Anthropology on Air

• #21 Slavery and Genocide: Jamaica, the US South & the Historical Sociology of Evil w/ Orlando Patterson

  Welcome to a special two-episode series of Anthropology on Air! In this and the previous podcast, you will listen to selected parts of a lecture series on the subject of slavery and freedom with professor of Sociology at Harvard University, Orlando Patterson. The lectures were held in December 2023 at various locations in London and were recorded by our colleague, Rolf Scott. This episode features the second lecture given by Patterson titled ‘Slavery and Genocide: Jamaica, the US South and the Historical Sociology of Evil’ at the School for Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. After this introduction, the episode jumps straight into the lecture which examines the connection between genocide and slavery with a case focus on Jamaica. Patterson begins by describing slavery through the concept of ‘natal alienation’ before connecting slavery with common definitions of genocide. He then provides a comparative history of slavery in Jamaica and the United States, in order to argue that what happened in Jamaica between 1655 and 1838 was not only slavery but also an elongated genocide of ethnocultural destruction, physical killing and brutalisation on a large scale, and the denial of existence of millions of people. Finally, Patterson touches upon how the traumatic memory affects Jamaicans today. During the lecture, Patterson refers to some statistics and figures which can be found by following the video-link in the show notes.  If you are interested in learning more about Patterson’s work, you can also listen to his first lecture on the paradox of freedom here on the Anthropology on Air podcast channel, and you can find videos of both lectures in full length including an open conversation session on YouTube. Links are provided in the show notes.We hope you enjoy the episode. Resources:-       Lecture series: https://therai.org.uk/events/lecture-professor-orlando-patterson-the-paradox-of-freedom-a-socio-historical-approach/-       Video of this episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vurr2AwIu0M-       Video of the second lecture on slavery and genocide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW7Nw5aFAgE&t=8s-       Video of open conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHZsNu62mas&t=4085s 

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• #20 The Paradoxes of Freedom: a Socio-Historical Approach w/ Orlando Patterson

  In this and the following podcast, you will listen to selected parts of a lecture series on the subject of slavery and freedom with professor of Sociology at Harvard University, Orlando Patterson. The lectures were held in December 2023 at various locations in London and were recorded by our colleague, Rolf Scott. This episode features the first lecture given by Patterson titled ‘The Paradox of Freedom: a Socio-Historical Approach’, held at the Royal Anthropological Institute in London. The episode begins with an introduction by David Scott, professor at Colombia University, who summarises the line of thought going through three of Patterson’s most treasured monographs: ‘The Sociology of Slavery’ from 1967, ‘Slavery and Social Death’ from 1982, and ‘Freedom in the Making of Western Culture’ from 1991. Patterson then proceeds with unfolding the deeply contested value and concept of freedom with regards to its intimate connection with slavery. The first 40 minutes of the lecture, Patterson supports his claim that freedom is a socially constructed value and a cultural product of the West made possible by relations of slavery. In the last 50 minutes, Patterson then relates this dialectic of freedom and slavery to its historical development through Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, and Christianity. If you are interested in learning more about Patterson’s work, you can listen to his second lecture on slavery and genocide here on the Anthropology on Air podcast channel, and you can find videos of both lectures in full length including an open conversation session on YouTube. Links are provided in the show notes.We hope you enjoy the episode. Resources:-       Lecture series: https://therai.org.uk/events/lecture-professor-orlando-patterson-the-paradox-of-freedom-a-socio-historical-approach/-       Video of this episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vurr2AwIu0M-       Video of the second lecture on slavery and genocide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW7Nw5aFAgE&t=8s-       Video of open conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHZsNu62mas&t=4085s  

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• #19 Journeying anew, with or without knowledge w/ Marilyn Strathern

