Slam that #ethnography! – Troubling Fieldwork
Let’s start our ethnography slam with contributions by David Bukusi, Silke Hoppe, Justine Laurent, and Natashe Lemos Dekker. ENJOY! Doctor’s Slam by David Bukusi – Daktari No…
Tag: Thematic thread
Slam that #ethnography! – Introduction
Have you ever been in a conference room, listening to one presentation after another, only to realize that they all seemed strangely similar? As in, following the same…
Virtual Roundtable: ALESSANDRO MONSUTTI’S RESPONSE #PoliticalAgency
1. To what extent does the notion of political agency help to understand political change? I started my ethnographic career in the Pakistani city of Quetta in the…
REDUX: Publishing for PhD students #Anthroadvice
Playing a bit part in organising a workshop on academic publishing for PhD students at the next annual conference of the British Association for South Asian Studies, I…
The International Institute of Not Doing Much #Slow
Browsing the web in preparation of this ‘Slow week’, we came across an online initiative whose Manifesto resonated with Allegra’s very own. Below we reproduce the Manifesto of…
REDUX: #Brexit, Trump, and Public Anthropology
In the days after the Brexit referendum, a friend in California confided that every morning he searched the internet for articles explaining why the Brexit outcome did not…
Anthropology, #Brexit and Xenophobia in Europe
The decision of people in Britain to leave the European Union has come as a surprise, even a shock to most of my friends and colleagues who work…
A Love Letter to my #Brexit Lover, from Europe
BERLIN, 28 JUNE 2016. I admit I was angry when you decided to leave. I knew it was the worst part of you speaking, but I looked at…
Waking up to #Brexit
On the morning of 24th June I had what I have since learnt to be a common experience. I lay in bed in conscious abeyance; Schrodinger’s Brexit: ‘If…
Clashing scales of #Brexit
Mainstream newspapers, politicians and commentators across Europe instantly expressed dejection and bitterness in the face of the Brexit outcome, and avid Brexiteers have typically been portrayed as x…
On the UK Referendum #Brexit
For me, the UK referendum story began a year ago with another referendum: that of Greece. Elected in January 2015 on a promise to end austerity, throughout the…
The politics of decency #Brexit
I have lots of things to say about Brexit. As a Romanian, holding a French passport, resident of the UK for the past 18 years, whose wife and…
Democracy on speed #Brexit
The question, when it came, was striking in its simplicity: “should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?” Two boxes.…
Racing for what? #Slow
In this post, Ruth Mueller explores how the compulsion for speed in academia plays out in the lives of postdocs. Slow science is interesting for me because I…
Let’s take it SLOW! The #slow university? REDUX
This Allegra week we remain in retreat spirits, and will consequently revisit some more ‘Jewel’s of Allie’s Archive’. And what more appropriate theme for doing so than SLOW. We…
The #slow professor (book excerpt)
The Slow Professor originated in telephone conversations about coping with our academic jobs. Not reading an email sent by the department chair at 10:45 p.m. until the next…
#Slow Week! An introduction
Those who have followed Allegra’s adventures from its creation in 2013 will probably remember that our initial motto was “Slow down!”. Prior to launching the website, Allegra’s…
Turning cool kids into outlaws – Legal #fictions and the management of heroin abuse in post-reform China
Cool kids. On a rainy afternoon towards the end of my fieldwork in Qilin, southwest China, I sat with one of my informants, Jiao Hua – a round,…
On Chinese Pedagogical Legalism (and its Anthropological Ghost) #fictions
“You have already been incredibly faithful towards the man. And you have been following all the relevant rules for establishing a co-operative. Now, what you need to do…
‘The soul of the community’: corporate legal personhood in an indigenous settlement #fictions
In Argentina, indigenous people have been historically marginalised and rendered invisible (Gordillo & Hirsch 2003). However, over the last couple of decades there has been a timid effort…
The Emergence of “Divorce Before Consummation” as a Legal Category in Jordanian Sharia Courts #fictions
Today’s inquiry into the nature of legal fictions takes us to Jordan’s government-run Sharia courts, where the concept of “divorce before consummation” (ṭalāq qabl al-dakhūl) has become something…
LIVING #FICTIONS
The theme of “living fictions” comes from a presentation I gave at a recent meeting of the EASA Anthropology of Law and Rights network and builds on its…
Flatulanthropology #BODY
When Jon was a PhD student at Edinburgh University in the early 1990s, there was a running joke about the possibility of developing a project on ethnoscatology –…
Celebrating Allies – part 4: “Looking text straight in the face”
To conclude this week we wish to highlight the hard work of one more Allie – namely Marie-Louise Karttunen. She has been with us since the beginning, offering…