‘Spreading grace’ in post‐Soviet Russia (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

The article addresses the revival of Russian Orthodoxy as a prominent domain in the lives of many Russians. The six authors are interested in the underlying question: What makes Russian Orthodoxy a relevent and modern source of morality and identity? The circumstances of this branch of Christianity significantly differ from what has been discussed in recent years as ‘the anthropology of Christianity’. The article proposes a thematic approach in order to connect the exploration of Russian Orthodoxy to the study of other denominations. A key‐area is the disctinctive articulation between continuity and change, which is crucial to the understanding of some branches of Protestantism as well.     

‘Bongo Bongo’ and reconfiguring the ‘other’ (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

Fear of immigration has brought about a shift in UK politics. In this new climate, diversity is no longer welcome and the Home Office's message is clear: ‘go home or face arrest’. This editorial addresses the overlap between legal and ethnic categories in this politics of alterity and argues that what is at stake in these debates is nothing less than the reconfiguration of a fit‐and‐proper UK citizen.     

Iraq: The state‐of‐nature effect (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

In the civil strife of ancient Greek cities that was the model for Hobbes' state of nature, the intervention of the larger forces of Athens and Sparta, proclaiming unconditional causes‐to‐die‐for, transformed local social differences into lethal factional enmities. Death then raged from many quarters. The same effect of anarchic violence has followed from imperial conquer‐and‐divide policies in modern colonial and post‐colonial societies. The present paper documents the processes by which the American intervention in Iraq transformed a plural nation into a bellum omnium contra omnes. Historically, the state of nature appears as the effect of the subversion of the social contract rather than its precondition.     

The death of the right‐to‐die campaigners (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

The ‘right‐to‐die’ or assisted suicide debate in the UK has recently been dominated by high‐profile litigation which has brought to public attention stories of individual suffering. The most recent case is that of Tony Nicklinson who, as a result of his permanent and total paralysis which he said made his life ‘intolerable’, wanted the courts to allow a doctor to end his life. Only six days after a Judicial Review refused his request, Tony died of ‘natural’ causes. This article compares the presentation by the media of Tony's requested death with his actual death and discusses what this reveals more generally about the way in which the right‐to‐die debate is presented to the public. It argues that in a politicised debate in which the personal stories of the disabled‐dying are given airtime because of their didactic or symbolic potential, actual death becomes less important than the rights‐rhetoric surrounding death.     

The ‘invisible scars’ of breast cancer treatments (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

Drawing on 38 fieldwork interviews with women living with breast cancer conducted in Spain between 2006 and 2008, I draw attention to the significance of what Ludica (2013) refers to as the “invisible scars of cancer” for a holistic understanding of women's experiences. I highlight two under acknowledged thematic concerns that emerged during our conversations: (1) the impact of treatments on women's ability to experience sexual pleasure; (2) the pain caused by axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) or armpit surgery. The present article is a timely reminder of the fact that for a shockingly high number of women diagnosed, the experience of breast cancer is emotionally and physically painful and quite often disabling. An understanding of women's experiences is essential to provide resources more sensitive to women's needs.     

Robert McNamara and the limits of ‘bean counting’ (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

The recent death of Robert McNamara provides an opportunity to reflect on the shortcomings of the strategy of numerical rationality in management that defined his career. In both of the major projects in which he took a leading role, as President of the Ford Motor Company and US Defense Secretary during the Vietnam War, his strategy has retrospectively been held up as a model of development to avoid. In particular, management studies now champions the importance of ‘culture’ in running complex organizations. Ironically, the UK government increasingly seeks to run public services, including higher education, according to a McNamarite model in a bid to be more business‐friendly, despite the evidence that many involved in private sector management have been moving away from this model for a quarter of a century.     

‘On Diego Garcia no one never got ill’ (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

The history of the Chagos Islanders was recently highlighted in a semi‐fictionalised production A few man Fridays performed by the Cardboard Citizens Theatre company at the Riverside Studios in London. The month‐long run finished on March 10. I went to the penultimate performance. Also in attendance were a small number of native‐born Chagossians and their children. During the interval, I fell into conversation with Anthony, a 50‐year‐old Chagossian, who was born on the island of Diego Garcia. Along with other members of his family, Anthony was deported from his homeland by the British authorities to make way for a strategically important US base. With 500 or so compatriots he was taken by boat and dumped in the Seychelles. Around 1500 other Islanders were taken to Mauritius. In 2002, however, Chagossians were granted British citizenship. Some 1500 islanders, mainly those from Mauritius but a few from the Seychelles, have now settled in Crawley in West Sussex. But Anthony, along with his sister and her children, is living in rented accommodation in Pimlico in south London. According to Anthony, a primary motivation for his coming to the UK was to seek better healthcare to deal with his type II diabetes. “On Diego Garcia no one ever got ill,” he said. Perhaps this claim should be taken more seriously than conventional functionalist explanations allow.     

