Paper short abstract:

This paper explores human kinesthetic movement as observed across time and space through visual anthropology in terms of culturesand affective ecologies in relation to transforming present life ways.

Paper long abstract:

Our 'lifeworlds'research is demonstrated through 20th century advances of anthropology in Bali, Sri Lanka, Japan, and America. From the 1930s to 1960s anthropologists (Gregory Bateson &Margaret Mead, John Collier, Jr., Edward Hall, John Adair, Don and Ron Rundstrom) have observed continual process of 'becoming' through the ways it is expressed as movement in the context of space.

I will revisit the methodological practices in case studies and opening up to advanced virtual systems. The purpose is exploring diverse knowledge, practice, and problems as documented in movement encompassing visual, aesthetic, and sensory anthropologies vis-à-vis discourses of public community discussion and scholarly interaction.

The result is revealingimagined status, virtual, and/or textually accounted for giving a sense of self worth and place in social contexts and/or natural environment. Our media begins with analog photography and film to virtual reality (VR) 360-surround immersive interactive environments.

Resulting ethnographic interactive platforms activate viewer participation and allows people to engage the subject matter in a uniquely individualized experience of people and place: one that not only questions how one can understand issues of identity and traditions in a rapidly changing globalized cultural landscape, but also how one can experience local culture and geography through a malleable, immersive, non-linear mosaic narrative.

Examples will be given through photography and film presented in cultural kinesthetic movement in new research media to illustratevirtual reality in terms of individual cultural values.

Paper short abstract:

As the polity continues to evolve in Taiwan, so too does the relationship between the Republic of China (ROC) military and society.

Paper long abstract:

Democratization, the growth of civil society, economic and social liberalization, and greater equality in terms of gender and sexual orientation have marked a Taiwan society that is becoming liberal, largely in the same pattern that has taken place in much of the West. As society becomes more open and free, there has been a tendency for government and policymakers to push the military—an important social institution—in that direction as well. The problem arises, however, when Western examples are followed without a proper assessment of whether they are appropriate for local conditions. An example is the push to transition the ROC military to an All-Volunteer Force: this worked in the West because it happened organically and based on exhaustive sociological research conducted prior to implementation. But is it the right thing for Taiwan?

In order to assess the applicability of the Western example, this research uses as its theoretical construct the Postmodern Military Model, a theoretical construct used to describe how civil-military relations transform driven by changes in perceived threat. As developed by US military sociologist Charles Moskos, the PMMM describes the transformations that have taken place in the US military and other armed forces, and aids in understanding the state of civil-military relations. This research assesses the ROC military according to the 11 dimensions of the PMMM to determine the current state of civil-military relations, while also providing an assessment of the model's applicability to the unique context of Taiwan.

Paper short abstract:

This study highlight the spatial dimension of teenagers' identity, combining commented itinerary and life story. The results show four continuums which allow for an integration of generally acknowledged components of identity construction in their territorial foundations.

Paper long abstract:

Identity has an important spatial dimension (Bonaiuto, 1996; Moles & Rhomer, 1972). In this study, we highlight the spatial dimension of young new brunswickers' identity. How do individual behaviors contribute to the symbolic construction of the territory and how do the different environmental contexts contribute to the construction of the individuals' self? Since Lynch (1960) highlighted the components of the mental organisation of the city, the relationships between identity and landscape have greatly evolved. Our study is mainly based on the structure of spatial identity (Stock, 2008, 2012), on the autobiographical approach to one's relationship with the environment (Bachelart, 2009) and on the social construction of identity (Lussault). Through an original method combining commented itinerary (Thibaud, 2001) and life story (Pineau, 1984), we aim to reveal how spatial identity is constructed. Sixty-one 10th grade students were asked to reflect on the important places by which they make their everyday travel to and from school. This reflection took place while doing the trip for one week. The results show four continuums:  from the individual to the collective, from past to future, from nature to built and from utility to the existential. These continuums allow for an integration of generally acknowledged components of identity construction in their territorial foundations.

Paper short abstract:

Azenha do Mar is a small fishing village on the southwest of Portugal. Its historical roots are recent. As the inhabitants say, the sea rules. We may so explore questions on “nature” as being of the “culture” realm, and vice-versa.

Paper long abstract:

Azenha do Mar is a small fishing village on the southwest coast of Portugal. Its historical roots are quite recent: from the later years of 1960 a number of families moved from, first, from nearby failing agricultural homesteads trying to survive collecting seaweeds (agar-agar) from the shore and, at the same time, essaying ways of fishing from the over the rocks of the rough coastline. During the years to come, until the decade of 1980, others joining these first families and what was initially no more than a handful of temporary and improvised constructions made of reed and zinc, became a small but permanent village of small scale fishery in which, remarkably, no one had any previous experience in such activity. The number of inhabitants and boats/crews floats slightly during the last 40 years, but taking into account the anthropological literature on fishing communities, Azenha do Mar complies to all ethnographic descriptive items. This allows us, and most importantly, the local fishermen to say: the sea rules the village, i.e. there is an ecological context that is fully interconnected with the social/cultural local manifestations. We may so explore questions about "nature" as being of the "culture" realm, and matters of "culture" as being of "nature". These conclusions follows a long-term fieldwork commenced in 1992 to which we return frequently.

