Thea Skaanes | The National Museums of World Culture (original) (raw)

Papers by Thea Skaanes

Hunter gatherer research, Jun 1, 2015

This article concerns Hadza cosmology examined through objects, rituals and the Hadza concept of ... more This article concerns Hadza cosmology examined through objects, rituals and the Hadza concept of epeme. A brief background to the Hadza and the fieldwork that informs this study is followed by a close analysis of three key objects that are central to the argument presented. The objects are intimately linked to women and to aspects of the social and cosmological identity of the individual makers. one object is a materialisation of the woman’s name and it leads to an examination by interview of naming practices more generally. Naming a child gives it a spirit and places the child in a strong family matrix, and since it receives two names the child has two spirits and two families. Calling a person’s name is thus calling out to one of the spirits within the person. This practice of calling a name occurs during the epeme night dance ritual. Dancers call a name of a relative and turn into the spirit-beings of the named. In this ritual we find that dancers when calling names of women do so through the mediating...

Læring og Medier, Oct 6, 2010

Aarhus University Press eBooks, Jan 15, 2021

Berghahn Books, Dec 31, 2022

transcript Verlag eBooks, Dec 31, 2021

Aarhus University Press eBooks, Jan 15, 2021

Mapping the Unmappable? Cartographic Explorations with Indigenous Peoples in Africa, 2020

Jordens Folk, 2019

I kødet ligger de største tabuer i antropologien: man må ikke ligge med sit eget kød (incestforbu... more I kødet ligger de største tabuer i antropologien: man må ikke ligge med sit eget kød (incestforbud), og man må ikke spise sit eget kød (kannibalisme). Navnkundige tænkere i antropologien som Claude Lévi-Strauss og Marshall Sahlins anfører i deres analyser om tabuer, at der er god grund til, at disse opstod. Det kræver markante tiltag, hvis det at kigge indad, at lade sig nære af det, man allerede har, og det, der skabes indenfor gruppen, skal brydes. Tabuer er i den forbindelse nogle af de stærkeste tiltag, vi har. Incest-og kannibalismetabuerne tilskynder til og nødvendiggør udveksling. Vi er ikke nok i os selv, synes disse universelle tabuer at hviske eller banke ind i os. Du skal vende blikket udad, du skal konfrontere og konfronteres af det, der ikke er dig. Det er det, denne artikel handler om: Med hadza, en gruppe jæger-samlere i Nordtanzania, som case, vil vi se på tabuer, deling af kød og det at møde sin "signifikante anden" for at dele sig selv. Vi lader ideen om incest ligge for nu, men holder fast i kannibalismen og i kødet. Artiklen vil handle om kød som jagtbytte, kød som spise, kød som genstand for deling (sharing), kød som relateret til tabuer og kød med sjæl. Og på en eller anden måde vil det handle om en gruppes aktive modværge mod kannibalisme, at kollektivet kan se sig selv i øjnene og en vedvarende kamp for samfundets fortsatte genskabelse.

Hunter Gatherer Research, 2015

This article concerns Hadza cosmology examined through objects, rituals and the Hadza concept of ... more This article concerns Hadza cosmology examined through objects, rituals and the Hadza concept of epeme. A brief background to the Hadza and the fieldwork that informs this study is followed by a close analysis of three key objects that are central to the argument presented. The objects are intimately linked to women and to aspects of the social and cosmological identity of the individual makers. one object is a materialisation of the woman's name and it leads to an examination by interview of naming practices more generally. Naming a child gives it a spirit and places the child in a strong family matrix, and since it receives two names the child has two spirits and two families. Calling a person's name is thus calling out to one of the spirits within the person. This practice of calling a name occurs during the epeme night dance ritual. Dancers call a name of a relative and turn into the spirit-beings of the named. In this ritual we find that dancers when calling names of women do so through the mediating power objects. The article concludes by considering death, the dead body and the role of the objects in death. The approach taken is not intended to be holistic, but rather a presentation of ethnographic research indicating the potential and need for further examination of the power and role of objects in Hadza society.

Tidsskriftet Laering Og Medier, 2010

Til sammenligning viser en opgørelse fra markedsanalyse instituttet Experian at der i 2007 var 85... more Til sammenligning viser en opgørelse fra markedsanalyse instituttet Experian at der i 2007 var 850 millioner personlige computere, 1,3 milliarder fastnet telefoner og 1,5 milliarder tv‐modtagere, samt 800 millioner biler og 1,4 milliarder kreditkort. Denne enorme ...

Chapters by Thea Skaanes

Museologi mellem fagene, 2021

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and ... more All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher.

