Henk Driessen | Radboud University Nijmegen (original) (raw)
Papers by Henk Driessen
Journal of Anthropological Research, 2013
The obscurity of cousin marriage in the ethnography of southern Europe contrasts sharply with the... more The obscurity of cousin marriage in the ethnography of southern Europe contrasts sharply with the prominence of close marriage in the anthropological record of "kin-ordered" societies. In the former case, it is tacitly assumed that cousin marriage is insignificant because of the ban on consanguinity in marriage, while in the latter case a congruence between preferential marriage rules & actual behavior has often been taken for granted. Combining a focus on marriage behavior with an analysis of kinship ideology, the social significance of cousin marriage in an Andalusian (Spain) township where it is the most striking instance of manipulation of kinship obligations through marriage is demonstrated. There is a clustering of cousin marriages in two powerful families who until recently dominated town life. An ingeneous combination of endogamous & exogamous marriages operated to keep wealth & power, honor & reputation within family ranks. The manipulation of kinship ideology in ...
The historical development of the formal corrida de toros in Spain is reviewed from the early Mid... more The historical development of the formal corrida de toros in Spain is reviewed from the early Middle Ages to the present. The original form was the mounted aristocratic bullfight. At the start of the eighteenth century, mounted noblemen withdrew from the arena & were replaced by professional Lc bullfighters who fought on foot. Since the eighteenth century, bullfighting has developed increasingly toward professionalization, specialization, differentiation, sequestration in permanent bullrings, & regularization. All of these developments can be interpreted as part of the civilizing & state-formation processes. The present stylized form in which the bullfighter allows the bull's horns to pass close to his almost motionless body demands very great self-control. The cultural mechanism of ritualization plays an important role in this development. Urbanization has also influenced the formal bullfight's emergence. Modified HA.
Antropologen die onderzoek verrichten in Mediter raan Europa hebben weinig belangstelling getoon... more Antropologen die onderzoek verrichten in Mediter raan Europa hebben weinig belangstelling getoond voor de studie van symboliek, rituelen en cere monies, thema's die steeds een belangrijke plaats innamen in de traditionele culturele antropologie. Davis' overzicht van antropologische Mediterrane studies, waarin slechts terloops enkele opmerkingen geplaatst worden over het rituele leven, is il lustratief voor deze relatieve verwaarlozing (1). Het geringe aantal publicaties dat aan expressieve cultuur gewijd is, betreft voornamelijk overgangsen intensiveringsriten (2). Enkele recente ge schriften tonen echter aan dat gerichte aandacht voor symbolische en rituele folklore inzicht ver schaft in het functioneren van verhoudingen van sociale overheersing en onderschikking (3).
Lexikon der Globalisierung
KWALON
Als kwalitatieve onderzoeksstrategie kent veldwerk vele variaties in verschillende wetenschappeli... more Als kwalitatieve onderzoeksstrategie kent veldwerk vele variaties in verschillende wetenschappelijke disciplines zoals geologie, archeologie, klimatologie, ethologie, taalkunde of volkskunde. Wat die vele gezichten met elkaar als familiegelijkenis delen, is het persoonlijk verzamelen van gegevens in een ‘natuurlijke’ omgeving, veelal gedurende meerdere maanden en zelfs jaren, en deze data verwerken en analyseren. Veldwerk is bij voorkeur slow science en biedt een tegengif voor een eenzijdige statistische benadering van de werkelijkheid. Zoals bij alle onderzoeksmethoden en technieken wordt het begrip veldwerk te pas en onpas gebruikt en geclaimd. Zo is een excursie van studenten van Inholland naar Marokko en een bezoek aan het Nederlands Instituut Marokko géén veldwerk en evenmin het afnemen van enkele interviews in Saoedi-Arabië. Reizen voor onderzoek en veldwerk zijn zeker geen synoniem.
1985
Expressive culture constitutes a field of study par excellence for the combined efforts of anthro... more Expressive culture constitutes a field of study par excellence for the combined efforts of anthropology, history and folklore. This contribution deals with a public drama in which mock fights are enacted in the streets and squares of Andalusian towns and villages. The analysis takes into account both the history of Muslim-Christian relationships and the vicissitudes of this particular festival. Links are suggested between religious folklore and economic and political trends. Students have taken it for granted that this festival is "popular". Historical evidence points in the direction of elite and urban origins. Attention is paid to the cultural agents of diffusion. Finally, suggestions are offered for further inquiry into celebratory events in Andalusia and elsewh ere in Europe.
