Sweet nationalism in bitter days: a commercial representation of Zionism

ABSTRACT. This article identifies several theoretical approaches to the role of culture in the construction of national identity. Embedded in the presently emerging approach, which emphasises the relations between popular culture/consumerism and national identity, this study focuses on a specific consumer good manufactured in Israel in the early 2000s, the height of the second Palestinian Intifada (uprising): small sugar packets bearing portraits of the patriarchs of Zionism. The analysis of this product, employing semiotic analysis, interviews and focus groups, locates it in the five ‘moments’ of du Gay's ‘circuit of culture’ (i.e. identity, representation, production, consumption and regulation). Three main gen e ral arguments were stated, empirically examined and largely sustained: (1) Consumer goods are used not only for constructing national identity but also as a means for ‘healing’ it; (2) in their ‘healing’ capacity, representations of nationalism on consumer goods do not add new elements to representations offered by the ‘high’ official version of nationalism but replicate them in a simplified way; (3) while trivialising the insights and concepts that originated in ‘high’ culture, consumer goods expose the prejudices, stereotypes and rules of inclusion and exclusion that in ‘high’ culture are often hidden in a sophisticated manner.     

Making room for rubbers: Gender,technology, and birth control before the pill

Before the Food and Drug Administration approved in 1960 the distribution of oral contraceptives, the most popular form of birth control in the United States was the condom. Scholars have often downplayed men's involvement in the history of birth control, relegating knowledge and use of contraceptive technology to a separate "female domain." This article explores the role of condoms in the evolution of the American birth control business, attitudes toward public health, and everyday sexual behavior, and suggests why the full complexities of the history of birth control are best captured by an approach that is attentive to broad gender dynamics as well as to the diversity of technological change.     

Khat: Chewing on a bitter controversy (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

When the slender green succulent leaves of the khat tree are chewed, a mild natural amphetamine called cathinone is gradually released, and absorbed into the bloodstream through the mouth and cheek tissues. The effects, which last for several hours, include the softening of one's temper, increased gregariousness, and a piqued sexual appetite, while at the same time inhibiting hunger, anxiety, and feelings of fatigue. In the Arabian peninsula and the Horn of Africa, where khat is autochthonous, men have been chewing it recreationally for hundreds of years. Khat chewing has recently burgeoned to a global and pointed controversy, however, featuring in academic ethnopharmacology journals, the official publications of neoliberal development organizations, and worldwide in popular news media outlets. Khat has thus received multitudinous accusations of it being: an obstacle to economic growth; a pernicious narcotic; a positive mediator of political discourse in the public sphere; a public health concern; and a barrier to national development. Of these ambiguous tensions, Klein et al. (2012: 1) say that ‘Khat provides a unique example of a herbal stimulant that is defined as an ordinary vegetable in some countries and a controlled drug in others’, fingering khat as an exemplar of a globally contested object of concern – constituting different political stakes when viewed from distinct situated perspectives – and ready prey for anthropological critique. This essay interrogates some of the divergent formulations that khat has taken across the distinct political arenas that orchestrate the ‘controversy’. Following a Latourian actor‐network approach, I argue against a universal ontology of khat, suggesting instead that khat might be more meaningfully traced and apprehended through the political work it achieves in its various contexts and situated deployments. This critical reading of khat as a ‘thing in movement’ should therefore speak to the anthropology of controversy more broadly.     

A Time to Speak

Abstract

This article explores the significance of resonance as a mode of social causality in response to William Connolly's book, Capitalism and Christianity, American Style. While applauding Connolly's identification of "affinities of spirituality" as effective in forming American politics, it suggests that the character structure of ressentiment that is encountered in right-wing Christianity and politics may be the result of instability. Examining the economic basis for growth and instability in the creation of dollars in the form of debt lacking an underlying guarantee, it suggests that this instability is felt throughout American society in everyday experiences of credit and debt.     

题自画

山水图一云绕春山麓,青松浴岭霞。瀑飞喧直泻,开满李桃花。二叠嶂层峦亘,逶迤壑谷深。巉岩泉汇瀑,奏乐迓登临。三岸坪岩竖立,松翠展枝长。筑坝南山麓,风光绚故乡。四雨后复斜阳,关山万里苍。瀑泉奔壑谷,渔唱漫河江。五沟壑果林栽,繁花满树开。山庄通大道,亲友迩遐来。云绕叠峰衔,苍松蔚壑岩。瀑飞千丈啸,花木绚山川。七登高四望涯,山亘水流斜。无限风光好,欢歌荡彩霞。梅图神州万象新,寰宇洁无尘。花海霞天耀,梅开竞报春。山松图峰岭迓曈曛,苍穹漫馥芬。劲松观世事,萦梦历风云。荷塘鳜鱼图荷妍映夕辉,流水鳜鱼肥。翁钓蹲风雨,黄昏唤不归。…     

A Messenger to Moscow

Anatoly Dobrinin, In Confidence: Moscow's Ambassador to America's Six Cold War Presidents (1962–1986)     

雅典纪行

2009年5月15日,青海省“青海民族民间艺术展览”团一行15人搭乘土耳其国际航班从北京出发,飞行10个小时,于次日早晨当地时间5点半到达土耳其北部城市伊斯坦布尔,一下飞机就给人一种异国的新鲜感,黑黑的长袍,深邃的眼睛,货架上满目伊斯兰风格的工艺品,让人不由自主地感觉到这是一个伊斯兰民族的国家。在机场等了约三个小时,又搭乘另一架航班飞往我们此行的目的地雅典。两个小时后我们已在希腊雅典的高速公路上行驶。     

南国纪略 灯红酒绿话澳门

<正>澳门尺寸之地,赌场林立,灯红酒绿,光怪陆离。飞机降落在氹仔岛澳门国际机场,这座完全采用填海方式建造的机场是如此"袖珍",只有一条环绕式跑道,一座规模不大的候机楼。在候机楼仅有的两条行李转盘处取了行李,向右步行数步就走出了机场候机楼。候机楼外骄阳似火,暴露在炙热阳光之下,顿时感觉到南国的温度和热情,澳门之行也就此展开。