Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society https://journal.fi/suomenantropologi <p><em>Suomen Antropologi – Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society</em> is an open access peer-reviewed publication which accepts scholarly articles, review articles, research reports, critical essays, conference reports, book reviews, and news and information in the field of anthropology and related studies.</p> The Finnish Anthropological Society en-US Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society 1799-8972 <p>Copyright and publishing rights for texts published in <em>Suomen antropologi</em> is retained by the authors, with first publication rights granted to the journal. By virtue of their appearance in this open access journal, texts are free to use, with proper attribution and link to the licensing, in educational settings. <em>Suomen antropologi</em> uses by default the CC BY-NC 4.0 license, which requires attribution and prohibits commercial use. Authors are however free to choose a different CC license (e.g. CC BY, CC, CC BY-SA, CC BY-ND, CC BY-NC-ND), for example in order to comply with the requirements set by the funders of their research.</p> Producing Human Life or Protecting Wildlife? https://journal.fi/suomenantropologi/article/view/129520 <p>A series of biodiversity conservation campaign since 1980s and the establishment of Siberut National Park on Siberut Island (West Sumatra, Indonesia) have seriously unsettled the relationship between the Mentawai and forest as well as between the Mentawai with powerful external agencies. For the Mentawai, forest and nature should be managed and utilized. Claiming and contesting forests have been part of the Mentawai social fabric and histories, while cultivating and transforming them into social spaces (agroforest, sago garden, settlements) and extracting uncultivated animals and plants are valued human activities and important criteria in the construction of Mentawai personhood. The park has tried to persuade people keeping the forest intact and not using and transforming it. The establishment of the park also implies that the state claims the land and the forest. This paper argues that establishing a national park and protecting forests contradicts the value of productive activities and the history of human labour attached and spent on the land and forest. The resistance over forest protection offers vital clues in understanding how producing nature is inseparable from producing humans and discusses how people can coexist with forests and nonhuman entities, not just by conserving it, but by transforming it. Understanding the mutual production and transformation of human nature is crucial to the future of biodiversity conservation activities on the island.</p> Darmanto Darmanto Koen Meyers Copyright (c) 2024 Darmanto Darmanto, Koen Meyers http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0 2024-09-10 2024-09-10 48 3 4 30 10.30676/jfas.129520 Promises of Development, Land Acquisition, and Dispossession https://journal.fi/suomenantropologi/article/view/131739 <p>This article examines how the futures promised by the postcolonial state through various projects leave peasants sceptical about a new government project at the rural margin of India. Focusing on a car factory project undertaken in 2006 by the government of the West Bengal Indian state, I explore how a half century-long project of land reforms shaped the dispossession politics of the peasants whose lands have been acquired for a car factory project. Based on an ethnography in Singur, this article explores how a car factory project at the very onset of its implementation instilled a sense of harm to life and livelihoods. Consequently, that project produced forms of spatiotemporal inequality between different socioeconomic groups in connection, not only with their ownership of land, but also with their respective vision of their work futures.