriculum reform is being introduced, Professor Kleinman noted that we live in a time, when universally the whole academic world is changing: research universities are moving away from a balanced model combining science, humanities and social sciences to a model led by applied science. That worldwide emphasis on applied science raises a question about the purpose of the humanities and social sciences, and what is their role in the education of students generally, and what role do their fields have. Eventually what happens is the contraction of humanities and social sciences, which has very substantial significance for anthropology

Interview with Douglas Holmes: Anthropology For & In Troubled Times

The abstract is included in the tex

Repealing Ireland's Eighth Amendment: abortion rights and democracy today

In 2018, the Irish public voted to repeal the Eighth Amendment to the Irish Constitution, which since 1983 banned abortion in the country. While this was a watershed moment in Irish history, it was not unconnected to wider discussions now taking place around the world concerning gender, reproductive rights, the future of religion, Church–State relationships, democracy and social movements. With this Forum, we want to prompt some anthropological interpretations of Ireland's repeal of the Eighth Amendment as a matter concerning not only reproductive rights, but also questions of life and death, faith and shame, women and men, state power and individual liberty, and more. We also ask what this event might mean (if anything) for other societies dealing with similar issues

Alteration of Proteins and Pigments Influence the Function of Photosystem I under Iron Deficiency from Chlamydomonas reinhardtii

BACKGROUND: Iron is an essential micronutrient for all organisms because it is a component of enzyme cofactors that catalyze redox reactions in fundamental metabolic processes. Even though iron is abundant on earth, it is often present in the insoluble ferric [Fe (III)] state, leaving many surface environments Fe-limited. The haploid green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii is used as a model organism for studying eukaryotic photosynthesis. This study explores structural and functional changes in PSI-LHCI supercomplexes under Fe deficiency as the eukaryotic photosynthetic apparatus adapts to Fe deficiency. RESULTS: 77K emission spectra and sucrose density gradient data show that PSI and LHCI subunits are affected under iron deficiency conditions. The visible circular dichroism (CD) spectra associated with strongly-coupled chlorophyll dimers increases in intensity. The change in CD signals of pigments originates from the modification of interactions between pigment molecules. Evidence from sucrose gradients and non-denaturing (green) gels indicates that PSI-LHCI levels were reduced after cells were grown for 72 h in Fe-deficient medium. Ultrafast fluorescence spectroscopy suggests that red-shifted pigments in the PSI-LHCI antenna were lost during Fe stress. Further, denaturing gel electrophoresis and immunoblot analysis reveals that levels of the PSI subunits PsaC and PsaD decreased, while PsaE was completely absent after Fe stress. The light harvesting complexes were also susceptible to iron deficiency, with Lhca1 and Lhca9 showing the most dramatic decreases. These changes in the number and composition of PSI-LHCI supercomplexes may be caused by reactive oxygen species, which increase under Fe deficiency conditions. CONCLUSIONS: Fe deficiency induces rapid reduction of the levels of photosynthetic pigments due to a decrease in chlorophyll synthesis. Chlorophyll is important not only as a light-harvesting pigment, but also has a structural role, particularly in the pigment-rich LHCI subunits. The reduced level of chlorophyll molecules inhibits the formation of large PSI-LHCI supercomplexes, further decreasing the photosynthetic efficiency

Glutathione Is a Key Player in Metal-Induced Oxidative Stress Defenses

Since the industrial revolution, the production, and consequently the emission of metals, has increased exponentially, overwhelming the natural cycles of metals in many ecosystems. Metals display a diverse array of physico-chemical properties such as essential versus non-essential and redox-active versus non-redox-active. In general, all metals can lead to toxicity and oxidative stress when taken up in excessive amounts, imposing a serious threat to the environment and human health. In order to cope with different kinds of metals, plants possess defense strategies in which glutathione (GSH; γ-glu-cys-gly) plays a central role as chelating agent, antioxidant and signaling component. Therefore, this review highlights the role of GSH in: (1) metal homeostasis; (2) antioxidative defense; and (3) signal transduction under metal stress. The diverse functions of GSH originate from the sulfhydryl group in cysteine, enabling GSH to chelate metals and participate in redox cycling

