New intern at the Anthropology Research Team

My name is Berit Wahlers and this is the first day of my internship at the Arctic Center in Rovaniemi. I will be spending two month at the Anthropology research team and during this period I will assist the team in their daily work. Apart from that, I will try to find a topic for my Master …

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Santa anthropology? Santa Claus link collection

Where would be a better place than at the Arctic Circle to establish a research unit on the ethnography and social anthropology of Santa Clauses? When we think about Santa, we mostly get the image of this Coca-Cola dressed red and white person riding on Rudolf the reindeer bringing presents. But in fact there is …

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Lectures and events, autumn 2012, anthropology research team, Rovaniemi

Open invitation to all, academic and practitioner participants – no RSVP required. Additional posters and announcements for the different events will be posted at the door of the venue. Please see also separate programmes and announcements on the "lectures and events" page of this blog Unless otherwise announced, all events to be held in the …

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Notes on hospitality, performance and potlatch: University of Yakutsk, Russia

What is a potlatch? Barbara Miller, author of Cultural Anthropology (2007), describes it as  "a feast in which the host lavishes the guests with abundant quantities of the best food and many gifts." That's what I felt reminded of at a recent conference on "science and education in the 21st century" [couldn't have been broader, …

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What’s the difference between science and religion? Thoughts about indigenous knowledge systems

Several of our anthropology research team members just came from a lecture by Prof Sandra Harding from UCLA on different science and knowledge systems, which was really inspiring. It was part of an Indigenous Knowledge Systems Workshop here at the Arctic Centre, the other keynote lecturers being Elina Helander Renvall and Suvi Ronkainen. Harding placed …

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Anastasia Lapsui and Markku Lehmusskallio – guests of the team in Rovaniemi

We all know and admire the films by Markku Lehmuskallio and Anastasia Lapsui about the life and history of the Nenets people. On the 30th August 2012 they came to the Arcrtic Centre in Rovaniemi for a preview of their latest film “Eleven human images” (Yksitoista ihmisen kuvaa). This film reflects the worldview of Markku …

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