</p> <p>Keywords: project form, dispossession, land acquisition, peasantry, India</p> Dayabati Roy Copyright (c) 2024 Dayabati Roy http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0 2024-09-10 2024-09-10 48 3 31 49 10.30676/jfas.131739 Rural Murle Age-Set Men Tackling Elites in South Sudan https://journal.fi/suomenantropologi/article/view/141624 <p>The Murle age system is often presented in a negative light in the South Sudan conflict reporting, which links age-set activities to communal violence, cattle rustling, and the abduction of women and children. Such assessments by outsiders overlook the positive effects of age-sets on interethnic relations in rural areas, where young people follow the Murle tradition and navigate the complex influence networks of Murle society. We focus on pastoral Murle youth in Pibor born in the 1980s and 1990s—that is, the laŋo age-set. By drawing on in-depth life-story interviews, this article studies how Murle laŋo masculinity is constructed, embodied, and negotiated. The analysis of our ethnographic data exemplifies how early childhood emotional bonds with caregivers, conflicts, and marginalisation impact the life trajectory of one Murle man. Our results show the connectedness of political orientation, tradition, and masculinity to intergenerational conflict and competition for political and societal power in Murle society. The study increases our understanding of Murle laŋo men’s survival strategies. Specifically, it shows that these rural marginalised Murle youth build alliances beyond kinship and ethnic ties, defend land, advance the goal of peace with neighbours, volunteer for unpaid community work to fight idleness, and act as a counter force to prevent manipulation by political and military leaders.</p> <p>Zɔɔz</p> <p>Zɔɔz nici ɔp bayiz ci ɔl o maac een murle abaak Murla, ki gɔl ci bayizo, ki gɔl ci ganonto been culanɛ ci kobɛkɛ ɔl kaal. Gi ci titiny bayize ceen murlen nɛɛn, buluwa kibeen kerenɛ ogi o murle gɔɔn anya bayiz o gɛɛr gɔɔn aruwɔn ɔl, ma kɔran tiin moda ma kagaman ŋai ki dɔɔl ci modo. Mazin liŋliŋɔnti nici aŋamnek kaal o abon agɔɔn bulowa o abaak murla loce o ɔl o kolik een junup ŋawo azɔɔzi kaal o bayiz uneŋ murlo. Ma golowa ci kaŋamneka kalyanit o bayiz o een murlen, ayelza rɔŋrɔŋanɔnɛt ci arɔrɔŋanɔn nigi ki, gɔɔl ci adiŋdiŋani Jowanɛ o adilyai, gɔl ci siaso, ki kɛranɛ, ki kaal ci akati ŋayetin ki jorɛnɛɛn zɛɛ been ŋɛrɔn ci aŋɛrɔɔn alata o murlo aŋɛrɛ sias giye ci arɔɔŋi rum o. Bayizi ween aturuwen aroŋnyi, ayelzai bule o kazi lango, agamta nigi bayiz ci aromɛn niŋgi dook kodoye, ma arican ganɔɔn ma buk ɔp calaŋ aŋɛɛr nɔgɔ siasa karabɔŋ een zɔɔz ci takirzetu.</p> <p>Keywords: masculinity, laŋo, life story, tradition, elites, Murle, South Sudan</p> Juhanna Sankelo Paulino Jijiyo Copyright (c) 2024 Juhanna Sankelo, Paulino Jijiyo http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0 2024-09-10 2024-09-10 48 3 50 72 10.30676/jfas.141624 Justifying Meritocracy https://journal.fi/suomenantropologi/article/view/136843 <p style="font-weight: 400;">The theoretical aim of this paper is to articulate a novel analytical framework that makes sense of our interlocutors’ apparently conflicting claims about the reality of meritocracy in China. The theoretical argument is rooted in ethnographic fieldwork conducted in a Chinese high school, where teachers and working-class students live under the shadows of the demanding and high-stakes university entrance exam (the gaokao). How is it possible to preserve the outwardly inconsistent positions (1) that the gaokao is egalitarian and, thus, fair and (2) that students’ much wealthier counterparts have significantly higher probabilities of success when compared to poorer students? This article argues for the possibility of dynamism in epistemic standards, suggesting that belief in structural systems like meritocracy might be founded in cognitive attempts to maintain the aims of ethical life.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Keywords: China, epistemology, ethics, meritocracy, metacognition</p> Edwin Hao Chen Jiang Copyright (c) 2024 Edwin Hao Chen Jiang http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0 2024-09-10 2024-09-10 48 3 73 96 10.30676/jfas.136843 Encounter https://journal.fi/suomenantropologi/article/view/144910 <p>Anthropologists often talk about ‘encounters,’ but what do they actually mean? This term—‘encounter’—shows up everywhere across ethnographic writing and practice, but is itself rarely defined or discussed. ‘Ethnographies of encounters,’ too, are increasingly common, but are rarely treated as a distinct type of ethnography. In this short essay, I recommend approaching the concept of encountering more consciously, but also defining it in a relatively basic and expansive way. Encounters across difference are open-ended: they can lead to collaboration, conflict, negotiation or an awkward disconnect, to name a few. Encounters are many-sided: much beyond a single studied group of people, beyond the ethnographer’s home society, and more than human. Assuming that encounters are very open-ended and many-sided brings new methodological and ethical challenges. Yet, it helps expand our attention and care in fieldwork and analysis, while postponing our judgements.