Journeys, 2016
Despite his blessed age, it was a shock to receive the news that Jeremy Boissevain died at his ho... more Despite his blessed age, it was a shock to receive the news that Jeremy Boissevain died at his home in Amsterdam on 26 June 2015. Just a few days earlier, he had read with much pleasure and satisfaction a positive review by Michael Herzfeld in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of his recent collection of "explorations into aspects of some societies in and from the Mediterranean" (Factions, Friends, Feasts. Anthropological Perspectives on the Mediterranean [Berghahn Books, 2013]). He had worked very hard on this volume, which turned out to be his final one. Jeremy Boissevain was born in London in 1928 of an American mother and a Dutch father. He came to social anthropology by a detour. He completed a BA in Liberal Arts at Haverford College, Pennsylvania in 1952. After spending several years in the Philippines, Japan, India, Malta, and Sicily working for US CARE relief programs, Lawrence Wylie, one of his teachers at Haverford, advised him to take up the study of social anthropology. Jeremy did so at the London School of Economics (LSE) in the late 1950s with Raymond Firth and Lucy Mair. He did one month of fieldwork in Fezzan, Libya in 1959 then moved to nearby Malta where he conducted fourteen months of dissertation research in 1960-1961. This was the beginning of a lifetime commitment to the study of Maltese politics and religion. He received his PhD in 1962; a few years later his dissertation was published as Saints and Fireworks (Athlone Press, 1965). His early grassroots involvement in aid projects may explain his lifelong interest in local-level politics and his focus on individual agency rather than social structure, pragmatic choice rather than constraint. His two monographs on rural Malta, in which he paid systematic attention to the interactions between village life and wider society, belong to the classics in Mediterranean ethnography and social anthropology. In 1969 his
American Anthropologist, 2016
Awraq Estudios Sobre El Mundo Arabe E Islamico Contemporaneo, 1993
La Religiosidad Popular Vol 1 1989 Isbn 84 7658 147 5 Pags 82 104, 1989
Aldaba Revista Del Centro Asociado a La Uned De Melilla, Jul 1, 1984
Una Historia Cultural Del Humor Desde La Antiguedad a Nuestros Dias 1999 Isbn 84 95363 01 1 Pags 227 246, 1999
Internationale Spectator Tijdschrift Voor Internationale Politiek, 1986
Journal of Anthropological Research, 2013
The obscurity of cousin marriage in the ethnography of southern Europe contrasts sharply with the... more The obscurity of cousin marriage in the ethnography of southern Europe contrasts sharply with the prominence of close marriage in the anthropological record of "kin-ordered" societies. In the former case, it is tacitly assumed that cousin marriage is insignificant because of the ban on consanguinity in marriage, while in the latter case a congruence between preferential marriage rules & actual behavior has often been taken for granted. Combining a focus on marriage behavior with an analysis of kinship ideology, the social significance of cousin marriage in an Andalusian (Spain) township where it is the most striking instance of manipulation of kinship obligations through marriage is demonstrated. There is a clustering of cousin marriages in two powerful families who until recently dominated town life. An ingeneous combination of endogamous & exogamous marriages operated to keep wealth & power, honor & reputation within family ranks. The manipulation of kinship ideology in ...
The historical development of the formal corrida de toros in Spain is reviewed from the early Mid... more The historical development of the formal corrida de toros in Spain is reviewed from the early Middle Ages to the present. The original form was the mounted aristocratic bullfight. At the start of the eighteenth century, mounted noblemen withdrew from the arena & were replaced by professional Lc bullfighters who fought on foot. Since the eighteenth century, bullfighting has developed increasingly toward professionalization, specialization, differentiation, sequestration in permanent bullrings, & regularization. All of these developments can be interpreted as part of the civilizing & state-formation processes. The present stylized form in which the bullfighter allows the bull's horns to pass close to his almost motionless body demands very great self-control. The cultural mechanism of ritualization plays an important role in this development. Urbanization has also influenced the formal bullfight's emergence. Modified HA.
Antropologen die onderzoek verrichten in Mediter raan Europa hebben weinig belangstelling getoon... more Antropologen die onderzoek verrichten in Mediter raan Europa hebben weinig belangstelling getoond voor de studie van symboliek, rituelen en cere monies, thema's die steeds een belangrijke plaats innamen in de traditionele culturele antropologie. Davis' overzicht van antropologische Mediterrane studies, waarin slechts terloops enkele opmerkingen geplaatst worden over het rituele leven, is il lustratief voor deze relatieve verwaarlozing (1). Het geringe aantal publicaties dat aan expressieve cultuur gewijd is, betreft voornamelijk overgangsen intensiveringsriten (2). Enkele recente ge schriften tonen echter aan dat gerichte aandacht voor symbolische en rituele folklore inzicht ver schaft in het functioneren van verhoudingen van sociale overheersing en onderschikking (3).
