Football in post-Conflict Sierra Leone

Abstract

As in all African nations, football is very popular in Sierra Leone. While there is a constant lack of equipment and the fields are far from perfect, boys and girls are practising the game with great motivation and dedication. Training starts with warming up. This warming up is characterised by rhythmic exercises, done in perfect synchrony. These rhythmic activities need to be acquired by practice. Young boys watch the older football players and try to imitate them. Also for the amputee football team, rhythm is an important aspect of the warm-up. Football in Sierra Leone is more than just a game. Football can be seen as a tool for rehabilitation and reintegration. It makes the footballers forget about the war. For the amputee players, football also brought back their human dignity and sense of recognition, making them feel part of society again. The rhythmic aspects during the warm-up can intensify this effect, increasing a sense of belonging to a group.     

Clay Forests in Zada

One summer some years ago, two friends of mine, who were notedcameramen, and I ventured into Ngari. We left Beijing and went from Lhasa, Gyangze, Tingri, Burang, Zada and eventually reached Shiquanhe, capital of Ngari Prefecture. Our trip lasted for some 40 days, covering a distance of 14,390 km. We encountered many new things sights. However, what was most interesting was what is known today as the Clay Forests in Zada.Clay Forest and Zada County SeatIt was a mid-August day, the ninth on our trip to Ngari. We set out from the     

Dung-tempered Clay

Abstract

Cow manure was added to clay and fired in an electric kiln to examine its effect on the plasticity and firing ability of the clay. Two firing temperatures were tried. The experiment and the results are reported here. Dung was used. and continues to be used. as a tempering material and additive to increase plasticity in pottery around the world.     

动物考古学中的昆虫研究

《动物考古学中的昆虫研究》是一篇动物考古学研究新领域的介绍文章。考古研究显示,昆虫与古代人类生活的关系十分密切,田野考古发现的一些特殊的遗迹现象或遗物可能与人类利用昆虫的行为有关。昆虫遗存是动物考古学的研究对象之一,对此可以进行多方面研究,如复原古气候和古环境,古生物的地理分布,遗迹形成的时间,遗址埋藏的过程,古代人类的生活水平和驯养家畜的行为,等等。在我国已经开始从动物考古学的角度对昆虫遗存进行研究,例如,在青海大通长宁遗址的浮选结果中就出现了炭化的昆虫遗骸。     

Children and War in Sierra Leone: A West African Diary

In June 2001, Richard Wilson participated in a technical meeting on children's participation and protection in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Sierra Leone, organized by UNICEF and the Human Rights Forum of Sierra Leone. The Report 'Children and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Sierra Leone', will be delivered in late 2001 to the UN Security Council. This is his diary of the drafting process.     

Heritage as future-making: aspiration and common destiny in Sierra Leone

This paper engages with an arising interest in heritage as a ‘future-making’ project, arguing that in a context such as Sierra Leone heritage work may be better understood as a reflection of aspirations for a ‘common destiny’, than the articulation of common pasts. It questions the centrality with which modern anxiety continues to frame heritage temporalities, drawing on anthropological engagements with contexts of development and social transformation to propose a non-linear model for mapping the relationship between the past and the present. Drawing on a recent surge in heritage work in Sierra Leone, I suggest that heritage has efficacy beyond the provision of emotional security in a context of rapid change, indeed that it may be implicated in the process of instituting and shaping change itself.     

The Moral Politics of Gendered Labour in Artisanal Mining in Sierra Leone

Drawing on current anthropological approaches to labour, this article examines some of the moral politics mobilized around women and artisanal mining in policy-inflected scholarship with reference to particular gold mining zones in Tonkolili district, Sierra Leone. In so doing, the article proposes that such a focus on labour not only allows one to appreciate how sentiments concerning (im)proper behaviour infuse wider policy proposals to amend social arrangements in regard to what is called ‘artisanal mining’, but it also offers insight into some of the enduring moral politics helping to constitute women as ‘family workers’ in the actual artisanal gold mining zones. The article suggests that examining the overlapping moral politics constituting women's labour practices provides a more supple understanding of the contested economic possibilities for women in this livelihood practice.     

