Welcome to the portable e-soapbox of a sociologist with too much time on her hands. Milena Kremakova is fascinated by too many things and refuses to devote her time single-mindedly to any one pursuit. In this column she gives voice to one of her thinking selves: that of a perpetual traveller comfortably stuck between the positions of outsider and insider, geared to discover the unusual even in the most mundane setting, and always having something to say (or show). She pledges to irregulary scribble thin, unabashedly empirical quasi-ethnographic observations, loosely driven by pre-developed concepts, while promiscuously recycling insights from sociological theories.
Sometimes she tweets short thoughts as @idlEthnographer.
«Вместе победим!» ('Together we shall win!'). Russian Legislative elections: 2011. Source: National Post (http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/12/03/russian-vote-monitor-detained-in-moscow-before-election/)
As someone who is half-Russian myself and counts Russian as her first language, but who has never set foot in Russia (only to Ukraine), I often find myself torn between a ‘Western’ and a ‘Russian’ logic. This is not something I can analyse: for better or worse, sociology does not give you the tools to rationalise your own self; in Marx’ expression, I am unable to see underneath my own feet. I seem to understand both, to some extent, but when they clash (and they quite often do), I often cannot make up my mind.
Good analyses of Russian affairs by Western authors are few and far between. This is why I was so impressed by Mark Harris’ brief but excellent analysis of Russian attitude to democracy, in the context of the recent elections in Russia that took place on 4 Dec 2011 and have not finished yet. Harrison’s argument cuts through a usual misunderstanding and a clash in the basic meanings taken for granted by people on both sides of Europe. His analysis also touches on the issue of translation – not only linguistic, but also cultural. In a nutshell: before judging, we need to make sure we are aware what exactly it is that the two sides understand when they use the same term, in this case – democracy and the terminology surrounding it. As Harris argues, and the Russian, Bulgarian, and English sections of my brain all agree, democracy does not necessarily mean the same thing in the different [national, cultural, and political] languages.
Mark Harrison writes about economics, public policy, and international affairs. He is a Professor of Economics at the University of Warwick and a research fellow of the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University.
Venus with Biceps: a Pictorial History of Muscular Women by David L. Chapman and Patricia Vertinsky is an invaluable collection of rare images of athletic women in the 19th and 20th centuries. Maria Popova at Brainpickings has written a fantastic review which you can read here.
One of the archival images in 'Venus with Biceps' (image source: Brainpickings.com)
P.S. Thanks to this, we have also discovered Brainpickings: definitely an online space we’ll be watching!
This week I came across two very different works of art which nevertheless have something important in common: they both aim to transcend the shackles of linear time and peak into another historic period with the help of artistic (and sociological!) imagination.
The first one is a now outdated look into the future. It is always fascinating to see how our life today differs (or is similar to) what our great-grand parents imagined it. Think about how you imagine the year 2100. In 1910, the French painter Villemard produced a series of futuristic postcards with his vision of life in 2000. What is most fascinating is that most of his predictions have come true: the imagery is different, but the technical functionality of today’s world is heavily based on the reveries of our Victorian ancestors. The future is to a large extent a self-fulfilling prophecy – at least within a the framework of a modern society !
See the collection of 20 postcards here and on flickr
The second time-erasing magic is in the works of Russian photographer Sergey Larenkov (Сергей Ларенков). He replicates with amazing precision existing images taken during the Second World War by retaking the shots from the same perspective and angle today, and merges the old and new images. (Larenkov is not even a professional photographer: he is a sea pilot whose hobby is history! Check out his website here) Twenty of his photos were initially posted here and a little later the author also gave an interview to the Mymodernnet website which can be read here.
What do you think? Do you have interesting visual materials – yours, or gems that you have found on the web? Email us on s.i.imagery@gmail.com and we’ll feature them in our Visual Sociology column!
Even sociologists run out of words sometimes during the weekend. Here are a few images the Idle Ethnographer took at the peaceful camp in front of St Paul’s Cathedral in London on 22 October 2011:
People are not profit
Poster
Protester
Inanimate objects join the struggle (very Latour)
Small crowd begins to gather to listen to a street poet
In this article, Kristen Howerton unveils some of the secrets behind Haloween treats (and other chocolate). What happens in the modern globalised world is that the products that we consume often have extremely long ‘trails’ about which the ordinary consumer has no idea. Similarly to the 2010 Gap child labour scandal, Howerton argues that ‘hundreds of thousands of children in West Africa are enslaved harvesting cocoa beans’.
After reading this, I think I’ll opt for home made pancakes and roast pumpkin this year.
Italian photographer and photojournalist Ruben Salvadori has done an excellent ethnographic study on the staging of action photos in East Jerusalem. Watch the video (in Italian with English subtitles) here . This will change the way in which you view photos from warzones and other live events. You have been warned.
The Seafarers International Research Institute (SIRC) in Cardiff have concluded a large-scale study of fatigue among seafarers and have produced a 30-minute movie which summarises their questions and findings.
The SIRC team studied merchant mariners and fishermen. As Andy Smith (Director of the Centre for Occupational and Health Psychology) and Tony Lane (former SIRC director) mention, not much has previously been known about this incredibly important aspect of seafaring labour: studies of fatigue among seafarers exist, but they are mostly based on anecdotal evidence. The SIRC study’s contribution is in examining a broad range of evidence and focusses on the combined effects of various factors that cause and increase fatigue (including, among others, ship design, port-turnaround times, the nature of work on ships which demands that one can’t relax until the work is done, decreased levels of ship manning, shift patterns, the pervasive ‘culture’ of maritime work, seafarers’ and officers fear to lose their jobs if they speak out, shipowners’ drive to cut costs due to the fierce and sparcely regulated global competition in the sector, etc.).
This makes SIRC’s study of fatigue at work among merchant mariners and fishermen the first rigorous study of the issue of fatigue at sea which affects not only workers’ psychological well-being, but also the smooth and efficient operation of cargo transport, and which is also one of the main reasons (if not the main reason) for accidents at sea. It is also an attempt to break the culture in which, as maritime journalist and former editor of Lloyds List and Fairplay publications Michael Grey says, “ship comes first” (04:24).
The movie, funded by an ESRC knowledge exchange grant, is also an excellent way of presenting the results of a large study in a concise format. Well done SIRC.
Is this a case of postmodern decoupling of biological determinism and socio-cultural traditions? One of the comments mocks these folks and suggests that they ought to explore “their own culture” instead of running after remote culture. But most people find them cool. Another commenter praises them and accepts their choice of self-presentation “they believe in something and help people”. So no, I don’t think this is postmodern. I am skeptical about such arguments that describe everything that is out of the norm as postmodern. I’d rather agree with Latour’s claim that we have not really been modern. The reification of culture, such as its connection with birthplace, etc. is our attempt to appear modern – and its un-reification, such as the choice of culture that is not “biologically” our own, is pre-modern or just… well, it just is. Hm… am I making any sense?
