The strength of badenya ties: siblings and social security in old age – the case of urban Burkina Faso

In urban Burkina Faso, siblings play a decisive role in local social security. Badenya, the unity of children of the same mother, compensates in particular for the economic failure of an eldest son no longer in a position to fulfill his familial duties. Although the institution of badenya is strengthened as it increasingly comes into play to help a family avoid social marginalization, it is also overburdened, which makes its future uncertain. This article enhances the anthropological understanding of kinship by focusing on sibling relationships. Findings are based on interviews conducted between 2007 and 2010 with two generations in households in Bobo-Dioulasso and on participant-observation over the course of more than a dozen research stays since 1989.

Entre rêves de grandeur et pragmatisme : les jeunes en milieu urbain au Burkina Faso

En dépit de sa croissance économique, le Burkina Faso reste l’un des pays les plus pauvres du monde. Dans les villes, entre 20 et 30% des moins de 30 ans sont sans travail véritablement rémunéré. Beaucoup d’entre eux vivent en situation de contrat entre les générations à l’envers, logés et nourris par leurs parents. Ce climat de précarité constante et d’incertitude quotidienne conduit à des formes spécifiques de fantaisies et d’actions. Les entretiens avec de jeunes hommes et femmes de Bobo-Dioulasso que nous avons menés à plusieurs reprises sur trois ans (étude longitudinale) mettent en lumière les conditions qui facilitent l’action en situation d’incertitude quotidienne.

Song Choices of Swiss Sathya Sai Baba Devotees

The charismatic and controversial Indian guru Sathya Sai Baba is the centre of attention and devotion for a great number of adherents from various national, religious, and ethnic backgrounds. Due to its global spread, the Sathya Sai Baba movement is an ideal case for examining displaced religious practices. Singing is a vital part of the religious practice of Sai devotees. In this article I will discuss the contents and usage of the songbook that Swiss devotees compiled. We can observe the extent to which Indian contents are carried over and how they are supplemented with Swiss songs, but also with songs perceived as being part of a universal spiritual treasury of songs (e.g. Native American, Hebrew or International Christian songs). I will suggest that the concept of de- and reterritorialization helps us to analyze the practices of this global religious community. Additionally, I will argue that the devotees’ choice of songs and their singing practices are indeed a manifestation of their claim to universalism as well as their need to be rooted locally. I will further argue that a globalized religious movement is limited in dealing with the encounter of diverse cultural contents by the strategy of reterritorialization, but beyond that creates a new and supraterritorial cultural context.

Rhyming the National Spirit: Taras Shevchenko and Ilia Chavchavadze

The paper is a comparative inquiry into the roles of Ilia Chavchavadze (1837-1907) and Taras Shevchenko (1818-1861) as national poets and anti-colonial (anti-Tsarist) intellectuals within the context of their respective national traditions (Georgia and Ukraine). During the period of their activity (19th and the beginning of 20th century) both Ukraine and Georgia were under Tsarist imperial rule, albeit the two poets lived in different periods of Russian empire history. Through their major works, each called on their communities to ‘awaken’ and ‘revolt’ against oppression, rejected social apathy caused by Tsarist subjugation and raised awareness about the historical past of their nations. The non-acceptance of present and belief in an independent future was one of the dominant themes in the poetry and prose of both. Their contemporary importance is illustrated in political discourse both after Orange Revolution in Ukraine (2004), and Rose Revolution in Georgia (2003) where both poets are referred “as founding fathers of national ideology”, the history textbooks alluding to them as “symbols of anti-colonial resistance”. To this day, however, there has been surprisingly little academic writing in the West endeavoring to compare the works and activities of the two poets and their impact on national mobilization in Tsarist Ukraine and Georgia, even though their countries are often mentioned in a same breath by commentators on contemporary culture and politics. The paper attempts to fill this gap and tries to understand the relationship between literature and social mobilization in 19th century Russian Empire. By reflecting on Taras Shevchenko’s and Ilia Chavchavadze’s poetry, prose and social activism, I will try to explain how in different periods of Russian imperial history, the two poets helped to develop a modern form of political belonging among their compatriots and stimulated an anti-colonial mobilization with different political outcomes. To theorize on the role of poets and novelists in anti-colonial national movement, I will reflect on the writings of Benedict Anderson (1991), John Hutchinson (1994; 1999), Rory Finnin (2005; 2011) and problematize Miroslav Hroch’s (1996) three phase model of the development of national movements. Overall, the paper would aim to show the importance of, what John Hutchinson called, ‘cultural nationalists’ in understanding contemporary nationalist discourse in Georgian and Ukrainian societies.

