{"title":"Precarity in Global Anthropology: Reflexions on the margins of the Global Survey of Anthropological Practice","authors":"Vinicius Kauê Ferreira, Georgeta Stoica","doi":"10.1590/1809-43412022v19d707","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1590/1809-43412022v19d707","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In this essay, we draw primarily on the 2018 Global Survey of Anthropological Practice in order to develop a series of considerations on the issue of precarity in Anthropology. Other reports and available literature are also taken into consideration in the proposed analysis. We start by introducing the issue of precarity in Anthropology as both a trending research topic and an empirical reality in the very practice of our discipline. Then, we analyse the WCAA Global Survey by focusing on its findings regarding employment and salary. In the third and fourth sections of the article, global differences in anthropological practice are taken into account from the perspective of a South-North divide. The fifth section is devoted to reflections on the epistemological dimensions of precarity, neoliberalism and anthropology. We conclude by highlighting ongoing actions and pointing to possible horizons. The main purpose of this essay is, by drawing on available data on anthropologist’s working conditions, to address specificities and challenges that discipline must face when it comes to precarity.","PeriodicalId":37082,"journal":{"name":"Vibrant Virtual Brazilian Anthropology","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67213513","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Gabriela Dias Blanco, Eleandra Raquel da Silva Koch, C. Prates
{"title":"Facing the Pandemic in Brazil: controversies surrounding “early treatment” and vaccination","authors":"Gabriela Dias Blanco, Eleandra Raquel da Silva Koch, C. Prates","doi":"10.1590/1809-43412022v19e903","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1590/1809-43412022v19e903","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The article investigates the controversies that emerge with the production of the CoronaVac vaccine, the first Covid-19 vaccine available in Brazil, on June 11th, 2020. Based on Actor-Network Theory, this study is inspired by virtual ethnography. We thus privilege digital documents from government agencies and medical entities, specialized publications, publications in Facebook groups, and the writing of a virtual field diary. Our investigation ends with the approval of the CoronaVac and Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines by the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa). We identify the construction of factoids by groups that were critical of social distancing measures, basing themselves on the use of purportedly scientific arguments. The alliances established between doctors and the federal government through the Ministry of Health challenged the vaccine as a technoscientific artifact, and advocated for drugs that were part of the so-called \"early treatment\" as the \"cure\" for the pandemic in Brazil.","PeriodicalId":37082,"journal":{"name":"Vibrant Virtual Brazilian Anthropology","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67213775","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reports of a struggle: Prison, gender, and activism in an association of prisoners’ relatives","authors":"Natália Lago","doi":"10.1590/1809-43412022v19e602","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1590/1809-43412022v19e602","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The article explores the connections between gender, prison, and activism in AMPARAR, an association that works with prisoners’ families in São Paulo, Brazil. The ethnography is developed in the activities of the association and in the monitoring of the connections mobilised by these activities. AMPARAR’s work is located in an institutional web that includes non-governmental organisations and public institutions that produce both a violating state and a state that claims rights and guarantees. AMPARAR and the family members articulated by the association put a human face and body to complaints, and identify violence and humiliation perpetrated not only on their bodies, but on their husbands and children deprived of their freedom. Gender and sexuality are languages that allow such evocation and contribute to women producing a place of mediators and rapporteurs for the abuses that occur within prisons.","PeriodicalId":37082,"journal":{"name":"Vibrant Virtual Brazilian Anthropology","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67214051","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Lefebvre y el giro espacial en antropología urbana: Notas para una epistemología del espacio vivido","authors":"H. Espinosa","doi":"10.1590/1809-43412022v19e601","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1590/1809-43412022v19e601","url":null,"abstract":"Resumen La antropología urbana es una disciplina a la que le costó nacer. Su origen, en el seno del departamento de Sociología de la Escuela de Chicago, sitúa a la disciplina en una posición de dependencia frente a la sociología urbana. Sin embargo, el enfoque etnográfico de la Escuela de Chicago dura poco, fagocitado por una sociología estadística y cuantitativa, que durante mucho tiempo será la dominante. Por su parte, los antropólogos llegan tarde a la ciudad, ya entrados los años 1960’s, y cuando llegan, vacilan entre hacer antropología en la ciudad o antropología urbana. Es en las décadas de 1970 y 1980 cuando se intenta dibujar un marco epistemológico para la antropología urbana, que ha ingresado al siglo XXI huérfana de un objeto de estudio claro. Este es el diagnóstico