Anthropology MA thesis makes tabloid headline in Holland

I blogged earlier about the visibility of anthropologists in the Dutch public. Well, get this: a just-graduated masters student in my department at the VU made the front-page of the free (!) tabloid Spits (described by my colleagues as “right-wing”) today. The article, entitled “Chinese feels [sic] discriminated” describes “research by anthropologist Lilly Witte (23)” about Dutch-raised [...]

New Centre for Study of Muslim Societies

Next month the University of Western Sydney will be launching a new Centre for the Study of Contemporary Muslim Societies.  Here are the details of the Centre and the launch:
Launch of the new Centre for the Study of Contemporary Muslim Societies
The University of Western Sydney is its new Centre for the Study of Contemporary Muslim [...]

Upcoming symposium on Islamophobia

While I am in announcement mode, here are the details of an upcoming symposium that may be of interest to some CM readers.
SYMPOSIUM:    Sunday 19th of July
CONFERENCE:   Mon-Tue 20-21 July
Under the broad theme of ?Challenging Islamophobia: towards social
justice & inclusion?, National Social Cohesion Conference will explore
the following themes in six plenary sessions.
Muslim experiences, [...]

How many shared values does society need?

Antropologi.info has a review of Werner Schiffauers (sorry, both German links) book  Parallelgesellschaften - Parallel Societies. Do we need a common set of values?
Schiffauer, a well-known German anthropologist, who has been studying Turkish migrant communities in Germany (and other European countries) for a long time, challenges in his latest book the (in Europa and Germany) wide-spread belief that social [...]

Anthropologists in cross-cultural management

Observing people in Sydney made me quite clear that the dominant focus of cross-cultural academics and practitioners on national cultures is problematic. People from so-many cultural background study and work in closely cooperation at universities and public and private organisations. Looking at your Indian, English, Dutch, Japanese or German colleague as representatives of fixed national [...]

“Role for Culture in Economic Recovery:” New York Times

Today’s New York Times reports that “Arts Leaders Urge Role for Culture in Economic Recovery”. “Culture” here means the arts, and what the “leaders” urge is state funding for public art projects, ranging from more fine art commissions built into public construction and transportation projects to a European-style government-level secretary of culture.
Because in the past [...]

20 little Australians

Just quickly.  The Sydney Morning Herald currently has a nice little multimedia presentation entitled “20 Little Australians”.  A condensed version of a longer story that will appear in the weekend paper, obviously designed to coincide with Australia Day on the 26th.  The presentation features 20 children who have migrated to Australia and provides snippets of [...]

Call for films/photo documentaries on the multicultural city

The Student Equity, Excellence and Diversity Initiative (SEED) at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa has just put out a call for video and photo presentations on the theme of the ‘multicultural city’.  Sounds like an exciting venture.  Here are the details:
Diversity in Place: Making Documentaries on the Multicultural City April 24th, 2009
http://diversityinplace.wordpress.com/
More than half [...]

Islam, virginity, and public outrage in France

Yesterday’s Herald reported on a case in France in which a requested marriage annulment made by a Muslim man after he discovered that his wife was not a virgin was overturned.  The article states that:
Public outrage at April’s annulment ruling forced the Government to order the case be reviewed, against the wishes of both spouses.
The [...]

Group removed from hostel for being Aboriginal

A day after posting about ‘white flight’ in Australian schools, I read that a group of Aborigines from Yuendumu were asked to leave an Alice Springs hostel because they were “scaring” the other guests, most of whom appear to be foreign backpackers. Most of the criticism has been directed at the hostel management for [...]