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Revista Uruguaya de Antropología y Etnografía

versão impressa ISSN 2393-7068versão On-line ISSN 2393-6886

Rev. urug. Antropología y Etnografía vol.5 no.1 Montevideo  2020  Epub 01-Jun-2020

https://doi.org/10.29112/ruae.v5.n1.1 

Editorial

EDITORIAL vol 1 2020


The first months of this year 2020 will be remembered with greater, or less, intensity in all formal and informal levels, in written history, and in the stories or oral history that long-term memories produce, records of people's history and of the different societies. The true fact is that in this short period the lives of all humans were affected or were in danger in some way.

It may sound like a cliche, heard over and over in every conceivable tone and style, but the truth is that the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic became an inescapable event, the impact of which we cannot yet measure to the full extent of its implications. In the face of such immensity and discomfort, it is essential to seek interpretative categories, arm ourselves with instruments and knowledge that our culture, our disciplinary training, can offer us. There are several of us finding the total social fact as a founding theoretical category of anthropology, to which it now seems necessary to add a greater scope, beyond the total there must be another category that can evoke the globality of the known world.

This addition would not be a mere play on words, but an adjustment to a new context of the 21st century based on the inspired wittiness of Marcel Mauss, who proposed the totality formula to describe events produced in ethnographic worlds at the beginning of the 20th century, in Island societies (such as the emblematic Trobriand Islands people) creators of impressive cultural products, rituals that “captured” an individual, etching him or her into the group's history.

With his expressive economy, M. Mauss established the scope of action and implication of certain events, or facts, noted by the certainty that certain human experiences are social and individual at the same time. Without transition, they go through both the social body and the actualness of each other.

In the current circumstances the phenomenon being imposed is of a biological order (epidemic expansion into pandemic), but is interwoven into the social and cultural reality of every one of us.

The situation of our physical, and mental states finds precedent in mythical, literary and historical stories, inspiring sources to establish, from the sense they carry, a dialogue that chronicles us through time, in the diachrony of facts and in the synchrony of experiences.

In every new volume of the Uruguayan Magazine of Anthropology and Ethnography we choose passages for this section, which with great power of evocation, as is the case this time, display a scenario of priorities. From the bottom of the illo tempore, the vicissitudes of Ulises' return trip illustrates the imperative to remember, of memory. In the current circumstances of preventive isolation, it is good to remember that we preserve our cultural mandates as social beings. Nothing will be forgotten.

We find the same message charged with feeling and humanity as the two characters in A. Camus' novel, The Plague, who end a day of altruistic medical struggle with the simple pleasure of the sea in friendly complicity. Finally, as one of the characters explains, moral commitment cannot forget the moments where bodies and nature openly meet again.

The current circumstances have also affected the process of editing this Journal, with times changing significantly, since each one of us had to consider priorities. We can also thank the interest of national and foreign authors who sent us results of research or theoretical works that have reached a level of academic maturity. We also welcome proposals of works in process, as ways of deepening lines of specialization or of a more initial inquiry.

With the goal of broadening knowledge, we also meet and connect with specialists of different nationalities, who make their contribution with consolidated authorships.

The call for contributions for 2020 had raised the topic of the temporal in the future of the discipline, a subject that, without being explicitly dealt with in the presented texts, crosses the active meaning of all their contents, a production that reveals a plasticity to investigate in rarely transited scenarios, querying new and changing facts, carrying out multiple works in progress in a field with anthropology, ethnography, as its staples.

We appreciate the contribution of the plastic artist Carmela Piñón Cadenazzi, who sent us her series Entrelazados (Intertwined), an excellent synthesis of all the content and reflections that the current context and circumstances deserve. Thanks also to the cultural management of Macarena Montañez.

Finally, and as permanent fixture of the publication, we detail the following:

  • 1-We remind authors that we distribute the original material received, in the two volumes per year, according to the rate of revision of each text according to regulations and guidelines, as well as the fluidity of the external evaluation process.

  • 2-We emphasize that there is no charge or any type of tariff. To accept articles or texts, we only require that they comply with the quality of content and formally with the Publication Standards, as detailed later.

  • 3-We announce that according to new international requirements for the publication of scientific journals, we send the contents for plagiarism review with Crossref.

  • 4-We announce the expansion of the Editorial Board, the Editorial Team and the creation of an Executive Editorial Commission. We thank and welcome the colleagues who are sharing this academic endeavour, in the best disciplinary tradition, of responsibly assumed risks.