‘State Bureaucrats’ and ‘Those NGO People’: Promoting the idea of civil society, hindering the state

One of the characteristics of Polish foreign aid is its focus on the ‘transition experience’ and civil society. This specific celebration of the ‘Polish success story’ contrasts sharply with public debates that frequently criticise the weaknesses of Polish civil society and the difficulties in state – non-state relations. The Polish Aid apparatus itself is not immune to these problems, often exhibiting antagonistic relations between NGOs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. By looking at the relations linking these stakeholders this text aims to analyse relations between the ‘state’ and ‘civil society’ in Poland. As the text demonstrates, complicated contemporary relations between NGOs and the State are first the outcome of the country’s troubled history of civil society, and an inheritance of the Solidarity movement when the concept of civil society was built on the idea of opposition to the state. Second, the anti-state attitude characterising contemporary organisations was also fostered by foreign institutions, which supported the Solidarity movement in its efforts to overturn the socialist regime in Poland, and later in the 1990s, became the strongest proponents of civil society and NGOs. Finally, these preexisting historical conditions for the strong polarisation of NGOs and state institutions are now additionally reinforced by the ‘professionalization’ and ‘institutionalisation’ of NGOs. However, the uncritical promotion of ‘Western standards’ exhibited in the ideals of transparency and audit culture, rather than generating positive change only antagonises NGOs and state institutions. The ultimate effect of this process is that NGOs become more and more obsessed with bureaucratic modes of operating, and start to resemble state institutions. Effectively, NGOs risk losing their identity which is so strongly built on the non-governmental aspect of their work. Effectively, the perpetuation of the state/non-State opposition becomes a strategy which allows this separate identity to be maintained and NGOs status to remain unchallenged

Interview with Arthur Kleinman: A Passion for Anthropology

I met with professor Arthur Kleinman a day after his keynote speech at the 2016 AAI conference in Maynooth. The talk he delivered was a moving account of the politics and morality of care and suffering. But the power of his speech came not only from the insightful theoretical approach, but first and foremost from sharing a very personal experience of care-giving to his wife of 45 years, Joan, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2003, and whom Kleinman was taking care until her death in 2011. So when we met for this interview, I somehow expected a conversation which would continue in a similar vein, and would follow up on the topics raised the day before. But paradoxically, in this small Maynooth cafe, the intimate atmosphere of the yesterday’s lecture hall was nowhere to be found. But even though our talk had a very different ambience, it revealed a great dedication of Professor Kleinman to anthropology. Without much of ado he directed our interview to the most current issues in academia. Echoing the conversations that are happening in most universities in the world, including Maynooth, where curriculum reform is being introduced, Professor Kleinman noted that we live in a time, when universally the whole academic world is changing: research universities are moving away from a balanced model combining science, humanities and social sciences to a model led by applied science. That worldwide emphasis on applied science raises a question about the purpose of the humanities and social sciences, and what is their role in the education of students generally, and what role do their fields have. Eventually what happens is the contraction of humanities and social sciences, which has very substantial significance for anthropology

Humanitarian Developers and Neutrality in Foreign Aid: shifting contexts, shifting meanings – examples from South Sudan

Since the late 1990s, researchers have been predicting that the era of neutrality in aid politics is coming to an end and that foreign organizations will have to take a more engaged stance. Yet while the boundaries between humanitarianism and development are fading, in some cases the neutrality norm is actually expanding rather than giving way to an engaged paradigm. Recognizing that the principles of neutrality and independence have diff erent meanings for diff erent actors and that they are applied in various ways, this article examines how the humanitarian developers—small NGOs operating in Jonglei State in South Sudan—use these paradigms. Th e article shows that their specifi c variant of neutrality is not so much a pragmatic tool enabling operations in diffi cult settings, but instead is a structural form of identity. In this variation, neutrality is not about the absence of a political stance, but about standing apart from social structures and social immunity