The making of a mushroom people: Toward a moral anthropology of psychedelics beyond hype and anti-hype

As regulatory agencies have put psychedelics on an expedited path to market approval, North Americans and Europeans might turn away from their repression and join the subset of cultures that have institutionalized the use of hallucinogenic drugs. What is the place of anthropology in this psychedelic renaissance? More specifically, how should anthropology relate to the cycles of hype and anti-hype, which have been identified as a recurrent pattern in the careers of new drugs as psychedelics have entered a second round of cultural enthusiasm and critique? This article suggests extending ethnographic studies of the psychedelic renaissance from medical to moral anthropology. The case of psychedelics is especially interesting for moral anthropology because these drugs frequently induce mystical-type experiences, which can play an ethically irritating role as mysticism challenges a strict moral order enforced through disciplinary practices. What cultural consequences would the spread of mystical experiences have for contemporary European and North American societies?     

Is the Aboriginal Landscape Sentient? Animism,the New Animism and the Warlpiri

ABSTRACT It is now commonplace for some anthropologists, and others, to say that for Aboriginal Australians in the remote regions, the landscape is ‘sentient’, however, what that means is not always clear. Are the anthropologists using this term metaphorically or do they understand Aboriginal people to be animists? The ‘new animists' have no doubt that the anthropologists are describing what they call the ‘new animism’. Much of this literature refers to the Warlpiri or their near neighbours. Here I examine the evidence for whether Warlpiri speakers are animists.     

Partnerships for human security in fragile contexts: where community safety and security sector reform intersect

Implementing sustainable community safety and security sector reform (SSR) in highly unstable and conflict-affected contexts is a significant and growing challenge. Donor-led SSR processes claim to enable transparent, effective and accountable provision of security. Yet, traditional, externally driven SSR processes implemented in a top-down manner have been shown to have important shortcomings. Using the experience of a form of SSR undertaken in the Jenin Governorate in the Palestinian territories, this article highlights some of these shortcomings—in particular, a lack of local ownership, failure to address governance issues, co-optation of political and security elites, and neglect of citizens’ views and needs—as well as describing a viable method for overcoming them to produce a more sustainable approach to community safety in extremely difficult circumstances through the use of outcome-based local crime prevention planning processes. In contrast, the Jenin community safety project was a bottom-up, community-based approach that built effective ‘partnerships’ for crime prevention with both formal security providers (for example, security forces, executive authorities, parliamentarians and governors’ offices) and informal security providers (for example, civil society, the media, and tribal and business leaders) to produce a viable mechanism by which a safer community with stronger local leadership might be created.     

Late medieval copper alloying practices: a view from a Parisian workshop of the 14th century AD

161 late medieval copper-based day-to-day items have been analysed, mostly consisting of small artefacts such as dress fittings. The items were all recently excavated from a 14th century AD metallurgical workshop located in Paris. Eight well-defined copper alloys have been identified that refer to various constraints, the most important one being economics. According to the model proposed, most of the alloys were obtained by dilution of a fresh brass master alloy by scrap metal containing small amounts of zinc, tin and lead. Pure lead was added separately in relatively large quantities, with a limit of 6 wt% Pb marking the boundary between leaded and unleaded alloys. It has been found that the less the cost of the artefact, the more the fresh brass is diluted. For the medium-size castings such as cast vessels, alloys containing large quantities of lead or alloys rich in antimony were used. Such complex alloying strategy pertains more to a small industrial-like plant organisation rather than to craftsman activity, as further supported by a variety of archaeological and historical evidence.     

Music in French geography as space marker and place maker

For several decades, there have been broad research developments on the links between music and geography in the English-speaking world, initially in the USA, then in Europe and also in Asia, the Middle East and Oceania. In the French-speaking world, although developments are more recent, research bringing together music and geography is well developed, too. However, it was not until the end of the last decade that Francophones began to take Anglophone work into account and even this was inconsistent. In Anglophone publications, the work of the Francophones is almost completely absent. With this commentary, a Francophone–Anglophone dialogue could open new perspectives.