Claiming the Aboriginal Body in Tasmania

How do contemporary Tasmanian Aboriginals think of the body? How do they think of the dead body and of their human remains? This work examines the intersection of different cultural, biological and legal concepts of authenticity and belonging as these concepts come into focus as the stake of disputes over Aboriginal remains. In claiming remains, Tasmanians engage a complex set of discursive practices in which the aboriginal body is denoted, performed and negotiated in various ways as the sign of ancestral rights. Petrović-Šteger attends particularly to the language in which Tasmanian human remains are accounted for, appropriated and resignified in the context of the British policy on repatriation. Her work examines naturalist interpretations of both Tasmanian Aboriginal and Western ideas of biology, ancestry and kinship. Attending to a number of recalcitrant concepts—including those of the authority of science, purity of indigenous peoples and exclusive rights of descendants—Petrović-Šteger considers questions arising from contemporary data collection processes as they image and measure remains, and subject them to DNA and isotopic analysis. The collection also broaches the question of how contemporary understandings of Tasmanian indigeneity and ancestral rights are constituted and promoted through the use of various scientific, museological and representational technologies

O onome što predvidljivo ne obuhvaća. Zamišljanje budućnosti u Srbiji

In order to be able to contextualize and understand social worlds, anthropologists pay close attention. We observe how individuals and communities relate to each other and to their ideas. We study the intimate and subjective, as well as the large-scale cosmologies by which people make themselves and the world. Our participatory methods and reflective analysis document the complex, intricate, patterned, and also random aspects of people’s reasoning and actions. These activities, on anthropology’s part, supposedly offer not only critical descriptions of the present (on its historical trajectories), but possible intimations of a society’s future. Anthropological analysis, in other words, not only describes but also anticipates. This position paper focuses on the notions of anticipation, predictability, and possibility in anthropology. It asks what methodological and theoretical assumptions are built into our ways of making predictions about our field sites. It invites the reader to consider the effects certain anticipatory practices have for the people and phenomena we study as well as for the discipline. Centrally, the paper proposes different ways of attending to visions that anticipate the future. By reflecting on my ethnographic and analytical journeys in Serbia, I attempt to explain why I currently make so much of questions of predictability and possibility in both the field and the discipline. My desire is to open up a discussion on the value of cultivating attention to what seems to emerge on the side of predictable.Da bi mogli kontekstualizirati i razumjeti društvene svjetove, antropolozi pomno promatraju. Promatramo kako se pojedinci i zajednice odnose jedni prema drugima i prema svojim idejama. Proučavamo intimno i subjektivno, kao i kozmologije velikih razmjera pomoću kojih ljudi ostvaruju sebe i svijet. Naše participativne metode i reflektivne analize dokumentiraju kompleksne, zamršene, uobličene, ali i nasumične aspekte ljudskog razmišljanja i djelovanja. U antropologiji takve aktivnosti nude ne samo kritičke opise sadašnjosti (na njihovim povijesnim putanjama) već i moguće nagovještaje budućnosti nekog društva. Drugim riječima, antropološka analiza ne samo da opisuje nego i predviđa. Ovaj rad razmatra ideje predviđanja, procjenjivanja i mogućnosti u antropologiji. Propituje koje su metodološke i teorijske pretpostavke ugrađene u antropološke načine predviđanja, odnosno opisa i posljedične analize naših terena. Istražuje kakve učinke imaju prakse anticipacije, kako na ljude i fenomene koje proučavamo tako i na disciplinu. U središtu rada su prijedlozi različitih načina pristupanja vizijama koje predviđaju budućnost. Reflektirajući o svojim etnografskim i analitičkim putovanjima po Srbiji, nastojim pojasniti zašto sam trenutačno posvećena pitanjima predvidljivosti i mogućnosti i na terenu i u disciplini. Želja mi je potaknuti raspravu o vrijednosti pažnje usmjerene na ono što predvidljivošću ne možemo obuhvatiti

