Master thesis | Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (MSc)
open access
This research focuses on the analysis of the forms of human-environment relationship that characterize different communities in the coastal area of North Jakarta, and on how these might be...Show moreThis research focuses on the analysis of the forms of human-environment relationship that characterize different communities in the coastal area of North Jakarta, and on how these might be connected to inequalities between local communities. In North Jakarta, relationship with the environment is strongly affected by the presence of environmental issues, namely sea level rise, land subsidence, and chronic floods, which force local communities to come to terms with the surrounding waters on a daily basis, developing different experiences and perceptions of the environment. Moreover, such different experiences and perceptions are connected to political struggles related to the protection of the Jakarta bay ecosystem, the livelihood of fishing communities, and mitigation projects such as the construction of a giant seawall and of reclaimed islands off the coast of the city. The research population includes residents of four different neighbouring districts located along the coast of the Indonesian capital. Despite being so close to each other, these are very different areas, home to fish markets, fishing settlements and industries, luxurious residential areas, shining malls and exclusive leisure spaces. These districts are inhabited by very different communities in terms of social class, income, lifestyle, occupation, and ethnicity. Therefore, they are an ideal field to observe diverse forms of human-environment relationship, and to test to what extent could these be related to the above-mentioned inequalities and to different ontologies of the environment.Show less
In recent years, especially since Alexander Wendt’s 2015 'Quantum mind and social science,' a timid yet promising body of literature, building from a range of post-structuralist and new materialist...Show moreIn recent years, especially since Alexander Wendt’s 2015 'Quantum mind and social science,' a timid yet promising body of literature, building from a range of post-structuralist and new materialist theory, has sought out to disentangle the ubiquity of the “Newtonian imagery” (Murphy, 2019) and its effects in social theorizing in IR. However, sustained attention to 'Quantum Mind' has led many to associate this bourgeoning field with Wendt’s own philosophical claims, despite a great number of rich and varied contributions. Despite Wendt’s attempts to the contrary, his adoption of “quantum realism” (Murphy, 2021) poses substantial risks to the kind of anti-positivism quantum social science claims to spearhead. In this thesis, I explore the reasons why Wendt’s take on human subjectivity entails a transcendentalist position unwarranted by his attempt at a ‘flat’ ontology. As I argue, his reliance on analytical philosophy of mind leads him to effectively adopt a physicalist position which he now rebrands as naturalism. This inherent contradiction allows to trace Wendt’s metaphysical allegiances to the unsuspected legacy of logical empiricism in their insistence on the language of physicalism and the Unity of Science thesis.Show less
Around the world, rock art has long been studied in efforts to decode its meaning and thereby understand the minds and realities of its hunter-gatherer artists. In Argentina, rupestrian art was...Show moreAround the world, rock art has long been studied in efforts to decode its meaning and thereby understand the minds and realities of its hunter-gatherer artists. In Argentina, rupestrian art was first mentioned on the record by Jesuit missionaries from the 16th century, but the first true documentation of these ‘sacred rocks’ was completed by Moreno in 1877 in northern Patagonia. Rock art has been conceived as many things, as territorial markers, evidence of contact between groups, indication of group mobility, transmission of information, and as domestic/non-domestic symbolic creations. The question is, however, what happened to the study of hunter-gatherer rock art outside of these complexes? What can an ontological approach to these pictographs tell us about the cosmologies of the communities from the far-reaching past? The aim of this study is to add to, or rather to spark up again, the discussion of early hunter-gatherer cosmologies as seen through the lens of hunter-gatherer rock art assemblages from several different sites in the central plateau of Santa Cruz, Patagonia. This is accomplished by adopting an interdisciplinary stance combining archaeology and anthropology with an ontological approach that uses ethnographic data as a means of conceptualizing new interpretations. This is all done through a bibliographical position in which previous research is re-evaluated. To this end, the thesis is guided by the following research question: Could an ontological approach to hunter-gatherer rock art from the Late Pleistocene to Mid-Holocene periods (c. 9000–3500 BP) in southern Patagonia (Argentina) help us come up with the beginnings of their cosmology? Three possible interpretations are discussed in this thesis regarding rock art and hunter-gatherer cosmologies. The first relates to the importance of the hunt and identifies handprints motifs as part of an initiation ritual into the hunting tradition. Additionally, I posit that hunter-gatherers used the depictions of hunting scenes as a means of understanding the ecological relationships in their environment and to keep track of hunting strategies, thereby ensuring the continuation of the tradition by possibly using the pictographs to teach their children. Lastly, I suggest that the iconic images of large felines and their accompanying bodily remains in situ were part of a process of symbiosis in which the animal’s favourable traits and capabilities as a prime hunter were taken on by hunter-gatherers themselves. These theories are then conceptualized by ethnographic accounts of the Aónik’enk, their mythology and traditions.Show less
While perceptions of albinism have always been characterized by difference, it was not until the mid-2000s when brutal killings of people with albinism (PWA) occurred that the government attempted...Show moreWhile perceptions of albinism have always been characterized by difference, it was not until the mid-2000s when brutal killings of people with albinism (PWA) occurred that the government attempted to tackle this problem through education. Almost twenty years later, discrimination and violence against PWA is still present in Tanzania, leading to questions about the effectiveness of an educational approach in combating such developments. Findings from my field research have revealed that people in the northern region of Tanzania perceive albinos to be a different ontological entity, which sustains violence and discrimination against PWA in the country. Most importantly, the governmental and non-governmental educational approach in tackling such problematic perceptions of albinism are proven insufficient in light of such ontological difference. My main recommendation is that education in Tanzania needs an ontological turn, which means that understanding and teaching should be done from the standpoint of albinos and society should be looked at from that perspective.Show less
Master thesis | Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (MSc)
open access
By advertising nature based recreation, companies associated with the winter sport industry are inherently reliant on reinscribing a dualistic nature/culture opposition. While nature is advertised...Show moreBy advertising nature based recreation, companies associated with the winter sport industry are inherently reliant on reinscribing a dualistic nature/culture opposition. While nature is advertised as something ‘out there’, the practise of nature based recreation, offered by skiing resorts, is excessed in fully regulated human made spaces. By turning an infrastructural lens on the high alpine region, the practical ontologies of human and nonhuman co-creation are examined. While the practise of nature based recreation has positive effects on the environmental attitudes of practitioners, the ecological irony of winter sports tourism is stretched. By employing the techniques of audiovisual research and infrastructural inversion as analytical strategies, the hidden workings of regional infrastructures are explored. By analysing infrastructural changes within and outside the skiing resort Kitzsteinhorn (AT) a correlation between infrastructural arrangements and environmental attitudes was examined. This is a multimodal thesis submitted in the course of the Master Specialisation in Visual Ethnography at the faculty of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology of Leiden University. Its results are presented in the form of this written thesis and an ethnographic short-film Surfing Frozen Oceans (26 min.)Show less
This scientific work is an attempt to re-evaluate Western notions of possession by embedding the debate into an ontological framework which takes into account the existence of multiple ontological...Show moreThis scientific work is an attempt to re-evaluate Western notions of possession by embedding the debate into an ontological framework which takes into account the existence of multiple ontological worlds. By analysing Western linguistic expressions of possession and contrasting them with possessive relationships from native Amazonian languages, presented data will not only promote the acknowledgement of foreign modes of thinking and challenge what is often seen as ‘natural’ or ‘inherent’, but also substantiate the concrete effect of ontological differences on linguistic possessive constructions. To this effect, this thesis will offer readers a foundational definition of conceptual possession which should enable them to get a clearer view of possessive relationships and their interplay between people, animals and other non-human entities.Show less