Studies and Essays

In this Section we present three texts reflecting different research situations regarding topics, places, and the emphasis where the focus of the authors’ interests reside. The first two articles give an account of the development and results of ethnographic works, one in a traditional and rather rural context in Argentina’s northeast, the other in an educational center at the urban heart of Buenos Aires. The third article, by a Mexican colleague, refers to a rather more theoretical search, always looking for a way to relate knowledge and fidelity with the thought that is to be interpreted, communicated. The nationalities of the authors only imply compliance with the scope of our proposal as a publication, which adapts to time and relates with interlocutors far beyond our national limits.

In the text “Outline on the cult of San La Muerte in the northeast of Argentina” Cesar Iván Bondar and Elena María Krautstofl, (University of Misiones, Argentina), report beliefs and risky cults around the protection that dead children are supposed to provide, rather the protection provided by talismans made with their little bones. What calls for reflection is the cultural naturalness acknowledging the taking of body parts, like the little finger, from the small bodies, and preparing them to be inserted under the skin of the person asking for protection. The "little saint" will thus protect hardened adults, all of it occurring in current times. What are the real effects of the protective gift from these "little angels", dead before their time? As we know, beliefs have a lasting effect, they defy legal logic, that’s why they are perpetuated customs that could be thought of as banished in a present where, apparently, the rules of the material world prevail. Once again we find that ethnographic "excavations" reveal levels of contemporaneity with legitimately accepted symbolic validity, outside of hegemonic rationalities.

"Secondary crimes: an ethnographic approach to the police genre in a school institution". Hernán Maltz (University of Buenos Aires, Argentina) proposes a field investigation, with real commitment, requesting permits for their presence and inquiry in a prestigious institution of secondary education at the heart of Buenos Aires city. Starting from a sociology approach to literature, an area related to anthropology and applying an ethnographic methodology, the author goes through difficulties typical of all field work, where face to face relationships must be handled taking care of explicit or subtly implicit rules for entry, communication, approach to subjects. Like all ethnography, this study (on the teaching of the police novel genre) yields significant data on the social and time period context: young students and teachers compose "atypical" scenes, since to approach a novel, a literary piece, the shortest path seems to be the passage through precedents in audiovisual format… Would the temporal dimension be bringing cultural change, blurring reasons to lie at written subtleties, by authors of the stature of E. Allan Poe, D. Defoe, L. Borges, among others?.

“Benjamin translation and Ethnography: Other-Subject in Latin America” by Francisco Javier Gómez Carpinteiro (University of Puebla, México) is a theoretic essay that raises recurring concerns and reflections in Latin American researchers, anthropologists and others who try to see themselves beyond a possible situation of colonial-type domination, in the endeavor to build decolonial thinking, with autonomy to construct statements without submitting to global paradigms. In this intimate and professional pursuit, the antecedents of Franz Fanon are more than pertinent, he delved into the wound of the introjection of the status of the controlled, doubly, when objective evaluations of the racial brand were crossed, even questioning the status of humanity. Reflection inevitably reaches the position of the researcher in the field of anthropology, ethnography, where the dilemma of understanding, of transmitting, and translating arises not only from one thought to another, but from entire paradigms. Everyone, when taking the floor, has options that are not all immediately intelligible. That is where W. Benjamin's critique of the real (or not real) possibility of translation comes. Reflections always valid in changing worlds.

Research Advances

In this section we present two works, which reflect different moments of elaboration and possible results. A proposal that answers the urgent needs to know and interpret events related to the current public health emergency (Anthropology and Health Program, FHCE, Uruguay), and a personal study, within the curricular context of the Bachelor of Anthropological Sciences, (FHCE, Uruguay).

"Uniformity and Divergence: Covid 19. XXI century pandemic". Virginia Rial Ferreira briefly and clearly presents an investigation that is being carried out by the majority of members of the Anthropology and Health Program. It consists of simultaneous and collective ethnographic record making in public spaces and in health institutions, searching for behavioral patterns expressed in agreement, or disagreement, with recommended preventive measures. Results will have to wait until the analysis and interpretation phase is complete. It is important to note that this research is part of the reference Program, with a group composed by ten participants, although V. Rial took the initiative to write this advance piece. This proposal is more than timely at a time when we are under alert due to the aforementioned pandemic.

“Nothing to say, nothing to ask? Ethical-methodological reflections on field relations in working with a reaction group”, Pablo Camacho Spósitto proposes a theoretical reflection on ethical aspects in his role as a young researcher who dares to inquire into what he calls a "reaction group" in which he does not feel empathy, but quite the contrary. He wonders how to handle the difference of ideas, of positions, how to overcome these difficulties without exercising disciplinary arrogance. The gaze on the Other/others grouped in a collective, United Men, has to be very careful but sincere; maybe the ethical core lies in maintaining their own positions without masking discrepancies, without violating limits between observer and observed, within the context of militancy in the defense of the rights agenda of communities that have agreed to the social and political recognition of their rights, something that is questioned somehow from organizations like United Men. This self-analysis exercise, this reflexiveness, is important, it entails a burden on Pablo Camacho. As an advanced student, he is preparing to assume commitments as a professional researcher.