泥人抟土塑型的“那些年”

正泥塑是中国一种古老常见的民间艺术,它以泥土为原料,以手工捏制成形,形象以人物、动物为主。泥塑取材广泛,神话、戏剧、小说以及民间生活都是其素材来源,通过塑造人物造型,刻画鲜明的人物性格,营造浓郁的生活气息。2016年北京农业嘉年华中,天津展区的泥塑作品形象逼真,个性鲜明,展现出旧时乡村风貌和人文情怀,把我们带回了单纯、朴实的"那些年"。     

浅谈青州泥塑

<正>泥塑,顾名思义,就是以泥土为原料,塑制而成的艺术品,或素装、或彩绘。题材丰富多样,以人物、动物为主,其中人物大多带有故事性。泥塑作为我国一种古老而常见的民间艺术,通过对黄土的眷恋之情来展现黄土的艺术魅力,是中国罕见的装饰品。她源于生活,而又高于生活,并随着时代的发展而不断演变。当今,随着社会的变革,新材料、新技术的应用,新事物不断涌现,再加上利益的趋势,工业化大批量生产,使得传统的泥塑工艺被渐渐淡忘,拯救泥塑这种非物质文化遗产已势     

The Ebola Crisis in Sierra Leone: Mediating Containment and Engagement in Humanitarian Emergencies

This article explores how framings of the 2014–16 outbreak of Ebola as a crisis, its causes, nature and consequences gave rise to two seemingly contradictory types of interventions within affected communities in Sierra Leone: a militarized state of emergency on the one hand, and efforts to foster local engagement and ownership on the other. Teasing out explicitly the underlying logic of these two modes of response, we are able to discern the convergence between containment and engagement approaches that are at the heart of contemporary humanitarianism. Rather than being opposed or contradictory, the article shows how they were mutually constitutive, through negotiations between different ways of knowing and responding to the Ebola crisis. The resulting divisive practices, juxtaposing ‘Ebola heroes’ and ‘dangerous bodies’, re‐ordered the landscapes that individuals had to navigate in order to manage uncertainty. Tracing these logics through to the ‘subjects’ of intervention, the article tells the story of one traditional healer's ‘epistemic navigations’ in his efforts to survive both the epidemic and its response. Bringing these dynamics and their consequences to the fore in the Sierra Leonean case invites broader reflections on a humanitarian assemblage increasingly reliant on the mutual constitution of containment and engagement, security and resilience, in its approach to managing ‘at risk’ populations.     

Population-change determinants in an early transitional society: the western Sierra Leone example

The author examines the role of geographical and historical processes in village population changes in western Sierra Leone as an example, with particular emphasis on the impact of migration. Both official census and unpublished data are used. Changes in population settlement over the period 1911 to 1963 are reviewed     

捕捉纤毫毕现的美 钟茗的昆虫图赏

<正>《昆虫记》的作者法国昆虫学家法布尔,以毕生的时间和精力,详细观察并用文字记录了多种昆虫的生活,将昆虫鲜为人知的生活和习性生动地揭示出来,让众人有机会去了解它们。而在数码时代的今天,更多的人选择利用手中的镜头来探索昆虫的世界,关注它们的一动一静,将它们的繁衍、蜕变、老去凝结成一个个     

捕捉纤毫毕现的美 钟茗的昆虫图赏

<正>《昆虫记》的作者法国昆虫学家法布尔,以毕生的时间和精力,详细观察并用文字记录了多种昆虫的生活,将昆虫鲜为人知的生活和习性生动地揭示出来,让众人有机会去了解它们。而在数码时代的今天,更多的人选择利用手中的镜头来探索昆虫的世界,关注它们的一动一静,将它们的繁衍、蜕变、老去凝结成一个个     

Titans with Feet of Clay

The Two Cultures debate of the early 1960s was initiated by C. P. Snow and by F. R. Leavis. Snow's understanding of the nature of science was fashionable but defective, while Leavis's views were those of a literary coterie, quaint and lacking the universality he wished to claim. Between them, as a result, they created an ill-conceived dichotomy, leading to a nugatory debate. Snow's profound lack of understanding of the nature of science and technology was in line with views popular in his time, but was all too likely to be seriously damaging to those whom he wished to champion.