ANTHMETHGRP4-2425-MALAVIKA-SATTLER

[Last modified: December, 2 2024 09:01 AM]

Week 8: On multimodality

**Note: I thought I had posted this passage but as I am uploading the next one I realize that there must have been a technical error and it didn‘t upload. Due to illness I couldn‘t attend this session, so I will write about my own thoughts on multimodal research. In order to work against anthropology‘s longstanding tradition of extracting knowledge and publishing it from just the researcher‘s perspective, or in singular authorship, I think collaborative research is important in contemporary anthropological training. And with this, multimodality. Developing a creative practice together is and not just record them or ask the participants to please record and take pictures of certain scenarios in their daily life, but getting together and developing the project together with focusing on a way they would like to investigate a question. I think formalized co-authorship is very important in these contexts. While in my mind this would be a more ethical form of multimodal research, I personally would love to make ethnographic films. How do I include people‘s work in „my“ film? A simple observer-performer role could be avoided by including said co-produced materials, like pictures or videos or drawing made by the participants. A constant feedback loop is also important in making films. Involving the participants in the editing process (to their capacities), and screening it to them before deeming it the finished project. For me, this sort of research makes more sense than just writing because it can more easily be easily to the public and more people might be interested in the issues at stake (if wanted by the research participants). 

 

Week 9: Veganism through Street Art

As discussed in class, online spaces are a grey zone regarding data protection and right to privacy. If the publicly accessible blogs are pseudomized I wouldn’t see a problem. In the case of the closed Facebook group it depends on the size. If the size is so small that every member is identifiable, the researcher needs to make their position in this group clear if they plan on extracting knowledge. If it’s a large group, say 200 people, I think the researcher can do a pseudomized ‘discourse analysis’. It is important to pseudomize/anonimize everybody’s account and name and change the locations of the vegan messages because tagging and graffiti, if not done in a dedicated space (like the walls at brick lane), is a criminal offense. In the case of the public instagram account of the young blogger, to be safe, I would make sure to contact her and ask for permission. This is due to the fact that she has a very small following and her performance on instagram might be altered if she knew more people were closely watching her. ALso, there might be a chance she is under-age and this would change things. Maybe it would be just best to not use her account for data.

Ultimately, I think it’s important not to have the law around data or graffiti in mind, and instead the the participants’ well-being and ‘best practice’.

[Last modified: November, 19 2024 08:17 PM]

I have generally noticed my perception of my body in London to be smaller, less important than where I am from (Vienna). Though Vienna is also a city, it seems London is always bustling and everybody has a purpose and a place they need to get to. This is where the “top” people of their field gather, a historically grown global and imperial center. Coal Drops Yard seems to me one of the high-tech, silicon valley places in London that also have a very futuristic design. When walking through this space in the mornings I feel anonymous and small, yet I don’t mean this in a bad way. It makes me put my existence into perspective and relativise my problems, because this is where the big stuff happens. It’s also very normal to walk through this space in a very high pace because everybody is trying to not be late for work, I guess. An interesting thing about Coal Drops Yard is also, that although it is a completely redeveloped space which can often have a very constructed and hostile feel to it, CDY did a good job in making it a space for the people. If you move closer to the canal and where the cafes and restaurants are, people (including me) seem to enjoy hanging out on the deck and the benches. Rush hour at CDY made me more aware of my individual body morphing with the others in a stream of rushed people.

[Last modified: October, 28 2024 11:17 AM]

I went to the student center to take a look at the relationship between Jeremy Bentham’s body and the students passing through. Before arriving at the field site I was biased on the sense that I find the mere existence of this relict in the student center to be out of place. For student’s well-being, I argue that this man should stop haunting the student center and be put into a museum, or back to his hidden spot in the Wilkins Building.
Whilst hanging out on a bench with a clear view of Bentham there were three conclusions: Firstly, the indifference towards his presence. Many students just walked past Bentham like he was a wall. I would attribute this to the students being used to him and not noticing him anymore. Secondly, the comedy of Bentham sitting there. Students once in a while would walk past him and smirk, or point their friends‘ gaze towards him and explain who he was. Three people would take a picture of him. And this leads me to my last and most important finding: the gendered aspect of Jeremy Bentham’s impact on the student space. Two of the people who took photos of him I read as male. The third was a man posing with Bentham for a picture. Two older couples entered the student space to take a look at Bentham and then left (I assumed them to be tourists). I will admit that this might be a biased analysis or that I focused my attention too much on the gender aspect, but I did feel as though people I read as female interacted with Jeremy more avoidantly, glancing at him for a second and passing, or showing their friend and explaining the reason for his being there. One girl stood waiting in the main hall but with her back turned towards him for several minutes, until in the end she turned around for a couple of seconds to look at him. In contrast, I felt that men felt drawn to him. I saw a couple of men going up close to him and then passing.
Next to Bentham’s case is the exhibit of „Preserving History“ to „counter the underrepresentation of marginalized groups“. The two exhibits in this hall seem contradictory to each other. To decolonize and counter the underrepresentation of marginalized groups, one would (re)move Bentham and showcase, for example, more recent feminist or decolonial scholars that came out of UCL.