  Welcome to a special episode of Anthropology on Air.In this episode you will hear the recordings of the 2024 Fredrik Barth Memorial Lecture, held by Professor Dame Marilyn Strathern. The episode begins with an introduction by Synnøve Bendixen who is head of the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Bergen. Strathern then takes us on a historical and global tour through various ethnographic signposts from the Melanesian Baktaman to current activism, on this tour, inviting us to think about “Journeying anew, with or without knowledge” in the context of climate change and biodiversity loss.About the lecture, 'Journeying anew, with or without knowledge'Global consciousness of climate change and biodiversity loss endures in the face of what we know to be inadequate responses.  For all the attempts to act on knowledge, failure to scale up reactions – by citizens, by governments - makes one wonder where the power of knowledge has gone.  Not dealing very well with relations and connections is one widely acknowledged short-coming; it is of course a shortcoming to which many anthropologists would point (speaker included), in promoting the relational insights of their interlocuters.  This makes Fredrik Barth’s 1975 monograph on the Melanesian Baktaman, then an unusual voice against the easy making of connections, now appear rather intriguing.  His own search was for places new.  Starting a twenty-first century journey there brings one to a point where the power of knowledge – when it is tied to action -  is not quite what it promises.About the lecturer, Professor Dame Marilyn StrathernProfessor Marilyn Strathern studied Social Anthropology at Girton College, Cambridge (PhD 1968). She held posts in Canberra (ANU), Port Moresby and UC Berkeley (visiting) before returning to the UK in the 1970s. In 1985 she took up the chair in Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester, followed by the William Wyse Professorship of Social Anthropology in Cambridge in 1993-2008. Professor Strathern was elected to the British Academy of Sciences in 1987 and made Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 2001. She was the Presidential Chair of the European Association of Social Anthropologists, Trustee of the National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside, an Honorary Fellow of Trinity College and is now Honorary Life President of the Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK. Strathern’s work has focused on Melanesian and British ethnography. Papua New Guinea was her principal area of fieldwork, from 1964 to most recently in 2015. Her research has explored developments in knowledge practices in the UK and Europe. She developed her work on gender relations in two main directions: feminist scholarship and new reproductive technologies (1980s-1990s), which led to her groundbreaking books “The gender of the gift” (1988) and “After nature: English kinship in the late twentieth century” (1992), and legal systems and intellectual and cultural property (1970s, 1990-00s). Her subsequent work on regimes of audit and accountability, including the edited volume “Audit Cultures. Anthropological Studies in Accountability, Ethics and the Academy” (2000) has attracted broad interdisciplinary attention. The Strathern Annual Lecture was established at Cambridge University in 2011 to honor her significant achievements. 

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• #18 Muskoxen, reindeer, and performing wilderness in Norway w/Karin Lillevold

  In this episode, we speak with Karin Lillevold, a PhD candidate in Cultural Studies at the Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies, and Religion at the University of Bergen. As part of the research project Gardening the Globe, Karin traces relations between three species that are increasingly coming into contact with each another: muskoxen, wild reindeer, and humans. Karin’s interest is in how these relations are managed, as well as the aesthetics and performance of wilderness, in Dovrefjell National Park in Norway. Dovrefjell is a place of great significance for Norwegian national identity, and these days is a site of contested notions of belonging, wilderness, and the right to roam (“allemannsretten”) – a much cherished and legally inscribed norm in the country.Karin also holds a master’s degree in social anthropology from the University of Bergen where she wrote about visions of nature and national identity in Iceland. Her research interests include rewilding, imaginaries of wilderness, sense of place, tourism, national identity, cultural heritage, human-animal relations, posthumanism, and ethnographic methodologies. Karin has also studied art history, and worked with cultural heritage at various museums. Before embarking on her PhD, she worked as a research assistant at the Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation at UiB where she published on sustainable urban development in relation to cultural heritage. She is part of the Environmental Humanities research group at UiB.We hope you enjoy the conversation!

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• #17 Theopolitical patchworks: Evangelical gangs in Rio de Janeiro w/Martjin Oosterbaan

  In this episode we speak with Martjin Oosterbaan. Martjin is professor at the department of Cultural Anthropology at Utrecht University, with a chair in the Anthropology of Religion and Security. He has done more than two decades of research in Brazil, focusing on topics such as urban and religious transformation, security and citizenship, and the role of mass media and popular culture in identity formation. He currently leads the ERC Consolidator research project: Sacralizing Security in Mega-Cities of the Global South.In the podcast, Martjin presents some of his research findings on the theopolitical constellations of contemporary rule in Rio de Jainero. He begins by describing the hybrid forms of governance in the city and how the religious landscape has changed within recent decades. We then talk about the peculiar and recently emerged phenomenon of evangelic gangs in Rio, and how religion is used as part of territorialization and legitimization of the rule and workings of these gangs. Finally, Martjin shares some comparative insights about how mega cities across the globe display similar developments of new forms of politics and rule infused with religious aspects.  We hope you enjoy the conversation!The podcast was recorded in October 2024 when Martjin was in Bergen to present at the BSAS series. Resources-       Academic profile-       Oosterbaan, M. (2017). Transmitting the spirit: religious conversion, media, and urban violence in Brazil. Penn State University Press.-       More information on the project, Sacralizing Security in Mega-Cities of the Global South

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