AnthroArt

The article discusses how older adults act as social intermediaries in Romanian farmers’ markets. The conclusion focuses on the violent effects of the gentrification of farmer’s markets on vulnerable age groups, causing social exclusion.

A text by Florin Dumitrescu llustrated by Alexandra Cărăvan, read by Daniel Popa

https://theanthro.art/seniors-at-the-farmers-market-the-elders-as-agents-of-the-fairs-spirit-florin-dumitrescu/

In the last two decades, since Romania’s EU accession, Cortorari Roma from the South of Transylvania have been performing a new procurement activity, begging in the streets of Western Europe. During my PhD fieldwork I myself became an apprentice to a family bagging in Italy. This piece shows that contrary to wide spread conceptions of beggary as a non-lucrative activity, Cortorari experience it as a kind of work located in the flesh and the body. When they go begging, Cortorari renounce their colorful attire for the worn-out beggar’s garb which symbolically veils their ethnic identity. This article contends that begging was not a cultural given or an inherent trait of Roma culture.

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This piece draws on earlier publications of mine, one in Romanian, 2011 ““Țigan bun tradițional” in Romania, cerșetor de-etnicizat în stărinătate”, in Spectrum. Cercetări sociale despre romi (eds. Stefánia Toma, László Fósztó), and one in English, 2015. “Begging: Between Charity and Profession. Reflections on Romanian Roma’s Begging Activities in Italy.” In The public value of anthropology: Engaging critical social issues through ethnography (eds. Elisabeth Tauber, Dorothy Zinn)

A text by Cătălina Tesăr illustrated by Andreea Chirica

https://theanthro.art/the-work-of-begging-among-romanian-cortorari-roma-notes-of-an-apprentice-catalina-tesar/

This is the story of my (non)-interaction with the Hungarian far-right paramilitary groups, during their ‘war’ against Roma people in countryside Hungary in 2011. Some context first: I began researching the Hungarian far-right in 2009. I had mainly two reasons for doing this: on the one hand, I was interested in how people come together in groups that challenge the state’s monopoly on violence, and perform security tasks, such as defending villages, neighbourhoods and other public spaces; on the other hand, I wanted to use my research to understand and help curb down the rise of hyper-nationalism and neo-nazism in Hungary and elsewhere.

A text by Manuel Mireanu illustrated by Maria Hodor, read by Daniel Popa

https://theanthro.art/research-and-reflections-on-far-right-paramilitaries-in-hungary-in-2011-manuel-mireanu/

In this article, I will examine working conditions, vulnerabilities, and social exclusion, experienced by Romanian migrants working in the Agro-Food sector in the Netherlands. Within the agricultural industry, there is a common presence of prime technical progress, a sector where immense resources go to innovations and research, but also a sector of evermore precarious forms of employment. Therefore, I argue rising debates about the success story of Dutch agriculture must relate to the work narratives of the seasonal and flexible migrant workers that sustain the sector. I will analyze the complicated dynamics of the production process in agricultural labour to discuss the role of transformations. To uncover trends in agrarian change, as well as forms of labour exploitation and resistance, I have used various qualitative research methods. My critique will focus on the job conditions and precarity in agriculture, with a particular emphasis on the economic pressure to keep labour costs low. By examining the changing ways in which exploitation in agriculture influences the life narratives of Romanian migrants, I hope to provide insights that can guide more equitable and just practices in the future.

A text by Andreea Maria Ferent illustrated by Sabrina Dâscă, read by Nicoleta Finariu Andrei

https://theanthro.art/managing-labour-hands-the-lived-experiences-of-romanian-migrants-in-the-dutch-agro-food-sector-andreea-maria-ferent/

What is hate? How are the objects formed towards which it is directed? And why do sex and sexuality figure so centrally in defining the essential Otherness of various objects of hate in the contemporary world order? In this essay, I seek less a set of firm answers to these questions. Instead, I propose an exercise in the ethnographic imagination—a way to begin addressing them in more nuanced ways. Such an approach shall help us understand better how hate and its targets emerge and possibly also formulate different critiques of social inequalities premised on hate.

