Culture's Calling: Mobile Phones, Gender, and the Making of an African Migrant Village in Lisbon

In this article, I explore how immigrants from the West African nation of Guinea-Bissau living in Portugal use mobile phones in their daily lives in Lisbon. Whereas one might assume that mobile phones and other new information technologies facilitate transnational communication between Africa and Portugal, the ethnographic fieldwork that I conducted in Lisbon from 1999 to 2003 revealed a different scenario. Instead, mobile phones as imagined and used by the Guinean immigrants I met in Lisbon revealed less about transnationalism and globalization than they did about constructing community and identity in a new locale. As Guinean immigrants in Portugal reconfigured their relationship to their former colonizers and struggled to make their way in a new, multicultural Europe, they used their mobile phones to engage local networks, shape local identities, and transform Lisbon's sprawl into an African migrant village. Here, I highlight the gendered dimensions of this process and contend that Guinean men's and women's varied uses of mobile phones in Lisbon underscore contrasting experiences of migration, mobility, and belonging.

Parameters of Reform and Unification in Modern Japanese Buddhist Thought: Murakami Senshō and Critical Buddhism

Reform is a word that, one might easily say, characterizes more than any other the history and development of Buddhism. Yet, it must also be said that reform movements in East Asian Buddhism have often taken on another goal—harmony or unification; that is, a desire not only to reconstruct a more worthy form of Buddhism, but to simultaneously bring together all existing forms under a single banner, in theory if not in practice. This paper explores some of the tensions between the desire for reform and the quest for harmony in modern Japanese Buddhism thought, by comparing two developments: the late 19th century movement towards ‘New Buddhism’ (shin Bukkyō) as exemplified by Murakami Senshō 村上専精 (1851–1929), and the late 20th century movement known as ‘Critical Buddhism’ (hihan Bukkyō), as found in the works of Matsumoto Shirō 松本史朗 and Hakamaya Noriaki 袴谷憲昭. In all that has been written about Critical Buddhism, in both Japanese and English, very little attention has been paid to the place of the movement within the larger traditions of Japanese Buddhist reform. Here I reconsider Critical Buddhism in relation to the concerns of the previous, much larger trends towards Buddhist reform that emerged almost exactly 100 years previous—the so-called shin Bukkyō or New Buddhism of the late-Meiji era. Shin Bukkyō is a catch-all term that includes the various writings and activities of Inoue Enryō, Shaku Sōen, and Kiyozawa Manshi, as well as the so-called Daijō-hibussetsuron, a broad term used (often critically) to describe Buddhist writers who suggested that Mahāyāna Buddhism is not, in fact, the Buddhism taught by the ‘historical’ Buddha Śākyamuni. Of these, I will make a few general remarks about Daijō-hibusseturon, before turning attention more specifically to the work of Murakami Senshō, in order to flesh out some of the similarities and differences between his attempt to construct a ‘unified Buddhism’ and the work of his late-20th century avatars, the Critical Buddhists. Though a number of their aims and ideas overlap, I argue that there remain fundamental differences with respect to the ultimate purposes of Buddhist reform. This issue hinges on the implications of key terms such as ‘unity’ and ‘harmony’ as well as the way doctrinal history is categorized and understood, but it also relates to issues of ideology and the use and abuse of Buddhist doctrines in 20th-century politics.

Culture's Calling: Mobile Phones, Gender, and the Making of an African Migrant Village in Lisbon

In this article, I explore how immigrants from the West African nation of Guinea-Bissau living in Portugal use mobile phones in their daily lives in Lisbon. Whereas one might assume that mobile phones and other new information technologies facilitate transnational communication between Africa and Portugal, the ethnographic fieldwork that I conducted in Lisbon from 1999 to 2003 revealed a different scenario. Instead, mobile phones as imagined and used by the Guinean immigrants I met in Lisbon revealed less about transnationalism and globalization than they did about constructing community and identity in a new locale. As Guinean immigrants in Portugal reconfigured their relationship to their former colonizers and struggled to make their way in a new, multicultural Europe, they used their mobile phones to engage local networks, shape local identities, and transform Lisbon's sprawl into an African migrant village. Here, I highlight the gendered dimensions of this process and contend that Guinean men's and women's varied uses of mobile phones in Lisbon underscore contrasting experiences of migration, mobility, and belonging.

Toward a Global Organic Culture: Ethnographic Perspectives on Wwoofing Practices in Peru and New Zealand

In this thesis, I explore the meaning behind sustainable living among organic farmers and their families in two countries. It is based on original, ethnographic research that I conducted in New Zealand in fall 2012 and Peru in summer 2012 with support from the Department of Sociology and Anthropology Meerwarth Undergraduate Research Fund. In carrying out my research I relied on participant-observation, semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and writing ethnographic fieldnotes. Drawing on contemporary scholarship in the anthropology of food and the environment, my thesis contributes to cross-culturally understandings of sustainability and local and global foodways. Specifically, I will interpret the meaning and significance of my informants’ decision to live sustainably through their participation in wwoofing. The global network of wwoofing aims to connect volunteers interested in learning about organic farming techniques with farmers looking for labor assistance. Volunteers exchange work for food, accommodation, knowledge, and experience. As a method of farming and a subjective ideological orientation, this global movement allows travelers from all over the world to experience organic lifestyles worldwide. In my thesis, I connect my experiences of organic living in Peru and New Zealand. In comparing wwoofing practices in these two field sites, I argue that despite observable differences in organic practices, a global organic culture is emerging. Here I highlight some shared features of this global organic culture, such as food authenticity, sustainability of the earth, and a personal connection of individuals to the land. The global organic culture emphasizes a conscious awareness of what is going into one’s body and why. Using food as an expression of values and beliefs, organic farmers reconnect to the land and their food in attempts to construct an alternative identity. By focusing on food authenticity, my informants develop vast relationships with the land, which shapes their identity and creates new forms of self-enhancement.