Mapping the Unmappable? Cartographic Explorations with Indigenous Peoples in Africa (ISBN 978-3-8376-5241-3), 2021

Thea Skaanes worked with Hadza in northern Tanzania. She takes us to three specific material obje... more Thea Skaanes worked with Hadza in northern Tanzania. She takes us to three specific material objects – what she calls power objects – belonging to individual Hadza women. She argues that these objects cannot be assessed adequately within a discourse of property and socio-economic value. Instead, she reveals how these objects are materializations of social relations, how they are entwined around identity and names, kinship, time, and ritual. The objects are linked to the spirit of women and their kin relations in the past and in the future. Skaanes argues that since there are conceptual intersections between objects and land, it is promising to look at land and places as materializations of social relations too. She illustrates this with the example of various mountains/gods within the Hadza homeland. Drawing on Appadurai (1996), she suggests comprehending land as different ‘scapes’, e.g. cosmoscapes, kinscapes, or transactionscapes, all of which im- ply social relations. Like the objects she analyzes in her chapter, the maps produced should also be inherently multiple, flexible, and shadowy. She imagines a hodological perspective – connecting kinship, places, and time – as a promising way forward. This kind of mapping, in her view, would allow us a look at the land from within, from the point of view of its inhabitants.

Conference Presentations by Thea Skaanes

The Ethics of Sharing. Conference at Aarhus University Institute for Advanced Studies (AIAS). 11-12 May., 2021

*** Access presentation manuscript in notes: download and view notes *** Hunted meat is a cherish... more *** Access presentation manuscript in notes: download and view notes ***
Hunted meat is a cherished food for both bellies and thought among the hunting and gathering Hadza. It is festive, celebrated, and in poetics, it is metaphorically associated with sex. Like sex, it is both ordinary, mundane yet also celebrated and extraordinary.
Unfolding big game hunt and meat-sharing among the Hadza, we find aspects of esotericism in combination with the mundane. “If gifts make friends, friends make gifts”, Marshall Sahlins (1972) wrote. Yet, if we consider the ethics of sharing, we might ask what the means of sharing look like in practice, and what the ends of such transactions are? The Hadza have provided scholars with insights on egalitarian meat-sharing, demand- sharing, immediate-return systems, and how to live a society where accumulation is regarded as anti-social, as indeed unethical. Yet, accumulation occurs with the big game hunt, but why, then, is the surplus shared and not exchanged? With this paper, we ask what relations are established with meat sharing? What are the social and esoteric relations in an ecology of human and non-human persons sharing meat-matter? Sharing meat is profoundly anchored in ethics and with ideas of prosperity, collective regeneration and for carving out a shared future.

Hunter gatherer research, Jun 1, 2015

This article concerns Hadza cosmology examined through objects, rituals and the Hadza concept of ... more This article concerns Hadza cosmology examined through objects, rituals and the Hadza concept of epeme. A brief background to the Hadza and the fieldwork that informs this study is followed by a close analysis of three key objects that are central to the argument presented. The objects are intimately linked to women and to aspects of the social and cosmological identity of the individual makers. one object is a materialisation of the woman’s name and it leads to an examination by interview of naming practices more generally. Naming a child gives it a spirit and places the child in a strong family matrix, and since it receives two names the child has two spirits and two families. Calling a person’s name is thus calling out to one of the spirits within the person. This practice of calling a name occurs during the epeme night dance ritual. Dancers call a name of a relative and turn into the spirit-beings of the named. In this ritual we find that dancers when calling names of women do so through the mediating...

Læring og Medier, Oct 6, 2010

Aarhus University Press eBooks, Jan 15, 2021

Berghahn Books, Dec 31, 2022

transcript Verlag eBooks, Dec 31, 2021

Aarhus University Press eBooks, Jan 15, 2021

Mapping the Unmappable? Cartographic Explorations with Indigenous Peoples in Africa, 2020

Jordens Folk, 2019

I kødet ligger de største tabuer i antropologien: man må ikke ligge med sit eget kød (incestforbu... more I kødet ligger de største tabuer i antropologien: man må ikke ligge med sit eget kød (incestforbud), og man må ikke spise sit eget kød (kannibalisme). Navnkundige tænkere i antropologien som Claude Lévi-Strauss og Marshall Sahlins anfører i deres analyser om tabuer, at der er god grund til, at disse opstod. Det kræver markante tiltag, hvis det at kigge indad, at lade sig nære af det, man allerede har, og det, der skabes indenfor gruppen, skal brydes. Tabuer er i den forbindelse nogle af de stærkeste tiltag, vi har. Incest-og kannibalismetabuerne tilskynder til og nødvendiggør udveksling. Vi er ikke nok i os selv, synes disse universelle tabuer at hviske eller banke ind i os. Du skal vende blikket udad, du skal konfrontere og konfronteres af det, der ikke er dig. Det er det, denne artikel handler om: Med hadza, en gruppe jæger-samlere i Nordtanzania, som case, vil vi se på tabuer, deling af kød og det at møde sin "signifikante anden" for at dele sig selv. Vi lader ideen om incest ligge for nu, men holder fast i kannibalismen og i kødet. Artiklen vil handle om kød som jagtbytte, kød som spise, kød som genstand for deling (sharing), kød som relateret til tabuer og kød med sjæl. Og på en eller anden måde vil det handle om en gruppes aktive modværge mod kannibalisme, at kollektivet kan se sig selv i øjnene og en vedvarende kamp for samfundets fortsatte genskabelse.