A text by George Paul Meiu illustrated by Alexandra Hochreiter, read by Daniel Popa

https://theanthro.art/on-hate-its-objects-and-the-poetics-of-sexuality-george-paul-meiu/

Starting in 2012, I began to study artistic events taking place in domestic spaces. From the repeated contact between hosts-artists and audience in domestic settings, inclusive social spaces emerge which I call homemade culture bubbles. In this text, I posit that they constitute a subcultural solution (Cohen, 1955) through which people interact and associate with those who share the same maladjustment, in this case, to the conventions of the art world. Apart from events organized within totalitarian regimes, adjustment is not a negative, but a readjustment. Through homemade culture events, host-artists send a simple message to the art world: art can be made differently (without promotion, production, distribution, resources, critique, profit). I came to study this phenomenon after a long period as a host-artist of artistic events between 2008 and 2015. Homemade culture bubbles do not emerge in opposition to the art world, but in spite of it. Given that many of these aesthetic-domestic bubbles host artistic activity where the audience plays an important part, the spectator-guest accrues greater agency, which can then be used (or not used) in the social arena. This social performativity is often intentional in community-oriented and relational participative arts, which led me to understand homemade culture bubbles as one of the forms of interstice in interstitial revolutionary theory.

Article by Jean-Lorin Sterian, illustrated by Andrea Nastac, read by Daniel Popa

https://theanthro.art/the-homemade-culture-bubble-jean-lorin-sterian-2/

In this paper, I ponder a research project that I was a part of, during my employ­ment at a research consultancy. I want to use it as a case study, to raise some ethical questions I have no definite answers to: how do we do research on diversity & inclusion, particularly for public policy, and how do we do it in an ethical way? And what are the best/right policy choices? When it comes to the positionality of a research consultant and policy advisor in housing (this was my job title), how could I have ever known for sure if my advice was any good?

The paper dives into a project I did a few years ago where we were asked to do research on the possibility of discrimination among a student population who choose their own house mates from the candidates. The housing is cheap and good quality and the waitlist for it is long. The case highlights the fickle and emotional nature of the topic of housing, with insiders and outsiders and a multitude of perspectives. I would like to even ask: Is dividing a scarce resource ever ethical? And if we conclude that it’s not, and decisions still have to be made in the public sphere, what do we do then?

Article by Rosalie Post, illulstrated by Margherita Miani, read by Rosalie Post

https://theanthro.art/are-you-biased-the-complexity-of-researching-advising-on-inclusion-in-the-public-eye-rosalie-post-illustration-by-margherita-miani/

Showing our vulnerabilities is hard. However, not doing so will undeniably compromise our possibility to connect with others. In this essay, I share my experience in a week’s research in a community home located in Amsterdam. The story that happens in De Meevaart is a gateway to talk about emotions and about the power that having resources and company to experience emotions can have for social inclusion.

Article by Luiza Fonini, illustrated by Studio Sonsuz, read by Luiza Fonini

https://theanthro.art/working-out-inclusivity-through-emotions-the-power-of-vulnerability-luiza-fonini-illustration-by-studio-sonsuz/

As an anthropologist I believed that ‘culture’ is what makes humans exceptional compared to other living beings. Research on social learning and cultural traits among animals, however, shows that ‘human abilities’ are found among animals as well. It states that humans and animals are more alike than different. These findings invite us to learn to understand animals’ intelligence through the setting of their ecology, instead of from the human point of view. But are humans capable of empathizing with animals in that way? It is an instinct of human evolution to attribute human-like traits and behaviors to animals. This tendency is what is called anthropomorphism. Furthermore and in extension of this, we define animals through stories and life experiences, which often has a direct effect on how animals live. It is evident that these human traits can have -and already have- a negative effect on biodiversity. I therefore propose that, in recognition of our limited human view, we can move towards a perspective that is more inclusive of all life on this planet. The first step of doing so is to open up to different stories, like creation stories of indigenous people. Stories and beliefs of indigenous people offer us a holistic approach to the value of life. By seeing all life as part of a ‘storied world’, we can move past our anthropomorphized views and use the human strength of story-telling for the betterment of our environment.

Article by Gabriëlle Bruggeling, illustrated by Eline Veldhuisen, read by Gabriëlle Bruggeling

https://theanthro.art/can-humans-empathize-with-animals-recognizing-our-limited-view-in-understanding-animals-intelligence-gabrielle-bruggeling-illustration-by-eline-veldhuisen/

What happens when an etic category or label like “first-generation students” enters public discourse? In the Netherlands, public discussions of first-generation or first-in-family students and their predicaments have arisen in recent years. But few people grow up thinking of themselves in those terms. Not a common identity-marker, the concept is introduced in other moments, like in news items or in participatory research projects. But to what effect? And does it stigmatize or help?

Article by Lieve de Coninck, illustrated by Eline Veldhuisen, read by Rosalie Post

https://theanthro.art/first-generation-student-a-helpful-or-stigmatising-label-in-dutch-student-life-lieve-de-coninck-illustration-by-eline-veldhuisen/