Paper short abstract:

Par l’approche rhizomique et la méthode du récit de vie, nous avons tenté de comprendre la germination du devenir-jihadiste. À ce moment où l’on perçoit les choses autrement lors de cette rencontre virtuelle, humaine ou non-humaine, qui affecte, fait agir et donne sens à une ligne de fuite.

Paper long abstract:

Le phénomène des jeunes occidentaux rejoignant des groupes armés à l'étranger n'est pas nouveau. Depuis 2013, le départ de jeunes Européens et Nord-américains, attirés par les conflits en Syrie et en Irak, est devenu un objet de préoccupation et demeure une source de questionnement, en l'occurrence, quant au rôle joué par Internet dans le parcours jihadiste. Si le cyberespace est régulièrement mis à l'index comme un lieu de propagande, de recrutement, de prosélytisme, d'opérationnalisation d'attaques terroristes et de financement, nous en savons peu sur ce qui affecte un jeune par ce médium, voire, comment il s'y transforme. À partir de l'approche rhizomique deleuzienne, qui revient à penser l'humain comme un devenir et de la méthodologique du récit de vie, nous avons tenté de comprendre la germination du devenir-jihadiste chez des jeunes Canadiens, Belges et Français, en nous intéressant plus particulièrement à la coprésence de consultations Internet autour du jihad. Comment émerge ce moment où soudainement l'on perçoit les choses autrement lors de cette rencontre virtuelle, humaine ou non-humaine, qui affecte, fait agir et donne sens à une ligne de fuite ? Il s'agit de mieux comprendre cet événement qui force à penser et ressentir autrement, alors qu'une autre façon de vivre et de sentir s'enveloppe en nous.

Paper short abstract:

Using salmon and their movement as a lens, the paper examines the role of inter-species dialogue in disrupting geographically naive approaches to Islands as entities, and the potential of an ongoing relational approach to the study of assembleges involving Islands.

Paper long abstract:

Studies of Islands have emerged as a unique and vital focus of research over the last couple decades. Works like Hau'ofa's Our Sea of Islands have moved us quite systematically towards the study of Islands, underlining the dynamic connectedness between terrestrial and marine environments, and between individual islands and elsewhere. By tracing the many and varied ways that salmon connect ocean, island, and other land forms in an ongoing inter-species dialogue, we can move the discourse one step further, and dissolve Islands into an interspecies dialogue made in movement. Such a strategy opens up some insights on the connectedness of coastal and interior communities, islands and other actors/actants, on global, regional, and local scales. Salmon have traveled the rivers from inland to sea for eons; salmon were one of the fish "acclimatized" into new geographical setting by European colonial powers; even more recently, the growth in Atlantic Salmon aqua-culture has further complicated these already complex connections. In and around islands salmon, variously understood as Indigenous, invasive, acclimatized and naturalized have transformed both local ecologies, and the ways these ecologies are linked to the rest of the Globe in terms of biology, politics and economy. The different manifestations of salmon give rise to differently configured assemblages of islands, oceans, and rivers. Integrating multi-species ethnographies into our conceptual toolset, these assemblages give rise to new ways of thinking, most urgently by pushing the geography of Islands into an assemblage of overlapping (serial) ontologies that emerge (become) as ecosystems themselves transform over time.

Paper short abstract:

Based on fieldwork on the effects of deforestation in northern Argentina, this paper examines the materiality of atmospheric events such as wind storms or droughts through the concepts of ambient thickness and terrain: that is, of the ambient intensities that in the form of heat or wind affect human mobility, visibility, and experiences of terrain.

Paper long abstract:

The concepts of “place” and “territory” have been crucial in the humanities to understand the historical, social, and political nature of space. But the anthropocentrism of these terms is also unable to explain those dimensions of space that are not human-centered, like atmospheric events such as droughts and wind storms. In this paper, I draw on my fieldwork on the soy frontiers of northern Argentina to argue that making sense of these atmospheric events requires much more than analyzing “time” and “the weather” as intrinsic to space, place, or territory. This move also demands a theory of space as terrain. In particular, I propose that the elusive and shifting dimensions of terrain can be best examined through the concept of “ambient thickness”: that is, the ambient physical intensities that in the form of cold, heat, rain, wind, dust, or snow affect human mobility, visibility, and sensory experience. I examine, in particular, how the elusive and shifting materiality of terrain’s ambient thickness is theoretically important to understand the materiality of the spatial transformations generated by global warming.