Social Anthropology

No abstract is available for this article.

After relocating to a Chinese context, anthropology inevitably went through a process of domestication: successive initiatives have been undertaken to make the discipline Chinese. This article aims to examine the aspirations and experiments of domesticating anthropology in China by looking at several moments of its development including the emerging globally focused Chinese anthropology. The objective here is not to retrace the history of the discipline in China in detail, but to identify specific moments while placing them within the broader context of a modern division of intellectual labour and power relations.

This essay focuses on changing discourses of heritage with reference to concepts of place broadly defined. Our virtual case study is Wim Wenders' series of documentaries entitled . In this series of 3D films, Wenders invited five other directors to give voice to their favourite buildings. The directors chose classic examples of Western heritage located primarily in European cities. Our contribution explores the human constructions assigned to these buildings and the implications of the anthropomorphisation of buildings for the concept of heritage. With reference to categories of tangible and intangible heritage, we ask whether giving voice to material artefacts challenges the material dominance of architecture for heritage, deepening our sense of place and constituting a step forward for a more dialogical approach to heritage generally. We query the extent to which this filmic anthology reinforces a hegemonic authorised heritage discourse or delivers a postmodern version of ‘spirit of place’. We ask whether this filmic adventure in 3D could effectively generate a new and (re)newed sense of place in other heritage contexts. Our hypothesis is set in the framework of various ICOMOS and UNESCO international charters.

This article offers a phenomenological account of the onset of war in the town of Man, western Côte d'Ivoire, in 2002. Based on recollections of ‘average’ people, the article depicts how the familiar social world was shattered with the violent occupation of the town by insurgent groups. Due to the novelty of the situation, people were unable to draw on past experiences and had difficulties imagining life under insurgent control. As a consequence, people's agency was reduced to ad‐hoc judgements. Sooner than one might expect, a process of familiarisation occurred that gradually allowed people to make more informed decisions.

I contribute to the debate about the persistence of Roma marginalisation in contemporary Europe by analysing the conflict that took place in 2008 in Madrid over the segregation of Gitano (Spanish Roma) children in state schools. Tracing the changing place of Gitanos in the city since the early 1980s, I demonstrate how current practices of educational segregation build on long‐term processes of Gitano control and isolation in housing policy and its implementation. I reconstruct the layering of complementary actions and discourses of exclusion which together make the isolation of Gitano children appear commonsensical and necessary.