networking across institutions. It was also a other disciplines, anthropology has been programmes and local communities.
mes and local communities. His pres-
chance for students to familiarize themselves
with the application of anthropological knowl-
edge inside and outside academia.
Saturday’s plenary session was also
streamed online, meaning that people who
were not present could engage with the ses-
sion and potentially pose questions. The
networking app Howdy was an interesting
addition – functioning like Tinder but using
profile details from LinkedIn. The conference
was also online at #poweringtheplanet and
#worldneedsanthro.
Sunday’s programme consisted of a walking
tour of the mines – which apparently went
very well – and a series of more conventional
workshops. The ‘Energethics’ workshop
presented the findings of a four-year project
based in Bergen on the CSR (corporate social
responsibility) and ethical practices of majority
state-owned Norwegian energy companies,
with case studies presented from Tanzania,
Turkey and northern Norway. This included
interesting ethnographic material on the dis-
juncture between expectations, practice and
reporting, and plenty of time was allocated for
a lively plenary discussion on risk assessment,
accountability and environmental impacts.
For those who were unable to attend the
event in Durham or watch the livestream,
filmed material from Saturday’s plenary will
be made available on the EASA Applied
Anthropology Facebook page.
The next ‘Why the world needs anthropolo-
gists’ event will be in Lisbon on 26-27 October
2018. The theme will be ‘Designing the future’
and will be of interest to anthropologists in the
field of design (in its broadest sense) as well
as those looking to apply their skills beyond
academia and who may wish to seek collabora-
tions with non-academics. l
Heid Jerstad
www.weathermatters.net
heidmj@gmail.com
Ragnhild Freng Dale
University of Cambridge
rfd22@cam.ac.uk
The event may be accessed via http://applied-anthropology.
com/. It was co-organized by the Durham Energy Institute
and the People Project (people-project.net, an Erasmus+
project).
PEOPLE IN CONTEXT:
ANTHROPOLOGICAL
REFLECTIONS IN A ‘POST-
TRUTH’ WORLD
7th RAI Student Conference, Durham
University, 20-22 April 2017
The theme of this 7th RAI student three-day
conference at Durham University was ‘People
in context: Anthropological reflections in a
post-truth world’. The event included seven
panels, two workshops and three keynotes,
plus film screenings and poster presenta-
tions. It pulled together 44 speakers, including
many postgraduate students from several
universities.
As highlighted by Trudi Buck, more than
ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY VOL 34 NO 1, FEBRUARY 2018 21
dealing with different truths for a long time,
and yet we were caught out by the recent
political challenges to scientific objectivity.
Ranging from medical practices to politics
to media, the conference showcased the
fields where anthropology can be applied and
where diverse truths emerge. This resulted in
a dynamic exchange of thoughts and ideas,
highlighting how current research takes into
consideration emotions and feelings and how
these can be turned into valuable insights for
our society to challenge stereotypes.
In the post-truth and knowledge panel, Elena
Miltiadis cast light on the methodological
challenges she faced conducting her fieldwork
in Italy. By investigating the notion of ‘native’
and ‘other’ in her Italian hometown, she
encountered sometimes conflicting perspec-
tives on who is ‘a native’. She found herself
in the position of being described, to her own
surprise, as ‘other’ by some ‘locals’. The ‘true’
local here emerged as an old person who spoke
the local dialect, had lived in the city their
entire life and could prove their local descent.
Her doctoral work emphasized the ‘constant
dialogical negotiation’ between ‘me’ and the
‘other’ that ethnographic fieldwork brings
about in a period of ever-increasing migration
and social change.
One of the most interesting examples of
the challenge to commonly accepted truth
was demonstrated in Trudi Buck’s workshop,
which highlighted the controversial notion of
truth in forensic anthropology. By working
with human remains and the diverse economic,
social and environmental conditions that affect
human biological development, the quest for
objective truth is challenging. Apparently self-
evident truths, like determining the gender of a
skeleton, can be extremely difficult in circum-
stances where it is no longer possible to extract
the DNA and physical markers are difficult
to identify. The concept of truth in forensic
anthropology is often plural and allows dif-
ferent degrees of reliability.
In the gender panel, Hannah McInnes-Dean
presented the development of her doctoral
thesis on birth stories in Edinburgh. With a
focus on how maternity is narrated and how
it shapes the identity of the parents, this work
caught my attention for its originality. Cultural
expectations towards maternity shape the
behaviour of parents and criteria such as who
is a ‘good mother’ or what is ‘good’ for the
baby, are negotiated in daily practices.
Several keynote speakers also provided
interesting insights. Paul Sillitoe provided
a witty account of the origins of the disci-
pline’s history at Durham. He recounted an
interdisciplinary history of anthropology in
the northeast of England and highlighted
how anthropology has always been part of
this region: from religious communities to
local artists to academics, and only ‘recently’
the anthropology department at Durham
University. In the opening address to the
conference, Steve Lyon provided an account
of his fieldwork in Pakistan, followed by an
investigation of anthropology’s role in relation
to state security, international development
entation highlighted how potentially secre-
tive or anonymous issues like development
programmes and national security matters
have a human face behind the procedural and
institutional framework that often forgets the
local people and cultures. He argued in favour
of ethical standards in anthropology and for a
conscious and careful use of anthropological
data and research by the government and
development agencies. Sarah Winkler-Reid
closed the conference, emphasizing the role
played by gender, ethnicity and sexuality in
her recent fieldwork in a secondary school in
London. She highlighted how ethics is a cru-
cial element shaping relations, networks and
hierarchies among young people in the school
environment. Identities are continuously
negotiated among students and are affected
by external factors such as the role of teachers
and parents.
The conference sparked many questions and
provided plenty of insights into the many pos-
sible, alternative and partial ‘truths’. l
Luca Lo Scavo
Leiden University
luca.loscavo@gmail.com
letters
The forgotten art of squatting
I was surprised that the December issue of
ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY 33(6):30 considered
a lightweight Quartzy website article (9
November) – ‘The forgotten art of squatting’
– to be newsworthy. Historically and anthro-
pologically informed discussion of the exotic
and harmful nature of the Western addiction
to chairs was published as long ago as 1957
by Gordon Hewes (‘The anthropology of
posture’, Scientific American, 196(2): 122-32)
and, more recently, in 1998 by Galen Crantz
(The chair: Rethinking culture, body and
design. London: W.W. Norton & Co).
I, too, would much rather squat than sit on
a chair, let alone on a deep modern sofa, or
a sit-up-and-beg toilet, but it is simplistic of
Rosie Spinks to assume that everybody in the
good old days of the past once squatted, irre-
spective of climatic zone, social rank, gender
and age. Low stools and benches raised indi-
viduals above damp, cold floors. It is true,
and unfortunate, that Western imperialism and
prestige have spread the absurd modern idea
that individual raised seating for all members
of a society is a marker of cultural superi-
ority. There are good reasons for thinking it
is physiologically harmful, not just for backs,
but also for circulation in the legs, muscle
development etc. It is fascinating to see how
people in cultures that have recently borrowed
the chair often succeed in restricting, and sub-
verting, its usage.
Mary Searle-Chatterjee
University of Manchester
msearlechatterjee@gmail.com