Suchergebnisse

Critical Thinking in Slovakia after Socialism interrogates the putative relationship between critical thought and society through an ethnographic study of civic discourse in post-1989 Slovakia. Drawing on original fieldwork as well as on anthropological theories of language and culture, Jonathan Larson uncovers traces of patterned elements of criticism throughout the Slovak political discourse. In addition, he exposes ways that these discursive practices have been misinterpreted and overlooked, and outlines unexpected historical and interactive limitations on criticism. This important volume

AbstractFraming the global in U.S. undergraduate education has significantly entailed "field" experiences. How have such activities prepared students to understand the interaction of daily life with larger institutions, structures, and processes? How to incorporate attention to the contradictions and untenable translations of a locale and its global entanglements into pedagogical responses to a pandemic that has significantly halted physical mobility and personal contact? This article takes up questions of how a certain conceptualization of ethnography could inform efforts to design new pedagogies for global studies. Building off a recent discussion in anthropology, I argue that the concept of ethnographic "sensibility" provides a productive entry point to discovering and articulating insights into the forms and dynamics of a population and place as shaped by interactions with other populations and places in time and space. I draw from my own experiences with the pre-pandemic piloting of an online course in media ethnography. I highlight examples of student work that point in one direction for how to engage students of global studies in profound field experiences, perhaps even when accessed digitally. This article employs the articulation of entry points for global research for the crafting of entry points for pedagogy.

AbstractA debate on how to use surveillance technology to maintain public security while still respecting civil liberties has seized the Euro‐American public sphere. These deliberations are not new. Their current form has been shaped by a global "war on terrorism," Edward Snowden's 2013 revelations on the National Security Administration's surveillance, and repeated terrorist attacks in Western Europe. The dominant frame of current discourse has been shaped along axes of public security versus civil liberties, and global terror versus democracy. Other vectors bisect this field. Webcams, security cameras, Internet search history, and records of the patterns to online social networks facilitate the increased monitoring of behavior in the developed world. While much of this surveillance—the array of means for monitoring someone else's behavior—has earned grudging acceptance as inherent to the infrastructure of a modern life, reception of its forms can vary.

How did political power function in the communist regimes of East Central Europe after 1945? Making Sense of Dictatorship addresses this question with a particular focus on the acquiescent behavior of the majority of the population until, at the end of the 1980s, their rejection of state socialism and its authoritarian world. The authors refer to the concept of Sinnwelt, the way in which groups and individuals made sense of the world around them. The essays focus on the dynamics of everyday life and the extent to which the relationship between citizens and the state was collaborative or antagonistic. Each chapter addresses a different aspect of life in this period, including modernization, consumption and leisure, and the everyday experiences of "ordinary people," single mothers, or those adopting alternative lifestyles. Empirically rich and conceptually original, the essays in this volume suggest new ways to understand how people make sense of everyday life under dictatorial regimes