Biography – A Play? Poetologische Experimente mit einer Gattung ohne Poetik

Im Unterschied zu vielen Genres in der abendländischen Tradition gibt es für biographisches Schreiben keine Gattungspoetiken, nur Prototypen, Vorbilder, und die bis heute dominante Erzählordnung ist die chronologische. Kausal- und Finalnexus eines Lebens werden so in wissenschaftlichen wie literarischen Biographien in der Regel behauptet und miteinander verbunden. Die Aufsätze dieses Bandes stellen im Kontrast dazu Variationsmöglichkeiten biographischer Poetologie vor, historische wie gegenwärtige Experimente, (inter-)mediale Spielformen wie Alternativen der Narration. Einige der Beiträge sind zugleich Werkstattberichte von Biographen, die Auskunft über die Konstruktionsprinzipien ihres Schreibens geben. Der Titel des Bandes bezieht sich auf Max Frischs Theaterstück Biografie: Ein Spiel, das 1967 entstand und 1968 im Schauspielhaus Zürich uraufgeführt wurde, und variiert dessen Ausgangsbedingung, ersetzt den Registrator, der dem Helden Kürmann erlaubt, sein Leben – immer wieder dessen entscheidende Situationen verändernd – neu zu leben, durch den Biographen, der die Vita des Biographierten in allen ihren Handlungsoptionen als ein offenes Experiment zu beschreiben versucht

Teksture dodira: Istraživanje osjetilnoga putovanja u kreativnost, modu i poduzetništvo (Sažetak)

The article enquires into the entrepreneurial, creative, and more broadly semiological practices that underwrite the work of a ‘critical fashion’ producer in contemporary Slovenia. The detailed ethnography describes the entrepreneurial ambitions, values, and presumed virtues of a couturier, exploring how she conducts her life and business as an expression, in some form, of her sensory and tactile experiences. Nati, an activist for and promoter of ‘responsible’, ‘conscious’, and sustainable fashion, understands her work as sensitising her clients (and industry) to the dangers of (over)consumption. The study’s analysis reflects on what happens when an artistic and commercial producer sensorially addresses her customers in ecologically uncertain and socially distanced times. A central claim of the article is that an anthropological analysis of a set of business ethics and creative practices may become more textured and productive when an ethnographer refrains from immediate judgments of their authenticity or provenance. Instead, an analytic focus on how ethical and creative claims emerge and grow together and how they are spoken of, lived, and felt, may reveal more about a human situation. This gives us a chance to think about how sensory modes of address – when used by interlocutors and among anthropologists – enable (and disable) practices and experiences of mutuality and proximity in life, both in the field, and in analysing ethnographic material.Članak istražuje prakse osmišljavanja kreativnosti i poslovanja kritične modistice u suvremenoj Sloveniji. Etnografija evocira životne, stvaralačke i poduzetničke ambicije, vrijednosti i pretpostavljene vrline dizajnerice odjeće, istražujući kako ona vodi svoj posao kao izraz svojih osjetilnih i taktilnih iskustava. Nati, glavna protagonistica članka, zalaže se za održivu, \u27svjesnu\u27 i \u27odgovornu\u27 modu. Svoj rad shvaća kao senzibilizirajući s ciljem utjecanja na određene individualne, društvene, ali i cehovske stavove prema modi i potrošnji te njihova mijenjanja. Analiza osvjetljava iskustva koja nastanu kada se umjetnički i komercijalni producent osjetilno obrati svojim klijentima u ekološko nesigurnim i društveno distanciranim vremenima. Središnji argument članka jest da antropološka analiza niza tvrdnji o poslovnoj etici i kreativnoj praksi može postati potencijalno teksturiranija i znakovitija ako se etnograf suzdrži od neposrednih prosudbi o njihovoj autentičnosti ili podrijetlu. Umjesto toga, autorica predlaže analitičko usredotočivanje na pitanja kako se poslovne, etičke i stvaralačke tvrdnje uopće pojavljuju i srastaju te kako se o njima govori, s njima živi i osjeća. To nas dalje poziva na općenitije razmišljanje o tome na kakve načine osjetilno obraćanje, kako sugovornika tako i antropologa, o(ne)mogućuje prakse i iskustva potencirane blizine i uzajamnosti u životu, na terenu i u analizi etnografskog materijala