Augsburger Volkskundliche Nachrichten: 01/2013

Inhalt: Leidler, Ines: Griechenland – finanzielles gleich kulturelles Sorgenkind Europas? - Einsiedler, Marion; Herrmann, Leonie: "In Vielfalt geeint"? Deutsche und Schweizer Studenten zwischen nationaler und europäischer Identität - Interview - Rezensionen - Veranstaltunge

Revaluing Gender and Religion in the Anthropological Debate of the Anthropocene: A Critique on the Threefold Culture–Nature–Supernature Divide

This study argues that current anthropological research on human–nature relatedness lacks an explicit focus on gender and religion. It brings to the forefront that most current studies in Anthropocene anthropology that move away from anthropocentrism and towards studying more-than-human relatedness imply a disregard of gender that concerns both the ‘human’ and the ‘non-human’ in their mutual relationships. Presuming that the concept of sociality does not distinguish between human and nonhuman, the authors believe, however, that expressions of gender in more-than-human social relatedness cannot be denied. Simultaneously, they state that Anthropocene scholarship, by conceiving a secular future for humans restoring their relatedness with nature, is inclined to leave the ‘supernature’ out and to ignore experiences and embodied practices of enchantment in the modern world. By reviewing the feminist anthropological literature on the nature–culture divide and exploring the potential of enchantment as a way out of the secular condition of anthropology, the authors aim to restore a focus on gender and religion in anthropological Anthropocene scholarship while also transcending the threefold nature–culture–supernature divide. This review offers the theoretical prelude and introduction to the contributions of the Special Issue “Gender, Nature and Religious Re-enchantment in the Anthropocene”

Ex-votos in Lourdes: Contested materiality of miraculous healings

Contains fulltext : 99323.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)The modern Marian shrine in Lourdes (southern France) attracts six million pilgrims every year. While the site is known worldwide for the miracles that occur there, the dominant official discourse hardly recognizes people's miraculous experiences. This ethnographic study focuses on ex-votos, the religious objects by which pilgrims offer their thanks to Mary for working a miracle. These are situated on the contested boundary between pilgrims' lived religion and officially prescribed religion at the Lourdes site. The article aims to understand what power politics are at stake in the handling of ex-votos as well as what motives pilgrims have to leave offerings at the site. This is illustrated by the in-depth analysis of the story of one ex-voto that also shows that the bonds within families, and between families and Mary, are crucial elements of the stories told. By offering an ex-voto, pilgrims not only remember Mary, but also their family and ancestors.25 p

Sharing home, food, and bed: Paths of grandmotherhood in East Cameroon

Contains fulltext : 64558.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)This article focuses on relationships between grandmothers and grandchildren in an urban society in East Cameroon. It argues that despite fluid generational demarcations between grandmothers and mothers, women perform their grandmotherhood differently from their motherhood. As a result of the claims grandmothers often make on their children's children, grandmothers easily replace mothers but they do not rear children in the same way. The sharing of home, food, and bed is central in the performance of grandmotherhood and differs from relationships of sharing in the mother–child bond. The article also argues that grandmotherhood in East Cameroon is not a clearly bounded, unambiguous life stage but that it contains multiple trajectories that do not occur in the same time or in the same order. Multiple trajectories, characterised by both agency and constraint, are explained in terms of differences within and between grandmothers' life courses. The article shows that grandmothers play vital roles in complex practices of marriage and descent and, in contrast to previous studies in the area, that matrilineages are closely linked to patrilineages