Methodological bias can directly affect the interpretation of research data. Studies reporting on excavated skeletons represent a valuable source of information in medicine, dentistry, archaeology... Show moreMethodological bias can directly affect the interpretation of research data. Studies reporting on excavated skeletons represent a valuable source of information in medicine, dentistry, archaeology and anthropology, and forensic sciences. However, these studies represent a specific setting with their own methodology, for which no quality assessment tool is available. The aim was to develop a critical appraisal tool to assess the methodological quality of studies reporting on archaeologically excavated human skeletons. An international Delphi study was therefore conducted to support item generation and ensure content validity for a new tool. Experts from the following domains were consulted: dentistry, forensic sciences, archaeology and anthropology, general medicine, epidemiology, and statistics. Participants judged the relevance and comprehensiveness of items retrieved from the literature. Consensus was predefined as 75% agreement between experts, and achieved within two Delphi rounds. As a result, 44 and 32 participants completed the first and second Delphi rounds, respectively, achieving consensus on 17 items. This research provides the first evidence-based tool for the methodological assessment of studies reporting on archaeologically excavated skeletons. Clinicians and researchers can use this tool for critical appraisal of studies or when performing systematic reviews. Future research will focus on psychometric testing of the newly developed tool. Show less
The great silver mining centers of Potosí, Porco, and Oruro in the Bolivian highlands have long formed an important focus for understanding the Spanish colonial world, both for the colonial... Show moreThe great silver mining centers of Potosí, Porco, and Oruro in the Bolivian highlands have long formed an important focus for understanding the Spanish colonial world, both for the colonial imagination and for the contemporary historian. In comparison with the contexts of production and exchange based around these mining centers, however, their wider contexts of mobility and logistics within the altiplano and the valleys leading west to the Pacific coast have been comparatively under-investigated by historians and archaeologists alike. The following chapter considers these peripheral and ‘interstitial’ landscapes and the communities they constituted (particularly as they articulated with prehispanic legacies of mobility and infrastructure), while also synthesizing some of the recent research on the archaeology of the colonial south-central Andes. The resulting discussion highlights some of the ongoing tensions between a focus on urban and rural environments, between different scales of analysis, and between textual and archaeological sources of historical data. Show less
Rede uitgesproken bij de aanvaarding van het ambt van Bijzonder hoogleraar Religie en Seksualiteit in Afrika aan de Faculteit der Maatschappij- en Gedragswetenschappen van de Universiteit van... Show moreRede uitgesproken bij de aanvaarding van het ambt van Bijzonder hoogleraar Religie en Seksualiteit in Afrika aan de Faculteit der Maatschappij- en Gedragswetenschappen van de Universiteit van Amsterdam op woensdag 24 juni 2015 Show less
Cette contribution compare les m‚thodologies et les ‚pist‚mologies r‚ciproques de la missiologie et de l'anthropologie en tant que disciplines. Selon l'auteur, le but initial de l'anthropologie... Show moreCette contribution compare les m‚thodologies et les ‚pist‚mologies r‚ciproques de la missiologie et de l'anthropologie en tant que disciplines. Selon l'auteur, le but initial de l'anthropologie est de d‚crire, d'analyser et de contextualiser toutes les variations culturelles de l'humanit‚. Mais l' anthropologie a connu des changements paradigmatiques; la notion de culture s'est transform‚e: les solutions de la g‚n‚ration pr‚c‚dente sont r‚invent‚es dans l'interaction sociale d'aujourd'hui. La nouvelle conception de la culture est capitale pour comprendre la relation entre missiologie et anthropologie. Li‚e … une croyance bien d‚finie, la position ‚pist‚mologique de la missiologie est tout … fait diff‚rente. Son point de d‚part est celui d'une v‚rit‚ revendiqu‚e, voire d'une r‚flexion orient‚e dans le but d'une expansion du message, en principe grƒce … une ‚tude syst‚matique et objective des autres croyances. Le dilemme que repr‚sente pour les missionnaires la "double loyaut‚", dans sa position d'ˆtre … la fois le repr‚sentant du message chr‚tien et l'observateur de l'autre, peut sembler r‚solu dans la cr‚ation des glises ind‚pendantes africaines, qui permet … la fois d'"avoir raison" tout en respectant l'autre. AprŠs avoir not‚ les diff‚rences ‚pist‚mologiques des deux disciplines, l'auteur montre quels sont leurs points communs. L'ethnologue comme le missionnaire participent dans une interaction restreinte, et mˆme instrumentale, au milieu culturel au sein duquel ils se trouvent et travaillent. Ils ‚tablissent un lieu de "culture interm‚diaire": la situation fondamentale de leur terrain respectif est plus semblable que leurs ‚pist‚mologies divergentes ne le laissent supposer. Mais cela ne veut pas dire que les deux disciplines soient en train de s'unifier progressivement. C'est seulement dans les ann‚es d'‚mergence de l'ethnologie que la missiologie en devint un des piliers, qui sont graduellement remplac‚s par des piliers proprement anthropologiques. Indig‚nis‚e, la missiologie quant … elle emprunte d‚sormais son propre chemin. Bibliogr., notes, r‚f. [R‚sum‚ ASC Leiden] Show less
