NEKROLOG: JOHN LIEP

Af Stig Toft Madsen &nbsp

DEN TAKSONOMISKE TAKTSTOK

Nærværende artikel tager udgangspunkt i ny viden om fuglenes evolution på forskellige taksonomiske niveauer. Især artsniveauet nyder hobbyornitologernes bevågenhed, idet en videnskabeligt sanktioneret taksonomi på artsniveau muliggør en indbyrdes kappestrid om at opdage og afkrydse det størst mulige antal arter på forskellige afkrydsningslister. Fordi mange amatørornitologer har opbygget en høj grad af ekspertise, er de i stand til at interagere med professionelle eksperter. Feltfolket udgør på denne måde både en ressource for videnskaben og et eksternt, eller subalternt, korrektur, som i praksis kan gøre krav på at føre „taksonomiens taktstok“. Artiklen gennemgår otte udvalgte events i efteråret 2019 for at illustrere, hvordan sjældne fugle opdages, bestemmes og – ikke mindst ved granskning af fotos – efterbestemmes. Videnskabssociologien har siden 1960’erne udviklet sig i en postmodernistisk retning, som i sine identitetspolitiske afskygninger i 2020 blandt andet førte til, at Carl von Linné blev anklaget for at være den videnskabelige racismes grundlægger. Identitetspolitikken kan udgøre en udfordring for ornitologien, men foreløbig står idéen om, at arter har en central plads i den taksonomiske orden til troende. Ikke alt er sløret og multipelt, som postmodernismen foreskriver. Søgeord: ornitologi, fuglearter, taksonomi, ekspertise, falsifikation, postmodernism

Asian studies in the Nordic region: Status, relevance, prospects

This article surveys the history, present status, and prospects of Asian Studies in the Nordic region. Taking its points of departure from the recent closure of several small language disciplines at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, the article discusses Asian Studies in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland with reference to university funding, student preferences, and cooperation with Asian governments. Further, the relevance of Asian Studies is illustrated by three illustrative “vignettes” dealing with the educational role of museums in Denmark and Russia and with vulnerable societies of the far North; the varied motivations for the 18th century Royal Danish Arabia Expedition; and the usefulness of extensive pan-Eurasia knowledge of the kind that birdwatchers cultivate. The article posits that by cultivating finegrained and extensive knowledge about the past and the present, Asian Studies may counteract the thinning out, and distortion of, knowledge while also legitimately serving economic and political interests

Marcus Banks: Organizing Jainism in India and England

Marcus Banks: Organizing Jainism in India and England Anmeldes af Stig Toft Madse

Book Review: Pakistan’s Experience with Formal Law: An Alien Justice

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‘It Takes Two Hands to Clap’: How Gaddi Shepherds in the Indian Himalayas Negotiate Access to Grazing

This article examines the effects of state intervention on the workings of informal institutions that coordinate the communal use and management of natural resources. Specifically it focuses on the case of the nomadic Gaddi shepherds and official attempts to regulate their access to grazing pastures in the Indian Himalayas. It is often predicted that the increased presence of the modern state critically undermines locally appropriate and community-based resource management arrangements. Drawing on the work of Pauline Peters and Francis Cleaver, I identify key instances of socially embedded ‘common’ management institutions and explain the evolution of these arrangements through dynamic interactions between individuals, communities and the agents of the state. Through describing the ‘living space’ of Gaddi shepherds across the annual cycle of nomadic migration with their flocks I explore the ways in which they have been able to creatively reinterpret external interventions, and suggest how contemporary arrangements for accessing pasture at different moments of the annual cycle involve complex combinations of the formal and the informal, the ‘traditional’ and the ‘modern’