</p> <p><strong>Keywords: </strong>ethnographies of encounter, alterity, relationality, world-making, definitions</p> <p> </p> <p><em>This essay belongs to the essay series “The Anthropologist’s Toolkit: Reflections on ethnographic methodology”. In this series, authors peer into the anthropologist’s toolkit to reflect on what ethnographic methodology constitutes in all its multimodal forms. </em></p> Laur Kiik Copyright (c) 2024 Laur Kiik http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0 2024-09-10 2024-09-10 48 3 97 102 10.30676/jfas.144910 Lectio Præcursoria https://journal.fi/suomenantropologi/article/view/146716 <p>A lectio præcursoria is a short presentation read out loud by a doctoral candidate at the start of a public thesis examination in Finland. It introduces the key points or central argument of the thesis in a way that should make the ensuing discussion between the examinee and the examiner apprehensible to the audience, many of whom may be unfamiliar with the candidate’s research or even anthropological research in general.</p> Samuli Lähteenaho Copyright (c) 2024 Samuli Lähteenaho http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0 2024-09-10 2024-09-10 48 3 103 108 10.30676/jfas.146716 Lectio præcursoria https://journal.fi/suomenantropologi/article/view/145407 <p><span style="left: 216.979px; top: 445.364px; font-size: 16.1667px; font-family: sans-serif; transform: scaleX(1.00111);">A lectio præcursoria is a short presentation read out loud by a doctoral </span><span style="left: 217.919px; top: 470.358px; font-size: 16.1667px; font-family: sans-serif; transform: scaleX(1.03418);">candidate at the start of a public thesis examination in Finland. It introduces </span><span style="left: 218.067px; top: 495.352px; font-size: 16.1667px; font-family: sans-serif; transform: scaleX(1.02944);">the key points or central argument of the thesis in a way that should </span><span style="left: 218.133px; top: 520.345px; font-size: 16.1667px; font-family: sans-serif; transform: scaleX(1.02516);">make the ensuing discussion between the examinee and the examiner </span><span style="left: 217.985px; top: 545.339px; font-size: 16.1667px; font-family: sans-serif; transform: scaleX(1.06927);">apprehensible to the audience, many of whom may be unfamiliar with the </span><span style="left: 217.935px; top: 570.333px; font-size: 16.1667px; font-family: sans-serif; transform: scaleX(1.04673);">candidate’s research or even anthropological research in general.</span></p> Sanna Vellava Copyright (c) 2024 Sanna Vellava http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0 2024-09-10 2024-09-10 48 3 109 114 10.30676/jfas.145407 Lectio praecursoria https://journal.fi/suomenantropologi/article/view/146060 <p>A lectio præcursoria is a short presentation read out loud by a doctoral candidate at the start of a public thesis examination in Finland. It introduces the key points or central argument of the thesis in a way that should make the ensuing discussion between the examinee and the examiner apprehensible to the audience, many of whom may be unfamiliar with the candidate’s research or even anthropological research in general.</p> Kristina Leppälä Copyright (c) 2024 Kristina Leppälä http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0 2024-09-10 2024-09-10 48 3 115 125 10.30676/jfas.146060 Lectio praecursoria https://journal.fi/suomenantropologi/article/view/144937 <p>A lectio præcursoria is a short presentation read out loud by a doctoral candidate at the start of a public thesis examination in Finland. It introduces the key points or central argument of the thesis in a way that should make the ensuing discussion between the examinee and the examiner apprehensible to the audience, many of whom may be unfamiliar with the candidate’s research or even anthropological research in general.</p> <p> </p> Ioana Țîștea Copyright (c) 2024 Ioana Țîștea http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0 2024-09-10 2024-09-10 48 3 126 130 10.30676/jfas.144937 Editorial Note https://journal.fi/suomenantropologi/article/view/147831 <p>It gives me great pleasure to present a new issue of Suomen antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society. This issue contains four peer-reviewed articles, an essay, and four research reports.</p> Suvi Rautio Copyright (c) 2024 Suvi Rautio http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0 2024-09-10 2024-09-10 48 3 1 3 10.30676/jfas.147831