A Word. Palaver and Its Transferal Residues

The word 'palaver' is colloquially associated with useless verbiage and the nuisance of a tediously long, aimless and superfluous debate. At the same time, it insinuates an uncivilized culture of discourse beyond reason. Thus it appears to be of vaguely exotic origin but still firmly set in the European lexicon. Yet behind this contemporary meaning there lies a long history of linguistic and cultural transfers which is encased in a context of different usages of language and their intersections. By tracing the usage and semantics of 'palaver' in various encyclopaedias, glossaries and dictionaries of English, French, German, Portuguese and Spanish, the following article explores the rich history of this word. Moreover, it also regards the travelling semantics of the term 'palaver' as a process of cultural transfer that can be likened to the microcellular workings of a (retro)virus. Viral reproduction and evolution work through processes of transfer that enable the alteration of the host to adjust it to the replication and reproduction of the virus. In some cases, these processes also allow for the mutation or modification of the virus, making it suitable for transfer from one host to another. The virus is thus offered here as a vital model for cultural transfer: It not only encompasses the necessary adoption and adaption of contents or objects of cultural transfer in different contexts. It contributes to a conceptual understanding of the transferal residue that the transferred content is endowed with by its diversifying contexts. This model thereby surpasses an understanding of cultural transfer as literal translation or transmission: it conceptualizes cultural transfer as an agent of evolutionary processes, allowing for mutational effects of transfer as endowment.

Argentinos, industria nacional

Este video es parte de una serie de producciones realizadas por alumnos de la Carrera de Comunicación Social de la UNCuyo, como trabajo final de la Cátedra de Televisión y Medios Audiovisuales en el año 2006. Los mismos participaron de una muestra audiovisual en el Cine de la Universidad en agosto de 2007. Son trabajos periodísticos y documentales de alumnos avanzados de la carrera, en formato profesional, abordando temáticas sociales, políticas, culturales y de arte, haciendo visible realidades y personajes de la provincia. Según alumnos y docentes, estos videos “van al encuentro del público mendocino para que nos conozca, critique, reflexione, sonría y se emocione…" "ARGENTINOS, INDUSTRIA NACIONAL", indaga sobre las características de la identidad argentina: sus costumbres, símbolos nacionales y la imagen de los argentinos en el exterior.

Intersecciones sociales en la circulación y recepción de Carlos Montbrun Ocampo

Carlos Montbrun Ocampo es uno de los referentes del folklore musical de Cuyo. Formó parte de la primera generación de músicos cuyanos en circular por los modernos carriles que ofrecía la industria cultural naciente en el primer tercio del siglo XX. Mostraremos que Montbrun Ocampo y su obra se movieron dentro de un espacio de circulación y recepción que atravesó diversas clases sociales. Su obra ha circulado en el mismo espacio que el resto del repertorio cuyano; sin embargo el Carlos Montbrun Ocampo Intérprete fue recepcionado frecuentemente en un estrato social de clase media, media alta y alta.

La cueca cuyana contemporánea

Esta tesis trata acerca de una de las músicas populares vigentes de nuestra región: la cueca cuyana. Partimos de tres ámbitos distintos, poniéndolos en diálogo; por un lado, hemos profundizado en los textos y autores que han estudiado este género musical, especialmente la perspectiva del musicólogo Carlos Vega; por otro lado, hemos trabajado con los protagonistas de esta expresión cultural, realizando entrevistas a cultores de música cuyana; y por último, hemos analizado un importante corpus de composiciones grabadas fonográficamente. Nos pareció pertinente indagar acerca de la red de construcciones ideológicas existente entorno de la cueca, tanto las implicadas en los estudios musicológicos, como las que sustentan sentidos relacionados con identidades socioculturales. Asimismo, intentamos evidenciar intereses, necesidades y propósitos de los cultores de música cuyana ¾expresión que comparte espacios y prácticas tradicionales y mediatizadas desde principios del siglo XX¾, en relación con la industria cultural, el centralismo administrativo, los espacios de legitimación y las determinaciones ideológicas, económicas y estéticas. Este complejo tramado de significaciones ancla en sonidos organizados de maneras particulares; en consecuencia, creímos oportuno también estudiar los distintos elementos que colaboran en la definición de la identidad sonora de la cueca cuyana contemporánea, considerando aspectos estructurales y performativos. Algunos de los procedimientos que hemos realizado con el objeto de describir la cueca cuyana implicaron la construcción de un aparato teórico metodológico donde articulamos los enfoques del etnomusicólogo Simha Arom con los del musicólogo Philip Tagg. Por otro lado, la Semiótica de la Cultura de Iuri Lotman aparece como marco en el tratamiento de las significaciones y tensiones presentes en torno de estas músicas y sus cultores.