Dossier

In the Dossier Section we have featured material, contents of the International Seminar "Views from Latin America: Borders and Mobilities in the Southern Cone, Colombia, and the Mesoamerican Corridor", organized by FLACSO-Guatemala, in February 2020.

Andrea Quadrelli (FHCE, Uruguay) was one of the speakers at that event, and carried out the work of gathering interventions of colleagues from different countries for the Uruguayan Journal of Anthropology and Ethnography. The issue of migrations, involuntary mobility, as well as the problem of border crossing have become current topics of great importance as emerging socio-cultural, strategic spaces in the midst of the global pandemic alarm.

Exhibitions by: Enrique Coraza de los Santos, Mexico; César E. Ordoñez, Guatemala; Monica Gatica, Argentina; Pilar Uriarte, Uruguay; Andrea Quadrelli, Uruguay; Magdalena Curbelo, Uruguay; Jeisson Oswaldo Martínez, Spain; Juan José Méndez Barrios, Guatemala.

Open Space

-We are pleased to present a text, Health Crisis, Civilizational Crisis, in Spanish, by the researcher, and anthropologist, Michel Maffesoli, from France, who sent it personally as a contribution to RUAE in this global emergency. M. Mafffesoli has been very present in the French media, performing socio-cultural and historical analysis of recurrent pandemics over time. He maintains that the current health crisis brings the return of the tragic to the stage of a surrendering postmodernity.

We highlight the reviews, written and sent by their own authors of the Doctoral Theses defended at the end of 2019, within the framework of the FHCE Postgraduate Program, where the Doctorates in Anthropology are producing good work, related to current affairs.

Mariana Viera Cherro, defended her thesis, entitled "Gender and Biocapitalism. Political economy of the “donation” of gametes in Uruguay”.

Fabrizio Martinez Dibarboure, defended his thesis, Entitled "Rescuing the Person between alcoholic problems and psychiatric treatments from an Anthropology and Health approach".

Announcement:

For the next volume of this year of the Uruguayan Magazine of Anthropology and Ethnography we announce the publication (by Sonnia Romero) of the reviews of two important titles that refer to Uruguay, published in Buenos Aires by the Gorla publishing house, Ethnography collection of the Popular Sectors directed by Pablo Semán,

- “Behind the poverty line. Life in the popular neighborhoods of Montevideo”, by Verónica Filardo and Denis Merklen.

- “The Furries. Culture, politics and nation on the margins of Uruguay” by Silvina Merenson.

Announcements of meetings, academic events

Congress: Latin American Association of Anthropology ALA, Montevideo 2020

Poster of the Congress

Sonnia Romero Gorski Instituto de Antropología - FHCE Montevideo, junio 2020

Acknowledgments

We appreciate the contributions by all authors, as well as the selfless collaboration of the evaluators.

The translations for this volume into Portuguese and English were performed by Andrea Quadrelli, from the FHCE and Bruno Costabel, respectively.

We appreciate the contribution and artistic management carried out by Macarena Montañez (pozodeagua televisión). For this year, we are thankful for the work of Carmela Piñón Cadenazzi, for her series “Interlaced”, for volumes 1 and 2 of 2020.

We thank Unesco-Montevideo for publishing the complete PDF of the Uruguayan Journal of Anthropology and Ethnography on the MOST Program site.

The Magazine is completed with the professional work of Javier Fraga in diagramming, Gabriela Motta from the Librarianship Bachelor in the process of preparing files for Scielo Uruguay, and lastly Gerardo Ribero in OJS format.

Note Formal aspects to highlight: I. This magazine has the Creative Commons License (cc-by) to protect the content in free access (electronic version) as well as the commercial distribution (paper version). II. The Uruguayan Anthropologic and Ethnographic Magazine only publishes original material and has five sections: Editorial. 1. Studies and Essays. 2. Research Advances. 3. Dossier. 4. Open Space. III. Arbitration and Quality Control The articles in Section 2 are subject to a double-blind arbitration and then, the full content has already an academic endorsement: it arises from already evaluated researches, institutionally backed events, book presentations or postgraduate thesis. The whole publication has duly evaluated production and academic activities. All the material undergoes a revision by the editors, the editor assistants and we have the backing of the Editorial Staff. The product achieved gives us energy to continue calling for collaborations along our line of opening towards themes that, without being localized at local level, provide new visions and updating lines. IV. There is no charge or cost for authors. V. Program Ithenticate-Cross Ref.

Creative Commons License Este es un artículo publicado en acceso abierto bajo una licencia Creative Commons