Master thesis | Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (MSc)
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Asking grand questions has long been found problematic in anthropology. The focus is usually put on the smaller issues. This thesis will research how we can unpack these trends. I investigate a...Show moreAsking grand questions has long been found problematic in anthropology. The focus is usually put on the smaller issues. This thesis will research how we can unpack these trends. I investigate a macro‐approach by using literature on shamanism and cosmovision. Grand questions are a compelling topic. Various disciplines, from history to archaeology and anthropology, have developed great talents in focusing on grassroots problems and micro‐issues. Small‐scale and area‐fixed studies are the norm. Not only is the focus put on the smaller issues, it is also considered too risky to present grand statements and promises, for it almost seems to beg for criticism. My criticism is that although these processes are essential, in that they provide the data for larger research questions, these studies often do not themselves get back to the broader perspectives. The hybridity, as well as the larger implications, thus easily remain obscured. In this thesis I take on the challenge to combine and reconnect the richness of different types of data with the theory‐based literature. Through a critical assessment of the literature, I will research how we can look at small‐scale issues from a broader perspective. Simultaneously, I will analyse how research with a focus on large‐scale issues can be analysed. This brings me to the connections that exist among the various approaches and perspectives used in anthropological and interdisciplinary research. It is precisely the combining of divergent approaches that challenges us, anthropologist, in our research and that is the topic of my research. The idea of interconnectedness will be put on the agenda by discussing how the topic can or cannot be studied. This means that I will look at approaches used in the literature and make an attempt in reconnecting the concepts that have been disconnected by researchers in the past. In conclusion, the main question of this thesis will focus on how we can research large topics by bringing research outcomes of projects that focus on small‐case issues together. One could say that in these small‐scale projects there is a trend to work within a fixed set of boundaries. This raises the question whether we, as anthropologists, are able to cross the boundaries of such delimited thinking.Show less
Abstract: During the last decade an unprecedented amount of excavations of Roman period rural settlements took place in the presumed civitas of the Cananefates, which covers a great part of the...Show moreAbstract: During the last decade an unprecedented amount of excavations of Roman period rural settlements took place in the presumed civitas of the Cananefates, which covers a great part of the modern day Dutch province of Zuid-Holland. A number of these excavations yielded substantial more metal finds than is common for the region, including an unsuspected amount of Roman military equipment and horse gear, a find category that until recently was almost nonexistent in the region. In the neighboring Dutch Eastern River Area, the heartland of the Batavians, Roman military equipment and horse gear from civilian context has always been a prominent find category and has been the subject of extensive research (Nicolay 2007). In order to test some of the ideas from that research, a survey was conducted of all military equipment from the Cananefatian from non military context and held against the existing theories. The comparison yielded some interesting similarities and differences between both regions and provided enough questions to challenge some of the existing theories. Throughout the Roman period differences in horse gear remain very high. However, against expectations for the later periods the Cananefatian region features relatively more military equipment than the Batavian region. This sheds additional light on the questions about the role of the veteran, the pacification of the Rhine frontier and the theory about rearming of the population during the unrest of the 3rd century.Show less