This volume brings together fifteen essays investigating aspects of interculturality. Published between 1969 and 2002, the essays operate at the borderline between anthropology and intercultural... Show moreThis volume brings together fifteen essays investigating aspects of interculturality. Published between 1969 and 2002, the essays operate at the borderline between anthropology and intercultural philosophy. Ethnographic data are derived from field research carried out in Tunisia, Zambia and Botswana. While a number of chapters focus on specific African contexts, others have a more theoretical focus, or deal with the whole of Africa. The essays are arranged in five parts: 1. Preliminaries; 2. The construction of intercultural knowledge through anthropological fieldwork; 3. From anthropological fieldworker in southern Africa, to North Atlantic diviner-priest: an experiment in intercultural philosophy; 4. From cultural anthropology to intercultural philosophy; 5. Exercises in intercultural philosophy. [ASC Leiden abstract] Show less
This volume brings together fifteen essays investigating aspects of interculturality. Published between 1969 and 2002, the essays operate at the borderline between anthropology and intercultural... Show moreThis volume brings together fifteen essays investigating aspects of interculturality. Published between 1969 and 2002, the essays operate at the borderline between anthropology and intercultural philosophy. Ethnographic data are derived from field research carried out in Tunisia, Zambia and Botswana. While a number of chapters focus on specific African contexts, others have a more theoretical focus, or deal with the whole of Africa. The essays are arranged in five parts: 1. Preliminaries; 2. The construction of intercultural knowledge through anthropological fieldwork; 3. From anthropological fieldworker in southern Africa, to North Atlantic diviner-priest: an experiment in intercultural philosophy; 4. From cultural anthropology to intercultural philosophy; 5. Exercises in intercultural philosophy. [ASC Leiden abstract] Show less
In response to the need for further conceptual development in the field of anthropological globalization studies, this article concentrates on the concept of virtuality, arguing that this... Show moreIn response to the need for further conceptual development in the field of anthropological globalization studies, this article concentrates on the concept of virtuality, arguing that this constitutes one of the key concepts for a characterization and understanding of the forms of globalization and provisionally indicates their theoretical relationship. The problematic heritage of a locality-obsessed anthropological tradition (as explored in the article) then provides the analytical framework within which virtuality makes an inspiring topic. The transition from theory to empirical case studies is made by examining the problem of meaning in the African urban environment. Finally, an ethnographic situation is invoked (urban female puberty rites in the towns along the 'Line of Rail' in present-day Zambia) which illustrates particular forms of virtuality as part of the globalization process. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum Show less
The author concentrates on virtuality, which he has come to regard as one of the key concepts for characterizing and understanding the forms of globalization in Africa. Chapters 1 and 2 define... Show moreThe author concentrates on virtuality, which he has come to regard as one of the key concepts for characterizing and understanding the forms of globalization in Africa. Chapters 1 and 2 define virtuality and globalization and provisionally indicate their theoretical relationship. The problematic heritage of an anthropological tradition obsessed with locality provides the analytical framework within which virtuality makes an inspiring topic, as argued in Ch. 3. Ch. 4 offers a transition from theory to empirical case studies by examining the problem of meaning in the African urban environment. Ch. 5 evokes an ethnographic situation (urban puberty rites in present-day Zambia) that illustrates particular forms of virtuality as part of the globalization process. Ch. 6 applies the emerging insights into virtuality and the virtual village to Ren‚ Devisch's notion of villagization as a major process of societal transformation in the Zairian capital, Kinshasa. Ch. 7 explores the applicability of the same concepts to recent patterns of witchcraft and healing as studied, at the national level in Cameroon and Malawi, by Peter Geschiere and Matthew Schoffeleers respectively. The author's own earlier work on the Kazanga festival as an instance of virtuality in the rural context of western central Zambia is summarized in Ch. 8, after which a conclusion rounds off the argument. Show less
By bringing the active challenge to ethnographic authority by people written about to the fore, the authors of this chapter hope to raise some doubts about the matter-of-factness with which... Show moreBy bringing the active challenge to ethnographic authority by people written about to the fore, the authors of this chapter hope to raise some doubts about the matter-of-factness with which ethnographers maintain their identity as scholarly writers who do their research in some 'field' far away from 'home'. Focusing on the study of religion in Africa, they present two cases in which the tactical behaviour of both the anthropologists and their interlocutors challenges the hegemony of their attitudes towards each other's production of knowledge. The authors first discuss an element of anthropological fieldwork which, in practice, has been rare: the initiation of the researcher into secrets held by local religious leaders. Here, ethnographers (act as if they) accept the hegemony of the 'other' cultural practice while being initiated. Second, they describe a case from van Dijk's own fieldwork and show how the researcher was obliged to go through a penitential exercise after having produced a text in a popular magazine which insufficiently recognized the inspirational authority of religious leaders in the field (Born-Again preachers in Blantyre, Malawi). Bibliogr., notes, ref Show less