del problema respecto al cual el filósofo urbano Henri Lefebvre puede darnos algunas luces. Usando fragmentos de etnografías propias como ejemplo, el presente texto realiza una relectura antropológica de algunos conceptos lefebvrianos como “espacio vivido” y “vida cotidiana”, resaltando su carácter socialmente transformador; igualmente, a través de una serie de reflexiones epistemológicas, se tiene la intención de avanzar en la formulación de algunas conclusiones metodológicas relevantes para la construcción de una etnografía urbana con perspectiva crítica.","PeriodicalId":37082,"journal":{"name":"Vibrant Virtual Brazilian Anthropology","volume":"26 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67213994","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Incarceration of indigenous people in Brazil and resolution no. 287 of the National Council of Justice of Brazil","authors":"E. W. V. D. Castilho, Tédney Moreira da Silva","doi":"10.1590/1809-43412022v19a708","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1590/1809-43412022v19a708","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article aims at analyzing Resolution No. 287 of the National Council of Justice of Brazil (CNJ), which establishes special procedures for the treatment of indigenous people who stand as accused, defendants, who are sentenced or are deprived of liberty and shows the necessary process to ensure their rights within the Brazilian Judiciary Branch. It encourages a reflection about why said Resolution’s impact on social representations within the Brazilian Judiciary Branch is nearly none. The Resolution No. 287 is a surprising step by CNJ to effectively recognize the cultural and ethnic plurality of the original peoples of Brazil, although it maintains contradictions inherent to the challenge of overcoming the assimilationist paradigm. However, beyond any new registration protocols, any reduction in incarceration rates or any training of magistrates and adaptation of their services, any change will ultimately come from the outside, as Brazilian elites abdicate privileges coming from their whiteness.","PeriodicalId":37082,"journal":{"name":"Vibrant Virtual Brazilian Anthropology","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67213082","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"COVID-19 in Brazil","authors":"Jean Segata, Márcia Grisotti, Rozeli Porto","doi":"10.1590/1809-43412022v19e900","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1590/1809-43412022v19e900","url":null,"abstract":"Two years into the pandemic, the expressive the numbers leave no room for doubt: COVID-19 has been the most tragic event in recent history. As of March 11, 2022, the Coronavirus Resource Center at John Hopkins University showed over 471 million confirmed cases worldwide and 6.07 million deaths. On the same day, the #PainelConass COVID-19 showed that Brazil had reached 657,000 deaths 1 . But it is not just the numbers and their important biomedical and epidemiological repercussions that need highlighting. Pandemics also provoke and deepen structures of inequality and social injustice, with a large number of devastating humanitarian, economic, environmental, political and cultural effects in the short, medium and long term (Grossi & Toniol 2020; Torales et al. 2020; Gamlin et al. 2021; Grisotti, 2020; Segata et al. 2021; Segata et al. 2022). The Brazilian case is particularly disturbing. The COVID-19 pandemic has become a critical event of multiple proportions, exacerbated by the disastrous but no less premeditated combination of a president characterized as genocidal and a government commanded by economic capital. All over the country, in states and municipalities, pandemic management committees have multiplied, formed largely by political agents, their advisors, and representatives of the corporate interests of industry and commerce. Community leaders and union representatives of the working class were not invited to sit at these management tables, even when the agenda was the in-person reopening of industry, of commerce, or a return to in-person learning. The fate of the population during the pandemic has not been negotiated as if it were in a situation of vulnerability and at risk of contamination and illness (Mastrangelo, Segata & Rico","PeriodicalId":37082,"journal":{"name":"Vibrant Virtual Brazilian Anthropology","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67213725","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Perpetual motion: Displacement of travestis from an ethnographic perspective","authors":"André Rocha Rodrigues","doi":"10.1590/1809-43412022v19e606","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1590/1809-43412022v19e606","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Intense mobility is a characteristic observed in the context of travestis who work in sex markets. Studies on the subject usually emphasize that this mobility is related to a project of refinement, social ascension, and greater social, symbolic, and economic well-being, besides serving as a project of transformation and beautification of the bodies. Based on ethnographic work, I argue that, in order to understand the various orders of displacements of travestis, it is necessary to understand such movements as a perpetual motion machine, and not as being determined by imperatives that would necessarily lead to displacements from one place to another in search of something - much less something exceptional. In the observed context, displacements are a way of being in the world. Events occur during the displacements, not because of them.","PeriodicalId":37082,"journal":{"name":"Vibrant Virtual Brazilian