Lexikon der Globalisierung
KWALON
Als kwalitatieve onderzoeksstrategie kent veldwerk vele variaties in verschillende wetenschappeli... more Als kwalitatieve onderzoeksstrategie kent veldwerk vele variaties in verschillende wetenschappelijke disciplines zoals geologie, archeologie, klimatologie, ethologie, taalkunde of volkskunde. Wat die vele gezichten met elkaar als familiegelijkenis delen, is het persoonlijk verzamelen van gegevens in een ‘natuurlijke’ omgeving, veelal gedurende meerdere maanden en zelfs jaren, en deze data verwerken en analyseren. Veldwerk is bij voorkeur slow science en biedt een tegengif voor een eenzijdige statistische benadering van de werkelijkheid. Zoals bij alle onderzoeksmethoden en technieken wordt het begrip veldwerk te pas en onpas gebruikt en geclaimd. Zo is een excursie van studenten van Inholland naar Marokko en een bezoek aan het Nederlands Instituut Marokko géén veldwerk en evenmin het afnemen van enkele interviews in Saoedi-Arabië. Reizen voor onderzoek en veldwerk zijn zeker geen synoniem.
1985
Expressive culture constitutes a field of study par excellence for the combined efforts of anthro... more Expressive culture constitutes a field of study par excellence for the combined efforts of anthropology, history and folklore. This contribution deals with a public drama in which mock fights are enacted in the streets and squares of Andalusian towns and villages. The analysis takes into account both the history of Muslim-Christian relationships and the vicissitudes of this particular festival. Links are suggested between religious folklore and economic and political trends. Students have taken it for granted that this festival is "popular". Historical evidence points in the direction of elite and urban origins. Attention is paid to the cultural agents of diffusion. Finally, suggestions are offered for further inquiry into celebratory events in Andalusia and elsewh ere in Europe.
Journeys, 2016
Despite his blessed age, it was a shock to receive the news that Jeremy Boissevain died at his ho... more Despite his blessed age, it was a shock to receive the news that Jeremy Boissevain died at his home in Amsterdam on 26 June 2015. Just a few days earlier, he had read with much pleasure and satisfaction a positive review by Michael Herzfeld in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of his recent collection of "explorations into aspects of some societies in and from the Mediterranean" (Factions, Friends, Feasts. Anthropological Perspectives on the Mediterranean [Berghahn Books, 2013]). He had worked very hard on this volume, which turned out to be his final one. Jeremy Boissevain was born in London in 1928 of an American mother and a Dutch father. He came to social anthropology by a detour. He completed a BA in Liberal Arts at Haverford College, Pennsylvania in 1952. After spending several years in the Philippines, Japan, India, Malta, and Sicily working for US CARE relief programs, Lawrence Wylie, one of his teachers at Haverford, advised him to take up the study of social anthropology. Jeremy did so at the London School of Economics (LSE) in the late 1950s with Raymond Firth and Lucy Mair. He did one month of fieldwork in Fezzan, Libya in 1959 then moved to nearby Malta where he conducted fourteen months of dissertation research in 1960-1961. This was the beginning of a lifetime commitment to the study of Maltese politics and religion. He received his PhD in 1962; a few years later his dissertation was published as Saints and Fireworks (Athlone Press, 1965). His early grassroots involvement in aid projects may explain his lifelong interest in local-level politics and his focus on individual agency rather than social structure, pragmatic choice rather than constraint. His two monographs on rural Malta, in which he paid systematic attention to the interactions between village life and wider society, belong to the classics in Mediterranean ethnography and social anthropology. In 1969 his
American Anthropologist, 2016
Awraq Estudios Sobre El Mundo Arabe E Islamico Contemporaneo, 1993
La Religiosidad Popular Vol 1 1989 Isbn 84 7658 147 5 Pags 82 104, 1989
Aldaba Revista Del Centro Asociado a La Uned De Melilla, Jul 1, 1984
Una Historia Cultural Del Humor Desde La Antiguedad a Nuestros Dias 1999 Isbn 84 95363 01 1 Pags 227 246, 1999
Internationale Spectator Tijdschrift Voor Internationale Politiek, 1986