‘Aye'll be back’: The quest for Scotland's Independence (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

In this guest editorial the author reflects on the implications of the Scottish independence referendum that took place on 18 September 2014 for the United Kingdom.     

‘Child sacrifice’ in Uganda? The BBC, ‘witch doctors’ and anthropologists (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

This article discusses both several recent BBC broadcasts on allegations of ‘child sacrifice’ in Uganda and criticisms of the programmes by a number of British anthropologists. It pursues the idea that both the broadcasts and the criticisms raise two sets of crucial questions: the first is in regard to the interpretation of alleged ritual killings in contemporary Africa and the effects of their representation on lay audiences, both non‐African and African; the second concerns media representations of Africa and public anthropology. Anthropologists (and indeed scholars from other disciplines such as history) have a lot of expertise to offer in terms of understanding the occult in many societies, including contextualising this realm in terms of historical processes and material concerns and suggesting links between apparently disparate issues. In this way, they can they can sometimes go beyond surface manifestations, offer alternative explanations and show that things are not always the way they first seem. However, in order to play an effective public role in this regard, anthropologists need to be willing to grapple pro‐actively with such matters of public concern, not least by engaging constructively with the media.     

Political tourism in the Israeli‐Palestinian space (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

With the violent clashes that took place in May 2010 during the attempt by the Free Gaza movement flotilla to break the blockade of the Gaza Strip, the remarkable strength of pro‐Palestinian networks became globally apparent. Drawing on an ethnography of political activism in the Israeli‐Palestinian space, we suggest that the striking visibility of these networks does not exclusively derive from the prominence of the Israeli‐Palestinian conflicts, but is also a consequence of the activists’ ability to produce innovative forms of sociality. However, some of the approaches taken can exist in problematic relation to the experiences of people who live with the conflict. In this context, the issue is not so much the precise relationships between indigenous ‘truths’ in Palestine and their foreign representations, but the way in which encounters redefine the conflicts that activist networks seek to represent.     

The Gaza Freedom Flotilla: Ethnographic notes on ‘othering violence’ (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

This narrative recounts the events that unfolded around the Gaza Freedom Flotilla as witnessed by an anthropologist invited onboard one of its ships. It shows a pervasive preoccupation of neocolonial states with Othering violence. This is defined as the ability to transform spaces of liberation and solidarity into spaces of deviation and imprisonment. The choice to be an outspoken participant‐observer opens up novel spaces for reflection and research otherwise left to the sensationalist tendencies of journalism and the propaganda machinery of states. Moreover, acting as witnesses to events such as these, in our professional academic as well as in our personal capacity, could also be a last line of defence against expanding Othering violence.     

‘The disappeared’: Power over the dead in the aftermath of 9/11 (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

This article tells the story of how the remains of victims of the 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center have been mistreated and misused over the past 10 years. The article focuses on the experiences of some of the victims' families as they have sought to recover human remains dumped in the Fresh Kills landfill and to engage with officials about plans to house unidentified remains in a museum complex. The story reveals the institutional violence of a process in which human remains are devalued and subject to continual control by both state authorities and a private museum, a process that has turned victims into victims yet again. This second victimization lies in the gap between the shared heritage of that tragic September day and the individual rights of American citizens to care for their kin.     

Looking ‘The Gift’ in the mouth: Russia as donor (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

While the Soviet Union was a significant donor of international development aid, since the 1990s, a generation of Russians has experienced the subject position of ‘recipient’ in the global political economy. However, following its G8 presidency in 2006, Russia officially signalled its intention to (re‐)emerge as an aid donor. Should the Russian government's efforts to join the global community of donors be understood as a defence mechanism against what Mauss called the ‘wounding’ experience of being treated as a perpetual recipient? International development aid is seen here as a cultural phenomenon whose underlying assumptions are both challenged and affirmed by the arrival of ‘emerging donors’ such as Russia.