Anthropology","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67214138","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Brazilian Anthropology as seen in ABA data for the Global Survey of Anthropological Practice. From an imaginary nation to a defense of rights","authors":"Carmen Rial, L. Machado","doi":"10.1590/1809-43412022v19d702","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1590/1809-43412022v19d702","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The article explores the characteristics of Brazilian anthropology identified by analyzing the response of more than 300 Brazilian anthropologists to the GSAP. Even if there is a movement towards internationalization, the data shows that majority of anthropologists in the country conduct research in Brazil and are employed by universities. The article argues that the thematic foci most often chosen are due to the anthropologist's public role in combining research with defense of rights since the 70’s. Social or cultural anthropology are the topical expertise of the majority of Brazilian anthropologists, followed by ethnology. The thematic foci most often cited are: ethnicity and social identity; urban anthropology; political anthropology; Indigenous peoples and colonialism; gender and sexuality. In a Brazilian society where democracy is not consolidated, an anthropological study rarely fails to raise a political debate, either among anthropologists, as it was the case for racial quotas or, either, confronting segments of society or government. In this sense, Brazilian anthropology’s focus on national social and political issues cannot be considered from the European or American point of view to be the same as “anthropology at home”. The voices of Anthropologists are present in the public arena and in many cases have influenced state practices.","PeriodicalId":37082,"journal":{"name":"Vibrant Virtual Brazilian Anthropology","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67212707","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"History, Practice, Limitations, and Prospects: Anthropology in China","authors":"K. Fan","doi":"10.1590/1809-43412022v19d703","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1590/1809-43412022v19d703","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Anthropology in China has a century long history. This article examines its origin, development, practices, and limitations throughout history briefly. It is argued that the history of anthropology in China has always been influenced by the state politics; its ups and downs has been determined by the state policy, and thus lacks academic autonomy. In the era of reform-open, however, Chinese anthropology received its spring. Several fields of new were developed along with international anthropology; the discipline has produced many PhDs. Many universities and colleges have established their own programs or departments. There are some problems, however, are underneath. Nonetheless, all negative conditions would push Chinese anthropologists forward to learn more, strengthening theoretical and critical thinking and searching for new subjects and new problems.","PeriodicalId":37082,"journal":{"name":"Vibrant Virtual Brazilian Anthropology","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67212716","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
P. McGrath, G. Acciaioli, A. Millard, Emily Metzner, Vesna Vučinić Nešković, Chandana Mathur
{"title":"The WCAA Global Survey of Anthropological Practice (2014-2018): Reported Findings","authors":"P. McGrath, G. Acciaioli, A. Millard, Emily Metzner, Vesna Vučinić Nešković, Chandana Mathur","doi":"10.1590/1809-43412022v19d701","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1590/1809-43412022v19d701","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The Global Survey of Anthropological Practice (GSAP), the first of its kind, was undertaken by the World Council of Anthropological Associations (WCAA) to provide insights about anthropology as a transnational profession, the ongoing relevance of the discipline in addressing global problems, issues in employment and gender equity, and the range of anthropological practice and expertise. Respondents to the survey were living in 113 different countries. This article summarizes some of the GSAP’s most general global findings. The GSAP data suggest that within the discipline of anthropology, woman-identified practitioners predominate, except in archaeology and linguistics; yet, women were more likely to report being under-employed and/or not fairly compensated for their work. Universities were the largest employers of anthropologists, but public policy work and public engagement featured centrally in many respondents’ work. The social and cultural anthropology subdisciplines appear to be the most widely practiced the world over, but many respondents also engaged in applied anthropology. However, social media platforms, which might allow anthropologists to reach broader publics, were under-utilized by respondents, who were more likely to publish in closed, internal, and disciplinary specific forums. The GSAP illustrated the global mobility of respondents, including for higher education (and the data on this reflected the hegemony of North Atlantic centers of higher education); yet, many anthropologists around the world have expertise and undertake research in their home countries. Finally, the GSAP found that respondents published their work predominantly in English, although not exclusively, and documented a diversity of languages in which anthropologists publish.","PeriodicalId":37082,"journal":{"name":"Vibrant Virtual Brazilian Anthropology","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67213180","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}