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AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF Volume 49, no. 3 (Summer 2010) |
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TROUBLED RELATIONS: MOBILITY AND EXCHANGE IN POST-SOVIET KYRGYZSTAN Noor O'Neill Borbieva Accounts of gift exchange and hospitality focus on how networks of obligation produce social solidarity. When gift exchange involves hostility and misunderstanding, it is still viewed as extending social relationships. This article describes exchange encounters that either index a lack of relationship (where one or both of the parties assumed one) or ended a relationship. Although each encounter is unique, all involve people who are mobile, coming from communities of varied positions within global hierarchies. These encounters challenge standard assumptions about the relationship between exchange and social cohesion, and offer insight into the complex ways people figure relatedness in a world increasingly characterized by blurred boundaries and economic polarization. (Gift exchange, hospitality, globalization, former Soviet Union, Central Asia). |
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THE PARADOX OF POWER: CONNECTION, INEQUALITY, AND ENERGY DEVELOPMENT ON TUMBATU ISLAND, ZANZIBAR Erin Dean Recent power outages on the Zanzibar archipelago have drawn attention to the potential for small-scale alternative energy development, but those programs present their own challenges and dilemmas. Using the example of a solar development project on Tumbatu Island and the subsequent connection of the Island to the national electric grid, this article considers the paradoxical outcomes of electrification. It explores how both solar electricity and connection to the national electric grid created contradictory processes of connection and autonomy and reinforced hierarchy and differentiation on a local and global scale. (Solar power, electricity, development, Zanzibar). |
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PULAAKU IN ACTION: WORDS AT WORK IN WODAABE CLAN POLITICS Nikolaus Schareika Using microscopic analysis, this article explores how notions of morality, identity, and social conduct were used in the negotiation of group relations among the pastoral Wodaabe of southeastern Niger. Two of their clans met in 2004 to discuss whether certain breaches of norms should lead to their fission or whether they should stay united under a pact of disregard for state law and authority. The latter option would preserve a domain of inter-clan affairs beneath notice and, hence, interference of state authorities. Analysis of a transcript of actual conversation between the participants of the clan meeting shows how the use of verbalized norms and values was constitutive of the social situation, the negotiation process, and its outcome. This episode of clan politics was related to the general political situation in Niger and the challenges it provided for Wodaabe pastoral life. (Wodaabe, Fulani, segmentary lineage, dispute and negotiation, verbal interaction, Niger). |
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PERFORMING CULTURE: A TUAREG ARTISAN AS CULTURAL INTERPRETER Susan J. Rasmussen A Tuareg smith visited an import shop in Texas to discuss, display, and enact aspects of Tuareg art and culture, and later held informal conversations at a reception. This artisan, at home in Niger, is a member of a social category that manufactures jewelry, tools, and weapons, presides at rites of passage, recites histories, and serves as go-betweens for their aristocratic patrons. This essay describes the artisan's control over cultural representation in this "borderlands" encounter and analyzes cultural tradition as a multi-mediated process. At the Texas shop, this artist gave a "performance" of cultural intimacy. Notwithstanding his talented presentation, there were struggles over translation and representation which alternately empowered and muted his cultural voice. Like many ethnographers, this "cultural ambassador" must deploy rhetorical strategies to convey his culture, and in that way this essay contributes to studies of negotiation over meaning by mediators between cultures. (Culture brokers, culture translation, Tuareg, Niger). |
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