[Last modified: October, 21 2024 10:15 AM]

I studied anthropology for my undergrad degree so positionality has been a longstanding question in developing research projects. Over time, I started feeling like a person should have a personal affiliation with a place before choosing it, so I focused on India. This is a discussion my classmates and I have everyday, especially because Environmental Anthropologists tend to still work a lot with Indigenous Peoples, which in itself can be a very colonial practice. I think the most important question to ask is if the research will impact their lives in a better way or in some way give back to the people I am studying with. As I touched upon in my first proposal, I am half-Indian and I grew up in Europe. I have been back almost every year since I still have family in Maharashtra, India. Over the years I have gradually focused my research on India, because it felt most right to choose a place I am familiar with and have a connection with. Over time I have justified my regional interest with my heritage, yet to be very honest, I would still be an anthropological outsider, partly due to my not speaking the language fluently. Furthermore, my research project would not be in the exact city my family is from, but probably from the region nearby. I have been to this place a couple of times. As Elena Liber explained so frankly in her presentation, she was facing similar issues in choosing designing her research. Though she had a social and familiar connection with the people she worked with, coming from a European university and holding a British passport gave her more political and economic power than her research participants. For me this would be the same, in addition to me not working directly with people I know, but perhaps going through an organization through which I would have access. I ask myself wether I will ever have a proper justification on going to a faraway place to extract knowledge, or if restricting myself to only my „home country“, namely Austria, is taking the thought of positionality too far. Another aspect of positionality was centering the cashew instead of the human, in order to make anybody my subject but have them as actors telling the story of the cashew. I think Elena Libers introduction on storytelling opened a new way of thinking about research for me. At this moment I am still torn between the justifications and the coloniality of doing research In Maharashtra.

[Last modified: October, 16 2024 09:52 AM]

I was sitting on a park bench in Gordon square park thinking about human-nature relationships and the anthropogenically imposed dichotomies. Though breaking up these dichotomies and multispecies entanglements are status quo in the study of environmental anthropology, it is more difficult to implement this thinking in an everyday setting than to speak about it theoretically. My topic is cashew trees and the use of them by people locally and by the global market.

The setting of the park is related to my topic in the sense that I could watch humans engagement with the trees/nature in the park: Do they come alone, do they walk in groups, do they lay in the grass, do they observe nature? I noticed that most people that came to the park alone sat on park benches, whilst groups tended to stand together in patches of sunlight when there was any. The people alone were– to no surprise– often on their phone on a bench. Another thing I had noticed about this park prior to this day is that singular people mostly occupy an entire bench. Only if every last bench was taken would strangers sit next to each other on one. As I am writing up this information I notice that my anthropological training has very much steered me towards observing human behaviour. I find it not so easy to give the trees as much attention as I did give humans.

I did not feel awkward doing this exercise because I was quite far away from any people and I think it is quite ‘normal’ and socially accepted to sit on a park bench and to be writing something in a booklet. I feel like even people watching is socially accepted in a park. I hope to be able to focus more on multispeciality in future excercises and in daily life.

[Last modified: October, 7 2024 12:00 PM]

Topic: Political Ecology of Cashew Cultivation

My interest lies in the political ecology of cashews: their ecological, economic, and cultural significance, particularly in Maharashtra and Goa. India is one of the largest exporters of cashews, accounting for 15% of the global market. Introduced by Portuguese colonists in Goa around 1500, the cashew has since become a hallmark of the West-Indian economy (Gov. of India 2024). The cashew industry is driven by cash crops and is marked by a gendered division of labor, as it is predominantly women who work in cashew processing factories (Shukla 2022). 

Research Questions:

What are the ecological impacts of cashew cultivation in regions like Maharashtra, especially in the Ratnagiri district?

What are the social and health implications for women working in the cashew sector?

How does imperialism and globalism connect to this industry today?

Methods:

To explore these questions, I would conduct fieldwork in areas where cashew farming is the primary occupation. Participant observation and interviews could provide insights into the realities of life on cashew farms. Additionally, a study of the political ecology of cashew crops would require investigating global and local power dynamics. This would involve a more theoretical approach, including literature reviews, archival research on the history of cashew cultivation, trade patterns, and the influence of Portuguese and British imperialism in the region.

The findings could potentially contribute to shaping policies that promote fairer working conditions, state subsidies for equitable wages, and ecological justice. However, ethical issues arise when engaging with potentially vulnerable communities whose livelihoods depend on the cashew industry. As a student from a UK university, even with Indian heritage, I must acknowledge that my presence can be extractive there might be no gain to the place.  

Shukla, Arvind. 2022. Maharashtra’s cashew farmers hit hard by unseasonal rain, temperature and pests in Mongobay. Online. https://india.mongabay.com/2022/07/maharashtras-cashew-farmers-hit-hard-by-unseasonal-rain-temperature-and-pests/ 

Government of India, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare. 2024. Crop History – Cashew. https://dccd.gov.in/crop-history-cashew