Hunter Gatherer Research, 2015

This article concerns Hadza cosmology examined through objects, rituals and the Hadza concept of ... more This article concerns Hadza cosmology examined through objects, rituals and the Hadza concept of epeme. A brief background to the Hadza and the fieldwork that informs this study is followed by a close analysis of three key objects that are central to the argument presented. The objects are intimately linked to women and to aspects of the social and cosmological identity of the individual makers. one object is a materialisation of the woman's name and it leads to an examination by interview of naming practices more generally. Naming a child gives it a spirit and places the child in a strong family matrix, and since it receives two names the child has two spirits and two families. Calling a person's name is thus calling out to one of the spirits within the person. This practice of calling a name occurs during the epeme night dance ritual. Dancers call a name of a relative and turn into the spirit-beings of the named. In this ritual we find that dancers when calling names of women do so through the mediating power objects. The article concludes by considering death, the dead body and the role of the objects in death. The approach taken is not intended to be holistic, but rather a presentation of ethnographic research indicating the potential and need for further examination of the power and role of objects in Hadza society.

Tidsskriftet Laering Og Medier, 2010

Til sammenligning viser en opgørelse fra markedsanalyse instituttet Experian at der i 2007 var 85... more Til sammenligning viser en opgørelse fra markedsanalyse instituttet Experian at der i 2007 var 850 millioner personlige computere, 1,3 milliarder fastnet telefoner og 1,5 milliarder tv‐modtagere, samt 800 millioner biler og 1,4 milliarder kreditkort. Denne enorme ...

Museologi mellem fagene, 2021

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and ... more All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher.

Mapping the Unmappable? Cartographic Explorations with Indigenous Peoples in Africa (ISBN 978-3-8376-5241-3), 2021

Thea Skaanes worked with Hadza in northern Tanzania. She takes us to three specific material obje... more Thea Skaanes worked with Hadza in northern Tanzania. She takes us to three specific material objects – what she calls power objects – belonging to individual Hadza women. She argues that these objects cannot be assessed adequately within a discourse of property and socio-economic value. Instead, she reveals how these objects are materializations of social relations, how they are entwined around identity and names, kinship, time, and ritual. The objects are linked to the spirit of women and their kin relations in the past and in the future. Skaanes argues that since there are conceptual intersections between objects and land, it is promising to look at land and places as materializations of social relations too. She illustrates this with the example of various mountains/gods within the Hadza homeland. Drawing on Appadurai (1996), she suggests comprehending land as different ‘scapes’, e.g. cosmoscapes, kinscapes, or transactionscapes, all of which im- ply social relations. Like the objects she analyzes in her chapter, the maps produced should also be inherently multiple, flexible, and shadowy. She imagines a hodological perspective – connecting kinship, places, and time – as a promising way forward. This kind of mapping, in her view, would allow us a look at the land from within, from the point of view of its inhabitants.

The Ethics of Sharing. Conference at Aarhus University Institute for Advanced Studies (AIAS). 11-12 May., 2021

*** Access presentation manuscript in notes: download and view notes *** Hunted meat is a cherish... more *** Access presentation manuscript in notes: download and view notes ***
Hunted meat is a cherished food for both bellies and thought among the hunting and gathering Hadza. It is festive, celebrated, and in poetics, it is metaphorically associated with sex. Like sex, it is both ordinary, mundane yet also celebrated and extraordinary.
Unfolding big game hunt and meat-sharing among the Hadza, we find aspects of esotericism in combination with the mundane. “If gifts make friends, friends make gifts”, Marshall Sahlins (1972) wrote. Yet, if we consider the ethics of sharing, we might ask what the means of sharing look like in practice, and what the ends of such transactions are? The Hadza have provided scholars with insights on egalitarian meat-sharing, demand- sharing, immediate-return systems, and how to live a society where accumulation is regarded as anti-social, as indeed unethical. Yet, accumulation occurs with the big game hunt, but why, then, is the surplus shared and not exchanged? With this paper, we ask what relations are established with meat sharing? What are the social and esoteric relations in an ecology of human and non-human persons sharing meat-matter? Sharing meat is profoundly anchored in ethics and with ideas of prosperity, collective regeneration and for carving out a shared future.